Christos Venetis Various
Diane Maclean Open Book
Anouk Kruithof Enclosed Content Chatting Away in the Colour Invisibility
Conrad Bakker Robert Smithson Library & Book Club
Jane Cake In The Form Of An Open Book With A Bloody, Beating Heart
Ragnhildur Jóhanns Jackets
Rachel Whiteread Untitled (Black Books)
Kajsa Dahlberg A Room of One’s Own/One Thousand Libraries
Iain Hugh Machell Book 5
Adam Bateman Readings
Shilpa Gupta Someone Else: A Library of 35 Books Written Anonymously or Under Pseudonyms
Willy Verginer A True Story
Duncan Hannah Various
Jannis Kounellis Untitled
Rosie Leventon A long way from the bathroom
Mengyu Chen Untitled
Wim Botha Time Machine
Cara Barer Various
Scholz & Friends Monument
Frances Stark Various
Guy Laramee Rebound
Loris Cecchini Extruding Bodies
Kenny Pittock Ceramic sculpture of Kim Gordon’s Girl In A Band
Richard Artschwager Various
Susan Hiller Lucidity & Intuition: Homage to Gertrude Stein
Ed Ruscha Open Books
Jonathan Callan Various
Dieter Roth Diary
Anselm Kiefer Various
Unknown Lexington, Kentucky Bus Bench
John Latham Clusters
Olafur Eliasson Your House
‘Book with a laser-cut negative impression of Olafur Eliasson’s house in Copenhagen, Denmark. Each of the 454 pages is individually cut and corresponds to 2.2 cm of the actual house. As readers leaf through the pages, they slowly make their way through the rooms of the house from front to back.’
Raymond Pettibon Untitled
Ricardo Brey Everyday Life is a Fire
Alec Stevens and Jo Kimber Naturally Forming Glory Hole
Jonathan Callan Graded remains
Nikos Navridis All of old. Nothing else ever…
Henning M. Lederer Covers
Alexis Arnold Various
*
p.s. Hey. ** _Black_Acrylic, Hi. Yes, when I reference acid, it’s always the highest praise. Jeez, 30k for a single containing unusual mono mixes of known songs. That’s dedication. I will say it’s not uncommon at all that my fellow Robert Pollard fanatics pay in the very high hundreds of $ for o.o.p. GbV vinyl. I could probably finance a film if I sold off my collection. ** Steve, I look forward to that podcast. Agreed about the Spectacle prospect. Some people in LA associated with the venerable Film Forum just held an experimental film festival in LA that’s still pretty infant-like but apparently packed houses and might become an annual, bigger thing, I sure hope. ** Nasir, Hi! I’ve read about half of your piece so far, and I really like it. I love the detailing, like the shiny toenail and lighting cigarettes with Satan’s breath and so on. Very strong. I look forward to finishing it. Kudos, sir. ** Dominik, Hi!!! Yes, the ‘cancelled’ factor is huge in virtually every cultural everything right now. You would think that would make apolitical work, a film in our case, an easier fit, but that isn’t happening either. One big festival that said they really liked the film but rejected it anyway and told us that the biggest reason for its rejection was that the committee ultimately couldn’t support a film directed by two white guys over films they liked less that were directed by ‘minorities’. The route is a tough one. Amazing that there could be more than one paper on the use of AI in precision farming. Love rocking passersby in his neon pink ballerina costume, G. ** Dev, Hi, Dev. She’s worth trying out. Interesting that Gass liked her. I wouldn’t have predicted that. Toughened decision, eh? Just remember what it must like in the summer? But you’re from Mississippi, so I guess that doesn’t much imagining. Let me know the decision/scoop. You were a violinist! ‘Were’ meaning you bailed? Did you still play at all? Cool, let’s hit Dollywood together someday. And Memphis intrigues me, pretty much only for its amazing music-producing history. Well, you’ll still get summers off in med school, no? Paris isn’t too awful in the summer. ** Charalampos, Hi. Initially when I went to community college, I studied filmmaking, drawing, European history, and took two poetry writing workshops, But after about 6 months I dropped everything except the poetry workshops. They were huge. Luckily a great poet, Ron Koertge, was teaching one of them, and the other was taught by a not well known poet, but she was very smart. They both saw talent in me that definitely wasn’t manifesting yet and encouraged me very much, and I think that was kind of the final thing that made me totally commit