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Federico Solmi The Bacchanalian Ones, 2021
Virtual Reality Experience with three unique hand-sculpted masks.
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Ay-O Then, Mr. Ay-O Got Drunk by the Rainbow, 1973
3M color-in-color magnetic process prints
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Gilbert & George Reclining drunk, 1973
Gordon’s gin bottle
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John Johnston John Wayne Drunk, 2016
animated gif
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Tom Burr drunk emily (drinking, drowning, Elizabeth Barret Browning), 2014
pieces of furniture, wooden elements, stools, chests of drawers, doors and false walls
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David Shrigley I’m not drunk – I have been harpooned, 2007
Ink and poster pen on paper
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Unknown Drunk Writers, 1950s – 1990s
Brendan Behan
Ernest Hemingway
Charles Bukowski
Marguerite Duras
Jack Kerouac
Osamu Dazai
John Berryman
Dylan Thomas
Jim Harrison
Truman Capote
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Sarah Lucas Beer Can Penis, 1999
aluminium beer cans
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Ed Ruscha Cold Beer Beautiful Girls, 1993
acrylic on canvas
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Pentti Monkkonen V.S.O.P, 2017
”The old man in building A drinks Fernet once a day / And his mate in unit 8 Sips chartreuse to get loose / The old lady in building B smokes Gauloises on the balcony / And the guy in unit 5 drinks Cointreau to feel alive / The couple seen in building G pours Dauphin in golden streams / The raconteur in unit 4 spilled Pernod on the floor’
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Francis Bacon Man Drinking, 1955
Oil on canvas
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Claire Chambers Walking Home Alone Drunk at 3am Thoughts: No.1 (2017)
Acrylic, gouache, calligraphy pen, and marker on canvas board
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John Waters Drunk, 1998
The images for Drunk are of Edith Massey in Female Trouble, on the left, and Glenn Milstead, “Divine,” in Pink Flamingos, on the right.
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Erwin Wurm Bar (Drinking Sculptures), 2019
‘The artwork is only completed when a performative act takes place: here the participant must engage in becoming abundantly drunk and simultaneously part of the sculpture. Wurm hereby relentlessly asks whether today’s world can only be endured in ecstatic states of intoxication.’
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Phil Penman Drunk in Midtown, New York, 2018
Gelatin silver print
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Calixte Dakpogan Drunk, 2010
Mixed media
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Nicole Eisenman Sloppy Bar Room Kiss, 2011
oil on canvas
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Herbert List Drunk – Intoxication (double exposure), Germany, 1933
Vintage Gelatin Silver Print
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Jeff Koons Travel Bar, 1986
stainless steel
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David Claerbout KING (after Alfred Wertheimer’s 1956 portrait of a young man named Elvis Presley), 2015
‘KING (after Alfred Wertheimer’s 1956 picture of a young man names Elvis Presley), a silent black-and-white projection, is based on a photograph that marks Elvis Presley’s transition from ordinary life to superstardom. That week in 1956, photographer Alfred Wertheimer portrayed a young man, then 21, who generously returned every shot with an incredible calm, allowing the photographer to come very close and feel at ease with a ‘body’ that would soon transition from casual to monumental. It is at this intersection that KING has been conceived.’
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Yuki Kimura Table Matematica, 2016
granite, steel, wood, and Jägermeister bottles
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Andy Warhol Liquor bottle, glasses and paper towel still life, 1986
Unique gelatin silver print
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Pruitt-Early Sculpture for Teenage Boys (Blonde with Beer Disguised As Soda, Mixed Case), 1990
Pabst beer cans with decals
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Various Various, 18th century
Annibale Carracci Boy Drinking
Goya The Drunken Mason
Francis William Edwards Facing the Enemy
Eugene Laermans The Drunk
Joaquin Sorolla The Drunkard
Wojciech Weiss The Demon (in a Café)
Vladimir Yegorovich Makovsky I don t let in!
Jean-Louis Forain After the Ball. The Reveler.
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Benkosoft Drunk Show, 1994
Emulator spectrum. Emulator_ext z80
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T E R A V I B E The Moment A Drunk Artist Was Inspired One Night In 1926, 2023
‘I’m trying to create my own genre, Audio-Visual-Experience Art that hasn’t existed so far. My ultimate mission is to enhance each human being to maximise the frequency of his own soul.’
