The blog of author Dennis Cooper

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Ken Russell Day

 

‘Ken Russell was so often called rude names – the wild man of British cinema, the apostle of excess, the oldest angry young man in the business – that he gave up denying it all quite early in his career. Indeed, he often seemed to court the very publicity that emphasised only the crudest assessment of his work. He gave the impression that he cared not a damn. Those who knew him better, however, knew that he did. Underneath all the showbiz bluster, he was an old softie. Or, perhaps as accurately, a talented boy who never quite grew up.

‘It has, of course, to be said that he was capable of almost any enormity in the careless rapture he brought to making his films. He could be dreadfully cruel to his undoubted talent, almost as if he was defying himself, let alone those who supported him. The truth was that, when he deliberately reined himself in, as he did in 1989 with an adaptation of DH Lawrence’s The Rainbow (as a sop to financiers who thought he was too much of a risk), he could be rather dull.

‘That he regarded as an almost mortal sin. “Wake ’em up” was generally his watchword, and it was certainly true that you could seldom go to sleep in a Russell film. If you did, you had nightmares. Sex loomed large in many of them since he felt it was the mainspring of most things, and generally covered or tidied up by latterday English hypocrisy. Though he was undoubtedly no advocate of the proverbial British good taste, once exemplified in the cinema by beautifully suppressed emotion and clipped middle-class accents, he was never quite the strange and hairy monster determined to scandalise the bourgeoisie or, at the very least, to exemplify everything that’s foreign to the steadier British temperament.

‘He was much more like one of the last of the great British romantics, whose roster included Michael Powell. Much of Powell’s work also attempted to cut through the conventional treatments of controversial subject matter and expose the often boiling passions underneath. For this, Powell was frequently attacked – Peeping Tom being so badly mauled that it almost ruined his career. So was Russell, and most would say with better reason. Regularly set upon as vulgar, crude and deliberately shocking, he was never best friends with the British film critics. He once called me, after a favourable review, “the best of a very bad lot”.

‘In 1963 he made his first film, an underrated offbeat comedy, French Dressing, and, four years later, a thriller, Billion Dollar Brain, taken from Len Deighton’s novel and starring Michael Caine as Harry Palmer. His first real commercial success came in 1969 with his version of Lawrence’s Women in Love. Its fireside nude wrestling scene with Oliver Reed and Alan Bates jolted a good many, including apparently the actors themselves and a nervous censor, but the film brought Russell an Oscar nomination and made him a director to be reckoned with. Hollywood took note, but it was a long time before he took note of them. After the freedom Wheldon had given him, he was not best pleased by the relatively uncultured suits he found on visits to the west coast.

‘There followed a stream of films: The Music Lovers (1970), a swingeing account of the gay composer Tchaikovsky’s marriage and death, which starred Richard Chamberlain in the lead role and certainly helped his co-star Glenda Jackson into worldwide prominence; The Devils (1971), an interpretation of Aldous Huxley’s The Devils of Loudun that contained some of Russell’s most brilliant and audaciously cinematic work but was cut by Ted Ashley of Warner Bros, who didn’t like such things as nuns masturbating at representations of Christ on the cross; The Boy Friend (1971), a musical based on Sandy Wilson’s successful stage production and paying homage not just to Wilson but also to the choreographer Busby Berkeley; Savage Messiah (1972), about the tempestuous life of the sculptor Henri Gaudier-Brzeska; and Mahler (1974), a fictionalised biography starring Robert Powell as a very neurotic composer. Many of these were criticised for factual inaccuracies, but the point of most of them was that Russell intended them to be psychological fantasias rather than biographies.

‘During this time, Russell became not only the most controversial British director but also the first in the history of British film to have three films playing first-run engagements in London simultaneously – The Music Lovers, The Devils and The Boy Friend. But his reputation as a kind of unruly cinematic anarchist, capable of frightening even the horses and doubtless making some of his subjects swivel in their graves, tended to cloud the formidable technique he brought to everything he did. In most of them there were some extraordinary passages. It might have been better if there had been a few more ordinary ones as well.’ — The Guardian

 

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Stills






































































 

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Further

Savage Messiah, a Ken Russell site
Ken Russell @ IMDb
‘Ken Russell: A Bit of a Devil
fuck yeah ken russell
Ken Russell: Offscreen
‘Goodbye Uncle Ken’
Book: ‘Raising Hell: Ken Russell and the Unmaking of The Devils’
1970 interview w/ Ken Russell @ Film Comment
‘The Secret Career of Ken Russell’
Ken Russell @ mubi
‘Ken Russell: The Rare Director Who Understood Musical Greatness’
‘The Pope still loathes Ken Russell’s The Devils, and with good reason’
The Ken Russell Appreciation Society
Ken Russell interviewed @ Garageland
‘Ken Russell’s Female Fugue’
‘The Ken Russell Aussie film that never was’

 

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Extras


Director of Devils


Ken Russell interviewed


Ken Russell on Federico Fellini


Ken Russell’s Christmas Movie


Peepshow – Short by Ken Russell (1956)


Ken Russell A Bit of a Devil

 

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Interview
from Empire Magazine

 

When was the last time you walked out of a movie?
I walked out of Pulp Fiction. Shortly after the hypodermic needle was driven through the heroine’s heart. I thought the sadistic smile of pleasure on the faces of all the members of the cast was just too gross for words.

What’s your idea of heaven on earth?
Where I live. But I won’t tell you where it is because everyone will want to go there.

Do you think Hollywood is full of big babies?
And old babies.

Is there a phrase which you over use?
Thank-you.

What did you dream of last night?
I can never remember my dreams any more, unfortunately, but they are always spectacular.

How far is too far?
Not far enough.

When was the last time you were naked in the open air?
Yesterday by myself when I was watering the garden. It was a lovely hot day and my garden is totally secluded, miles anyway from anywhere, but all the birds and the bees were having a good look.

Have you ever had a supernatural experience?
Most days.

Have you ever worn a dress?
Several times.

Who is the person you most despise?
I’ve given up despising people; it takes so too much out of you. I find liking people is taking over.

What is the worst crime you ever committed?
Hitting my children, I think. Not often, but I shouldn’t of hit them once. With a gold club.

Would you eat human flesh if your life depended on it?
I sure would… probably have.

Where is your Achilles heel?
In the usual place.