to being a writer. You seem pretty okay with negotiating the language barrier, but, yes, Greek literature is no slouch. I think you told me you did Theater Studies. A noble pursuit. You just brought that old Cher turning back time song to mind. Now I have to get rid of it, ha ha. The future is everything. Chase it, man. I send you some mildly chilly Parisian air. ** Bill, Right? PS doing TTM. I’ve heard the name Sean Carnage, but that’s all. Time to learn. If Spark’s work had sex with Williams’s work, they would make a very distorted baby. Thanks, B. ** Brendan, Hey! Yeah, dying to show you the film. We’re super happy with it. I just found your email. I’ll pop it. I’m even more behind on email than ever right now. I need one of those cones they put around dogs’s heads so they won’t chew their wounds. Baseball, hm, that’s an idea. As soon we sort our dates, I’ll give that some pointed thought. Love, me. ** Misanthrope, That’s really nice to hear about Joe re: Zac. I was thinking about Joe the other day and feeling sad. Alex’s parents sound a wee bit primitive. Oh, right, I remember cornhole now. As I’m sure you know, it was all the social media talk for day because I guess Vampire Weekend brought Paris Hilton onstage to play cornhole with them at Coachella. What a fucking world that I even know that. ** Harper, Hi. ‘Boom’ is a total trip. People always told me it was, and I was, like, ‘oh, sure’, but then I watched it, and it is a total trip, and now I’m one of those people telling other people they should watch ‘Boom’ and getting the eye-rolls. Yeah, I’m a giant fan of the early Eno albums, especially ‘HCTWJ’ and ‘TTM’, obviously. They still sound totally radical even now. ‘Mechanical’, yeah, that’s good. ‘The True Wheel’ is one of my ultra-favorite songs ever. Cool that you’e a fellow acolyte. I feel like I learned things as a writer from studying how those records worked. ** Darby🏇, Clop clop clop. D-ster like Easter without the Jesus baggage. I tend to always write ‘oh’ in front of sentences. I’m always having to delete them. That’s really exciting about the college tour! Tell me what that was like. Like I told Charalampos up above, I initially took filmmaking, drawing, history and poetry workshops, but I quit everything but he poetry workshops because I just wanted to write and not do anything else. And also I wasn’t good at drawing and filmmaking, I quickly discovered. On my mind? Hm, just getting the film finished pretty much. I’m very anxious to. And answering emails because I’m very, very far behind. I envy your mind swimming with prions and anthrax. ** Uday, Hey. Spark and Compton-Burnett are so very different. I mean, Spark is fun and clever, as is C-B, but I think C-B is kind of a genius, so I guess her. Wow, I think I read a lot, but you are extremely ahead of me. What’s your fave of the year so far? A-okay on the double commenting, of course. I think ‘I talk too much and ask too many questions and have an oddly sinuous build’ would get you customers. But I’m strange. Yeah, I meant utmost/youngest re: those sites. I mean Daddy’s are very popular, but I’ve never been a Daddy type, I don’t think. Not that I can judge what makes older guys a Daddy. ** Ника Мавроди, Really? I’ll look into that. ** Right. All hail the mighty book! See you tomorrow.
Now available in North America 
*
Hi Dennis,
Great post, thanks for curating! Wow those Alexis Arnold crystallised books really moved me. Like she just made something visible that was already real.
Re: books – how do you feel about them as objects? What I mean is, are you precious? Do you lend them? I make dog ears to mark my pages and write in my books whenever I want. So I’m not precious at all in that way, but I don’t like lending books i care about, only to very trusted people.
I’ve been listening to the new Still House Plants album “If I don’t make it, I love u” and highly recommend it if you haven’t already given it a go. It’s like: are they playing together, or just beside each other, no it’s definitely together, sort of, oh wait I’m crying.
I recently parted with 30 pounds to get James Schuyler’s “Collected Poems” and don’t have one single regret. Is there a collection of his that’s your favourite?
Ok I’m off to get a tacticul haircut to try and make sure it doesn’t turn into a shapeless blob as I grow it out.