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Gillian Wearing Drunk, 1997-1999
‘Wearing’s 23-minute, three-screen digital video features unregenerate drunks doing what unregenerate drunks will do: they fight, fall down, get up, fall down again, nod out and, above all, drink themselves into oblivion. With no bar or barstool to speak of and stripped down to their one essential prop – the continually half-empty can or bottle – Wearing’s drunks appear as if on a stage, acting out a particularly absurdist pantomime of temperate behavior.’
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Charles Ray Puzzle Bottle, 1995
‘Puzzle Bottle is a precisely-scaled wooden model of Charles Ray, assembled inside a corked wine bottle like a traditional model ship. The sculpture’s dislocations of scale and context force viewers to adjust their perceptions and reconsider how the human figure occupies space. The miniature figure of Ray stares out from the confined space of the bottle, his worried gaze seeming to question how he got there.’
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p.s. Hey. ** feellikeanumba, Hi! Welcome, and thanks a lot for coming inside. Honestly, I really like those paragraphs you wrote. The prose is impeccable and beautifully detailed, lush but still propulsive, just the right balance, and I love the long sentences, and how the ‘story’ complicates and kind of mutates as they build. Yeah, gorgeous writing. So, obviously, you’re a writer. You’re very skilled, and you have excellent instincts. It’s great pleasure to read. Do tell me more about your writing, or about anything else, really. I’d be interested to know. And thanks again. It’s cool to meet you. xo, me. ** Ника Мавроди, Cool. Well, all the films in the post are on youtube, so I guess you can hook up your flat screen to youtube and watch them that way? I think doing that is pretty easy? ** Misanthrope, Hi. I mean, you know what it’s like to receive signs that you’re attractive. It’s seductive and emboldening, and taking pleasure in receiving those signals is totally normal, but not to the point of being a prick tease. If Alex knows you’re uncomfortable with that, I would imagine he’ll start to regulate the way he deals with it. Or, if not, watch out for narcissistic tendencies, I guess? I’ve never been to a gym, but from what I understand, cruising and being cruised is part of the deal there, no? You haven’t read a book since last summer?! Dude, feed your head. ** Allegra, Hi. Congrats on getting the research proposal finished. I’ve been wondering whether to watch ‘Love Lies Bleeding’ since it just popped up on the free/illegal movie site I check in on. Hm, maybe on a slow night for those squelching foley effects alone. That intrigues. Oh, yeah, I like ‘Careful’. I’m a big Guy Maddin fan. So what is your immediate post-proposal finishing life going to consist of ideally? xo, me. ** _Black_Acrylic, Adored the new PT episode. It built so ravishingly. I like pretty much everything you picked and knew none of them prior. The episodes do seem to be ever more exciting. Thank you, Ben, it was a real soul saver. Nice goal. Second place is really good, no? Just one spot away from wearing the crown. Yay! ** Darby🧫, Right, wasser bear, that’s what they’re nicknamed. So nice. Thanks for the new pic. Quite an interesting couple there. People most always say Chapel Hill is a cool town. Lots of awesome music has originated there, I know that. Hope you can go. Two hours is easy, although I’m from LA where you drive two hours across town just to se a friend sometimes. I’ll be very careful about brushing tiny foreign entities off of my sleeve. Maybe give a high pitched shout if you see my palm heading down. ** alex, Good that all is well with you. Other than film-related stuff and a trip to LA to show the film to the cast and crew, I’m not sure what spring has in store. Hm. I don’t I ever finished ‘Moby Dick’, not because I didn’t like it, but mostly because I tend to read books for style and to pick up things I might learn from to use in my writing, and I often feel like I’ve learned what I can learn before a book is finished. Bad habit, I know. Sailboat! Your spring will colorful. You’re near a lake, or where do you sail? I wouldn’t worry about taking a break. When I was writing ‘I Wished’ I got stuck and took a break that ended up lasting about three years, and then, when I went back to it, I had the distance on it that I needed, and I was able to finish it quite unproblematically. So, yeah, no worries, I don’t think. ** Justin, Glad you liked them. See, now, I just used the link, and your face is a complete surprise because I obviously hadn’t made a mental picture of you at all. And you’re a gif, no less. I guess you know I have quite a fondness for gifs. Thanks. Now when I type with you my eyesight, or, I guess, the portion of my brain that stores what my eyes upload, will get activated as well. Cool. I guess you probably know what I look like. How was your … what day is today … Thursday? ** Harper, Hey, H. Oh, yeah, Eyvind Earle is amazing. I tried to do a post about him at