Fiction
(in no order)
Tracy Lynne Oliver MAGICIAN (Roxanne Gay Books)
Sam Max DOUBLE SERPENT (Ugly Duckling Presse)
Scott McClanahan FIGHTS! (Rose Books)
Giada Scodellaro RUINS, CHILD (New Directions)
Missouri Williams THE VIVISECTORS (MCD)
Shane Kowalski ARE PEOPLE OUT THERE (Future Tense Books)
Eric Rohmer ELIZABETH (McNally Editions)
Sam Farhi THE SAPSUCKERS (Spuyten Devil)
Katherine Martin DELETE ME KINDLY (Calamari Archive)
Ronald M. Schernikau SMALLTOWNNOVELLA (Ugly Duckling Presse)
David Markson AFTERWORD – [NAME OF AUTHOR] (Inside the Castle)
George Whitmore NEBRASKA (The Song Cave)
Charlene Elsby POOR DAMNED SOULS (Merigold Independent)
Wayne Koestenbaum MY LOVER, THE RABBI (FSG Originals)
Sarah Cummins YOU ARE CURSED (Organ Bank)
Poetry
(in no order)
Fanny Howe THIS POOR BOOK (Divided Publishing)
Larry Fagin SMASH THE STATE & HAVE A NICE DAY (Cuneiform)
Elise Cowen POEMS & FRAGMENTS (BlazeVox)
Rebecca Gransden & Sean Kilpatrick THE UNDEAD SHERPHERDESS (Pig Roast)
Fernando Pessoa THE COMPLETE WORKS OF RICARDO REIS (New Directions)
Bob Perelman CHATTY FOSSILS (Roof Books)
Leia Penina Wilson CALL THE NECROMANCER (Action Books)
Laurence Wilhelm Lillvik CATHARSIS IS NEVER FULLY SHORN FROM GLEE (Trident Press)
Eileen Myles BIRD WATCHING (Fonograf Editions)
Andrew Brenza ET AL. (Unsolicited Press)
Andrei Codrescu NO DOG (Sacred Parasite)
HARRY NORTHRUP TO ASK FOR LOVE (Cahuenga Press)
Cletus Crow FLYING HIGH (new ritual press)
Nonfiction
(in no order)
David Keenan VOLCANIC TONGUE (White Rabbit)
Ken Jacobs I WALKED INTO MY SHORTCOMINGS (The Visible Press)
Harun Farocki BUILDING AND FILMMAKING (HaFI 24) (Bierke)
Adele Bertei NO NEW YORK: A MEMOIR (Beacon Press)
Renee Gladman THEORY FOR MOVING HOUSES (Wave Books)
A.S. Hamrah END TIMES CINEMA (Semiotext(e))
Rebecca Kosick DISPATCHES FROM THE AVANT-GARAGE (Wayne State University Press)
Andrew Durbin THE WONDERFUL WORLD THAT ALMOST WAS: THE LIFE OF PETER HUJAR AND PAUL THEK (Farrar, Straus & Giroux)
Christine Burgin & Andrew Lampert, eds. JACKIE GLEASON: LIBRARY OF THE PARANORMAL (Further Reading)
Lynne Tillman PAYING ATTENTION (David Zwirner Books)
Music
(in no order)
My New Band Believe SELF-TITLED (Rough Trade)
Sunn0))) SELF-TITLED (SubPop)
Guided by Voices CRAWLSPACE OF THE PANTHEON (Rockathon)
Russell Haswell LET IT GO (Editions Mego)
KINACT KINSHASA IN ACTION (Nyege Nyege Tapes)
ezcodylee STUNT 4 LIFE (moneynotbuying)
Bill Orcutt MUSIC IN CONTINUOUS MOTION (Palilalia)
Shane Parish AUTECHRE GUITAR (Palilalia)
Mandy, Indiana URGH (Sacred Bones)
Huggy Bear BASIC STRATEGIES FOR GOING OUT (Jabs)
EDU & Judgitzu NUKU (Nyege Nyege Tapes)
Isabel Pine FABLES (Kranky)
Film
(in no order)
James Benning EIGHT BRIDGES
Diego Marcon DOLLE
Lucretia Martel OUR LAND
Paul Pfeiffer CARYATID (MARTIN ‘THE GHOST’)
Sharon Lockhart WINDWARD
Louise Weard CASTRATION MOVIE ANTHOLOGY III: YEAR OF THE HYAENA
Brydie O’Connor BARBARA FOREVER
Kane Parsons BACKROOMS
Art
(in no order)
Lutz Bacher BURNING THE DAYS (WIELS, Brussels)
Fujiko Nakaya CLOUD #07156 (Pinault Collection, Paris)
Henry Taylor WHERE THOUGHTS PROVOKE (Musée Picasso, Paris)
CATHY DE MONCHAUX (Palais de Tokyo, Paris)
Evan Holloway ROYGBIV (David Kordansky Gallery, Los Angeles)
Yuji Agematsu MARSEILLE 1994 (Galerie Buchholz, Berlin)
Vincent Fecteau TWO SCULPTURES (Galerie Buchholz, Koln)
Walter de Maria THE SINGULAR EXPERIENCE (Le Bourget/Gagosian, Paris)
Luc Delahaye LE BRUIT DU MONDE (Jeu de Paume, Paris)
Derek McCormack THE SHITHOLE OPRY COLLECTOR’S GUIDE (Cushion Works)
Internet
(in no order)
Zona Motel
SCAB
ASTERISM
The Whitney Review
zlibrary
The Wire
Original Cinemaniac
Arley Sakai
GAMESCENES
Skullcrushing Hummingbird
Internet Archive
VK Video
Radio Not Radio
Solidarity Cinema
otherppl
WAKE ISLAND
Mattazine Society
pixiv
{ feuilleton }
SHABBY DOLL HOUSE
The World of Tosh Berman
espresso bongo
X-R-A-Y
Art and Trash
Legsville
Rhizome
Theme Park Review
ok.ru
Musique Machine
ANGUSRAZE
PEPPERLAND SPICERACK
Volume 1 Brooklyn
Experimental Cinema
The Los Angeles Review of Books
