The blog of author Dennis Cooper

5 books I read recently & loved: Victoria Brooks Silicone God, Madison Murray My Gaping Masshole, Margaret Ross Saturday, Arreshy Young CODON, Chris Kelso On Melting: Essays Against the Body

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What began as a curious investigation into the motivations of Victoria Brooks to produce this novel, a multi-faceted introspection of personal experience laid out in contrast to far-reaching claims of the nature of reality, has, I’m afraid, devolved into a rigorous genealogy of philosophical concepts. Here, at the end of the book, is the only place where these investigations can be safely stowed away, for the keen interest of the sad few. While those who have read Silicone God for enjoyment may, at this point, lay the text aside, to safeguard its mystery.
—-The mistress, according to Brooks, has (along with all other beings) become part silicone by means of the Silicone Becoming. It is the next logical stage of evolu-tion, but the text takes on a nefarious edge. Evaline, the advanced future being who comes to provide Shae with a sacred text from Time (the future), is mostly silicone. In her encounter with Shae, Evaline encourages her to lick some pussy. Be a proper queer. But Shae is by nature a Mistress, a supreme being according to the mush-room gods.
—-Somewhere I heard Victoria Brooks say explicitly that they considered and were fascinated by the fact that silicon beings (note the lack of an ‘e’) are often proposed in science and in sci-fi as a possible other substrate of life. Appearing directly under carbon on the periodic table, silicon is an analogue to carbon in the sense that it can form four covalent bonds, and thus it is plausible that silicon could replace carbon in the organic molecules that constitute carbon-based lifeforms (that is, all plants and animals, including the human). Silicone, on the other hand, is a synthetic material that includes carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen whose arrangement of molecules into a smooth-yet-non-absorbent surface makes it the ideal material for the construction of sex toys.
—-Silicone with an ‘e’ is a compound, non-reactive, non-porous, and synonymous with passivity. It takes the potentiality of silicon as an atom and renders it inert by completing its potential for bonding. If we take as true a stereotypical view of male sexuality that prefers a passive partner, it makes sense that the mushroom gods would proclaim the silicone mistresses supreme, as a sexuality saviour, although it’s not a good look for the phalluses. (The mushroom gods are explicitly phallic: The Gods take the form of mushrooms, or towering phalluses just as you’d expect.)’ — Charlene Elsby

 

Victoria Brooks Site
Victoria Brooks @ goodreads
God is a book.
GENDER BENDERS AND GENRE BLENDERS
Buy ‘Silicone God’

 

Victoria Brooks Silicone God
House of Vlad

‘Shae wants to stop shagging other women’s husbands and be a proper queer. Plus, she’s bored of only ever getting to use her new strap on a pile of cushions. The answer seems simple enough: come out, go out, and finally get it on with the fit bird at Dyke Night. Or it would be if Evaline, a wayward silicone mistress from the future, wasn’t jealous…

‘A surreal, dirty little book that falls somewhere between Derek McCormack, David Cronenberg, and the tentacle porn you ‘accidentally downloaded’, Silicone God is for those who like it very, very weird.’ — House of Vlad

Excerpt

Extra


Silicone God LAUNCH – hosted by Elle Nash

 

 

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‘The huge New England grocery store chain Market Basket hasn’t taken too kindly to the author of a “comically perverted” art book on Massachusetts’ North Shore — it’s issued a cease and desist order for her use of its logo as the template for her decidedly profane own logo.

‘“The copying, distribution and public display of these designs without permission or license from Market Basket constitutes a clear violation of Market Basket’s intellectual property rights,” attorney Robert F. Callahan Jr. of the Boston law firm Robins Kaplan LLP wrote on behalf of Demoulas Super Markets, Market Basket’s parent company. “Further, these designs threaten the valuable goodwill associated with the Market Basket brand and its marks.”

‘Callahan said that Tewksbury-based Market Basket “is not a litigious company and has no desire to engage in protracted legal proceedings regarding this matter” but that it is “committed to protecting its intellectual property rights.”

‘The Herald obtained the cease and desist letter from recipient Madison Murray, a 28-year-old writer, artist and OnlyFans creator in Massachusetts. Attorney Callahan did not return the Herald’s emailed request for comment sent Thursday.

‘“I think my first reaction was shock. I opened it up right when I first woke up,” Murray told the Herald in a phone interview. “I guess I was validated, that’s a good way to put it. Obviously it was unfortunate, but it was also good to feel like I was on the radar of Market Basket.”

‘The issue of concern is Murray’s use of Market Basket’s basic logo design as the template for her own logo promoting her book, titled in part “A deep and raw look into the North Shore of Massachusetts” which comes complete with a “Parental Advisory: Explicit Content” logo on its cover.

