* (restored)

—-

Schoolmate: You know if you jump off the high dive platform 
the wrong way you can break your neck and die.
Jonathan Brandis: Really? That’s … that’s .. interesting.

 

 

God’s voice: If you want my advice, you’re going to kill yourself 
when you’re twenty-seven anyway, so go ahead.
Jonathan Brandis: But if I live until I’m twenty-seven, I’ll be even 
more famous and have a lot of fun, right?

 

 

God’s voice: Honestly? You’ll make a bunch of bad movies and star 
in a bad TV series, and by the time you die, no one will 
remember you or care. But if you do it now, there are 
all these girls and boys who will feel really sad, 
and it’ll be a tragic loss.

 

 

Jonathan Brandis: So guess what? God told me I’m going to kill myself 
when I’m twenty-seven. Weird, right?
Dad: There’s no arguing with God, that’s for sure.

 

 

Jonathan Brandis: But if I kill myself now, God says it’ll have a much 
bigger impact on the world.
Dad’s voice: God knows everything, that’s for sure. 

 

 

Jonathan Brandis: So I’m going to put my suicide note on the table 
next to my bed. I mean if you want to read it.
Dad’s voice: I guess I’ll want to read it, yeah.

 

 

Jonathan Brandis: If I don’t do this right, I might just end up 
paralyzed and pathetic.  Can you help me, God?
God’s voice: You being paralyzed is not an uninteresting idea. 
It worked for Christopher Reeve.

 

 

Jonathan Brandis: But I don’t want to be like that. I don’t want to 
inspire hope. I want to make people cry and imagine what a famous 
star and handsome guy I would have grown up to be.
God’s voice: All right, fine, let me think for a second.

 

 

God’s voice: There. That’s Niagara Falls. Now you can jump any way 
you want, and you’ll definitely die. Happy?
Jonathan Brandis: Yeah, very.

 

 

Jonathan Brandis: Look at all those boys and girls down there 
looking up at me and thinking, ‘That’s Jonathan Brandis. He’s my 
favorite actor. Oh my God, he’s going to jump. What’s wrong with 
him? Someone please stop him.’

 

 

God’s voice: Hey, kid, you want him to jump? I can make him jump.
Boy standing by Niagara Falls: Yeah, make him jump.

—-

 

 