3:AM Magazine
largehearted boy
pantaloons
Locus Solus: The New York School of Poets
giphy
The Wonderful World of Tam Tam Books
Hobart
Ubuweb
*
p.s. Hey. So, today seems to be the day I throw up my annual favorites of the year so far. As always, I’m probably forgetting things. And as always, there are things that are already released that could’ve ended up on those lists if I’d gotten to them in time. And again as always, I’d love to read your mid-year 2026 favorites in return, if you feel so inclined. ** jay, Hey. Oh, you know Makino’s work already, how cool. That’s a thought: faking my death, but I doubt it’s worth sacrificing the blog and films and whatever else I have left in me as I think it would be pretty hard to sell all that stiff as post-humous. No, I’ve always wanted to be immortal, so I never daydream about my demise, which, as illogical as this sounds, seems implausible to me. Is that something you contemplate? If there’s the potential for loveliness in my weekend, I’ll seek it, promise. Ditto? ** _Black_Acrylic, I think at least one thing we can all agree to is that Hockney was a snappy dresser. ** Adem Berbic, Granted, I know next to squat about what a meditative state is like, but an acid trip seems like it would be the exact opposite? One week, whoa. Well, it’s on a Saturday, and punters become legendarily event-seeking around that time. So that’s promising. For me editing brain is kind of a total stranger to writing brain. I can’t think of an example of a piece of admirable writing that employs the word penis unless it involves a mediocre translation from another language. ** Cleo, Hi, Cleo. I don’t feel like I’ve followed Clavicular’s thing closely enough to have thought anything all that interesting about it. It’s certainly a fascinating phenom. And it is rather inexplicable why I haven’t put my mind to him. I have friends who speak very interestingly about him/it. I guess it wouldn’t take too long to catch up on him. I’ll do that. Thank you. Things good with you generally? ** Sam F, Interesting how that works, right? Abstraction triggering narrative. Me too. I guess that’s one of the reason I love experimental film so much. It gives your imagination so much more room to breathe than watching a pre-existing narrative. Or something. Wonderful weekend to you too! ** HaRpEr //, I thought about it, and, yes, the Parker/Lutz convergence makes more and more sense. I wonder what she would say to that? I don’t know those Copis. Or I don’t think so. Huh, crazy sentences, I suspect I’ll be so there. ** Steeqhen, I miss the days when I was as obsessed with a TV show as you are with Dr. Who. I don’t think that’s happened to me since ‘Buffy’. ** laura w, Hi. I like all of Nick Drake’s stuff but ‘Pink Moon’ is still easily my favorite. Awesome about the crochet project. What are you going to do with it? ‘Rings of Saturn’ is pretty great. I’ll be curious to see if your guess pays off. ** Uday, Of course I like the shirt. I’m pretty sure if my laptop screen was reflective I would have seen myself blushing. Based on the photos I saw, Xing Xing looks pretty complicated or something. Almost kind of scarily so? My mom’s nickname for me when I was a kid was ‘Pumpkin Head’. I don’t think it was a compliment. Enjoy the traveling. I’ve never been there so it’s exciting to try imagining. ** nat, I started the p.s. a little late today, so you made it. Living in France and needing to read English language things, I read, like, 80% percent more pdfs than physical books. You get used to it. Derek/Calamari deserve all the bucks that are extant. I’d say try the mix and match approach. I’ve done that and it was the mystery solving key at times. And if it’s a bad move, dismantling the experiment can be instructive too. Can’t lose maybe. Well, I guess the faves lists are at least tangentially related to escorts, i.e. pay for pleasure, etc. See you once this coming Sunday is historic. ** Right. You know what’s store for you this weekend, so I’ll just say the usual see you on Monday.