‘As for the book, Murray said that it’s her debut collection of self-published “photography, collage, poetry, and erotica about North Shore, Massachusetts” and is “comically perverted.” She specified that it’s primarily about what she calls “the south shore of the north shore,” defined as Revere to Rockport. She sells the 100-page hardcover book for $45.’ — The Boston Herald

 

My Gaping Masshole Site
My Gaping Masshole Merch
@ instagram
@ Facebook
Buy ‘My Gaping Massole’

 

Madison Murray My Gaping Masshole
My Gaping Masshole

‘Madison Murray’s debut art and poetry book, My Gaping Masshole, is wide open and prepped to take you on a ride through the North Shore region of Massachusetts. Experience “Lana del Revere,” “The Real Housewives of Hamilton-Wenham,” “Dogtown in Wonderland,” “Gallows Hell,” and more with topographical erotica, poetry, and digital collage.

‘”I was raised in Salem, bullied out of Danvers, and rejected by the Rockport townies, so I’d say that my relationship with the North Shore is as toxic as Lynn Shore Drive at low tide. I love it like an ex I still fuck sometimes. My Gaping Masshole is my shitty attempt at showing my love for the North Shore in the only ways I know how.”‘ — MGM

Excerpt






Extra


MM reading from ‘My Gaping Masshole’

 

 

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‘It is a compliment when I say that I never feel quite safe in a Margaret Ross poem, and this is especially true of my experience of reading Ross’s much anticipated Saturday. Ross’s ability to signal existential threat/fear in the most quotidian circumstances of “immortal dailiness” or, perhaps most intensely, in moments of desire, is one of the great gifts of these poems.

‘Always in question in these poems is the possibility of any sort of coherent self, fixed or over time. And of the value of that self, its worth (“I didn’t need anything / I could buy” she writes in “Socks”), as defined by its desires, as in the title poem, “Saturday”.

‘This topsy-turvy evocation of experience comes uncannily close to what, I think, many of us feel in any given circumstance without realizing it. That Ross helps us to see, to feel that complexity, is one of the marvels of her work. The word “Saturday” derives from the Old English Sætern(es)dæg, a translation of Latin Saturni dies ‘day of Saturn’, the ancient Roman god of agriculture. Saturnalia, the festival celebrating this Roman god, was a time of carnival upending, during which masters often served slaves and many expected activitiMargaret Ross @ goodreadses and traditions were inverted. I love Ross’s choice of “Saturday” for the title of this book. It signals, on the one hand, the relative quietness and ease of the work-week’s “day off,” but it also signals that disruptive or potentially disruptive energies exist in every temporal instance.’ — Lisa Russ Spaar

 

Margaret Ross Site
The vital restlessness of MARGARET ROSS
Restored Particulars
What the poems in Margaret Ross’s new collection, Saturday, do best is churn.
Buy ‘Saturday’

 

Margaret Ross Saturday
The Song Cave

‘Margaret Ross’s highly anticipated second collection of poems, Saturday, chronicles a brute education in love and decorum through ceremony starter kits, basement classrooms, and a mission school turned art camp, seeking to “touch the myth beneath the fiction.” Dexterous and musical, Ross writes stunning lines with unmistakable precision. These poems accrue from fleeting details, think in images, and resist simplifying the nature of feeling. In emotionally raw scenes lit by yearning, cruelty, wonder, and delusion, Saturday explores various forms of intimacy and estrangement in unforgettable ways.’ — The Song Cave

‘What beautiful lucidity these poems have, what quiet, firm intelligence. Margaret Ross’s poetry has the vivid characterizations and scenic quality of stories, but with another more mysterious quality that is disturbing and ineffably moving.’ — Mary Gaitskill

Excerpts

Saturday

It was, it was explained to me,
a holiday to enter spring
while honoring the dead
and so its celebration was

a picnic in a cemetery. Flowers
and fruit and fish
cooked as her father liked
and a kind of pastry

that had been her uncle’s
nickname. Her aunt was
bringing paper iPhones, purses
and a little villa just for fun

to burn. I passed carts
selling them as I walked up
the slope behind the city
hospital. A child

climbed a parked car
shouting that he was
a horse. I took
a picture and the colors

on screen looked richer, less
treacherous. Downhill
a stadium surrounded
by white trailers. Underwear

hung from the clotheslines.
I took a picture of myself
but I did not appear
the person that I was.

The picnic would be
nearly done. She’d said
they’d leave behind
chrysanthemums

made of cloth to last
and scented so they smelled
not like chrysanthemums
but like a woman.

 

Evolution

The corpses weigh nothing, nearly nothing, even your breath
is breeze enough to scatter them

We steamed them in tupperware with a damp sponge
then we tweezed the stiff wings open

The wing colors would brush off if you touched them

3,000 butterflies raised and gassed
and shipped to Evolution, the store in New York
rented by an artist hired to design a restaurant

He wanted to paper the walls with butterflies

Each came folded in its own translucent envelope

We tweezed them open, pinned them into rows
on styrofoam flats we stacked in towers in the narrow
hallway leading to the bathroom

Evolution called itself a natural history store

It sold preserved birds, lizards, scorpions in lucite, bobcat
with the eyes dug out and glass ones fitted, head turned

Also more affordable bits like teeth
and peacock feathers, by the register
a dish of raccoon penis bones

This was on Spring

The sidewalks swarmed with bare-armed people
there to see the city

You could buy your own name in calligraphy
or written on a grain of rice
by someone at a folding table

