The blog of author Dennis Cooper

Doors

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This door knob represents Panetheus having his eyes pecked out by a bird as a punishment from Zeus for giving humans the secret to make fire.

 

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The Tanaka Sliding Door is a door that moulds to the shape of your body as you pass through it. “Who the fuck wants a door like this? Not me, you? I guess it’s kinda wierd but then again Japanese people like wierd shit like pulling down girls underwear in public and eating girl’s shit and eaitng sushi off of a guy’s penis.” — Anonymous

 

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Original Toughage Door Sex Swing Chair, it can satisfy your fresh sexual intercourse positions and give you give you fresh stimulus sexual enjoyment for coushion sex love games. Also, you can share the feeling of the emperor when you make love by slave bondage restraints kit You can share the different sex feeling, it is an amazing feeling of bondage restraints that can has the unique ability to enhance your sex life.

 

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The knock detecting door lock is built with an Arduino, a motor and piezo sensor which record and detect the phony knocks on your door. The system won’t open until a certain code pattern is detected.

 

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Horror movies


Beyond the Door, 1974


The Forbidden Door, 2009


The Girl Next Door, 2007


At the Devil’s Door, 2014


Beneath the Door, 1996


Behind the Red Door, 2003


Behind the Door, 2014


The Strange Door, 1951


The Dead Next Door, 1990


Cellar Door, 2006

 

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This past week my wife and I visited the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis. It is a museum that hosts among other things exhibitions of contemporary art. One of the exhibits was a work of art by Robert Gober created in the late 1980s entitled “Untitled Door And Door Frame” and the elements used were “wood, enamel paint.” To a left-brained home fixit guy like myself, Untitled Door And Door Frame looked like an unfinished project and anything but a work of art. In my linear, structured way of thinking the paint was dry so why not get the necessary hardware, grab the door and install the hinges and latch set, measure the doorframe to match, install its hinges and mount the door? But God’s view of us as a work of art defies our limited worldly perspective. In heavens eyes art is defined solely by the Creator. When God created the heavens and the earth with man, both male and female, as His crowning achievement He “looked over all He had made, and He saw that it was very good!” (Genesis 1:31 NLT) When God declares that His works of art are art, and “very good” at that, then we need to agree with Him. Yes we may feel like an unhinged door, even look like one to a casual observer, but in heavens eyes we are a valuable work of art, “God’s workmanship” or “masterpiece” the Bible tells us. God looks at us, the way any artist looks at their finished work, with a sense of satisfaction and personal delight. And that is prior to us having ever done anything, been of any benefit to anyone else or proven our worth to God Himself. All the credit for being a masterpiece goes to the creator, not to the work.

 

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Dominic Muren’s award-winning Melody Door works like a vertical xylophone, allowing you to tap out your very own signature tune on a full octave of available notes.

 

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The Epidemic
by Georges Perec

The dreamer (this whole story is like a novel in the third person) has sat down at a little bistro. He is foreign, but they quickly come to treat him like a regular. The boss and some of the customers are discussing the epidemic. The Chinese cook of the restaurant enters (the dreamer thinks he looks like someone he knows); the Chinese cook says they need to find a replacement for him, because he can no longer continue to man the stoves and cook for the girls. On this note he cites a Shakespearean proverb:

    They died not all, but all were sick!

Stunned, the owner of the café looks at the dreamer: he’s the one who taught him the proverb. At that instant the dreamer understands that he is no longer a stranger at some table and that he is now the “central character”; at the same time, he recognizes the Chinese cook; he knows only him; he’s the one who comes from time to time to volunteer for the girls.

There has been a great cholera epidemic. Everyone wants to be examined. The symptom is spitting up blood. The dreamer and two of his friends walk around the town. They arrive in front of a stairway blocked by a mass of young girls, surely a boarding school. They pretend to have priority, like one of them has been stricken, so that the doctor has to look after them first. The doctor has to clear a path through the girls.

A bit later, in a crowd of girls splayed out, sick, the dreamer picks up a piece of earth (and not a piece of trash or of feces) from the ground. And he discovers, behind a door, his friend J., laid flat, dead, turned into earth, turned into a block of earth that is missing the piece the dreamer just picked up.