Now available in North America 
Most definitely I do need to get myself a copy of Rebecca Gransden and Sean Kilpatrick -The Undead Shepherdess, so thank you for the reminder.
My personal lists are as follows:
BOOK
Peter Sotos – Instead Indices (Nine Banded Books) = A monumental tome and not cheap, but very much worth it thus far.
MUSIC
Dopplereffekt – Metasymmetry (Tresor) = Here making their Tresor debut, all the Electro particles fitting seamlessly into place,
Noda & Wolfers – Avant Garde Rhythm Box (Under The Radar) = Japanese Dub royalty Takafumi Noda aka Mystica Tribe goes another round with Legowelt.
FILM
Milk & Serial (Curry Barker)
Backrooms (Kane Parsons) = This new social media horror renaissance is a real thing, so we’d better just deal with it.
Sad to see “too scared to tell my mom” off the list. Hope you’re well, Dennis.
I think they’re actually pretty similar, all the ‘quietening your mind’ stuff around meditation is just a marketing ploy that tries to make it sound like Valium. Both make you more lucid. Stripping away received images of things and learned associations. LSD dumps all that on you off jump, with meditation I suppose you have to work at it.
Sometimes I think about Bataille’s slogan for one of his kooky journals, ‘man must escape his head as a convict escapes his cell.’ But I guess my specific interest there is in the tension of making that attempt even as it’s doomed to fail.
True point. One of the gambits was making the lineup part-writers and part-techno people, which might help turnout. I want Marco and Josh’s mixes to be framed as work in itself and not just accompaniments for chit-chatting. I think a lot about how writing and music take action differently, and how that ties into whether writing is uniquely solitary because it’s so mental, and how that ties into the stories themselves (the ‘trapped in words’ stuff and not having a narrative and whatever). So the hope is that the structure throws up something interesting, albeit very, very implicitly. Or maybe it’ll just be a really odd jumble of people and a really odd vibe.
Hm, if penis is out, do you have a preferred synonym? I always thought that cock had a special power and should be used carefully. Unless you wanna get esoteric and include stuff like love rocket.
Okay, whoa now, big culture. I think I’ve been culture-light so far this year. Or culture-solipsistic. Between the edit and the launch, maybe. Plus my usual weirdness around new work. Come the 21st, I’m gonna gobble down every last little morsel of creativity upstairs. Mark my words.
been looking forward to this!! so many books i need to get to.
my list, which is very light on 2026 releases:
books
mira corpora by jeff jackson
the notebook trilogy by agota kristof
the blind owl by sadeq hedayat
the pilgrimage by john broderick
yesterday by agota kristof
my lover, the rabbi by wayne koestenbaum
skylark by dezso kosztolanyi
forever valley by marie redonnet
rose mellie rose by marie redonnet
dark rides by derek mccormack
music- the here me out section
songs of leonard cohen- leonard cohen
69 love songs- the magentic fields
the great divide- noah kahan
individual songs subsection
black eyed dog- nick drake
atlantic city- bruce springsteen
division day- elliott smith
center of the universe- built to spill
ghost rider- suicide
film
i have seen one movie this year and that is lancelot du lac
the bell bag is for my dice (i play dnd despite not being much for fantasy). i’m very chuffed with how it turned out. i don’t really make fanart but animal crossing is such a dear series to me that i needed to. hope your weekend was amazing and hope it was as lazy/productive as you wanted it to be!!
Dennnis the Voracious: Very good to see Cletus Crow and Rebecca Gransden on your list . Rebecca’s previous Figures in a Field Walking Toward the Group (or whatever that long title is) is a fave of mine. Along with 2-3 others by her. I still need to obtain Tracy Lynn Oliver’s Magician. Lily and Ash got married (again) on Thursday. I “walked them down the aisle.” They are “husband and husband.” Flashbacks of sorts to your wedding with Chris L (!!!) “These are the good times.” When do u go see Chic/Nile Rogers ? luv uuu Jack
Very interesting lists there as always. I can’t return the offering, because I don’t keep up. All the art I’ve enjoyed this year came either from the past or obscurity or both. Tell me more about the Ken Jacobs book though. Is it mostly lectures, or interviews or…?