some point, but it didn’t pan out, I don’t remember why. ‘Pinocchio’ totally marked/changed me when I saw it as kid. That Island of Lost Boys section particularly was really shocking to my system or something. It’s my favorite Disney film by far. Thanks, pal. ** Bill, Her animations are kind of a wonderful combo of silly/ corny but trippy/ transcendent. I’m hoping Dodie has some news/clue of where Lawrence’s mss. is. We’ll see. ** Matt N., Hi, Matt. Once the film is finished, it’ll become preoccupying in a different way — hunting for festivals, distributors, trying to get it born and give it the best life possible. So a lot of mental energy, but no hands-on work. Re: the book, there’s nothing much to do until it’s published, whenever that is, and then I’ll probably do some readings and interviews and stuff. Mainly I want to write the new film and get away a bit because I’ve been stuck here with film work for ages. Oh, thanks for reading ‘TMS’. Yes, I remember your brother. I was actually thinking about him when I made yesterday’s post and wondering if he’d like Reinigers’s animations or not. Two scripts, congrats! I’m assuming you like what the director plans with the non-yours one? What’s the plan with yours? Do you need to raise the funding and all of that? Anything you can say about it? That’s exciting! Yes, I hope you can show it here, and a coffee is a must if so. Well, it was complicated. My sexual fantasy projected onto the perpetrator, but my feelings/sympathy were always with the victim. So the particularity of my interest really confused me, which is I guess why I decided to spend so much time and energy writing about it. In the novels, I see myself in both types of characters, but more in the victims. I think that’s really important. And I think that’s why the boy characters tend to be more dimensional than the perpetuator characters. Or something. But when I was young, no, I never felt vulnerable in that sense. I was always suspicious of older people in pretty much every way. Thank you for asking that. ** Okay. Alcohol and its representation is your topic for today. See you tomorrow.
Now available in North America 
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Hi, Dennis!
Wow, thanks for such kind words! I’m a movie critic and fiction is something I never even thought about writing… Perhaps, will try to approach the story more seriously after what you’ve said!
For the last couple of weeks I was reading Gaddis’ The Recognitions, and got a writing fever from his long and winding sentances… Managed to read through half of the book before suffocating a bit and putting it aside for a week or two.
Now taking the edge off by reading Gordon Lish’s Peru – dig his repetition based style! What do you think about him?
P.S.
So heartbroken about Barth – his LETTERS is one of my all time favorite books
Whatever health problems I might have, most days I’ll have a glass of wine with my meal. Not been drunk for a very long time though.
Thank you for the kind words about Play Therapy v2.0 btw, I really appreciate it!
Dennis, You’re right. Of course. We’ve discussed how it’s good to feel attractive when somebody’s into you even if you’re not into them. It’s flattering and all that. Me, I’m so oblivious. Like, I’ve had people obviously flirting with me and didn’t realize it until weeks later. I’m not exaggerating. It would just hit me, oh, wait, that dude was totally into me and I wholly missed it, hahaha. We’d be out somewhere and this would happen and my friends who were with me would be like, hey, are you dumb, that dude was totally into you. Me: Huh? 😛
I do think, too, with Alex, he has no interest in these dudes and doesn’t see any harm in it. And you know, there are people who are obviously into me at the gym (and elswhere) and it bugs him and I could probably handle it better. Alex works at the gym too, so it’s not like he can run around ignoring people, even when he’s there just to work out. But I think we’re both coming around on this.
Then there are fucking snakes. Snakes, I tell you! And I’ve got a story for you that you might find amusing and that will be the last one until another crazy one pops up.
So, there’s this guy at the gym called Bruce. He’s 65. I’ve been chatting with him for four or five years now. We always joke around and cut up and, frankly, he hits on me, tells me I’m attractive and fit and all that all the time. Alex has spoken to him exactly twice and both times with me.
I come into the gym Monday before last and Bruce is there. Comes right up to me and we chat for a bit. Alex comes over and says hi. I get on the treadmill and Alex goes to the cable across the gym. Then I see Bruce go to Alex and talk to him a bit. No biggie. Alex finally comes over to the treadmill next to me to do his cardio. “This is weird. That guy Bruce just invited me to his roommate Gio’s Memorial Day party.” I’m like, yeah, I’ve known him four or five years and I talked to him for a few minutes right when I got here today and he didn’t invite me. Alex is like, yeah, I’ve spoken to him maybe twice? (He also complimented Alex’s physique.)