 

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Meandering Door

 

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A Riverside County man has pleaded not guilty to burglary and indecent exposure charges after he alleged crawled through a neighbor’s doggie door naked for sex. Philip John Garcia, 41, was arrested on April 10 and is being held on $130,000 bail. According to the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department, the victim told authorities that her husband had left for work that evening and she was preparing for bed when she heard a knock on her bedroom door. The woman opened the door to find Garcia naked and possibly intoxicated. Garcia allegedly told the woman that he was there to have sex, officials said. The victim yelled at him to leave and called authorities. Garcia was later arrested after deputies located him naked in his own bed.

 

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The defendus labyrinth door chain is a project by the Art Lebedev studio in Moscow. Constructed from titanium alloy, fixed in place with 10 different screws and load-tested to a whopping 700 pounds of force, the door chain forces you to solve a maze to exit with no other option.

 

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In 1990, two years after April Tinsley’s murder, this message appeared on a barn door near where her body was recovered.

 

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More knobs

 

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PS1 Contemporary Art Center reopened in 1997 after extensive renovations. Alanna Heiss, the gallery’s founder and director, first installed her organisation in this abandoned school in 1976, and to inaugurate the new building with a nod to its past, Gordon Matta-Clark’s Doors, Floors, Doors (1976) was re-made. Using the dimensions of an adjacent door, a rectangular slot was cut through the structure in a vertical line that descended into the basement. To cast a vertigo-inducing glance through these layers of wood and metal was to recall PS1’s origins as an exhibition space whose architecture the artists could sully with impunity.

 

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Botulistum plays a sickeing kind of black metal , which they call “peat metal”. Botulistum was formed in the beginning of 1998 by Nachtraaf (Stringraper and Drumprofaner) and Botmuyl (Over the top hysteria and sickening one snared violin). They started this band as a statement against commercial acts , humanity and other trends. The band split up again in 2002.

 

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Moms gets creepy as hell in the new Old Spice ad.

 

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Sylvia is an actress in erotic movies for whom the narrator is making a table out of a door. He has made one of these for each of his other relationships, all of which failed. A door is what you close behind you when you leave, and what you use to shut things away out of sight. It can be a symbol for repressing problems into your subconscious. It is the opposite of communication — not a very appropriate gift to a lover. One of the women apparently threw the door he gave her onto the barricades, so she didn’t appreciate it.

 

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A door you can only see through if you’re standing in exactly the right spot. If you’re further than 50 centimetres from the inside of the FOCUS Door, a curious milky fog creeps in from the edges of the glass, reducing your vision to a transparent central strip. Move left or right, and that strip moves to the opposite side of the door to you. It’s another door to keep the world at arm’s length – in this case, consigning it to “out of sight, out of mind”.

 

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Tattoos

 

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57-year-old Anthony Bruce Berry was caught by police after he performed an “Indecent act” on the door of a business in Hypoluxo, Florida. An employee saw the whole incident and even got video to use as proof when she called the police. the unidentified employee of the business told law enforcement that she saw Berry walk to the back of the establishment around 2 in the afternoon. Soon after going to the back of the building, Berry reappeared at the front entrance where he tried to open the door. The door was locked so instead of leaving, he pulled out his privates and began committed the disturbing act. Once Anthony Berry finished himself off, he pulled his clothes back together and walked away. He took a seat on a nearby bench and that’s where police found him once the employee called the cops. The police asked Berry if he had committed the sex act with the door and Berry replied, “Yes, I have a mental problem!”