Read a lovely long piece about Pierre Verger the other day that yielded some new insight into the man. Do you know Verger? Brilliant photographer of course, but also for me the foremost Yoruba scholar that the West has produced. Precisely because he “went native”, meaning not only immersed himself in the tradition but actually joined it as an active practitioner. Which lost him the respect of his academic peers, whose idea of detachment in scholarship is really a mask for a kind of intellectual colonialism. But just ask folks in West Africa & Brazil: for them Verger is practically a folk hero, due to the immense respect he had for their culture & the work he did to promote it.
So he’s obviously been one of my heroes for a while, but I learned something new about him in the piece. At 30 he lost most of his family, which came as a shock. By then he was already deeply alienated from his bourgeois upbringing, but it seems these deaths were the final nail in the coffin for him. He then made three resolutions: 1. to travel the world, 2. become a photographer, & 3. kill himself at 40. Well, because he succeeded at 1 & 2 in his 30s, by the time he turned 40 he dropped no. 3. Which is obviously beautifully life-affirming, but it hit me especially deep, given the soulmate relationship I have to Verger & the fact that I’ve had more than one brush with the death drive myself in the past. Traveling the world & especially dealing with indigenous deep cultures basically saved his life. And it was the same with me, minus the travel & first-hand encounters he had, alas, but just the discovery of these deep cultures’ poetries & teachings was enough to give myself the soul-scrubbing I desperately needed.
And that in turn reminded me of Anthony Bourdain, who sadly did not make it out of the hole, despite all his travels & rich experiences. His food & travel show was a regular comfort watch for me & my ex. In terms of character & mental make-up he always felt like one of us, who was somehow given the means & the budget to report from all over the world. His suicide was incomprehensible. And yet, reflecting on all this (which I hope is halfway coherent), I can’t shake the feeling that he missed out on the essential spark, the one that might’ve saved his life if I may be so brazen as to project that. It would take at least an hour’s worth of rambling to try to explain what I mean by the spark, but Verger obviously found it, & so, I think, did I. There’s both kinds in my family’s past & present, plus among friends, so this subject is a haunting ground for me.
Fascinating list of books, and I’m happy that you listed some books I want to read so far this year. There is one album (a new one) that I liked as well: My New Band Believed. Books are getting better and better for me. My current rediscovery is John Le Carré. This may be a turn-off for some, but Le Carré is the Marcel Proust of spy novels. And even calling his work “spy novels,” or thrillers, I think, is wrong. He’s a great writer on loneliness, betrayal, and alienation. Great list of “art” in all categories, Dennis. Thanks!
Clavicular seems trapped in a cycle where he’s become famous for crashing out in public – to the point of passing out from an overdose while livestreaming – and getting arrested. The media has done as much as he has to make him a celebrity, all the while pretending to hold their noses: “he represents something horrible, so let’s make a three-hour podcast about every detail of it.” (I watched one of them, so I’m part of this too.)
Did you do anything this weekend? Tonight, I’m seeing a friend do a solo music performance, with films projected behind him. The heat is easing up.
Thanks for the “Radio Not Radio” link. My latest episode is out now: https://www.mixcloud.com/callinamagician/6132026-radio-not-radio/. This one features DNA, Cocanha, Louise Huebner, Rump State, Ian Dury, Horse Lords, Tierra Whack, Sha Ray X DJ Haram, Suicidas, Downtown Boys, Flesh Eaters, Trim, Myaap, La Rvlfeuze, Genesis Owusu, Man, Eddy Current Suppression Ring, Kaya Conky/Ari Falçao/Christopher Luz/GP DA ZL, Bruk Rogers, DJ Screw, Abstract Tribe Unique, Ana Luia Caiano, Mark Jenkin, Ydrus, and Jeff Parker ETA IVTet.
These are my 20 favorite albums of 2026 so far:
1. Bill Orcutt & Mabe Fratti, Almost Waking
2. Slift, Fantasia
3. Kacey Musgraves, Middle of Nowhere
4. My New Band Believe, s/t
5. Deafkids, Cicatrizes Do Futuro
6. Olivia Rodrigo, You Seem Pretty Sad For A Girl In Love
7. Boards Of Canada, Inferno
8. Harriet Tubman & Georgia Anne Muldrow, Electrical Field of Love
9. Vic Bang, Oda
10. Cocanha, Flame Folclore
Runners-up:
1. Tomeka Reid, dance! skip! Hop!
2. Soft Cou, Erode
3. Isaiah Rashad, It’s Been Awful
4. Alabaster De Plume, Dear Children of Our Children: I Knew: Epilogue
5. Xaviersobased, Xavier
6. Andrew Sa, American Rough
7. Kehlani, s/t
8. Cinder Well, A Blooming Body
9. Genesis Owusu, Redstar Wu & The Worldwide Scourge
10. Myaap, Pixie Dust
I’m envious you’ve already been able to see CASTRATION MOVIE III.