Bruce finally comes over to both of us. He invites me to HIS party (no mention of Gio) and asks for my phone number so he can give me details when they get sorted. He’s like, I live right around the corner from the gym. I’m like, okay, and exchange numbers with him. Then he looks at Alex and goes, Alex, I’m gonna come in Wednesday and get your phone number. Alex is standing there with his phone in his hand. Okay, that’s weird.
He comes in Wednesday during the middle of the day with his roommate Gio and introduces Gio to Alex. He’s never introduced me to Gio and I’ve know this dude four or five years. Then he says to Alex, don’t believe anything George says about me. He gets Alex’s number and within 10 minutes texts him all the details for the party including his address, which, come to find out, isn’t around the corner from the gym but is a few minutes from me. I haven’t heard a peep from the guy.
What makes this all even more fucked up is that Bruce and I have talked a lot over the years and he’s always made it a point that he doesn’t run around and that he’s not at all into younger guys.
I hate liars and deceivers and he’s turned out to be one. He had no intention of inviting me to that party and has no intention of sending me the details. He saw Alex talking to me and was probably like, shit, I gotta cover my ass here. I will say that he doesn’t know that Alex and I are a couple. But even so, he invited the young cute guy he’s spoken to twice in his life and not the guy he’s known four or five years. Fucking snake, that guy.
Oh, well. Obviously, we’re not going to that party. I’ll continue to be cordial with him and all and I’m not going to say anything, just see how things play out. He’ll probably try to get Alex to his place some other way. We’ll see.
Booze: even when I was drinking heavily, I didn’t like it. Ugh.
Hi Dennis,
Cool post. Alcohol is such a big and influential thing in the world. I have no idea how anyone could write well while drinking heavily. Speaking of which, I just finished the new Capote TV show last week. James Baldwin appeared to Truman in a dream and told him to get his act together. It was so over the top I kind of liked it. But then I do love my fellow Jimmy B. I also just read a chunk from a biography of F Scott F, and God almighty… what drunken chaos.
I’ve been doing some serious diagramming/planning to get through a difficult patch with writing and feel it’s paying off. I’ve had some kind of epiphany about leaving things out, kind of like building the book with spaces/gaps that the reader can enter. It’s so essential. In bad books you have no freedom, you’re smothered. I’m excited to try and put this insight to use. Does that resonate with you at all?
Also, that phrase from Blanchot, “keep watch over absent meaning,” has been ringing in my head. I wonder if you could say something about what it means to you?
Hope you’re well!
James
Hi Dennis! Wow, glad to hear that you’re a Maddin fan. Our tastes seem pretty aligned, so that makes sense. Have you seen The Forbidden Room? Let me know what you think if you end up checking out LLB. Post-proposal life is now transitioning into final exams life, so it isn’t too different, but I’m leaving for an archeological dig in Greece at the start of May! Nice to have a light at the end of the tunnel. I think the research project I’ve been busy proposing might interest you. Its for my master’s thesis – a 40 page paper on the subject of drink-and-wet dolls like Baby Alive. Inanimate scatology, synthetic excrement, abjection, uncanny etc. etc. Should be fun! xx, Allegra
Is the generational shift away from alcohol gonna persist? I wonder if contemporary youth may wind up embracing going out to bars as a rejection of screens and end up drinking more. This has probably changed, but I quit drinking when I was 26, and for a long time afterwards, people assumed I must be a recovering alcoholic when I told them I didn’t drink at all. (I never had a problem with it, I just reached a point where it was far more likely to lead me to depression than pleasure.) There was an attitude that even if you’re not much of a drinker, it was odd to completely avoid it.
For Gay City News, I wrote about queer films at the New Directors/New Films festival: https://gaycitynews.com/new-directors-new-films-serves-up-a-glimpse-future-of-queer-cinema/. I’m waiting for GCN to publish my review of THE PEOPLE’S JOKER, which opens in New York tomorrow.
I wrote back to The Wire yesterday. Hope their editors respond positively – imposter syndrome looms.