How many notches do you have on your bedpost?
I don’t have bedposts.

Do you have any notches anywhere else?
I don’t have a long memory.

Where do you go to when you die?
Heaven.

Back to your house?
Exactly. I shall haunt it for thousands of years.

 

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20 of Ken Russell’s 24 films

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Billion Dollar Brain (1967)
‘Harry Palmer (Michael Caine) is located as his disheveled London office is searched by a white-gloved POV shot, a Humphrey Bogart portrait is pinned next to a Dolly Read centerfold; Col. Ross (Guy Doleman) promptly dispatches him to Latvia on a mission, the McGuffin is a Thermos bottle full of virulent eggs, the Richard III opener is appropriated as password. The dizzying pile-up effect is the intent of Ken Russell, who takes over the secret-agent franchise and takes the piss out of it, Karl Malden naked in a snowbound sauna guffawing “Don’t be so British!” to his bashful guest — it’s not a matter of whittling the genre for the art in it (A Dandy in Aspic) or purposefully degrading it into clarity (Modesty Blaise), but of recognizing its Pop Art impudence and zipping through, smacking every gag.’ — cinepassion.org

the entirety


Opening titles

 

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Women in Love (1969)
‘One Russell effort stands quite alone, in both subject matter (a D. H. Lawrence novel) and public approval — the 1969 Women in Love. This is a quite faithful adaptation, by the film’s producer, Larry Kramer, of Lawrence’s 1920 novel about the complexities two diverse young English couples encounter in their expression of love and friendship. To date, Ken Russell hasn’t made a better movie than Women in Love, a fact which he characteristically disputes. With reference to the critics who have treated his output with increasing severity, Russell says, “Women in Love was easier for them. It was literal and had just the right amount of violence and erotic things in it. But I don’t think it was as good as the others.”‘ — alanbates.com


Trailer


Excerpt


Excerpt

 

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The Music Lovers (1970)
The Music Lovers is an extended 1970 fever dream on Tchaikovsky’s sexual torment that opens in medias res with a wordless scene of lushly scored winter revelry. In a favored Russell technique, single events—like a public recital wracked with excitement and insecurity—are elongated by long fantasy sequences, and whole stretches of images seem pushed and pulled along before our eyes by projected desires and anxieties. Cutting himself off from a secret relationship with a count, Tchaikovsky convinces himself to accept the fanaticism of an admirer (Jackson, a Russell axiom), and weds to pursue a new fantasy. As the composer-conductor, Richard Chamberlain looks like he might shiver into pieces.’ — The Village Voice


Trailer


Excerpt

 

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The Devils (1971)
‘Inspired by actual events, and combining strong and disturbing elements of historical drama, religion, sex, music, politics and horror, The Devils is masterful, and is unlike anything that the British film industry had produced up until that time. The ferocity of Russell’s vision represents a kind of multicoloured artistic purging, with close to two hours of invention, energy and madness loaded into a blunderbuss and fired onto the screen in shocking, blasphemous glory. Unsurprisingly, The Devils attracted great controversy on its initial release (the original US trailer seems acknowledge the film’s controversial nature, with a voiceover that exercises damage limitation by proclaiming that The Devils is “not for everyone”), and a portent of the trouble that would lay ahead came when horrified US studio executives, upon first seeing the film, told Russell it was ‘disgusting shit’.’ — Pop Matters


Trailer


Excerpt


the entirety

 

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The Boy Friend (1971)
‘The fact that the film is considered “slight”—in other words, has no particularly deep meaning and is simply intended to be fun—has caused The Boy Friend to be considered a lesser Ken Russell film in a lot of quarters, which is a great pity. It is actually a film of considerable complexity in that it interweaves a great many storylines into its overall fabric. The characters all have considerable depth—or at least the illusion of it—and virtually nothing happens in the film that isn’t ultimately functional to the plot. Even things that seem like complete digressions—Tommy (Tommy Tune) recounting his life story (with a nod to Potemkin in it), for example, are part of an ultimately tight narrative. It’s also interesting that Russell managed to make two of the girls—Fay (Georgina Hale in her second of six Russell appearances) and Maisie (Antonia Ellis in her first of two Russell films)—a lesbian couple in such a way that the MPAA never noticed.’ — Mountain XPress


Trailer


Excerpt


Behind the scenes

 

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Savage Messiah (1972)
‘Russell seems to fly into his films full-tilt, and I picture him sometimes with steam and sparks jetting from his ears. His movies are almost always paced just this side of frenzy, and his characters mostly seem to be on speed. This can be as tedious, in its way, as the use of a very slow pace, but sometimes it works. For Russell, early in his career, it worked in Women in Love (1969) and again in 1972 with Savage Messiah. This is another movie, like Russell’s awful The Music Lovers, about genius, art and the act of creation. What makes it work so much better than The Music Lovers is that Russell is mostly willing to stay out of his subjects’ minds and let us see and hear them instead.’ — Roger Ebert


Trailer


Excerpt

 

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Mahler (1974)
‘The film is structured around a train ride Gustav (Robert Powell) and his wife, Alma (Georgiana Hale), are taking, during what we come to discover will actually be among the last days of his life (Mahler died in 1911, a month from his 51st birthday). Already quite sickly, and in active denial of it, he’s plunging forward, oblivious to the path that has been more or less set for him. Don’t worry, kids, this is still a crazy Ken Russell film. The opening scene, in which Alma, completely nude, wrestles her way out of a sort of thick webbing, rather urgently establishes two important things – first, that Alma is as much the protagonist of this film that her more famous, titular husband, and second, that this isn’t just going to be two hours on a train, but an experience in which the past, present, imagined future, and total fantasy will roll together to create the kind of total portrait that no element on its own could fulfill.’ — criterioncast.com


Excerpt


the entirety

 

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Tommy (1975)
‘Although in criticising Russell’s lack of discipline people tend to forget that he was virtually the first film-maker to escape the strictures of realism and telestyle that have dogged British cinema since the heyday of Powell and Pressburger, it must nevertheless be admitted that watching his more excessive movies tends to be a wearisome experience. The Who’s ludicrous rock opera was in fact tailor-made for the baroque, overblown images and simplistic symbolism of Russell’s style, which only means that this is both the movie in which he is most faithful to the ideas and tone of his material, and one of his very worst films.’ — Time Out London