Thank you putting Zona Motel on the list! I’m one of the dispatch editors. Your interview with Oscar was great. It was nice meeting you in New York for your movie with Zac, and thank you for signing a million books for me.
Dear Dennis, I’m tickled pink –thank you!
Hi, Dennis!! How are things? I hope the heat is not too unbearable. Did you get a chance to contact Xcèntric? I hope that works somehow. Thanks for your good wishes, my friend. These past days have been hectic with my mom. We don’t have a diagnosis yet. She needs to get more tests done. I’m doing paperwork to get help and I’m visiting her as much as I can.
I love this list, no surprise. Thank you! I haven’t read much lately because of too much work, so I’ll get ideas from here. I had no idea about ‘Magician’. I definitely want to read it- I just found out Tracy Lynne Oliver is xtx. That’s so cool! I’d like to check out ‘Fights’ too. I’m going to see ‘Backrooms’ today, can’t wait! On the music front, Primavera was fun. I missed Yousuke Yukimatsu and Agriculture, but I saw Water From Your Eyes, Lambrini Girls, MBV, Kneecap… And I loved Femtanyl. Also, I saw Pharmakon live last month and it was an amazing experience. I’m really looking forward to the new Boy Harsher. Oh, Jenny Hval played in Barcelona too. That was cool. I like her new album.
Love and hugs from me and Xet,
Lots of intriguing items on your list, Dennis. I’m definitely planning to check out the books by Andrew Durbin, Adele Bertei, and David Keenan. I did enjoy the new Renee Gladman. Didn’t know there’s a new Charlene Elsby, will look into it as well.
I’m busy getting ready for a little gig tonight (and grumbling about the rain), so this will be quick and sloppy…
Books:
New Juche, Heat Death — Issue 2: Borgo Lapsus
Liadan Ni Chuinn, Every One Still Here
Briar Ripley Page, Lupus in Fabula
Elena Garro, The Week of Colors
Amelie Ravalec, Japan Art Revolution
Katie Kitamura, Audition
Joy Williams, The Pelican Child
Movies (mostly from ’25):
Mother of Files (dir. John Adams, Zelda Adams, Toby Poser)
The Ugly Stepsister (dir. Emilie Blichfeldt)
The Hyperboreans (dir. Cristóbal León, Joaquín Cociña)
Reflections in a Dead Diamond (dir. Hélène Cattet, Bruno Forzani)
OBEX (dir. Albert Birney)
Music (some ’25 items):
Moor Mother, Analog Fluids… (orchestral version)
Denzler/Guionnet/Butler/Johnson, Phase Change
Michael Finnissy, Runnin’ Wild
Live music:
Michel Vorfeld/Ute Wasserman at Tanzhalle Wiesenburg, Berlin
Mission Delirium at El Rio, San Francisco
Perkis/Robair/Djll/Heglin/Louchard at Tom’s Place, Berkeley CA
Jacob Heule/Kevin Corcoron/Arne Nakamura at Dead End Vintage, San Francisco
Bill
Hey, dude, Thanks for the recs! I’ve made a note of Magician, McClanahan, Koestenbaum, and the (newest?) GBV. Don’t know if any of these are too old, but this is what I’ve recently liked/loved:
BOOKS
*The Gunman – Jean-Patrick Manchette
*The Front Seat Passenger – Pascal Garnier
*Mrs. Caliban – Rachel Ingalls
*The Dry Heart – Natalia Ginzburg
*High-Rise – Ballard (had never read before)
*And Jack’s (above’s) cool shiny Acker book, which I previously mentioned
FILMS
*Born Innocent: The Redd Kross Story
*Pavements
*Memoirs of a Murderer
*Sirat
*It Was Just An Accident
*Sentimental Value
*I’m Still Here
(And I keep trying to watch/like/enjoy films by Yorgos Lanthimos, which people seem to like, and friends think I’d love, but I just end up disliking them for reasons I can’t name… Well, I can if I try…. maybe that’s just me?)