Souvenir portraits of taxis and the Brooklyn Bridge
lined up on blankets laid over the pavement

The artist we were pinning for had gotten famous
being first to put a dead shark in a gallery

For several million dollars each he sold what he described
as happy pictures which were rainbow dots assistants painted
on white canvases

I remember actually thinking his art confronted death,
that’s how young I was

We were paid per butterfly

The way we sat, I saw the backs
of the other pinners’ heads more than their faces

One’s braids the color of wine, one’s puffy headphones, feather cut
and slim neck rising from a scissored collar, that one
bought a raccoon penis bone on lunch break

Mostly we didn’t speak

Another life glimpsed in a detail mentioned, leaving or arriving

She lived with a carpenter who fixed her lunches

Come fall I’d be in college

I smelled the corpses on my fingers when I took my smoke break
leaning against a warm brick wall facing the smooth white headless
mannequins in thousand-dollar shift dresses

The deli next door advertised organic toast and raisins on the vine

Mornings, I tried to learn from eyeliner
and shimmer on faces near mine on the train

Warm fogged imprint on a metal pole
where someone’s grip evaporated

Everyone looking down when someone walked through
asking for help

At Evolution, talk radio played all day

A cool voice giving hourly updates
on the bombing of another city which it called
the conflict

The pinner in headphones sometimes hummed
or started a breathy lyric

“Selfish girl—”

I watched my tweezers guide the poisonous exquisite
blue of morpho wings

Their legs like jointed eyelashes

False eyes on the grayling wingtips
to protect the true face

The monarch’s wings like fire
pouring through a lattice

Extra


Strange Cage. Margaret Ross.

 

 

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An obligatory warning before we begin, brought to you by the Society for the Suppression of Supernatural Vice …

‘From Sextus Empiricus we learn that sensation is change; to change is to be mortal; to feel is to die; therefore, the damned cannot feel; they burn without pain, uncold and unwarm; infinite infants, senile immortals; father-mother and child, they give birth to themselves. In the same way that Hafiz — in his mystic fuck poems (ghazal, sultry-sacred diminuendo) — breeds roses, wine, cryptoerotic mountebanks, neophyte doms, every molecule and moon (the moon too is a molecule), a slot-and-slut machine of mispronounced or misspelled amino embryons that somehow reproduce a genomic dipygus named Hafiz. There is no distinction but what our arrogance or madness compels.

‘Now given all that girls, what’s the point of trying to fuck a ghost?

‘Every ghost is damned. The Damned are eternal. For them, counting and time are unthinkable. Thinking is unthinkable. Thinking about time takes time (the time to zip from neuron to neuron, but the distance between ghost neurons is the distance from Archduke Franz Ferdinand to Emperor Palpatine (or from Leopardi’s ‘Mother of the Eucharist’ to Chance the Rapper’s ‘Sunday Candy’). Ergo, ghosts are stupid, however much of a cunnilingual crackerjack they may be in a munch.

‘And get used to topping.

‘Or sub-topping or bottoming for a demi-dumb-dom. Ghosts don’t act. They react — inconclusively.

‘Ghosts are generic. You’re specific, with a specific body chemistry, you-do-you stimulants, a mensurable chonkitude and proud of it. Ghosts (here the Neoplatonists converge on postmodern biology) are airy, anorexic oxygen, abstract, a rom-com drizzle-down in a CGI hurricane. Ghosts fuck democratically but have never yet fucked a specific constituency. They gift diffusively, sport hazy, scattershot hard-ons for Humanity. They are perpetually infecting and being infected (though, again, inconclusively) with STDs. And while a little gris-gris in the pee-pee is no reason to panic, the risk of viral transmission from eternity to temporality deserves systematic study.

‘Every ghost is damned.

‘Sure, being damned does give them that goth-core-dank-OG-vegan-vampire-cosplay-lo-pan-steampunk-ragazza-baccazza-homeless-hipster with a dark past appeal. There’s the fact that ghosts don’t change so you’re never tempted to change them. And yes, that chiselled chest (like anabolic ice), that gelid smile, those brooding tits and ghastly gams could outlast the Laocoön Group and most museum catalogues. You like dad-bods? That dad bod’s gonna stay a dad bod from Eve’s First Brunch (the apocryphal Adamic Grand Opening) to the biocidal degringolade of the polycellular borganism. And as long as they died at least “half-mast”(see Tip #1 below) they’re pretty much randy to go, at least until their penitential promissory notes are paid down. I have yet to encounter Ghost-Cialis on WebMD.

‘I’ll be in my bunk.

‘Just kidding?’ — Arreshy Young

 

Funeral Stories
An Unpublished Obituary
art by anon I’m us
Arreshy Young @ goodreads
Buy ‘CODON’

 

Arreshy Young CODON
Calamari Press

‘A macabre ménage inspired by Boccaccio’s eulogy for ten raconteurs dying of the bubonic plague but really just an excuse to jibber jabber about the death of a funeral, star dementia, statutory immortality, the algorithmic assassination of a subculture, impotent architecture, headless demagogues, tips for the aspiring ghost fucker, doctors as a suicidal species and even death itself (the boring kind).’ — Calamari

Excerpt

The Patchwork Compendium

Dedicatory Remarks

I build a monolith of my sister’s arms, her hips, her teeth, her ears. An anthology of body parts, a patchwork compendium.