 

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from The School
by Donald Barthelme

One day, we had a discussion in class. The children asked me, where did they go? The trees, the salamander, the tropical fish, Edgar, the poppas and mommas, Matthew and Tony, where did they go? And I said, I don’t know, I don’t know. And they said, who knows? and I said, nobody knows. And they said, is death that which gives meaning to life? And I said no, life is that which gives meaning to life. Then they said, but isn’t death, considered as a fundamental datum, the means by which the taken-for-granted mundanity of the everyday may be transcended in the direction of –
    I said, yes, maybe.
    They said, we don’t like it.
    I said, that’s sound.
    They said, it’s a bloody shame!
    I said, it is.
    They said, will you make love now with Helen (our teaching assistant) so that we can see how it is done? We know you like Helen.
    I do like Helen but I said that I would not.
    We’ve heard so much about it, they said, but we’ve never seen it.
    I said I would be fired and that it was never, or almost never, done as a demonstration. Helen looked out the window.
    They said, please, please make love with Helen, we require an assertion of value, we are frightened.

I said that they shouldn’t be frightened (although I am often frightened) and that there was value everywhere. Helen came and embraced me. I kissed her a few times on the brow. We held each other. The children were excited. Then there was a knock on the door, I opened the door, and the new gerbil walked in. The children cheered wildly.

 

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No door to balcony

 

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It’s been sixteen years since Goatwhore reared its menacing head from the swamplands of New Orleans, Louisiana — a city rife with urban tales of voodoo curses, witchcraft and hauntings by souls of the damned. Spawned by former Acid Bath/Crowbar guitarist Sammy Duet in 1997, their winding legacy follows a dramatic, at times traumatic, sequence of personnel changes, fatal injuries, paranormal activity, natural disasters, and a collection of other misadventures large and small. They say what doesn’t kill you… whether driven by an unwavering commitment to their craft, pure insanity, the divine powers of Satan or perhaps a combination of the three, Goatwhore forever perseveres, inadvertently establishing themselves as one the most consistently punishing live bands of the 21st century.

 

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16 artists’ “doors”


Rachel Whiteread


Alicja Kwade


Michelangelo Pistoletto


Jim Hodges


Gunilla Klingberg


Gerhard Richter


Robert Gober


Tom Burr


Matthew Brannon


Robert Motherwell


Gary Hume


Peter Blake


Ivan Navarro


Valentin Hertweck


Elmgreen & Dragset


Kader Attia

 

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Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door music that has been extended to play for half an hour.

 

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Door Jam Cuffs are great for stand-up sex. The quickest set-up ever! No installation! Will not leave any marks on doors! Place straps over the door, then close firmly. Opens the door to your fantasies. Great for travel to hotels and no-tell motels. Comes with one pair of cuffs and 2 door jam straps. Sports Cuffs are comfortable, adjustable, and sturdy. Fits almost any door. Easy on, easy off Velcro closures. Door Jam Cuffs Set is a registered trademark for Sportsheets. Keeping couples connected.

 

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Creaking door sound effects

 

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“Then Tex told me to go back into the house and write something on the door in one of the victim’s blood,” said Susan Atkins. He said, ‘Write something that would shock the world.’ And I got the towel with Sharon Tate’s blood, walked over to the door and with the towel I wrote pig on the door.”

 

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Secretive doors

 

 