MUSIC
*Kurt Vile – Philadelphia’s been good to me
*The Dirtbombs – Ultraglide in Black
*Vivian Girls – Memory
*Idles – …Brutalism
*The Headcoatees – The Sisters of Suave
*Shannon and the Clams – The Moon is in the Wrong Place
Plus, all my usual old school suspects…
As always, thanks for the recs, since I’m always asking you!
Take care, Don
Hey, Dennis! Ah, list day. Cool, you got to see that Castration Movie too. I managed to see an early screening of that. I’ve never been in a room with so many other trans women in my life haha.
Thanks for the Bill Orcutt tip, I’ve been listening all weekend. I’m familiar with Harry Pussy but hadn’t checked his solo work out. I love totalism so it was a great find.
And ah, you’ve read ‘Double Serpent’. It’s been sold out at Asterism since the day it came out. I reckon I’ll have to order it straight from Ugly Duckling.
And so, as a fellow list maker, here are mine. The music was all released this year, but everything else is just what I happen to be indulging in this year and loved. I had to keep music to ten releases because there were just too many.
BOOKS
Antonin Artaud – Watchfiends and Rack Screams
Danielle Chelosky – Female Loneliness Epidemic
Copi – The Queen’s Ball
Charlie Fox – This Young Monster
Kay Gabriel – Perverts
William Gass – The Tunnel
Richard Hell – Godlike
Kevin Killian – Padam Padam: Collected Poems
Wayne Koestenbaum – Circus
Edouard Leve – Suicide
Stacey Levine – Mice 1961
Garielle Lutz – Backwardness
Derek McCormack – Dark Rides
Ed Smith – Punk Rock is Cool For the End of the World: Poems and Notebooks
David Trinidad – The Late Show
MUSIC
drug bug – Hell for a Basement
The Femcels – I Have To Get Hotter
Friko – Something Worth Waiting For
Aldous Harding – Train on the Island
Iceage – For Love of Grace & the Hereafter
The Lemon Twigs – Look For Your Mind!
Lifeguard – Ultra Violence / Appetite
My New Band Believe – My New Band Believe
Kim Petras – Detour
Underscores – U
FILM
Portrait of a Young Girl at the End of the 60s in Brussels (dir. Chantal Akerman)
Actors (dir. Betsey Brown)
Spook House (dir. Cameron Jamie)
Brand Upon the Brain! (dir. Guy Maddin)
Nightshift (dir. Robina Rose)
The Masturbator’s Heart (dir. Michael Salerno)
Afternoons of Solitude (dir. Albert Serra)
T,O,U,C,H,I,N,G (dir. Paul Sharits)
Rehearsals for Retirement (dir. Phil Solomon)
http://www.RachelOrmont.com (dir. Peter Vack)
Castration Movie Chapter iii. Junior Ghosts—Premorphic Drift; a fragmentary passage (dir. Louise Weard)
Hey Dennis. For music, the new Mabe Fratti, as everyone else is saying. Books wise I really liked Ichikawa’s “Hunchback”, which I think was published this year. Backrooms was great too.
No, I don’t really think about my own death very much, but I love practical effects and gore in movies, haha. It feels like a magic trick, to me. I find the idea of witnessing some horrible Final Destination accident happen, then watching a set of talking heads deconstruct how it happened, so amazing. Hope your weekend was lovely.
Dear Dennis: How are you? I’m César! The Argentinian Boy! I don’t know if you still remember me. It’s been a while since I’ve been here. It’s so exciting to see that you’re still active on the blog. And to see that your movie with Zac, “Room Temperature,” is getting a good reception. I hope to be able to watch it on a streaming service soon—maybe one will decide to bring it over here. Congratulations on the movie.
Another thing that makes me happy to see is your end-of-year favorites list featuring an Argentine film! And by Lucrecia Martel, no less. I’d love to hear your thoughts on the film and if you like any of her others (in our country, when someone we love notices something of ours, we say “another crown of glory,” so that applies here).
Another thing: I heard that one of your stories from *Ugly Man* will soon be translated into Spanish here in Latin America, in a collection called *Weird World*. How did that come about? What do you think? I also understand that a new translation of *Closer* is circulating in Spain—how do you feel about that? Are more of your works coming to these parts?
Finally, I’d love to send you a photo once I get my copy of “Weird World,” so if you have an email address where I can send it, I’d be delighted. Only if it’s not a bother, of course.
Sending you a big hug, and I hope to hear from you soon.
P.S.: My favorites this year in books are “Hunchback” by Saou Ichikawa, “Terminal Boredom” by Izumi Suzuki, and “Issues with Authority” by Nadia Bulkin, and in movies, “Obsession” by Curry Barker, ‘Lurker’ by Alex Russell (fascinating), and “Backrooms” too! I’m not really into music right now, so I appreciate having options, but “You Seem Pretty Sad for a Girl So in Love” by Olivia Rodrigo is really good! (especially her song with Robert Smith).
