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p.s. RIP Lee Scratch Perry. ** Richard Hell, writer/curator Donatien Grau, and I had a conversation for Diaphanes Magazine that turned out pretty well, and it’s online if you want to read it. ** Corey Heiferman, Hi Corey. They’re a little harder to hunt down on youtube these days, but they’re hanging in there, as you could see. What is happy? I feel like happiness should be something one redefines as the world continually recontextualizes us. My weekend wasn’t bad. I’m doing a fair number of interviews about ‘I Wished’ right now, and I did a couple of those. I worked on the virtual haunted house project. I finally saw Carax’s ‘Annette’. I loved its first half hour or so, then I felt impatient with it for about an hour, and then I thought the last hour or so of it was great and that the ending was fantastic, so ultimately I loved it, flaws and all. How was yours? ** Chris kelso, Hi, Chris. Thanks, man. I remember Ogreish, etc., yeah. I can’t take watching the real thing. Back when I was fervently researching serial killer stuff I did manage to sometimes so I could feel what seeing that would feel like. There are still sites like that out there with presumably decent followings. I sometimes dip into them just to read the comments about the videos because they can quite fascinating. No, no package yet, but I’ll keep my eyes ever so peeled. Should be soon, yeah? Thank you! Take awesome care of yourself. xo. ** Dominik, Hi!!! If you mean the virtual haunted house, we have hopes of taking it on the road if turns out well and if The Pinault Foundation, who’s funding it, lets it travel. I’ll probably do a post about it too when it’s further along. I think that shower one did win the nonexistent best title contest. Love making everyone get so bored of the Foo Fighters that they’re forced to climb into a time machine, return to 1994 and break up before they record their first album, G. ** David, Hi. 31 degrees Centigrade or Fahrenheit. If it’s Fahrenheit, yum, if it’s Centigrade, you’re on your own, ha ha. I hate heat. xo. ** Misanthrope, You are a sick, sick man. My generation of kids got vaxed at school every year, I can’t remember against what — polio? — and a lot of us — not me, strangely — have little craters in our upper arms to show for it. Over here you need a vax passport to go to cafes, restaurants, museums, etc. If it helps, and who knows, it doesn’t bother me. Laura Beth Noble is someone I haven’t thought about in years. Wow. Sounds like some dream. ** Bill, Thank you. Obviously, I agree. And thanks for the link to the direct source. I’ll get Group first. Cheers. Tally ho! I vaguely have heard about ‘Slum Virgin’ but only vaguely. Huh, that does sound kind of exciting. All right, going for it. ** Jamie, Hi, pal! What do you want bet that you and I are the only people who watched every single one of those videos without our senses of fun losing their boners. As many as there were, I was disappointed when I couldn’t find any more. I’m good. Oh, man, I’m so sorry your guts are acting so prickish. I trust you’re doing everything available to chill them out. Thanks about the Richard Hell talk. Yeah, it was fun. I hadn’t talked to Richard in ages. Well, I published a novel by Richard with LHotB that’s good: ‘Godlike’. His autobio ‘I Dreamed I Was a Very Clean Tramp’ is very good. ‘Go Now’ is also excellent. Happy news about your lovely cinema! No small thing. I’ve been good, busy, mostly working on the virtual haunted house project and doing ‘I Wished’-related interviews and stuff. Going to Stockholm tomorrow to show ‘PGL’, which is exciting. You only posted once, and guarantee it was my bratty site’s engine that was the culprit in whatever you feared. Love, me. ** David Ehrenstein, The QAnon phenom will definitely make for one of the most readable chapters in future history books. ** _Black_Acrylic, Hi, Ben. So extremely true. I’m happy you’ve made the start on the writing. No doubt a linguistic avalanche is imminent. ** Steve Erickson, Yes, it’s very sad for my blog that those kinds of videos are now locked away inside Instagram. So, dare I ask, was it in fact good enough to be true? ** Okay. I alway really liked this old, google-murdered post so I’ve brought back to life. Simple as that. See you tomorrow,.
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Can’t believe you don’t like the heat! This August in London was shite… managed to get some heat in Liverpool though… lovely long walks etc… Love the smiths and still Morrissey… spotted the simpsons episode parody of him… ‘The Smiths’ renamed ‘The Snuffs’… immediately thought of your changing ‘Blur’ to ‘Smear’ how cool would it have been if morrissey had said “this is a Dennis Cooperism… fucking rip off”. .. I sent for or rather pre ordered ‘I wished’ on amazon a few days ago … looking forward to it… no marilyn manson tape cassette??? I love his music enormously .. cheers Dennis….
Hi!!
Yes, I meant the virtual haunted house! This is more than exciting news! I’d love to see it so much!
How was your weekend? Mine was pretty ordinary but not bad at all. I keep thinking about Xavier Dolan’s film “Matthias & Maxime”. His characters, especially the ones he plays, always find their way right into my boymuse center one way or another. I think we’ve already talked about him, but I can’t remember what you said: do you like his work?
Hahaha, poor Foo Fighters. I saw them once at a festival, and they gave a great show, but then I left halfway through, so… Love sending you the soundtrack of his life, which suspiciously sounds like him singing the eternally horrible song “Forever Young” in various versions, Od.
Dennis, I think I had some version of almost all of these kinds of tapes back in the day. Always loved it when one was something other than white, black, or clear. Like, this is the shit!