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p.s. Hey. ** _Black_Acrylic, Hi, B. I’ve actually seen ‘A Short Film About Killing’, and I agree, it’s very good. And if one’s a Krzysztof Kieślowski fan, like me, it’s really interesting to see his handiwork in there. Thanks. ** Misanthrope, Those ‘Them’ shows were the last time I was there. Walking in NYC is so much better than subway-ing. Never been a fan of that particular underground transport. Ha. Sadly, I think I’ll be wearing what I always wear, rain or shine ** Dominik, Hi!!! Will do on the haunt sharesies. Oh gosh, you have to decorate for Halloween! Well, you don’t have to, but it sure would make your October better. Well, I guess that wouldn’t guarantee to make your October better but it couldn’t hurt? Well, I guess it could hurt since anything is possible. Still, do it and describe it. Please. The next time I bump into the CEO of BJD I’ll pretend I’m love and get that Vienna outlet open ASAP. Love gargling salt water just for fun, G. ** Jay, Thank you, Jay. That’s really rewarding to hear. I’m pink cheeked. Miike hits that spot, for sure. I’m glad you were charmed by the Dickie stuff. When I was kid/teen, we only had Super8 to work with, and, boy, that was a limiting little camera. Good day to you! ** Steve, The last thing I found by him was that 2020 film. I think he’s doing a lot of behind-the-scene work nowadays. We fly into NYC on Tuesday. I hope the anxiety has continued to make itself scarce. At least the Lower East Side can’t be as decimated as it was back in the 80s when death in some form or other seemed to be lurking behind every corner. ** Måns BT, Hey there, Måns! Me too re: the particular rush that work and work of its kind brings. You’re no longer a Bresson virgin! Fantastic! So much greatness ahead for you. Thank you about ‘Ugly Man’. I’m going through it right now looking for things to maybe read, and it’s an odd book, that one. I really like ‘A Crack-Up at the Race Riots’. I wish Korine had written or would write more fiction-type things. My week has mostly been getting ready for my lengthy upcoming trip and, as usual, trying to move the film forward. Someone is working on the SFX now, and that’s basically the final step in getting the film completely finished, so that’s very good. It’s been raining and raining here, although not at the moment, which is good, but I have a lot of walking I have to do today. Do you have any predetermined excitement in store for you this weekend? xoxo, a guy who’s not sure what side his bread is buttered on. ** Uday, I’ll bet. That it was wonderful, I mean. I wonder if she/they will come here. I wonder if they already have. I wonder if I’ll be here if they do. What are your Halloween possibilities? Are there things that aren’t just theme parties and gothy club nights? I don’t do costumes, or not since I was a young teen. I just look at costumes. I will spend my Halloween, meaning the weeks/days leading up to Halloween, going to haunted houses ion Los Angeles. That’s what I always do. On Halloween itself, I’ll be flying back to Paris, so I’ll spend it sitting on a plane and watching shitty movies. Yours will be better no matter what you do. ** HaRpEr, I would have guessed your day was hectic, but that sounds even more hectic than I imagined. Or I guess more laborious than hectic. I only eat food made/heated in a microwave, so I think you’ll be okay. ‘A three dimensional poem’, huh. What are you thinking of doing formally? Right, that famous pictured Bowie outfit. Yeah, I mean then you just have slick your hair back and do that makeup and plaster a runway model look on your face? ** Justin D, Hi, Justin. My pleasure on the Dickie front. It’s hard to find someone right now who isn’t talking about ‘The Substance’. I know that’s supposed to make me more intrigued to see it, but it just makes me want to watch anything else. My Thursday was okay. I saw some very good visiting friends, Alex and Adem, and otherwise just figured stuff out for my trip and the film screening and stuff. It was okay. Rained a lot. Did Friday work its legendary magical powers on you? ** Malik, Hey! I do have a small stack of Switch games I want to get to since I haven’t used the system in a few years now. I still haven’t dipped into the last ‘Zelda’ or ‘Pikmin’ even. I’ll see what I can find of ‘Sly Cooper’, thanks. Completely with you on the issues with festival anointed and, consequently, buzzy films. I’m so tired of films with overdressed, overworked surfaces and pro-forma edgy interiors that think functional dialogue is totally acceptable as long as the actors speak it with a trending kind of ‘tude. Or something. What’s there to lose, exactly. And the gain could be a lot more than just your own. ** Lucas, Hey! No, most of the principles I ended up using evolved over a long period of time and after a lot of experiments. I mean, I decided to write what would end up being the Cycle when I was fifteen, and I didn’t actually start writing until I was in my thirties, so it took a long time to figure out. I don’t really remember my first ideas. I’m sure they were wildly overreaching. Going into a work with only a vague idea can work just as well as heavily thinking something out. I mean, a lot of the time you don’t end up doing exactly what you wanted/planned to do because your actual talent gets in the way, so just letting an idea unfold as you’re doing the work can be the best way into a great idea, I think. Good, I’m glad you’re sorted mentally and emotionally about the possible visit. I’m okay, just getting myself ready for the travel and events and sneaking in some hanging out time with pals. Friday? How was yours? ** Right. I challenged myself to see if I could do a whole post about doors, and I guess I managed to make one, and now you are either its victims or its poor innocent bystanders or its bemused recipients. See you tomorrow.

13 Comments

  1. Dominik

    Hi!!