!!! so much to check out! i’m still catching up from the first three or four months of doing nothing but staring at my thesis, so this list is tentative. (i’ve not quite got onto the Missouri Williams hype, tho nearly all the lit people i follow have it — i thought THE VIVISECTORS was fine…. idk. not sure what i’m missing.)
BOOKS
Antonio Moresco, THE BEGINNINGS
Jennifer Gibbons, DISCOMANIA
Copi, CITY OF RATS
Hélène Cixous, ANGST
Never Angeline Nørth, BLACK HOLE SCIENCE IS FILLED WITH APOLOGIES
Frank Stanford, THE BATTLEFIELD WHERE THE MOON SAYS I LOVE YOU [3rd ed., ed. James McWilliams & A. P. Walton]
Casey Garfield, NEW TIKTOK ACCOUNT (OR, AN ATTEMPT TO EXHAUST A FOR YOU PAGE ON TIKTOK)
Trevor Paglen, HOW TO SEE LIKE A MACHINE: IMAGES AFTER AI
Peter Turner, UNSUITABLE FILM AND VIDEO AUDIENCES: UNDERAGE VIEWING MEMORIES AND PRACTICES IN 1980s UNITED KINGDOM
Peter D. McDonald, THE IMPOSSIBLE REVERSAL: A HISTORY OF HOW WE PLAY
[+ republications of William H. Gass, THE TUNNEL, and Derek McCormack, DARK RIDES
what promise to be some absolute gems are only being published in the second half of the year though, so watch this space]
MUSIC
Mary Lattimore & Julianna Barwick, TRAGIC MAGIC
Rafael Anton Irisarri, POINTS OF INACCESSIBILITY
Annahstasia, LIVE AT GLASSHAUS
Oneohtrix Point Never, TRANQUILIZER
أحمد [Ahmed], PLAY MONK
Spirit Level, SPIRIT LEVEL
Leila Bordreuil & Kali Malone, MUSIC FOR INTERSECTING PLANES
Laurence Pike, POSSIBLE UTOPIAS FOR JAZZ QUINTET
Pan American, FLY THE OCEAN IN A SILVER PLANE
ディープシティエクスポージャー [Deepcity Exposure], ハイパーライトパラダイス
YHWH Nailgun, MAGAZINE
K Wata, GIVE YOU SPACE
Ichiko Aoba, 15th ANNIVERSARY CONCERT
Erik Hall, SOLO THREE
desert sand feels warm at night, FORESTI TRAXXENDENTI
t e l e p a t h テレパシー能力者, 静かなのにすべてを貫く愛
[but i think KINSHASA IN ACTION is my favourite so far this year]
FILMS
i have only managed to see two new feature films this year: THE DRAMA and THE SHEEP DETECTIVES. THE SHEEP DETECTIVES was the better of the two. neither belong here.
shorts online however:
THE RED SHOES: A DESKTOP FAIRY TALE [dir. Veronika Hanakova]
I LOOKED OUTSIDE AND SAW US ALL [dir. Jelle Wernik, Gradiva Verdeil Novara, Lisa Wagemakers, Anna Lou Valentini]
REBELOTE [dir. Skander Mestiri]
THE LONGEST NIGHT [dir. Phuong Thao Nguyen]
MODERN ROSE, HUANCOR, PAKATNAMU PREMONITION, THREE SHORT FORMS [dir. Louidgi Beltrame]
ART
WAYNE THIEBAUD: AMERICAN STILL LIFE @ Courtauld Gallery, London
YIN XIUZHEN: HEART TO HEART @ Hayward Gallery, London
CHIHARU SHIOTA: THREADS OF LIFE @ Hayward Gallery, London
BEATRIZ GONZÁLEZ @ Barbican Centre, London
TUDOR CONTEMPORARY @ Heong Gallery, Cambridge
TRACEY EMIN: A SECOND LIFE @ Tate Modern, London
WEBSITES
https://unityroom.com/games/ghost_photo_sorting
https://www.gamesthatwerent.com/
https://burialmagazine.neocities.org/
https://deathkitcom.wordpress.com/
https://archivewalkers.neocities.org/
https://zinelibrary.org/
https://www.thedriftmag.com/
https://notreconciled.substack.com/
https://blakebutler.substack.com/
https://avmarraccini.substack.com/
https://cchelmetgirl.substack.com/
Hey Dennis, long time no talk! I have been extremely busy with med school. 3rd year is basically the busiest things get until residency. Hope you’ve been well the past few months! Haven’t read or listened to music as much as I usually do so far this year, but thought I’d drop a list anyway.