Trailer


Cousin Kevin scene


Acid Queen scene

 

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Lisztomania (1975)
Lisztomania: the most embarrassing historical film ever made? Wagner as Hitler, Ringo Starr as the pope, and an anatomical anomaly that suggests an unfortunate mishearing – this film just gets worse and worse. Wagner – dressed, in a painful literalisation of Friedrich Nietzsche’s Thus Spake Zarathustra, as Superman, complete with red cape – strums an electric guitar and sings about restoring the Teutonic godhead. This isn’t an attempt at historical accuracy: just an alarming glimpse into director Ken Russell’s mind. Or possibly he misheard someone describing Liszt as Europe’s biggest pianist. Lisztomania may be the most embarrassing historical film ever made.’ — The Guardian


Trailer


Excerpt

 

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Valentino (1977)
‘The film topped the British box-office for two weeks, but was not a hit in America. Upon its release there, Valentino was a commercial and critical failure. The film garnered mixed reviews, most generally negative. The Village Voice called the film “so embarrassingly and extensively bad that it achieves a kind of excruciating consistency with the rest of his [Russell’s] career.” Charles Champlin of The Los Angeles Times dismissed the film as “superficial and silly”. The majority of the negative criticism stemmed from Russell’s blending of fact and fiction. Russell defended his actions stating, “I only want to be accurate up to a point. I can be as inaccurate as I want — it makes no difference to me. I’m writing a novel. My films are novels, based on a person’s life, and a novel has a point of view.” Despite its general negative reception, some critics and scholars liked and respected the film. Russell later stated that he would rather forget Valentino.’ — collaged


Excerpt


Excerpt

 

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Altered States (1980)
Altered States, about a scientist who is his own favorite guinea pig, is the first Ken Russell movie with psychedelia for its subject – but it is certainly not Mr. Russell’s first psychedelic movie. If anything, Mr. Russell’s other work has had a hallucinogenic quality all its own. His best films have been giddy, kinetic and half crazy without even trying to be. Altered States, which does try, is more like a methodically paced fireworks display, exploding into delirious special-effects sequences at regular intervals, and maintaining an eerie calm the rest of the time. If it is not wholly visionary at every juncture, it is at least dependably – even exhilaratingly – bizarre. Its strangeness, which borders cheerfully on the ridiculous, is its most enjoyable feature.’ — NY Times


Excerpt


Excerpt

 

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Crimes of Passion (1984)
‘Even though Crimes of Passion is only the fourth Ken Russell film that I’ve seen, it’s actually only the second film of his that I’ve watched utilizing the entirety of my face. While I can’t really explain how a normal person goes about watching something with the total sum of one’s face, take my word for it, Ken Russell directs the kinds of films that require them to be watched in this particular manner. Interspersed with a dizzying array of unusual stylistic choices, the kind that no sane director would ever dare implement, Mr. Russell, whether injecting the paintings of Aubrey Beardsley and John Everett Millais into his sex scenes or having a scene where a bland suburban couple watch a surreal music video that mocks materialism, seems totally unafraid to skewer society’s puerile views on sex.’ — House of Self-Indulgence


Trailer


Excerpt

 

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Gothic (1986)
‘For better and worse, Gothic‘s hallucinatory structure allows director Ken Russell to jettison narrative coherence and focus on what interests him: filling his frame as full of images of knights with giant pointy phalluses, stripteasing Turkish automatons, self-stigmatizing masochists, all-seeing bosoms, and naked girls covered in muck chewing on rats as he can think of. This is a very bad thing if you go into Gothic looking for some insight into the creative processes of Romantic poets and novelists, and potentially a very good thing if you just like to see Russell going hog wild, shamelessly playing out his psychedelic sex fantasies with typical campiness against a luxurious, decadent background.’ — 366 Weird Movies


Excerpts

 

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Salome’s Last Dance (1988)
‘What do we learn from this film? Not much, except that Russell is addicted, as always, to excesses of everything except purpose and structure. After his previous film, Gothic, which re-created a weekend idyll involving Shelley and Byron, Russell demonstrates again that he is most interested in literary figures when their trousers are unbuttoned. And even then, he isn’t interested in why, or how, they carry on their sex lives; like the defrockers of the scandal sheets, he wants only to breathlessly shock us with the news that his heroes possessed and employed genitals.’ — Roger Ebert


Trailer


the entire film

 

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The Lair of the White Worm (1988)
‘Let this much be said for Ken Russell’s The Lair of the White Worm: It provides you with exactly what you would expect from a movie named The Lair of the White Worm. It has a lair, it has a worm, the worm is white and there is a sufficient number of screaming victims to be dragged down into the lair by the worm. Russell provides you with your money’s worth. Why he would have wanted to make this film is another matter. This is the kind of movie that Roger Corman was making for American-International back in the early 1960s, when AIP was plundering the shelves of out-of-copyright horror tales, looking for cheap story ideas.’ — collaged


Trailer


Excerpt


the entirety

 

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Whore (1991)
Whore is not about a world where the heroine can do anything with her days except try to pull herself together after the night before. The movie is based on a play called “Bondage,” written by a London taxi driver named David Hines, who based it on the stories told to him by hookers who hailed his cab late at night. It has been moved from London to Los Angeles, and the screenplay has been written by director Ken Russell and Deborah Dalton, who produced a radio series on prostitution. Whore has been given the NC-17 rating. Pretty Woman, of course, got an R. Ken Russell has complained that the ratings system is penalizing his movie because it tells the truth, after rewarding Pretty Woman for glamorizing prostitution. He may have a point, but then again Pretty Woman was about a character who lived in an R-rated world, and Whore is about a woman who lives in the real one.’ — collaged


Trailer


Excerpt

the entirety

 

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Mindbender (1996)
‘If you are interested in bending spoons this is one of the best films on the subject. The life story of Uri Geller. The credits begin with “the following events are true and are interpreted through the artistic eye of Ken Russell”. Uri’s father and lover dance on top of an Israeli tank beside a 3-dimensional Dali-clock. The child Uri pulls a bullet out of a wall (the six day war recurs in the film) and when he holds it in his hand it turns into a ring. When his teacher tells Uri to stay in class until the hands of the clock reach half past four, of course young Uri has no problems moving the hands and leaving early. But this sort of thing is really banal and the films comes over as a paid-for vanity film for Uri Geller. There is a silly spy plot and Geller seems to save the world from nuclear war.’ — Iain Fisher


the entirety

 