Bon journée
J x
https://64.media.tumblr.com/9c24d0891b98d50bacb5e4b76467af44/tumblr_nzf6ebrLtA1tb32yzo1_1280.jpg https://whitneymedia.org/assets/image/820987/medium_2016_Zoe_Leonard_Tipping_Point_ZLEO_0241_005.jpg
Dennis, Well, I know it now too, hahaha. I hadn’t heard about that Paris Hilton cornhole lovefest. 😛
I really like the Artschwager and Arnold ones today.
Yeah, Joe said Zac was just completely and wholly adorable. Smart, funny, personable, gracious. He went on and on. Of course, I concur. Really sweet friend you have there.
Alex thinks his parents would have way more of a problem with me being a guy than my age. He’s like, if you were a woman, they wouldn’t care. Derp.
I just told him to kind of start talking about wanting to travel now and prime them for it. He’d be up for NYC and seeing you at that Poetry Project thing. We’ll see how it goes.
Oh! And remember that guy Bruce at the gym who was being all sneaky and duplicitous and trying to get Alex to come to his party (even though he eventually invited me but never sent me the details like he did Alex)? Well, Sunday morning, I get a text out of the blue from him:
“Wassup George…this is Bruce from the gym…r u being a good boy?”
I replied, “Hahaha. I’m good. How are you?”
“All is well [smiley emoji]”
And that was it. Still nothing about his party. Alex was like, why the fuck reach out if that’s all you’re gonna say? Dude is fucking weird. I’m assuming he was going through his contacts and decided he had to save face or something and throw me a text. Whatever. Kind of interesting thing is that he’s been in the gym a few times since the initial weirdness and hasn’t spoken to Alex, which is a relief for Alex. I haven’t seen him since. Weird guy.
Indeed, book.
Appreciate the kind words, and your time of course. The challenge here was to write something that still sounded familiar despite itself, since most people don’t know any of what I’m writing about. I hope the rest proves up to par or better for you.
Thanks again!
Hi!!
This post is so, so good. At first, I started to list my favorites, but there are too many. I could live with Rachel Whiteread’s “Untitled (Black Books)” on my wall, for one.
Yeah, yes, that’s exactly what I meant. I feel like I have way too many thoughts about this and not enough focus to express myself as clearly as I’d like right now. But, in a nutshell, I think that the committees of such artistic events should be very diverse themselves, and each submitted piece should be judged blindly – without the judges knowing anything about its creators.
I have to admit, I’d be a little wary of love, haha. Love giving hedgehogs a cuter name in German than “der Igel,” Od.
Back in the 90s (as a skinny teen) I wore a T-shirt with an image of this Dashiell Hammett – The Thin Man book cover emblazoned across the front. When I think back, it must surely have looked cool.
Hey Dennis, yeah, the heat scares me a little. It’s like 80 F out right now and I hear it’s closer to 100 in the summer. Mississippi is hot but I don’t think it’s as bad as New Orleans. You’re from southern California, right? How’s the heat there?
I played violin my whole childhood, but in my teens I reached a level where in order to improve you have to dedicate a huge amount of time to it. I stuck with it until I was 16, made money for a few years as a wedding violinist and was in my university orchestra for a year (went to college early but that’s another story), but eventually decided it wasn’t worth all the work if I didn’t plan to make a career out of it. Haven’t played regularly in a decade so I’m very out of practice. Did you ever play any instruments? Ever listen to classical music?
I would totally go to Dollywood with you lol. Re: Memphis, I’ve heard the Stax Museum is cool but have never been. Haven’t done much of the touristy stuff. Hit up the punk record store Goner Records if you ever visit. They host a music festival each year.
Med students don’t really get summers off, except for the summer after first year, which is commonly spent doing research. I will probably get a couple weeks off a year through school and residency.
Speaking of books, I’m rereading Davis’ City of Quartz. I read it for the first time in about 2004. It’s fascinating reading it today to see what it anticipated, and what it did not. The critique of the militarization of LA’s public space was right on in it’s day, but preceded both the 1992 riots and 9/11, which spawned a whole new level of architectural paranoia. While Bunker Hill remains a concrete and steal fortress of finance and culture, there are some signs of more pedestrian oriented development such as the revitalization of Grand Central Market and the new Apple Store in the restored Tower Theater on Broadway.
Davis’ sections on Noir really resonated for me. I’m going to read Aldous Huxley’s novel, Ape and Essence, from 1948 set in LA. It got me thinking about the strands of noir in your work. Were you reading any of the classic noir writers back in the day? I read Fante’s Ask the Dust a few years ago.