PS: And here’s my PEOPLE’S JOKER review: https://gaycitynews.com/the-peoples-joker-film-queer-intellectual-property/?utm_source=gcn&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter&utm_term=Gay%20City%20News%20Newsletter
Hi, Dennis! Of course I know what you look like. After starting the GM Cycle (my intro to your work), I *had* to do a deep dive into you as a writer/person (as much as one can from online research). “Closer” haunted my thoughts for weeks after I completed it, so I felt compelled to get to know the artist behind it more. Let’s just say that finding out you’re such a lovely/thoughtful/kind person was a pleasant surprise. If anyone here hasn’t seen the stream of Dennis & Maryse Meijer — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8tMThRwL4zM — I recommend it. Watching that after I had read “I Wished” was the reason I started commenting here.
Hi Dennis. I remember reading that Tennessee Williams said that he took to drinking because writing as a profession put a lot of pressure for him and he needed something to relieve the pain. So many writers in the past have needed a drink to be able to write to begin with. I think part of it is that alcohol makes it easier for you to lose yourself in reverie but also, writing can be a very lonely profession and if you have a creative block it’s very easy to get bored.
Weed is another thing. I have no idea how anyone can write when they are stoned. I’m not a big stoner to begin with (weirdly all of my worst and most terrifying drug experiences have been not with acid but weed) but when I get high I just feel incredibly stupid. It’s difficult to even find the will to start writing or even come up with a thought. Getting high on weed just makes me lazy. Maybe that’s just me. When I get high I literally have to consider if I’m smoking the same thing as my stoner friends are because they act like it’s the greatest thing ever. What do you think the greatest novel ever written under the influence of weed is? I’d say ‘Gravity’s Rainbow’, and a government conspiracy linking me in a psychosexual dynamic to the V-2 rocket is definitely the sort of erratic thought that haunts me if I’ve smoked a bit too much.
Anyway I’m going to that concert tomorrow and as promised I’ll report back to let you know how it went.
Oh how fitting! My roomate just admitted to me moments ago that they drunk one beer, thus I guess breaking their sobriety? Oh, well I hope that isnt going to be a problem!
Hey sorry I must have fell asleep before asking another question. I hope it doesn’t bother you, im always asking question admittedly a testimonial to my own adhd and immaturity I guess.
Do you have any good routine/ balance system tips? I fear sometimes I put too much on myself and drive myself insane. I think its this ADHD thing that makes me want to burst into flames. Also being a semi-workoholic who perpetually gets nothing done due to their own fervidness.
Oh I wrote a sample article on Medium about T. Solium and Neurocysticercosis. Muhahaha brain worms. I guess thats something I accomplished today.
What about you? Eat any good food? Im about to eat those potato pancakes. yum.
Everybody has such weird relationships with alcohol that it makes sense there’d be so much art about it. Sorry for missing a day on the blog. I’ve been at a conference in New Orleans (which I love, surprisingly) presenting my first two ever academic articles. Thanks for answering the racial question and not taking it as an accusation, I never know how to make the inquisitive tone come across over text and always worry about that. It’s the nicest thing that you only know us through our words. It’s a beautiful relationship to have in a sense. Much love and many hugs, Uday.
Hi Dennis, are you mixing sound now? I hope you can show the film here in São Paulo at some point! I’ve sent my brother your preview post, he was very flattered with you thinking of him. About the film I wrote but I’m not directing… me and the director did fight a lot during development, but I think things will eventually work right for her and the film. Its important for me to remember that a writer can’t possess a film. For my own project, I’m talking with some friends… trying to find one to produce and I’ll simply use my own money to fund the film (its not that expensive, less than a thousand dollars). Its a little thriller about pig breeders that kill boys, its very simple… I’ve tried to do with “Rope” something in the line of what Pedro Costa did with “I Walked With A Zombie”.
I see, you were right to suspect them! Hahahah. But I think this is rare! Specially for gay men, they tend to change roles over the course of life. About this duality of feelings… this is quite a case, because I remember seeing a doc some time ago about some polish prostitutes boys (you probably saw this) and I was really bothered with the way it was made: a lot of sad work stories devoid of any eroticism (or even repulsion)… lit like a Kenneth Anger film with classical music in the background and some dramatic cuts to angel figures. All too affected for my taste and I didn’t buy the director’s sympathy for the boys for a second. It seemed fake and… perverse, in a very uninteresting way. I don’t feel this way at all about your work with characters and they’re not even real! So I think this is great, hahahaha.