    Last year, I found this skeleton couple in a store – they were pretty big, at least 50–60 cm tall, and very loose jointed and well posable. For unknown reasons (no, okay, it was only a few months after we’d moved, and I was worried about money), I didn’t buy them, but if I run into them this time around, I’ll rectify that horrid mistake.

    Well, why not, right? They say it’s good to gargle salt water if you have a sore throat. It literally never worked for me, haha. Love hiding a secret door in your apartment, which always leads to wherever you want to go, Od.

  2. _Black_Acrylic

    Back in the 90s YBA heyday, those Gary Hume doorway paintings were some of my favourites. I remember being at Leeds Art College and having a copy of the Sensation catalogue that I would pore over every day. Art was where the glamour was in them days!

  3. Misanthrope

    Dennis, I knew you’d throw Morrison in there, and I knew it wouldn’t be pretty, hahaha. But I’m glad he’s there, meandering and all.

    That was the next to last time I was in NYC. We went up for Christmas later that year. A couple coworkers went with us. We had a good time.

    Well, your organic clothes are part of your look, your signature. Me, I’m just gonna be in my T-shirt, jeans, and Doc Martens. I prefer walking too. I’d probably only take the subway if it’s raining.

    Have a good weekend. I intend to. I have to get some clothes for the wedding next Saturday, which will also double as my wardrobe for a funeral the next weekend. A good friend of mine in Delaware died earlier this week, and her family asked me to come to the funeral. When I lived in Delaware with that horrible ex, she and I became close, fast friends.

  4. Jay

    Hey Dennis! I really, really, really love these high concept posts you do, they’re always great to wake up to – I think the first thing I saw on your blog may’ve been one on beds, or artworks about beds, so that may be why I have a taste for this kind of thing. One of my all time favourite paintings is actually of a door, so this seems like as good a time as any to share it. It’s from this whole series this artist made, called Diemos, all about animals invading everyday spaces, empty spaces, that sorta thing.

    My day’s been pretty good today, I haven’t really done much. I ended up not really being able to get relaxed enough to sleep, so I’m feeling pretty exhausted, but it’s a nice kind of end-of-the-week tired, where I can kind of give myself permission to fall asleep in front of the TV, or something. Oh, also, my friend just inherited a vinyl player, which came with a few LPs I’ve always really wanted to hear – Pink Moon, SawII by Aphex Twin, and Haunted by Poe – so, I’m really really looking forward to hearing those.

    Oh, I’m also getting some really interesting thoughts from my friend/acquaintance Horatio, who’s working his way through your books at the moment. It’s sort of incredible to hear him talk about your stuff, he’s far far more articulate than me, and he’s near the end of Frisk now. It’s really great, I’ve sort of managed to catch him in the month of his life where he’s reading the Cycle for the first time, it really does feel like seeing a double rainbow, or ball lightning or something. Anyway, he’s great.

    Also, RE: the Super 8 stuff, I remember making this like, comically ghoulish film with my sister when we were both about 10, that was like, meant to be a funerary tribute to me, with a lot of slow sad music and videos of me smiling in black-and-white slow motion. I’m pretty sure we made it on a Nintendo, or something, so the quality’s terrible. Anyway, I’m glad stuff with the film is getting better. Telepathically sending you my good mood for everything stressful going on at the moment, see you!

  5. Tyler Ookami

    I clicked on that Botulistum link just to hear what it was and ended up listening to the entire EP. It sounds like the soundtrack to a particularly manic Halloween-themed cartoon film.

    I don’t know if I’ll dress up for Halloween, any time I’ve gone to a Halloween thing in adulthood, I just kind of just lazily affix cat ears to my head. I’ve thought about going as Dr. West from Reanimator, so I can still wear my classes in costume without it looking weird. Him or maybe Garth Marenghi, this character that the comedian Matthew Holness plays who’s like this massively egotistical pulp writer.

    I realize that I’ve left very marginally different comments a few times because I don’t remember that it doesn’t immediately go through. Sorry about that!

  6. Minks

    The 1st thing that comes to mind about doors is ” Neverwhere
    Novel by Neil Gaiman.
    It’s main character is a woman called “Door” . And for a good reason.