Yeah, I only remember the one tetanus shot at like 10 years old. Then we went and visited my grandfather, who was wheelchair-bound because of war injuries, and my arm hurt so bad I could barely throw the football with my father. My grandfather soon thereafter was placed in a nursing home where he spent the rest of his life.
That dream was off the hook. So briefly: you had this performance piece at a castle that extended to your flat. It was all through odors and smells. I get to your flat and you’re beating the living daylights out of Laura Beth. I save her and you start on me but keep missing. It’s then that I find out you’ve been doing PCP all day. I’m like WTF? Kerazy dream, hahaha.
Had a good late birthday dinner Saturday night. My friend’s gift for me had finally come and she gave it to me at the restaurant: a Timothee Chalamet calendar that’s hanging in my room right now. Erp. 😀
So there were reports that the boosters were going to be recommended for every 5 months, but Fauci shot that down and said they’re sticking with 8 months, even though Pfizer is asking for a 6-month approval. Seems they’ve left it open for ongoing boosters for the next however many months/years. It’ll be interesting to see how it plays out.
Heya Dennis! I think my comment from the weekend might have got lost or eaten or something, but it was nothing of particular consequence, just straightforward love and respect for the effects wizzes that were proffering their wares therein. And today was nice! I was born just as CDs started being a thing, so my chief association with cassettes are as objects that I could stick my fingers in/put in my mouth – several of the cassettes today would be worthy of both these honours. I really liked the ones with their spools rotating, as well as the last melted one.
In response to your question from Friday, I am, let me check, near a place called Gien? It was about an hour and a half’s train ride from Paris. I’m staying with a group of friends with which the intention was just to make art for 10 days, so I haven’t really seen much of the area besides the local supermarket and our immediate surroundings, where there is a military encampment, an abandoned railway, and a surprisingly large amount of soiled tissues and (what I can only presume is) human shit on the paths and roadsides. It’s weird but nice, and peaceful in the regular countryside way. The vague ‘porno’ that we are making has concluded shooting but progress has been a little stalled, the friend who I shot it with had to return home a few days early, taking his phone and the majority of our footage with him. But I’m making the soundtrack until I get the footage to edit. I’ll repeat my wish for your week from yesterday, which was that it be like living through a new volume of ‘Unusual Memes Compilation’ on Youtube. xT
The first thing I think about when I see a cassette are the shoe boxes I had to store the cassettes. I didn’t buy that many pre-recorded tapes, but made tons of fave-songs or stuff I recorded off from the radio or vinyl. It was a mania at the time, that I wanted to have these songs taped and stored away in these ugly shoe boxes. Now, I don’t have the cassettes anymore, but I do have the shoe boxes, which are perfect for storing 45 rpm singles.
I’m an Annette junkie. At the present I have seen it three times. I wrote an essay on it for my blog, and i spend a great deal of time thinking about “Annette.” On top of that, last night I watched Holy Motors. He has a monkey/ape thing going. I find that fascinating.
The conversation you had with Richard Hell is really interesting. His commentary on Proust is of great interest as well. I have only read Swan’s Way, but I read it three times throughout my life. When I worked at Book Soup, a customer commented that Proust is a perfect read when you’re an older person, and that now makes sense to me. He’s a demaning read, not because he’s difficult, but the format of his work one needs the time and dedication to read through the novels. If I have to do other things, and especially to do readings for our podcast Book Musik, I have to give a lot of time to focus on those books. May be in the future just do a podcast show focusing on Proust? It will be a good excuse to read the other volumes of that novel.
And I want to give a quick recommendation for you, if you haven’t already picked up this book: Alan Licht’s “Common Tones: Selected Interviews with Artists and Musicians 1995-2020.” He’s an excellent interviewer, and we are doing a Book Musik episode on him and his book. We will be interviewing him. But a great snapshot of musicians/artists of that time period.
Yes RIP Lee Scratch Perry indeed. Most influential figure on music ever, in terms of Disco, House and Techno anyway.
I miss cassettes quite a bit and have spent many happy hours compiling mixtapes in my youth. Always lavished a great deal of care and attention on their artwork too.
Odd how cassettes have become cool again, even though their sound quality stinks and they break easily. (I remember my tape of LONDON CALLING snapping when I was traveling in Canada with my parents as a teen!) At Rough Trade Records’ current location, their cassette and CD sections were the same size.
I was not able to talk to my health insurance broker today, so things remain up in the air.
Peer Raben’s 1981 film TODAY WE’RE PLAYING BOSS aired on cinephobe.tv today. Until it landed on their schedule, I had no idea he was a director as well as a composer. (He also made a feature in 1972.) The cast is drawn from Fassbinder’s regulars, but I couldn’t get on the wavelength of its eccentric sense of humor.
A fine motif today, Dennis.
While we’re on the subject of vintage media, this has been getting good reviews from my letterboxd fans, and has a late October (Halloween!) US release date:
https://letterboxd.com/film/broadcast-signal-intrusion/
Just spotted a bunch of Eloy de la Iglesia movies on worlds cinema.org. Yes.
Bill
Tosh have you ever metOscarAlexandre Dupont (aka. “Leos Carax”) ? He’s visited L.A. quite a number of times ove the ears. I first met him when he was halfway through “Les Amants du Pont_Neuf” and Juliette Binoche (who was publicising “The Unbearable Lightness of Being”) was carryg him around like a clutch-purse.