Favorite books I’ve read in 2026 (none of them actually came out this year because I’m never on top of things like that):
– John Burnside – Black Cat Bone. Burnside has become one of my favorite poets of all time over the past few years.
– John Kennedy Toole – A Confederacy of Dunces. Can’t believe it took me this long to get around to reading this, but I read it for a book club and loved it. Great characters and very New Orleans.
– Anselm Hollo – Sojourner Microcosms. This is a compilation of Hollo’s work spanning a couple of decades. His poetry is incredibly sweet and charming. Big fan of The Going-On Poem, which seems impossible to find online but involves Winnie the Pooh.
– George Eliot – Romola. My new favorite novel of all time. Mindblowingly good. I am in awe of Eliot’s insight and ability to write about human behavior with intense moral clarity and judgment, but without didacticism or prejudice. She writes like God looking down on us. Could go on about this all day.
– David Jones – In Parenthesis. Very unique. Surprised it isn’t more widely read even though it’s sort of a classic, but it is pretty difficult and hard to categorize. The depiction of war is suffocating but intoxicating. Reminded me a lot of the band 1914.
– Daisy Lafarge – Life Without Air. This has been on my to-read list since it came out and I finally acquired it. Rare “ecological” poetry that doesn’t bore me. Lafarge was only like 28 when this was released which makes me think she’s a genius.
– Anna Kavan – Ice. This was my pick for book club and it was definitely too weird and everyone hated it except me, lol. I thought it was fantastic. Intensely visual, carefully structured.
Standout albums I’ve listened to that are ACTUALLY from 2026 (mostly metal):
Scimitar – Scimitarium II
Petrale – Goat at Sunset
Lividus – Scarabaeus
Work Money Death – A Portal to Here
Aggressive Perfector – Come Creeping Fiends
Cruel Force – Haneda
Pig’s Blood – Destroying the Spirit
Archvile King – Aux Heures Desesperees
Dionysiaque – La tourbe des reves
Iron Firmament – In the Land of Pre-Human Kings
I, like some others on here it seems, ordered the new Peter Sotos book, so looking forward to that.
Dear D,
I can’t thank you enough for reading and including my chap. It means a lot to me you read it and enjoyed. Thanks a ton for being a force of beautiful crazy and fun. I’d be a very different person and I can’t imagine what my life would be like if I hadn’t read The Dream Police. Much love!
hey, love your poetry! you also have a p great name, keep serving! ^_^
hi Dennis!
ugh i love your lists. we’ve got a lot of overlap this time and there’s still a bunch that’s new to me, so i’ll def be taking notes <3
alas i’m beyond reciprocal etiquette today as this flareup is a slimy fucking slug (derogatory), but off the top of my severe head and if i don’t puke in the next five minutes, This Is Where The Serpent Lives by Daniyal Mueenuddin is good actually, You Are Cursed by your girl Sarah is great, The Vivisectors fucks but you already know but i had to particularly agree, Tell Me I’m Worthless by Alison Rumfitt is interesting and myopic and the new Nate Lippens should have come out ahead of time just bc i feel i’m gonna like it alright. now… Dagmar Zúñiga’s in filth your mystery is kingdom recently wounded me like i shouldn’t bother making any more music as you know, Charli xcx’s Wuthering Heights actually understands Wuthering Heights & is beautiful, Bladee’s Sulfur Surfer is totally serve & has David Tibet on it, Slayyter’s latest needs no ambassadors & my fav actor’s rhythmic noise project (going by TZAR DOMYNIC & which he updates at extreme random) goes p hard. staying w the guy, i think he wrote it in 2024 but he just released this art short which i liked a lot called Coax which is on YouTube and convinced me that a bit of material structuralism benefits from the surreal, sort of transcendent ending too https://youtu.be/isuWQaYh3k0?is=Ry84VQXzfKv4xZqo
and this is all i can do rn! hope i don’t puke, just realised i’ve been making a bunch of fuckers in my book speak weirded up Classical Spanish when they should be speaking brand new Modern Spanish probably, fml, tomorrow problem, love you!
I’m always too shy to respond on mine for yours but just want to say thanks for all the recs as I travel a bit more. I’ve been around this part of the world a bunch before so I’m not super taken in but I am fond, and I am especially fond of jungle babblers. They’re little birds that squabble all the time. I saw a tiger yesterday and was mildly more interested in the large swarm of babblers right after.
awwww DENNIS! So cool to be back on the list! What a treat! thank you!