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Elgar – Fantasy of a Composer on a Bicycle (2002)
‘Back in 2002, Melvin Bragg asked Ken Russell to do a little something to mark the 25th season of The South Bank Show. Mr Russell decided to remake the drama documentary that he had first done in 1962 for the BBC’s Monitor program.’ — gamesvideoreview.net


the entire film

 

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A Kitten For Hitler (2007)
‘Russell told me A Kitten for Hitler was inspired by a discussion about censorship with his friend and one-time collaborator (The Music Lovers, The Debussy Film) Melvyn Bragg—the author, broadcaster and editor of legendary arts series The South Bank Show. Russell had suggested there were some films that shouldn’t be made—as he later explained in the Times newspaper in 2007: “Ten years ago, Melvyn Bragg and I had a heated discussion on the pros and cons of film censorship. Broadly speaking, Melvyn was against it, while I, much to his surprise, was absolutely for it. He then dared me to write a script that I thought should be banned. I accepted the challenge and a month or so later sent him a short subject entitled A Kitten for Hitler. ‘Ken,’ he said, ‘if ever you make this film and it is shown, you will be lynched’.”‘ — Paul Gallagher


the entirety

 

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Boudica Bites Back (2009)
‘A cine-opera retelling of the legend of Boudica, warrior queen and her uprising against the Roman occupiers of Britain.’ — Letterboxd


Ken and Lisi Russell talk about Boudica Bites Back

 

*

ps. Hey. Heads up that, starting tomorrow, Zac Farley and I will be working all this week with some people to do the color correcting and sound cleaning on our new film. That may be quite time consuming and might, as a result, truncate the time I have to do the p.s. in the mornings. I’ll try to give you advance notice if that’s the case, if I can. In any case, this week’s p.s.es may not be up to my usual standards, and apologies in advance if so. ** Dominik, Hi!!! The sound guy said yes, and we’ll start working him tomorrow, whew. Yes, well, when you get tired of Vienna, I think Paris would make for a nice next homestead for you, naturally. I actually love films where nothing happens so if you did nothing this weekend, I, at least, would probably be riveted. Well, then I hope love was at his most fetching when he issued that invitation to me. Love turning himself into a huge dark cloud over Paris that thunders and issues lightning and explodes rain drops, G. ** Mark, After8 is a lifesaver if you live here and speak English and have excellent taste in book-shaped things. Yes, I think Alfred Jarry lived on that street. There must be a plaque. I’ll have to find it. Oh, wow, Stroke Magazine. That takes me back. It was kind of the best gay mag in existence in its time. It and In Touch, I guess. Very cool. Great project. You’re such a fount of great stuff, dude. ** Misanthrope, Sorry for the slam, man. And the viewing, eek. The only Open I’ve seen was a bit of Coco whatshername’s win. That was cool. So Lil D … called them … back? I trust? ** Sypha, Hi. I was into monsters and stuff big time too as a kid. I bought all the Famous Monsters of Movieland Magazines and so on. I think if Goth had been actually scary, I might have gotten into it. Christmas novel! Now you’re talking. Wow, that’s a great idea. I am that idea’s cheerleader. Cheerleading squad even. ** Steve Erickson, Dude, you are just beset. I’m terrible at pitches, so I’d be confused too, probably. I do think enthusiasm always helps. And you certainly have proven yourself as a critic/writer. Precisely, about Nyege Nyege/Hakuna Kulala. I wonder how long that can last. ** oliver jude, Top o’ the morning! November and December, noted. I’m all about winter time. That’s my metier. The storyline of your short is great! I’m already imagining it. Oh, wow, about your cam operation and assistant work. I wish Zac and I had a new film ready to shoot so we could swipe you. What’s your screenplay like if you want to say? I hope you liked ‘PGL’, obviously. ** Damien Ark, Alex’s book seems like the epitome of divisive. Usually a good thing. I’ll find ‘MOMOKO blooms in 1.26D’, thanks, man. You’re going to Japan maybe? Holy fuck! I’m dying to go to Japan. Dreams of going as soon as the film’s finished, but … I don’t know. ** Matt N., Hi, Matt. Yes, the book’s goodreads reviews are entertainment. Zac’s and my ideal post-film thing is to go to Japan, as we’re been trying to get back there for years, but that might be too ambitious. We have another project we want to start on right away — an ‘audio novel’, that is a novel that only exists as sounds. That’s already written, so we might jump into that. Oh, hm, fave John Fords … off the top of my head maybe ‘The Quiet Man’, ‘The Searchers’, ‘The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance’, ‘Stagecoach’ maybe? Yeah, Fritz Lang, nice, and exactly re: the cohesion/non-cohesion. How’s your week beginning? ** John Newton, Hi. Yes, I eat eggs. The easiest way to describe my vegetarianism is to say I eat anything that doesn’t have an asshole. Salads bore me shitless, ha ha. I don’t cook, but I think my Mexican faves are fairly basic: quesadilla, cheese gorditas, bean & cheese burritos, chile rellenos, … Vegetarian tamales are yum too. No, no ‘Sluts’ sequel. People have approached me about publishing the escort/ slave profiles as book, but the problem is I don’t have permission for the photos, and the texts need them, I think, and I can’t see publishing them in a book without permission. I do that here, and there’ve only ever been maybe two complaints in all the years I’ve done the posts, but, in a book, no. Congrats on your taxes. I, of course, spaced out again this year, oops. ** Ollie🦉, Uh, I don’t know. Alex was commenting here for a while, so maybe that’s what you’re thinking? I’m obviously glad you didn’t take imaginary Bob Dylan’s advice there. I love birds. I love them more and more. I think they’re very underrated. That’s so exciting about setting up the mausoleum thing, and, having spent plenty of time in Halloween stores, I can see exactly what you mean. Sigh. I think I know when you’re joking. I guess I don’t know for sure, of course, but I think I do, yes. You don’t sound insane, that’s for sure. ** _Black_Acrylic, Thanks, Ben. ** Caesar, Hey, Caesar! It’s really good to see you! I remember you, of course, of course. The film with Zac goes well except for the money part. We’re polishing it up right now. Haven’t had much rest ‘cos the film has been full-time, but that’s okay, I’m not pooped. Thomas Mann … wait, I think you Thomas Moore. Yes, he was here, and he snapped us. I’m so sorry about the stupid, short-sighted guy who obviously doesn’t deserve you. Wow, poetry to recommend. I’m going to have think about it briefly before I answer because I’m about to dash out the door, and my brain is already half way out the door. Tomorrow if I can, okay? Sorry. I hope sticking around here is something you’re into doing because it’s a big pleasure for me. Kisses back! ** Cody Goodnight, Hi. I’m … extremely over this heatwave we’re having and ‘praying’ it ends tonight like they’re promising. But okay otherwise. I haven’t seen that Mailer. I’ve always wanted to. Yes, I think ‘Fargo’ is a perfect film. I’ve just been working hard and constantly on the film. I’m going to be kind of a film-only bore for a bit longer. Monday? How was it? ** TJ Sandel, Hi! My pleasure, of course. I’m not 100% sure, but I think it is from the Gilles Sebhan book, yes. How are you? What’s up? ** Okay. Someone recently asked me if I would restore my blog’s old Ken Russell Day. I looked at it, and not only had it been ravaged by the internet’s evolution, but I thought it was kind of weak. So I killed it! And I made a whole new Day! And there it is! And I’ll see you in some form tomorrow.