As you climb, you will find that I have incised a may-or-maybe memory into each part and molded each from scale model casts of my sister’s body, smuggled from the morgue with her consent. I make no excuses. I do not evade arrest. This monolith is my advocate.

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Invocation

“We know the flesh only through his bones, the bones he cloaks in putrid clothes,” intones Bar Shibli of the man they flayed against the Weirding Creed of God, his skinless master-martyr Hallaj. According to the chain of transmission which begins with Karnaba’i, Shibli stole what remained of Hallaj from the Queen-Mother’s museum of schismatic heads and entrusted it to the Remnant hiding in Khorasan, and it is said the head will never rot. As for Shibli “he made a prayer mat from his master’s flesh.”

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Patchwork #0: Muqaddimah

I wonder, comcestral niece or great-granddaughter who read this inscription, if you know the word maquette, a word in the ancient patois-melange cognate with the Italian bozzetto of our Recombinant Mothers, a preparatory model for a sculpture or, in other contexts, the twisted helices, a tremulous sketch of blood. It would do reverence to your own Blood to look up these words before climbing on. Remember, one day your bodies too may loom here with the rest of us.

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Patchwork #GNRH1: The Scale Model

On her deathbed, #252 of 500 crowdfunded hospital tombs, I heard my sister paraphrase Proust. “The sculptor is tidying up.” And then, perplexed. “The sculptor forgot the tits.”

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Patchwork #Msx2: Our Ladyneck of Worms

She is a budding taxidermist and she has found a headless bird with a maggot-neck of worms. A maggot is a breeding tomb; these cadavers give birth to flies.

Death does not bother her. What bothers her is that these maggots have vandalized the bird’s final art, which the bird had sacrificed its life to sculpt.

Yi-Shuen grinds her teeth, flips the bird with a spatula into a ragged shoe, flicks the maggots into a pot of boiling coffee, skins and sprinkles borax on the feathers. She saves and stuffs eighteen birds that summer, one rose-finch, three starlings and other names which I would only recall years later when I took up bird watching in locales beyond the reach of cellphone towers to forestall a second intimation of divorce.

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Patchwork #20E: Indulgences

“Death bothers me,” she confesses to the stars.

She hunches her shoulders inwards as though she had butterfly wings vast enough to engulf herself and engender a kinder metamorphosis.

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Patchwork #TBX4: Shahada

The fifty-fifth rak’ah and worming circumambulation rubs her belly raw.

“Com-passio-nate thy supplicant, Holy Worm which grows inside the Worm, Hole which grows inside the Hole.” She worships. No one will think to connect this invocation and apostasy with her idolatrous body-mods.

#

Patchwork #18.01528: The Book of Water

“Man is but a book of water,” according to the antique ‘Phrase Book of Innocuous Body Language.’ Correct, but hyperbolic according to the latest science.

Of other people we only know their drier parts. And since we have found no Rosetta stone for “reading” human H20, I should forgive myself for how little I knew about my sister.

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Patchwork #C5orf50: The Headless Head

For Halloween my sister dresses up as a headless David Hume. It’s the year before she abandons me and switches majors from philosophy to biology (having dropped taxidermy, age 16, as a “bit too goth”). Like all biologists she will be a tragic failure, unable to put the fundamental axiom of her own death to the test.

The costume is a tight fit.

“Please don’t goose-step on our cat,” I admonish as Yi-Shuen stumbles blindly. Our cat is less cat and more basic parlor tiger who does her best to simulate a big game hunter rug.

I see a girlike indentation through the neoprene neck. The indentation scowls. I think maybe she is not quite getting the effect she sought.

David Hume, let us not forget, was a philosopher of the World Before who denied the “I” (playfully, his enemies accuse) and advocated what Bint Mithana calls ‘bundle theory’ which reduces the human mind to a plantlike array of sensors lacking any sense of self. Conspiratorially, Hume has been opposed by those I like to call dharmic materialists who think that you and I are only the residual slime of the real world as it slugs on by, with solipsists as a nervous buffer state between these two philosophic Powers.

Extra

 

 

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‘When ingested in one sitting (not a particularly audacious feat being a pocket-sized paperback), the book takes you on a journey that’s hard to put down. In fact, it’s almost akin to a mind-bending trip, through a quagmire of provocative ponderings and thinly tied-together concepts.

‘Of course, at the core we have the starting concept of human melting. But from this baseline position, Kelso explores more than just the physical idea, but instead using melting as a metaphor, a concept, almost a platform for your mind to jump off and roam the outer realms of physical and metaphysical metamorphosis.

‘Now, essentially what we have here is a collection of short essays linked together with the theme of melting…or precisely the opposition of the body. At times this is perhaps tantamount to a thoroughly unpretentious whispering philosophy. At others, an informed dissection of pop culture and the historical footprints which led us here.

