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p.s. Hey. ** Wolf, Emma, my huggy bear! I think you might really like Eileen’s book. Even me, who thinks dogs are plenty great but am happy to observe them on rare occasion from a distance, felt, upon reading her book, the faults in my stand-offishness. I go to California on the 12th. Next month, dang, so close. Where are you going? Tons o’ love, me. ** David Ehrenstein, Very true and wise words, sir. ** Steve Erickson, Hi. That’s good, of course, but general embraces and attacks are easy to call your own. Let’s see all these converts really think it through and act accordingly. The Godard is ‘Grandeur et décadence d’un petit commerce de cinéma’, which sounds like it must be the film you mentioned. Interesting. It definitely paid off. No, about the Leyland Kirby album. I’ll go snag it, thanks! Do tell about the Dunne/Didion doc. Reviews! Everyone, you get a two-header of reviews to read from Mr. Steve Erickson today. First his review of the documentary ‘Dina’. Second, in Steve’s own words, ‘Here’s my second review for Gay City News this week, on Sean Baker’s excellent THE FLORIDA PROJECT (which is the only new release that seems capable of getting any press alongside BLADE RUNNER 2049)’. Here. I think you should do that post you suggested. Or you could pick the tracks/links you would want in that gig, and I will do the rest happily. ** Sypha, Hi, James. Yes, I know about those Duverts. I didn’t know they’re so short. How excellent! Shortness! Thanks, man. I needed a reminder to order them. Of course, knowing me, I don’t know ‘The Gap Cycle’. I’ll at least go see what it is. Good morning! ** MANCY, Hi, S. I hope there’ll be an opportunity for you to see his recent trilogy of short films. I suspect they’ll end up on a French DVD if not on Vimeo or somewhere. For some reason, I think you might especially dig them. ** Marcus Whale, Hey, Marcus! So nice to see you, man! Eileen’s a swell reader. I’ll be reading with her in a little over a week, and I’ve already requested to be the opening act ‘cos following her is asking for trouble. You good? What’s up? Love, me. ** Dóra Grőber, Hi! Cool, very happy that those books attracted you. Out of the frying pan and into the fire: the programmer from the Sundance Film Festival will be watching/considering our film today at some private theater in Paris. In fact, Zac and I have a meet and greet with him beforehand, and I’m already trying to figure out how to be charming. We won’t know if he/Sundance want the film for a while, and, like I said, I think that festival is a total long shot since they only show around 100 films and they get around 4,500 submissions. Anyway, it’s trippy to finish it yesterday and have it being judged today. I’m already used to the laptop’s clicking. It’s funny, I guess. Oh, cool, about the possible apartment! Gosh, I hope that, if you can live without a garden, it falls into your hands! What’s happening today? I have to finally buy my plane ticket, do the Sundance schmooze, and then have a big meeting about a project that I hope I will be green lit to talk about soon. ** Jeff Coleman, Hi, Jeff! Always a boon to get to see you! ‘Warewolff!!’ is awesome. I think you’ll love it. I’ll go see what ‘Amygdalatropolis’ is. Your description of it makes it sounds like an absolute must, obviously. Wow. Have awn awesome day, pal. ** Jonathan, Hi, J-ster! Thanks, man, it’s cool. I think we’ll save the cakes until a festival accepts it probably. Yeah, so happy about the ‘Eden Eden Eden’ reprint. Cool, cool, on your music front. I’m one of those odd birds who’ve never gotten the LCD Soundsystem love. One of these days, I guess. Oh, no, you got an SNES. Sweet! I still haven’t gotten a Switch. I still haven’t started playing the new Zelda. I’m a loser. Massive love and hugs coming back atcha! ** _Black_Acrylic, Hi. The new Shipley is great! It does seem like a foot fitting into a shoe re: your application. I hope the shoe knows that. Have big fun with your mom. ** Misanthrope, Thanks, G, it feels really good. Oh, man. somehow gets some high calorie zzz’s. You’re a pip to do that school thing for LPS. ** Liquoredgoat, Hi, D. The Myles book is a goodie, a sweetheart, trust me. The Longpre book is highly recommended too. Excellence start to finish. Your book! So soon!!!! Great!!!! Uh, yeah, that would be awesome. I probably won’t get to read it ’til a couple of weeks because I’m soon to head for a conference and maybe vacation, but it will sit on top of everything waiting around me. Big congrats! ** Right. I thought I would make the blog a utilitarian space today and provide some relief to those of you who have been desperately looking for fake meat. See you tomorrow.