Please welcome to the world … Alex Kazemi New Millennium Boyz (Permuted Press), hosted by James Nulick

 

Well, does he like butter tarts? New Millennium Boyz by Alex Kazemi
by James Nulick

Oh god, not another critic

Let’s get this out of the way—I am not a professional book critic, I’m a writer. Despite my somewhat questionable talent for stringing beautiful words into pretty baubles, I’m all left thumbs when it comes to literary analysis. Whenever a friend asks what a book or a film is about, I always freeze, eventually saying airheaded things like uh just read it, it’s really good, or nah man it’s bad, but when I saw the excitement swirling around the imminent release of Alex Kazemi’s debut novel New Millennium Boyz, I decided to read it and write a review of it—as a critical reader, not as a critic—exclusively for Dennis Cooper’s venerable and well-loved blog DC’s.

I fake it so real, I am beyond fake

New Millennium Boyz is, quite simply, a search for authenticity in a world so obviously fake. Brad Sela is seventeen on the cusp of the millennium, that huge nonevent that was supposed to change everything. I remember the excitement of 1999 on the social odometer building to the release that became George W. Bush a year later. Sitting at a bar in New Orleans with my father on October 3, 2000—the same day Radiohead’s Kid A was released—my father, a lifelong Democrat from Arkansas, glared intently at the first presidential debate on the flatscreen hovering above our heads and said there’s no way this sonofabitch will win, son. Meaning Bush. Alas, father… Brad, always afraid that he’s a fake, a poser, bristles whenever his friend Lusif, also known as Lu, makes the charge. Your manufactured, corporate-calculated good-boy image is never going to be real. When we become what we fear we will become, the fear is intensified when someone else notices. Lu, always badgering Brad’s itinerant homosexuality, never fails to remind him he’s a phony—the word fake, in its various iterations, appears 48 times in New Millennium Boyz. The tone of the novel begins to shift around page 117, becoming more serious, less teenage? Or are adults just as obsessed with image as teenagers are? Image is more important than how you feel, page 200. Wait a minute, adults don’t judge others solely on image, do they? Need I remind you Gore lost because people thought he was a cardboard cutout. I fake it so real, I am beyond fake.

Brad, Just Admit It…

He only loves those things
Because he loves to see them break
—Hole, Doll Parts

The word dick, hilarious when you’re twelve, silly when you’re not, appears in New Millennium Boyz 129 times. That’s a lot of dick. There are more ass grabs and towel smacks per square inch than you can shake a dick at… where were all these lust-filled straight boys when I was a teenager? Seventeen is a weird age—or do you not remember? On the edge of voting age, at least in the United States, where New Millennium Boyz takes place—the Pacific Northwest is the feeling I get, though Kazemi is Canadian—teenagers are almost completely invisible except to every marketing agency selling sex to underage teens. Does trailer park flesh-smeared Calvin Klein ads or penis-faced Joe Camel ring a silver bell? Youth, a hot commodity that burns very quickly, is constantly told buy this, buy that, look like this, become more popular with the perfect deodorant! But how can you become more popular, more real, in a society where everyone is fake? This is the sad truth Brad Sela is battling for three hundred pages and let me tell you—the struggle is real. Do you not remember, when you were a teenager, how you thought everyone was stringing you along? Do you remember, when you became an adult, how you still felt that way? Sitting in his underwear, talking into a video camera, likely the ever-present Handycam of the late Nineties, Brad asks an unseen audience a la Elliot Rodger What if corporations are watching me aspire to be what they created of me? Everyone at school makes fun of the posers and try-hards, but what if everyone is a poser and a try-hard? Unfortunately, my brain is a platen, and all the bad things in my teenage years have been stored on a hard drive that continues to age yet refuses to forget, and this line rings totally true to me. So many times during my reading of New Millennium Boyz, like screaming at the dumb teenage girl on the screen who goes down the stairs into the dark basement without a flashlight or protection in a thousand cheesy horror movies, I just wanted to shout at these two clueless boys, Brad and Lu, YOU’RE GAY! echoing Elaine Benes’ hilarious YOU’RE BALD! scene from Seinfeld. If Lusif wasn’t so obsessed with being a fake hard-ass school shooter and an overly dramatic Satanist (is there any other kind?) perhaps he’d recognize the love that dare not speak its name, a true love he is willing to toss away for a phosphor dot idealization that means absolutely nothing. Read Nietzsche and Susan Sontag and shut the fuck up, poser. Brad’s epistolary girlfriend, Aurora, the solitary light in all this darkness, advises him to search for love in the room everywhere you go, self-actualizing Brad’s I’m obsessed with you, dude fluorescing into a sex scene between Brad and Lusif that unfortunately never happens. Over several friendly email exchanges between Alex and myself—the young man who shies away from social media and the old man resigned to it—I asked him WHY DID BRAD AND LU NOT HAVE SEX?! I WANT BRAD AND LU TO HAVE SEX!! This book is so Fifty Shades of Gay, Alex! Writing back, Alex advised me that was the whole point, to replicate the mass market romances that get Amazon kindle moms moist, minus the hothouse sex scenes. Yabut some of us old creeps like those over-the-top bodice-ripping sex scenes, Alex. **SIGH**