*

p.s. Hey. ** Poecilia, Hi, P. Thanks, it was only one insomniac night, thankfully. Those drawings are beautiful! Wow, thank you. Everyone, seriously, escape today’s post and comments long enough to look at two beautiful new drawings by the masterful Poecilia that coincidentally happen to be inspired by Zac Farley’s and my film ‘Permanent Green Light’. Here’s ‘Roman with the Giant Grasshopper’ and this one is called ‘Friend of a Friend’ and it’s supposed to be of Guillaume and Ollie (if you’ve seen the film). Amazing, what a treat. xoxo. ** Adem Berbic, Thanks, my sleep is usually okay, and it was just one stressed out night. My normal wake up time is between 6 am and 6:30 am, so when it’s slightly more lit. ** jay, Your being easily swayed thereby hardly seems unfortunate, at least from over here in the peanut gallery. When I’m writing I always have a thesaurus at the ready, but usually online one these days. Night’s a beauty. Kind of a shame that I”m a morning person, but there’s no arguing with one’s body clock, I guess. May your day be cooler than cool in both senses. ** Sarah Palmer, Hi. Yeah, I used to love curating and probably still would if I had the opportunities here that I had in the States. I daydream about ideal shows I’d curate a lot of the time. There’s a show I’ve been wanting to curate for a long time that I almost got to do here. Gisele Vienne and I co-curated a section of one of the ‘Nouveau Festival’ editions that the Pompidou used to do annually. The aforementioned show was part of it, but, at the last minute, the Pompidou cancelled my show because they said the shipping costs were too high, the bastards. It’s a show of Los Angeles sculptors, concentrating on a group of artists who are in their late 30s and early 40s now, and whose work I’ve known and loved since they were students. Very few of them have ever shown their work in France, and I think people would be blown away by their work if they could see it. But, yes, the shipping costs would be daunting, unfortunately. I’m still thinking about it and hoping an opportunity might someday arise. So true about the major institutions, and the smaller and more adventurous venues have little money to work with. It sucks. Thank you for the link to your dissertation! Sadly my French is very poor, but maybe my pal Zac can read it and give me an overview at least. You work at a contemporary art centre, that’s very exciting. Wow, that’s dreamy to imagine and contemplate. Eva Bester interviewed me on her show about my most recent novel, and she’s wonderful. Oh, I’m just a person who’s voracious in my interest/hunger for exciting things and art, always have been, and the blog gives me a reason to do something practical with my investigations, I guess. Thank you! A punk day sounds like just what the doctor ordered as we say or used to say in the US. You too! ** _Black_Acrylic, I know that scene, and I agree. ** Carsten, Thanks for your understanding, pal. I’m almost always asleep for the vast majority of each night, but I do agree. My ideal writing time is early morning to early afternoon. After that it’s hit and miss. I really can’t imagine the museum caring or even knowing that the book exists, but good to be careful, understood. We’re supposed to finish the deck and send it to the producer today. Hope so. I’m not sure if the investors are into experimental film. Our producer has produced a number of successful, daring indie films, so I think trying to convince them to take a little more of a chance might be the situation with us. ** Alex Osman, Hi, Alex! Come to think of it, all of my dreams, which are always also nightmares, that I ever manage to remember are set during the day. How strange. Big up! ** Alice, Hi, Alice, good to see you. I go to sleep really early, so the night is rather foreign to me, which, of course, makes it interesting to think about. Hugo mentioned about your job loss. I’m so sorry, and what a despicable reason for you to have been let go. Why do scared, stupid people always seem to end up in positions of power. That’s a rhetorical question obviously. Early happy birthday. Yes, ‘RT’ is screening in London on Halloween! It would lovely if you can come. Love from me. ** Laura, Hi! Night’s great, but I almost always sleep through it. That’s a conundrum. Night seems like a 360 degree surround sound movie or something consequently. ‘At Night The States’ is very fantastic, agreed. It’s not really corporate writing, it’s writing for rich people who are hopefully cool. Commitment and writing do need to work in tandem. Find that. Thanks re: my writing in that case. Feel and be upmost, I must insist. ** HaRpEr //, The Gallaghers’ only value to me is that they’re amusing in interviews. I’m hardly alone in that. ‘Art can’t exist in an androgynous space anymore’: that makes absolutely no sense, and anyone who thinks that isn’t worth your anger. Ideally. Blathering halfwit know-it-all know-nothings. Cull your feed? ** laura w, Yes, it’s getting dark at about 5 pm now over here. Not even three weeks ago it wasn’t fully dark at 10 pm. It’s magic. Obviously agree about ‘Four Nights of Dreamer’. Just for that scene with the tour boat alone. Like I think I said, I’ve never listened to an audiobook in my life, and I plan to keep it that way. Like I said above, I don’t think the investors are experimental film people. I think they’re low budget indie film people. So it’s a little scary for us. It’s been different with each film. ‘LCTG’ only cost 40k, and that was easy. ‘PGL’ was funded by a French government grant. With ‘RT’ we had a nightmarish, useless, evil producer so Zac and I had to raise most of the money ourselves by approaching people and asking for donations. It took over four years and was exhausting and embarrassing, but it worked. Never again though. Jacob Elordi’s name is like a mosquito you can’t smash or bat away. ** Uday, Oh, gosh, thanks. I bow to you. ** Bill, ‘Unbreakable’ wasn’t so bad if memory serves, which it may not. Oh, wow, fantastic about your gig! So wish I was there. Break everyone’s legs. Everyone, If by chance you’re in San Francisco or nearby or can afford a last minute flight, it is highly recommenced that you so see the great Bill Hsu perform along with Kevin Corcoran, James Fei, and Jacob Felix Heule at Center for New Music on this coming Saturday aka tomorrow at 7:30 pm. Info and tickets here. My insomnia was a situation-specific thing that happily got tired of fucking with me after a single night. Best of luck with any remaining prep you need to do. ** Thom, You sound exactly like me, or rather like an ideal version of me. We really need to have an in-person coffee and tete-a-tete one of these days. xo. ** Okay. Here’s a rather curious post from a long, long time ago. See you tomorrow.