I’m almost done with Byron’s Chile Harold’s Pilgrimage just in time for the bicentennial of his death tomorrow. I keep asking myself why this was such a commercial success for him? I mean, it totally catapulted him into instant London celebrity when it was published. I suppose it was the pent up thirst for exotic (and erotic) orientalism that was the result of decades of war with France, which had essentially cut off Briton from the Continent. Byron had even crossed paths with Elgin as he was “liberating” the Parthenon Marble from Athens. While José and I were in Athens last summer we stumbled on a large public monument to Byron, who had adopted Greek independence as his pet project, and which precipitated his downfall in Missolonghi two hundred years ago tomorrow.
https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQpJFcT9JpElyY1WSEvDR7becvF93gNrUjUhifpxb_o7A&s
How many of these film festivals that are supposedly so progressive pay substantially more than minimum wage to their ticket sellers and ushers? How many will stand up for unpopular causes rather than ones the entire left-leaning audience agrees with? The last time I saw a play, it began with an acknowledgement of the theft of indigenous land. I’m not against that, but unless you’re doing something to help indigenous people in the present day, it’s an empty gesture.
I remember paying $13 for a copy of DUB HOUSING when I was 15, and it seemed like a fortune. (Of course, those were ’80s prices.) The next step was $30 for John Coltrane’s ASCENSION a few years later. I’m tempted to ask my dad to get me the new box set of all 10 albums released by Obscure Records for my birthday present next month.
Yeah, I feel like I’ve learnt a lot from how Eno plays with sound on those records. Like on the ‘Here Come the Warm Jets’ song the drums and guitar tracks feel like they should be from different songs but they come together in a kind of harmony, and I suppose interesting forms of layering is something that interests me in my writing.
With the thing I’m working on right now there’s a couple of albums that I want to sort of structurally mimic. I’m interested in albums like ‘The Velvet Underground and Nico’ where each song does something completely different but all forms one cohesive thing atmospherically or creates some kind of tonal trajectory.
Also, reminded of Seth Bogart’s counterculture book sculptures by seeing this. Some nice Cookie Mueller and Genet pieces:
https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/gallery/2020/nov/07/counterculture-books-modelled-in-clay-seth-bogart-in-pictures
Bold of you to assume that the horse goes Clop Clop Clop.
No, he goes Clump-clunk Clump-clunk.
God, everyone knows that about horses, duh! *scoff*
Ooh I like books obviously. Where is the human skin bound one? My personal favorite.
I hope you have a good weekend.
Hi, Dennis! Great curation, as usual. Love the Diane Maclean piece. Just finished watching ‘Benny’s Video’. I did a quick google search for Haneke on your blog and it looks like you are/were a fan, too. I’d seen ‘Funny Games’, but somehow hadn’t seen ‘Benny’s Video’. What’s your favorite Haneke film? How has your week been? 🤗
Can’t stop listening to the new Cigarettes After Sex single ‘Dark Vacay’. Do you like Cigarettes After Sex? Here’s a link https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-gDUUp5iKns
Were you ever into Dream Pop/Shoegaze stuff? I’m such a sucker for it.
I’m only reading this much to catch up! I hold people like you or Sontag or Elizabeth Hardwick as a sort of standard. The goal is to be familiar with your respective canons in addition to building mine on the side. It sounds very silly to put like that, but I suppose that’s what it is. Not counting re-reads from previous years I really fell in love with Amos Tutuola’s My Life in the Bush of Ghosts but that’s probably recency bias. Maybe Sleepless Nights? I really like the introspective mode of writing. What’s been your favourite book you’ve read recently that was written before you were born?
The post today really made me think of the people who use books as wall ornaments. So many people who confess to never having read/wanting to read the books they do have. A little odd. I don’t think you’re a Daddy. Not that I would really know either. On the admittedly rare occasion somebody older than me piques my interest it’s just through who they are as a person. Which is the same as somebody my age, but I think there’s more of an opportunity in the latter case. Are you familiar with Hildegard of Bingen? I’m not the biggest fan overall re: the religion thing but she’s a good epistolist and has the occasionally beautiful turn of phrase (“and I wept because I blush so much” comes to mind).