‘All through this the essays are almost poetic in their delivery. The choice of words, the rhythm and the carefully considered coarse of this interconnected (but somehow still fragmented) journey which Kelso has plotted out for us.

‘The exploration of the piece probably reaches further afield than the opening pages, and perhaps your preconceived thoughts on the book contents, might have led you to think it would. From modern pop culture, to historical works, to literary pieces, and everything in between. But more than that it presents a unified creative philosophy which ties this whole spiderweb of ideas together into a collective whole.

‘Yes, at the start, at the core, is that physical conceptualised idea of the physical human form melting ala the bread-and-butter of Body Horror. But the areas covered, almost conversationally so, are far from just that visually discomforting starting place. This is an ocean’s length from merely gawping in delighted revulsion at ‘Meltin’ Milton’ or ‘Oozy Suzy’ Garbage Pail Kids cards. This is a purposefully open-ended internal discussion. A sandbox for ideas and concepts to be played around with.’ — DLS Review

 

Chris Kelso Site
Chris Kelso @ goodreads
“I’M DONE WITH FICTION”: A CONVERSATION WITH CHRIS KELSO
Jenny Longlegs BY CHRIS KELSO AND BRIAN EVENSON
Buy ‘On Melting’

 

Chris Kelso On Melting: Essays Against the Body
Filthy Loot

‘The boiling point of human blood is approximately 100.5 degrees Celsius (212.9 degrees Fahrenheit). Flesh itself does not ‘melt’ per se but it can be vaporised, dried out, and eventually turned to ash. So, if organic material literally cannot melt, why does it present such a fascinating new system of transformation to us?

On Melting compiles essays and interviews which are in opposition of the body. Kelso explores the beautiful potential of our protoplasmic degeneration with hope and longing in his heart.’ — Filthy Loot

Excerpt

Extra


Visiting Hour by Chris Kelso

 

 

*

p.s. Hey. ** jay, Hi. Yep. That top photo is neither real nor AI. Pretty well done. I think it’s pretty common to end up missing the thing you’re trying to escape, yeah. What feels like a burden becomes a missing power source once discarded or outgrown as the case may be. I’m sure you’ll be fine. You’re not editing it, ok. Editing can be the best part, but not when you’re not the director. It was warming up here, and then it chilled down, and today … we’ll see. Have an award winning weekend. ** _Black_Acrylic, Excellent news there! Especially in this age where culture is the first thing getting short shrift at the government level. ** Misanthrope, Having been close with a number of junkies, ultimately all you can hope is that when they bottom out they’ll live through it. Ah, Young Elio. Curious to hear how he’s doing. Have fun, but mainly hope your brain exhausts itself so you can sleep. ** Dominik, Hi!!! Finding a Slayer love quote was no picnic, haha. I agree. Hence … Love rolling in piss, sloppy spit, musk, piggy pubes, sloppy deepthroat, butt juices, making oinky noises, eating from bowls like a good pig, and snorting up all sorts of fun, G. ** Steeqhen, Hey. And then there are the guys who realise that eating shit is like going to the fanciest restaurant. Thanks for the excellent ‘Wicked’ review. I still think I’m going to save it for my next plane trip and in-flight entertainment option, but that’s good to know because I’ll move it up the queue. I’m about 100% certain that Ms. Kidman signed a very iron clad NDA as part of the agreement that she could divorce Mr. Cruise without being assassinated by the Scientology goon squad. ** Darby☏, Cassettes! Good for you, I miss cassettes. Or I miss having a cassette player rather. Wow, no, I had no idea that, one, there was a real place called Cape Fear, and, two, that its landscape was so documented in fiction filmography. It might be interesting to go through all those movies and just edit out the parts where they show the surroundings and make a documentary about the place. My guess would be that the Fear thing is because ships were afraid of the Cape for some reason? Most mysteries end up being solved in unexciting ways. You have a great weekend, and I will do my best. ** James, I wish there was some way to pass along your readings on the slaves to the slaves themselves. I think they would be so impressed. Plus you might get laid by one or two of them if you wanted. But, alas, it’s the extremely rare slave who ever knows what my blog has done to them. That’s happened only maybe twice, three times ever that I know of. I too wonder about how aging will be scientifically or technologically counteracted in the future, and I wish they hurry the fuck up. I did a post about the most famous dead body in a dark ride case, but I can’t remember what I titled it, so I can’t link you up to it. But I’ll try to remember this weekend. It’s a good one. I’ll have to believe you about the increased stubble today, but I do! ** SP, You’re in the pit of hell. Stay strong and sane. I’m sorry but I think anyone of any age who’s okay with that racist, transphobic wannabe dictator as president is either paying no attention at all or is very sick and stupid. No middle ground there for me. Weird and confusing, absolutely. Try to have fun though. ** Dan Carroll, Hi, Dan. Great, how did it go today? Exciting. And awesome about the post! I’ll get there once I’m out of here. Everyone, the great Dan Carroll made an exciting looking blog post about the use and occurrence of lip-synching in David Lynch’s films, and, needless to say, it’s a must. Find it exactly here. I remember that about ‘The Others’ too, now that you mention it. Yeah. Happy tip of February to you too. May yours unfurl as opposed to decompose. ** Lucas, Good old reliable slaves. Cool if you can and want to finish the Phil Ochs post, but no pressure. ‘The Physicists’ … no, what’s that? Personally, I think you can stop with ‘EEE’ if you run out of gas or if it runs out of gas. But I do that with even the greatest books sometimes. I’m counting on your weekend being a helluva good one. Mine? We’ll see. I’m going to see a big exhibition of Harmony Korine’s stuff today, and that should be good. We’re uploading the teaser trailer we made for ‘RT’. Buncha film stuff, hunting prospects and so on. Like that. xo. ** Bert, Hi, Bert. Welcome, and thank you a lot for coming in here. And thank you so much about the blog and my work. That’s really gratifying. No, I know of ‘Surrender Dorothy’, but I’ve never seen it. Okay, I’ll go find it. What is it about the film that obsesses you? How’s college? Is it working for you? What are you studying and/or interested in? Or there’s a few questions only if you want to say more. In any case, very nice to meet you. ** Steve, Yes, and may it be filmed in IMAX 3D with Smell-o-Vision. I will henceforth avoid ‘Companion’, thank you. Urgh. Here’s hoping your cold goes the way of the Theropod as soon as this very morning. Oh, nice, exciting about that new Errol Morris. Sounds like something he could really do something with. Thanks! ** Justin D, Hi. Good, I thought they were a relative laugh riot myself. High five to you, my black humor bro. No, I haven’t seen ‘The Girl with the Needle’, but I just watched the trailer thanks to you, and it does look quite tasty. Hm, cool, thank you. And for the song, which I will use as my weekend’s intro music. I mean that’s what will be playing as I walk onto the weekend’s stage triggering whatever applause available to erupt. So, you really helped me out there. What distinguished your weekend from your usual weekend? ** HaRpEr, Hi. Yes, yes, re: Blanchot! Such a kerfuffle about someone smoking weed. But I guess weed is still illegal in the UK? Here too, but I think that law is only enforced here in Paris if you’re a non-white person from the suburbs. That seems so primitive. The kerfuffle. Good for normal people to get the shit scared out of them though. I guess. ** Joe, Hi. Haha, you would think. But the odd thing is that I assumed my whatever … status as an artist would be the thing that was my ticket in, but the lawyer says they don’t give a shit, and they’re not even really bringing up my work or its reception in the application. Strange, I hope they’re right. Have a really homey but edgy weekend. ** Right. This weekend I foist upon you five books I read recently and can honestly and forthrightly recommend to you all. See you on Monday.