Now available in North America 
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Anne Wiazemsky R.I.P.
Jeremy Bentham’s Head
Hi!
Wow. Wow! Fingers extremely crossed for the private screening today!! How was the meet and greet?
So far, it looks like it really might be the apartment for me/us! The lack of a garden will be inconvenient because it means I’ll have to take the dog for a 100 tiny walks a day in addition to our hour-long morning walk but I think I can live with that because otherwise, the whole place is very friendly and cozy-looking. I can see myself inhabiting it.
I got a little sick or I’m starting to get a little sick so I’m just lazing around today, trying to kick it before it becomes something more bothersome.
How was your day? I hope it was lovely! I’m ever so curious about the new mystery project too!!
It might take me a while to put this Day together, but I’d really like to. I’d like to do an introductory paragraph about how while rock’n’roll was invented by African-Americans, it became coded as white by the early ’60s, and the artists I’m linking to challenged that for a brief period in the late ’60s and early ’70s and their music had resonances that lasted beyond that. As far as fusion, I definitely have to include the Tony Williams Lifetime. Also, as Motown loosened up, the Temptations did a lot of music that was influenced by psychedelia in this period, to the point where there’s a 2-CD collection from it called PSYCHEDELIC SOUL. I also thought of A.R. Kane, who were black but not American and played in a proto-shoegaze vein influenced by Talk Talk and the Cocteau Twins. Also, as far as the intersection of hip-hop and psychedelia, I don’t know how Outkast could have slipped my mind. (Outkast rapper Andre Benjamin actually played Hendrix in a recent biopic.) I’m not sure which songs by them I would choose, but I’ll start thinking about this. There’s also Prince’s AROUND THE WORLD IN A DAY, an entire album-length homage to psychedelia by an African-American artist. I will make a list of all these artists and start looking for links.
Hah, was just looking at an article on factory farms before this. Somehow it’s triggering a memory of a very tasty fake BBQ pork bun from years ago.
Been a nutty week, so I still have to look into yesterday’s books. Saw Stephen Beachy reading from his new book last night, also Johnny Ray Huston. A very (ahem) 90s San Francisco event.
Bill
Dennis, well, seeing as the last book of the Gap Cycle is nearly 700 pages long, I’m in the mood for shortness myself these days, ha ha. Donaldson is best known for his fantasy books so many people (even his fan base) never really gave the Gap Cycle much of a chance, which is too bad because I (and Donaldson himself) consider it probably his best work. I don’t think it would be your thing at all but I’m a fan, mainly because I enjoy Donaldson’s writing style, his themes, and his characters. The main character in the series is a smuggler named Angus Thermopyle: he’s a bloated, extremely ugly man who looks like a frog and smells like a swine. He’s essentially a coward, a rapist, and a sadistic murderer. He’s also the main good guy (this is one of the reasons I love Donaldson: his (anti)heroes would be the villains of many other writers). I also like the alien species depicted in the series, the Amnion… they’re very creepy. One fan described the series as “Star Wars goes to Hell,” which is pretty apt IMO… the books are pretty grim and overflowing with madness, sexual violence/rape, sadism, betrayal, existentialism, and body horror. It doesn’t shock me that they didn’t sell all that well back in the day.
Hey Dennis! I mis-posted a p.s. comment a few days ago, i.e. posted one day too late. To re-create it in part, our last communique on this platform or otherwise was re: the reading, and I didn’t write back, which I apologize for ! But, we totally understood.
I booked a train ticket to go up to SF, and I’ll definitely be there Sat/Sun, probably heading back on Monday morning. How long will you be in L.A.? Want to go to a haunted house while you’re here? I went to ‘Dark Harbor’ at the Queen Mary last weekend.
Also filmed out of a helicopter last weekend, improbably…
https://www.instagram.com/p/BZuI2o4D4WO/
Did you see ‘Good Time’? My friend Sean shot it (well, we worked on another movie together, I don’t know if we’re really ‘friends friends’). It was so good. Thought about it a lot when I was in the helicopter, because of that great helicopter shot at the beginning.
I used this tiny mount called a ‘Mini Gyro’ to prop up the camera while I was shooting out the helicopter, and I took it up to Van Nuys to return. Turns out the guy who invented the helicopter mount for cameras lives up there. He built rigs used on Apocalypse Now, the Shining, everything. His wife also works there, steadicam operator from Eyes Wide Shut.