Virginal Mushrooms

Full disclosure: I read Alex Kazemi’s debut novel New Millennium Boyz from cover to cover, all 326 pages. I am not a toe-dipper, I’m a careful, conscientious reader, as I would hope most serious readers of literature are. A few weeks before New Millenium Boyz dropped, I noticed some prerelease hate springing up almost overnight, like virginal mushrooms gathering in mommy’s basement, on that most Walmart of book review sites, Goodreads. Despite a few marketing flubs, why all the Kazemi hate, which appeared to be directed at the author, rather than the work? I would posit it’s because Kazemi is famous—internet famous—and the haters are not. We hate what we can’t become, yeah? New Millennium Boyz isn’t perfect, obviously, as all human endeavors are imperfect, especially creative ones, and when was the last time you read a perfect novel? Heads up, class—perfection is boring, perfection doesn’t exist, perfection kills joy. I can forgive New Millennium Boyz its faults because our protagonist Brad, afraid he is a poser, intuitively knowing he’s a poser, is at least trying. When Brad is sitting in the back seat of Lu’s car blowing fog on the window, he thinks I wish I could be in this car forever and never have to know what happens after. Teenage angst pays off well if you manage to live long enough, realizing that, with the wisdom that hopefully comes with old age, we are always going to be an unfinished version of ourselves.

Strange synchronicities, Interesting bachronisms

As I was reading New Millennium Boyz, I began noticing interesting synchronicities between Alex’s work and my own. We both discuss Marilyn Manson (NMB, Distemper). We both fantabulate over Canadian killer Luka Magnotta (NMB, Haunted Girlfriend). We both ponder Adolf Hitler (NMB, Distemper). We both obsess over Richard D. James, the genius known as Aphex Twin (NMB, Distemper, The Moon Down to Earth). Oh, and let’s not forget Adidas slides and Adidas tracksuits (NMB, Distemper, The Moon Down to Earth, Lazy Eyes). I thought I was the only writer in the world who had mentioned “Steal My Sunshine” in a novel, a one hit blunder by Canadian band Len, a song I secretly love but told everyone I hated back in 1999… I didn’t want to look supremely uncool as I was toe-dipping into thirty—I had to keep my Joy Division and The Cure black-cloaked goth shellac unmarred by sugary pop nonsense. My jaw about hit the floor when I read the reference to “Steal my Sunshine” in New Millennium Boyz, page 24—the song makes an appearance in my 2020 novel The Moon Down to Earth, page 384—the character Jace Jason fondly recalls hearing the song playing on the radio (or was it on a CD?) in his mixed-race parents’ car. Like two Tamagotchis fumbling towards each other in the dark, I felt Alex and I were somehow simpatico, our brains connective tissue stretching like Laffy Taffy Sparkle Cherry across the multiverse. Laughing to myself, I began thinking, to quote Keanu in Richard Linklater’s brilliant film A Scanner Darkly, bruh, it’s like you know me… lolz. How are me and this young Canadian author so Fruity Pebbles friendship bracelet? I found the bachronisms (my word for stuff that didn’t really happen during the period piece imagined, this period being late 1999) in New Millennium Boyz quite entertaining, sometimes hilariously so. Dick prints weren’t a thing in 1999, only creepy old men wore grey joggers—at least in the United States. Brad and his friend Shane occasionally wear Levi’s 501s. Teenagers in the United States didn’t wear Levi’s 501s in 1999, to my knowledge—you would’ve been laughed out of the classroom. Those old-fashioned nut huggers had long been abandoned for JNCO, Interstate, and SilverTabs, the Levi’s 501s of yesteryore relegated to nursing homes and 55+ inactive adult communities. Perhaps most interesting, a sly reference to Luka Magnotta, Canadian sex killer and drama queen magnifique, who had written the lines If you don’t like the reflection, don’t look in the mirror. I don’t care in red marker in his closet after murdering Lin Jun (NMB, page 288). Lin Jun was murdered in 2012, a universe away from the loose and freewheeling late 1990s. When I asked Alex about the Luka Magnotta reference via email, his response FUCK YEAH!! YOU’RE THE FIRST PERSON TO SEE IT! DUDE! made me feel vindicated for all the nights I’d spent with Alex’s filigreed and much maligned novel, attentive as a jeweler, searching for Pikachu Easter eggs I felt were written solely for me. But then this is what a novel is supposed to be, right? A meeting of our conscious and the author’s melded together seamlessly via strange black hieroglyphics lasered on paper, sexualized violence blooming in the private theater of conjoined minds.

The truth is out there, and it’s a lie

New Millennium Boyz will have its detractors, of course. Half-pint critics spelunking for bejeweled Nabokovian sentences will be disappointed, and anhedonian haters may claim the dialogue tastes slightly metallic to the tongue. May I remind you the narrator is seventeen years young—how did you sound when you were seventeen? Blessed be those who didn’t have a Sony Handycam recording every idiot utterance, every poor choice in clothing. Allowing that teenage boys were likely not reading Prozac Nation in 1999 and anticipating readers would likely think teenage boys don’t really talk like this, Kazemi says in a recent Vanity Fair article teenage boys don’t talk like this, it’s cinematic, it’s a fantasy. Fantasy allows for a warped or distorted image if the reader is willing to accept it. Both of Brad’s Boomer parents talk like image-obsessed cardboard cutouts. Perhaps some adults really do talk like this. Charlie Brown’s teacher, Al Gore dancing on the ceiling in New Orleans? And how many readers would acknowledge poor clothing choices when they were a teenager, or perhaps even older? I’m no fashion expert, but I do recall 1999 being a big baggy ass shotgun year that was a lot more fun—and freer—than anything happening in fashion or politics now. Already an old man in 1999—29 years old, Kazemi’s age now—I readily admit to owning a pair of JNCOs way back when, and, perhaps even more horrifying, wearing them in public. I am only thankful there is no Handycam evidence. Again, recalling that easy night sitting at the bar in New Orleans with my father, Brad’s line—or is it Shane’s? Dialogue is unattributed, fusing the characters even more—How much we are always in the same places, doing the same things, and nothing ever interrupts this boring pace of our lives rings as true now as it did then, even as every butterfly ballot and every pregnant chad magically escorted Bush towards an eventuality that installed him at the threshold of the White House doors. When the world is manufactured, as ours most certainly is, when there is no choice because all your choices are predetermined, what’s the point? Towards the end of the novel, Brad and his friend Shane share an exchange, a discussion most teenagers have likely had amongst themselves, in the privacy of their own bedrooms, since forever—No one is looking out for us. No one cares. I don’t exist to the world. I’m fine with that. I remember saying almost the exact same thing to a friend nearly forty years ago. Nothing changes, the toys just get shoddier. The world totally feels like fake plastic garbage now, doesn’t it? Everything is disposable, and people are more disconnected than ever. Where is the information superhighway I was promised so long ago, the information autobahn that was going to bring everyone together, if I only had your vote?