18 Comments

  1. Chris Kelso

    Thanks, Dennis – it’salways such an honour to appear on the blog! Glad On Melting found it’s way safely to Paris! Hope you’re keeping well 🙌

    Love from Scotland!

  2. Dominik

    Hi!!

    Thank you for the excellent recommendations, as always!

    I had two potential love quotes saved for today, one of them from the same piggy love. Looks like he’s a winner. Love says pspsps to trashbags bc his eyes suck oink, Od.

  3. Charalampos

    Hello, at first glance just as I wake up the two books that had me very interested were On Melting and Saturday. So I put them on my list. Saturday as title wanted me to read the poems and when I did read the two sample poems they did deliver, especially Evolution

    Love from Chania to my shelter from the storm DC blog

  4. Steeqhen

    Hey Dennis,

    I think I’m too much of a freak about contamination and sensitivity to food that I would never be able to see shit in the way some people do, although different strokes for different folks; in saying all that, I find body waste and bodily functions so fascinating in an almost hypocritical way to how disgusted I get by food and eating.

    I feel like Wicked would be a good plane watch, considering it’s almost 3 hours and could potentially be watched whilst writing or playing a game. The original cast (Kristin Chenoweth and Idina Menzel) have a small but noticeable cameo in the film, which was something that made me light up. I never watched recordings of the original show, I have just listened to their soundtrack + they both had big roles in the early seasons of Glee, when it was still a show with heart so I have a bit of a parasocial attachment to them. Ended up watching The Substance last night with my mother, she was practically begging to watch it haha.

    Ended up feeling good about the story I submitted to that zine, edited it into something that I feel flows well and is actually trying to say something, rather than just be a story. If it ever gets posted online I might link it here. Have a few things I need to write this weekend, which may leave me hanging around my family house to focus solely on work. If you still do those reader posts, I could try work on one that is just a collection of some of the weirdest and strangest Doctor Who villians, because there are some really stupid(ly amazing) ones.

    Anyway, hope you’re doing good, and I’m excited for RM’s teaser trailer!

  5. _Black_Acrylic

    Will be springing for Kelso’s On Melting, you can be sure of it.

    Have been reading upon waking up in the morning lately, which has meant a 5am start as my body seems to be instructing. Celine’s unfinished War novel has been my way of starting the day, and it has been as grimly hilarious as might be imagined.