    The BBC series was amazing.

  7. Diesel Clementine

    Test

  8. Diesel Clementine

    Test?

  9. diesel clementine

    https://ctxt.io/2/AAC4trBXEQ

  10. Lucas

    hi! right, it makes more sense that those ideas for the cycle developed over time. yeah, going in with a vague idea still works for me, and it’s good, but I’m finding out that I also like thinking stuff out. like with everything else, it’s about finding the right balance. my day was ok: sort of tedious, as fridays usually are for me because I have therapy almost right after class. but both of those things went alright. I spent the evening working on and finishing this poem I started yesterday very very loosely inspired by guyotat’s style (I’m still trudging slowly thru ‘tomb of 500,000 soldiers’ though, need to get back to it). I’m actually pretty happy with the result. would you want to take a peek at it? I actually don’t think I’ve shared any of my poems with you before, hm. there was that zine but idk if you ended up reading it and it’s old ie not good by this point. I might still watch a movie since I haven’t had the time to this week. there’s so much interesting stuff on my list but I’ve been thinking about jean-pierre melville today for some reason. I think it’s because my dad talked to me about his love for crime novels hahah. actually, the only film of his I’ve seen until now is his incredibly early yet fascinating ‘les enfants terribles,’ which is based on the cocteau novel and narrated by him. do you like cocteau? one of my friends is hugely into him, but I’ve only seen ‘orpheus’ and read nothing by him so I don’t have much of an opinion I guess. I do have a general fondness for the surrealists though.

  11. HaRpEr

    The doors of my new place are completely digital. It’s a code you have to type in rather than having a key. I guess I don’t have a key to lose, but if I forget my code and don’t have my phone then it will be a nightmare. My memory is abnormal. I remember random details but I’m TERRIBLE with names, I have to properly know someone to remember their name. To avoid this I end up calling everyone ‘darling’, ‘my dear’, or ‘dude’ if they may react badly to the former.

    I’m installing my bookshelf tomorrow and moving the books in. This means more box moving, and my arms are unfortunately slightly bruised after yesterday’s debacle, which I guessed would have happened. Apparently due to the hormones I’m on my muscle mass (very small anyway) starts atrophying so my arms are kind of sensitive right now anyway.

    With my experimental writing class we all have to write a series of poems, so it’s more of a poetry class than everything. We actually have a lot of freedom, but there’s a dumb thing which the assignment calls for where every poem has to correspond to the subject of a class we had or something. I actually don’t mind it too much, because it’s kind of Queneau-ish, and we do have a lot of freedom in everything else we do.

  12. Uday

    Love your everyday object themed posts. The Morrison sneak was funny, but the horror gifs were my favourites. Been listening to the wonderful Jaimie Branch today after a while. Have you heard her stuff? On second thoughts I might have learnt about her here, my personal Alexandria. I’m performing (as Frank) in a production of Rocky Horror for Halloween, so that should be fun. I might also dress up as Bowie in The Man Who Fell to Earth during the day, just as a way to test out the dyed white streak I’ve been debating. The haunted houses sound fun; will you dedicate a day on here for your visits afterwards? Also we had a hurricane here and my date rescheduled so I have some free time this weekend. Any super obscure reading recommendations from the last century that I’d never come across otherwise? I’ve taken you up on Dambudzo, Kristof, et al. so far.

  13. Oscar 🌀

    Today I have for you a very shaky, very found-footage, very DIY recording of some rugged alpine men, lederhosen and all, perched atop some charming mountaintop and yodelling their hearts out to the tune of ‘heeeeEeeeEeEEEeeEeeEey, DeeeEeEeEeeEeeennis!’

    Sorry for going totally off the grid for like a week — my sleep schedule decided to totally mess itself up and it was overall just pretty yucky. Glad that the…door…is still open after my absence (I worked so, so, so hard on this pun). I kind of love the xylophone door? It’s so funky. And the Gunilla Klingberg one tickled my brain really nicely.

    How’ve you been?? Got anything planned for the weekend?? Sending you big big big vibes as always xx

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