We’ll make great pets

New Millennium Boyz will have its detractors, of course, but if a novel’s protagonist, even if he is unlikable, is searching for some kind of truth, as Brad Sela of New Millennium Boyz certainly is, aren’t the flaws forgivable? What was the name of that perfect novel, again? We’re all searching for our own truth, and when we were younger, before jobs, children, pets, a rent payment, even more so. And what is truth, after all? The world doesn’t change, even when you think you’ve finally found it. The more you expose, the more invisible you become.

 

 

Excerpt

No One Sees Us

We sit on a bench as I look at engravings on the pebble stone beneath us: hearts, stars, devil heads. I pick up an empty beer bottle and whistle into it.
—-Lu screams, “Fuck off! That sound is so annoying!”
—-“Yo, Lu, check it. This is your brain!”
—-“Oh my fucking God.”
—-“This is what happens to your brain when you snort heroin!” I smash the bottle on the pavement. “And your friends! And your family! Any questions?”
—-Lu claps his hands. “I have tears.”
—-“I haven’t laughed this hard in so long.”
—-“Who is in that commercial again?”
—-“The firecrotch skank from She’s All That.”
—-“All that commercial made me want to do is run to the nearest crack house and shoot the fuck up!”
—-“‘It takes one day! One day to get addicted for the rest of your life!’”
—-“One day! One day! One day!”
—-“D.A.R.E. school assemblies just make me want to do drugs even more.” Lu puts his bag on the bench and takes out a bottle of Cinnamon Sticks Glade, a Ziploc bag with glitter heart stickers, a BIC, a flask with a D.A.R.E. sticker, and his Polaroid. “Can you snap a pic of me licking the Glade bottle? That would look so chopped. It’s so my aesthetic right now.” I grab the Polaroid. Lu licks the bottle. “Make your eyes look more fucked.”
—-“Yeah.” He sticks his middle finger up and I hit the shutter. The flash bursts and the picture spits out. Lu grabs it and puts it into his bag. He takes off the lid of my Big Gulp and pours the flask into it.
—-I hold the cup steady. “Is that moonshine?”
—-“No, it’s Smirnoff.”
—-“Oh, dope.”
—-Lu takes off the lid of his Big Gulp, crushes it, pours the vodka in, and chugs it.
—-“You look so dope when you drink your Big Gulp. I wish you could see what I see.” I take off my lid, throw it to the ground, and start chugging. I put my Big Gulp under his lips, and he bites on the cup as I pour it down his throat.
—-Lu slaps his forehead. “Owie! Brainfreeze!”
—-“Put your tongue on the roof of your mouth. It helps.”
—-“Where did you hear that one?”
—-“It’s a suburban myth.”
—-Lu laughs. “Take a look around, bitch. You’re living in a suburban myth.”
—-I swish the Slurpee in my mouth, then spit it onto the pavement.
“Look how chopped that looks.” Pink Slurpee glows in the streetlight. Lu nods. “You know, this looks like demon blood.”
—-“That’s my vibe.”
—-I lie on the basketball court, look up to the full moon, pull my shirt, and rub my fingers on my stomach. Lu stands over me and rubs his shoes up and down my legs. Our eyes lock. I flip myself over and lie on my stomach, looking over at the empty water park. Lu sprays the Cinnamon Sticks Glade into the Ziploc bag. He pushes his hand through the air.
—-“You just go zzzzzzzip… Zzzzzip when you do this shit. You go… gone.” Lu puts his head into the Ziploc and starts inhaling. “Did you…” He huffs. “Know…this…can enter your bloodstream?” He huffs. “Immediately? And reach the…” He huffs. “Brain… sometimes, causing…irreversible… physical…” He huffs one more time. “Damage!
Come, get some…”
—-I grab the Glade bottle. “Newsweek, we have your new story right here, baby. It only takes one huff to kill!” I open the Ziploc, hit the lever, and spray it in. “Like this, right? Am I being fucking retarded? Wait. We have finals next week.”
—-Lu’s slobbering over his mouth, touching his forehead, his eyes rolling back into his head. “Never mind. Brad, you know that huffing can kill you. Something in all of our houses has the power to kill us!”
—-I grab the Ziploc, put my face inside, and inhale. “Ah, fuck. Fuck yeah.”
—-I put my hands over my eyes and lick my palm. The images around me are replicating, glitching: A version of myself in anime. A hotel room in Japan. Looking through a View-Master at a schoolgirl in a black plaid skirt. She lifts it, moans, and puts an octopus on her pussy. I flip the ViewMaster and see myself in front of a well. I look at my reflection in the water and letters appear in blue glitter: “jump in.” I jump. I look up at the sunlight reflecting on the surface and swim upwards. I look toward an island and see a mermaid sitting on a rock. “You’ve always wanted to ascend, to go further, to experience total perfection, unlimited bliss. You’ll never want to retrieve or return to the feeling.” The mermaid opens her hands to a sugar cube gummy shell. “Swallow for total psychick warfare.”
—-Lu slaps me in the face. I open my eyes and look up. I’m on the ground, fingers in the dirt over tree roots. I grab the chain link fence and look through the empty water park. “Huh? How the fuck did I get over here?”
—-Lu shakes the bottle. “Brad! You can’t do the whole bottle, you fucking dick shit.”
—-“I…feel…so lightheaded.”
—-“Huh?”
—-“Did you see that? Did you see those pink orbs?”
—-“The orbs disappear quickly to trick you into thinking they’re an illusion.”
—-I hug the bottle. “When do I stop? What if I go through the whole bottle?”
—-“A little abuse could do you some use, baby.”
—-Lu puts out his hand and pulls me up. “Everyone is so dumb. We should be the only people on this planet.”
—-“I don’t want anyone to protect me from the world. I want to hurt myself and get something out of it.”
—-“Remember when Shane left us with his house keys and we slept all day in his room? The rain was so loud, and we just kept sleeping?”
—-“Do you know how fucked up my life would be if you moved away, how fucked up it would be for me to lose meeting up with you on the path every day? Or you parking your car up the street because I don’t want my parents to see you picking me up?”
—-“We should fucking overdose together.”
—-“I’m obsessed with you, dude.”
—-“I’m serious. I want to die in the same hotel room as you.”
—-“I love when you do that.”
—-“What?”
—-“I don’t know. I love when you try to impress yourself.”
—-“You know what my biggest fear is? If you and I ever stop being friends, I’ll never have a way to see what’s happening in your life, the life without me. I never want to know what it’s like to have to go looking for you in other people.”
—-“You are my blood brother for eternity.”
—-I rub his palm. “Shane asked me the other night: ‘Do you want to be him? Do you want to look like him? Or do you want to fuck him?’”
—-Lu laughs. “I know what you answered.”
—-“It’s not about answering those questions. It’s just about being so fucking happy that I get to experience such an intense bond with someone when I need it the most.”
—-He grabs my shirt, twirls his fingers in it, puts his hands up my body, makes a fist, and knocks on my collarbones. “It’s the sound of the gods.”
—-“Fuck yeah! Fuck, that feels so fucking good.”
—-I rub my fingers up and down my neck and lick my lips, running my fingers through my hair. Lu pushes me down onto the pavement. “Rub your fingers on my teeth.” Lu lifts my lips and rubs his fingertips on my teeth. “Fuck. Fuck, that feels so fucking good.”
—-Lu puts his legs over my legs. “When else does my body…ever…get to feel…all heavy?”
—-I look up to the full moon. I’m so high now, I don’t know who is saying what. It’s as if we have become one sound.
—-“I forget how life was before this. I don’t want to remember who I was before.”
—-“I want to disappear to certain people and only exist to a select few.”
—-“Do you ever get afraid that you have felt all of the feelings that exist? That you are so numb now that there is nothing left to feel?”
—-“All…the…fucking…time.”
—-“You’re doing it again.”
—-“Huh?”
—-“Angel cloning.”
—-“Can…I…clone angels?”
—-“Those chain link fences are the gates.”
—-“How can I touch endless light?”
—-“Our real selves exist nowhere. Give up.”
—-“Maybe angels are the only ones who will ever know the truth about us.”
—-“I’m happy that you didn’t bring your video camera to the park tonight.”
—-“Nothing about tonight is happening to be remembered.”
—-“Once footage of you is made, it’s like anyone can watch it and make up a million impressions of you in that moment. You are forever frozen, gone in an illusion, no control.”
—-“I want to feel the moonlight in my veins. Inject me.”
—-“The truth is, there…is…no…truth…”
—-He tickles under my chin. “Zim…zum…zim…zum…”
—-I tickle back. “You only hallucinate yourself when you’re with me.”
—-I rub my fingers on his jawline. I lick his cheeks. He licks my eyelids. I lick his forehead. He puts out his palm; I spit into it. He rubs the spit across his elbows. I hug him, his hair in my mouth. He rubs his thumbs across my lips and pushes them into my mouth. I bite them. He pulls my bottom lip down. He twirls his fingers in my hair. I tickle his armpit. He puts my thumb up to his face, bites on it, sucks on it, and looks into my eyes. I rub the back of his ears and turn my hand over. He leans his head on my shoulder.
—-“No more reason. No more logic. A restricted zone.”
—-“I’m inside of it with you. No one can get to us. I’m right here. I can’t even remember who I was before we became…brothers.”
—-Lu pulls me in and presses his forehead against my forehead. “You are my other head, Hydra boy.”
—-I grab his hands and rub his fingertips. “Your skin feels like velvet.”
—-“Your hands…feel…like…suede…”
—-“I like this…I like it best when you’re nice to me.”
—-“In between highs and lows, where is there for us to go? What is there for us to do? This is the empty space.”
—-“My eyes are so heavy.”
—-“We are on the ground, so high that we can’t walk, and no one cares. No one sees us.”