  6. James

    ‘a nefarious edge’ makes most things more interesting. If more nefarious. ‘a proper queer’ is possibly oxymoronic. I’ve yet to accidentally or intentionally download tentacle porn. I hope humanity’s ‘beneficial plot-twist’ comes in time for me to see it. Oo, I like the new voice cutting through. ‘Eyeroll’ – awesome. I text like this, sometimes. Silicone God looks good and up my street.
    I’ve written some ‘comically perverted’ stuff before. Isn’t $45 rather pricey for 100 pages? Masshole’s a good title. Love ‘nighttime shenanigans.’ The clown jerking off ‘rabidly’ got an exhalation of amusement from me. That *was* quite funny.
    The Ross poems aren’t quite my thing.
    ‘mystic fuck poems’ sound more my speed. And ‘neophyte doms.’ I see a lot of ‘algorithmic assassination of a subculture’ these days. I don’t mind the Patchhworks but they seem a bit disparate. Seeing a Youtube link in a footnote pleases me. I’m impressed by these kinds of essays and their presumable popularity. Some nice tidbits of writing to nibble on.

    Hullo, D-Dawg. I fear the slaves might only be irked by the snarkiness of some 17 year old they don’t know. But thank you for the review of my ‘reviews’ of them. But I don’t know any gay sex slaves (alas!) so I don’t know how indifferent or annoyed or impressed by my opinions on them they’d be. Wolf-whistle at the prospect of getting laid by any of the slaves, let alone merely as a result of me typing up some thoughts about them. Cheap dates, huh. I imagine they’d have to wait a few months until I’m 18 to avoid like, legal issues, or whatever. I’d either do with them what one is meant to do with gay sex slaves, or rigorously interrogate and interview them, or maybe even both, if I had the energy. The only slave I can recall seeing who might’ve been aware of the blog was that one The Sluts pic a while back.

    I’m not too bothered by the prospect of aging. Getting old sucks but I guess that’s just how things work. But I’m 17 and already quite sick of this whole getting older business. I think anti-ageing stuff which helped with medical conditions/the general quality of the body would be cool, but the appearance side of things I am less fussed over.

    Yeesh, I was unaware of a whole ass dead body being found in a ride. I was just aware of rumours that people had spread ashes on rides. That’s less of a rumour. Just a bit morbid, that. Dead people on themepark rides. Ooer. Fret not regarding the link. If my curiosity in dead bodies in themeparks is great enough I’ll be able to look into that stuff myself. But cheers, too.

    Can confirm that the stubble has increased. Again, there’ll be more tomorrow, and that’ll be followed by the end of the week shave. Today so far has been sleeping in, showering, eating lunch/breakfast, learning my father is going to remarry, reading this blogpost, listening to music and audio dramas. I’m going to spend the rest of today doing more reading, and being my email-y self. See you Monday.

  7. Jack Skelley

    <3 <3 <3 The U.S edition of Silicone God by Victoria Brooks publishes Valentine's Day. Madison Murray's My Gaping Masshole likewise out soon! Victoria will travel fr London to LA to do a launch. Madison expected here soon too… !

  8. Victoria Brooks

    Thank you so much for reading the US release of Silicone God!! <3 Such an honour to be here!

  9. Misanthrope

    Dennis, Young Elio is doing well. He’s 18 now. Working at Chick-fil-A and likes it for some reason. Has big plans re: college and medical school after he graduates this year.

    This friend whose daughter is having the birthday is the one who told Alex he could break up with me and everybody would understand. I’m so wary around her now. Really, and this might sound bad, but I don’t know who I can trust anymore. Seriously. Kayla, Rigby, you, James, even David. That’s about it. And David only with personal-type stuff, nothing else.

    Think that’s really what’s got me down anymore. Oh, well. Onward and upward.

  10. Chris Kelso

    PS – the picture you’ve included isn’t actually me. It’s another guy called ‘Chris Kelso’ who went to Temple University, or something. No need to change it, though – his hair is much cooler than mine, and I’ve been looking to update my author photo, lol.

    Thanks again, Dennis! 🙌

  11. Steve

    CHAOS: THE MANSON MURDERS is a Netflix production, though I don’t know when they will air it. Did you see Morris’ last film, SEPARATED?

    For Artsfuse, I reviewed Seo’s BLOODBERRY in their “Short Fuses” column: https://artsfuse.org/304629/february-short-fuses-materia-critica-4/. (Scroll two thirds of the way down the page for it.)

    The “sneezing constantly” phase of my cold put a big damper on my weekend. (I watched a terrible Norwegian film directed by Ingmar Bergman and Liv Ullmann’s son, ARMAND, and wrote a review.) But it’s progressing, and I’m trying to re-schedule some of the socializing I had to cancel last week. How was your weekend?