Dennis! How are you? Sorry for my absence but guess what? I got sick again. Man, I’m not going to moan, but enough!
What’s been happening? Is PGL done and dusted? In between lying around moaning and feeling sorry for myself I’ve been hunting and hunting to try and find a way to view Philippe Grandrieux’s Sombre since you featured it the other day. It looks like my favourite film that I’ve not seen yet, but the DVD sells for £150 on average. I sooooo want to see it! It feels important to me.
These fake meats got me thinking about edible fake meats. Do you partake in such things? I used to find the idea a bit daft, but there’s this company selling vegan ‘meats’ in Glasgow atm and their stuff looks nice. I’m tempted.
I’ve been trying to come up with dialogue-free ideas for the animation. It’s Jonathan’s new thing. It’s been interesting and I’m getting somewhere.
What have you been doing? I hope everything’s sweet for you.
May your Friday feel like a permanent massage, if you like massages.
Dunce-cap love,
Jamie
Bill Reed’s Latest Literary Production
Bittersweet day today selling off my personal library to prepare for a big move. What do you think of Seneca’s adage that “a multitude of books distracts”? I’m starting to come around to the idea of keeping as few books around as possible, for both practical and intellectual reasons.
Best of luck with Sundance. It must be a good sign that a programmer is watching your movie in a theater rather than a “screener” (part time film festival curatorial assistant) watching it on a laptop.
Dennis, Fake meat. Why not?
Ah, I don’t know, but thanks. I’d assume that doing the conference thing is just part of the job, no? Besides, I am interested in seeing him not be a fuck-up or a failure, and I’d like to get some feedback from these teachers. Strange that not a one has contacted me yet regarding what a shit show his grades are. Though they probably have tons of students with the same thing and would have to spend all day on the phone and email.
And by not being a fuck-up, I mean the bad kind like his parents and all their friends. I’m trying to impress upon him the fact that none of his friends lets him get in the way of their accomplishing their goals and objectives. They’ll all pass and graduate on time and then go to college or wherever. And I don’t even care if he goes to college or not. I just want him to find his passion and go for it. In the meantime, he’ll need to work somewhere, and not having a HS diploma won’t help him at all. Also, it’s the whole idea of taking care of your own shit because nobody else is gonna do it for you.
Fuck, I’m starting to sound like an adult or something. Somebody slap me.
super congratulations on finishing the new film !! fuck yeah, new DC and Zac on the way !!! i’m so excited
it’s so cool that you’re making movies now. it’s like every so often the idea ‘what if so and so favorite writer made a movie?’ will pass through my brain, and now it’s happened. very cool prospect for me, as a fan. i loved the last film and this new one sounds even better.
i enjoy the replica themed posts that u do on here. if i had endless money to waste i’d buy a ton of them and make a Halloween suit of meat armor.
i’m really in love with that Richard Dawson Peasant album, i was listening to it again this evening and fawning. it’s one of those albums that takes a hard 3 or 4 listens for its teeth to really sink in, but i think it’s brilliant. it’s kind of like a book of short stories because the lyrics are so key. so anyway thanks for introducing that into my life — the way i’m feeling today, that album is one of my favorite things of the year. so scary and heartfelt and imaginative. i really like that iglooghost album u shouted out the other day too.
take care, and so much applause and cheers about the new film !!
Did you know that Danny Brown made a video in which Gus van Sant acts? It will be coming up in the psychedelic hip-hop portion of the day I’m curating. I had some spare time this afternoon and managed to get most of that portion done, actually. Did you listen to the Gravediggaz’ 6 FEET DEEP when it came out in 1994? I listened to their song “Defective Trip” for obvious reasons and was so impressed I listened to 4 more songs and wound up downloading the whole album. When you do a whole album co-produced by the RZA and Prince Paul, you’re in for a treat. It probably does not say anything good about me that I thought a lot of the lyrics were hilarious.
I clogged my toilet by attempting to flush old prescription pills down it yesterday, and now I’m waiting for my super to show up and unclog it at 11:30. I’m really lucky he is willing to show up so late.
The third paragraph of this review of Robin Campillo’s BPM pissed me off more than any film criticism I’ve read this year not written by Armond White. I sent a personal tweet to its author saying so. http://hollywood-elsewhere.com/2017/10/punch-me-in-the-face/