  12. Lucas

    Hi. My weekend was nice: I went to Cologne with my friend yesterday, thrifted some clothes and I bought Marguerite Duras’ ‘My Cinema,’ which is such a beautiful book, as like a physical object. It would be so great if you could screen ‘Room Temperature’ here in Cologne. ‘The Physicists’ is kind of silly typical postwar German play about some guys who are in a mental clinic convinced that they’re the physicists who invented the atomic bomb. idk. How was your weekend? I’ve also started making my first physical collage. I’m only halfway through it but this is what I’ve got so far: https://imgur.com/a/mf6JKud
    I’ll glue the photos + zippers down and add the title in the blank space and maybe paint a little on top. That poem I told you about that I sent into SCAB got accepted, and that’s really great. Although I am sort of panicking a little right now because my laptop is stubbornly refusing to turn on for like more than half an hour now but I hope hope hope it’ll be good by tomorrow when you’re reading this.

  13. Dan Carroll

    Thank you for the shoutout! It means a lot to me. We had our first all members meeting at the studio last night, so it was very much just explaining how everything works, but it was still very exciting to be with all these other artists who were so willing to share their skills.

    I just finished reading Black Sunlight and thought it was really incredible. Glad I sought it out. When did you first read it? Now I’m reading At Night All Blood Is Black by David Diop. It came out a few years ago, it’s about a Senegalese soldier for France in ww1 who starts to lose it. His thing is he chops peoples hands off while they’re still holding their rifle. It’s actually kinda making me sick a little, and I don’t think I’ve felt a physical response to a book like that since the windmill stuff in Frisk.

  14. Madison Murray

    My Gaping Masshole and I thank you!

  15. jay

    Hi Dennis! Awesome to see Mr. Kelso here, I didn’t know he had a new (ish) book so that’s definitely going on my list! I totally loved Grave Desire, and I always think it’s fun to set up a framework through which to examine a topic and then elaborating on it to the point of exhaustion, so… so much my kind of thing! Thanks for sharing that, I’ll 100% get a copy of that ASAP.

    Honestly, so much of the art you’ve shown here has given me a really cool new way of thinking about my body as a mechanism. Frisk was obviously a total revelation, and did most of the work, but that “Fleshy” post you did a while back was so good too, I think about Berlinde De Bruyckere and Fábio Magalhães more than once a day.

    In terms of cool body anecdotes, I recently had a cool one – I was listening to music on my phone through wired headphones that went under my button-up shirt, and I wanted to take them out to play the song to my friend, but I went a little too fast, and accidentally pulled the wrong wire, and took out a bore on my stomach – so, tinny music coming from my headphones, red patch spreading on my shirt, me stumbling back a bit. Scary in the moment, but net positive as an experience, if that makes any sense. Anyway, sending warm air your way via vacuum-sealed envelope, lots of love!

  16. HaRpEr

    Hey! I always love your book recs. I’ve made a note of all of these.
    I had a good weekend until I just noticed mold on the lower part of the wall where my bed is. I’m losing my shit, it’s come back in the same place! I think I’m just going to buy some mold spray and do it myself so I can avoid a visit from the landlord. God, it’s so disgusting. I got a bit on my hand by mistake and I’m paranoid that I’m infected with some strange disease.
    Other than being overly hospitable to my uninvited new fungus, I’ve been partly experimenting with making ‘poems’ out of photos. I kind of started it as a mood board for something I’m writing and then I started playing around with it. I don’t really know what I’ll do with it when I’m done, but it’s been really helpful for my writing anyway, sort of in terms of generating ideas, and sort of in terms of creating some sort of formulastic guide.

    I read Dodie Bellamy’s book ‘The Letters of Mina Harker’ this weekend. I know you love this book of course, and my reading of it was well overdue. And yes, it was a wild book that never ran out of energy. The sentences are really amazing, though that sounds like a trivial thing to say, that’s what really caught my eye when I was reading it. It’s a really intriguing book because there’s a certain aspect where the reader is given an overload of details, but at the same time, so much is concealed.

    I watched the newly cut version of ‘Caligula’ yesterday. I genuinely think there are some incredible moments, but unfortunately some extremely boring ones as well. I really like this scene where he’s walking through an orgy. Anyway, I think it’s better than 99% of period dramas, which isn’t really saying much.
    And oh yeah, I watched the Bonello film ‘Tiresia’ this evening. The first half was good and then it lost steam. Very funny watching it as a trans woman. I kind of have a soft spot for films made by cis directors who don’t know how being trans works. I mean, if you stop taking your hormones you don’t just start looking like a man again within a few weeks. Whatever, it was pretty good for the most part, and I’d definitely like to watch more Bonello films.

  17. SP

    Thanks Dennis! I think everyone has given up or, optimistically, storing energy for a major civil unrest.. iidunnnooo. I do have a feeling a big meltdown of the system is coming. again. which is always interesting! and kind of fun. Happy to report that fun in general is being had regardless.

  18. Uday

    There’s a timing to Ptah the El Daoud that’s proportional to an orgasm, re: the first song I listened to yesterday. So maybe not the best song ever, but pretty good. Excited for the book recs! I’m in a bit of a reading slump because I’m revisiting the important works and that leaves little time to enjoy new things. Had my annual funeral event today, which was a lot of fun. Anything big happen this weekend? This time of year doesn’t really lend itself to anything beyond daily life, but in a more repressive way than autumn.

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