 

Extras

afx I (the boys)

afx 2 (turntable)

hot topic

cat telepathy (Go, 1999)

 

Author

 

*

p.s. Hey. ** This weekend the notable fiction wielder James Nulick hosts a welcome to the world post timed with the long awaited lift-off of Alex Kazemi’s ultra-buzzy novel ‘New Millennium Boyz’ for your collective delectation. Please spend a solid portion of your Saturday and Sunday perusing the results and consider adding Mr. Kazemi’s tome to your personal library. Thank you, and thanks a whole lot, James. ** Dominik, Hi!!! Thanks, we’re waiting to hear back from the sound guy, a bit nerve wracking. It is beyond massively frustrating to have an AWOL, bullshit producer, yes. The event seemed good. It was hot in there, but not quite the sauna I’d feared. It was the Paris launch for Jack Skelley’s ‘Complete Fear of Kathy Acker’. I was one of the hosts, and Jack read and entertained the gaggle from LA via Zoom. Love following you around at a safe distance all weekend with a notepad sketching you for his future graphic novel entitled ‘Dominick Unleashed!’, G. ** oliver jude, Good morning to you! Yes, a little New Orleans in person yesterday. I really need to get back to NO and actually dawdle there when it’s not summer. Sound editing is serious hard. We can do it, but it would take us until way post-deadline. What’s the short film? Are you working on others? Cool, we’ll keep New Orleans Film Festival in mind. When it is? Wait, I can find out. Our first two films were shot in France, one of them in French, but this one was shot in English in the Southern California desert. One of the actors is French and has a strong French accent, but I don’t think that’s French enough to qualify. Thanks, I’ll keep you up on the film. We’re trying to nail down a cut we can lock in for the first festival submission this weekend. Hopefully the brutal heatwave won’t derail us. How was your weekend? ** Steve Erickson, I agree Nyege Nyege/Hakuna Kulala is on fire. It’s one of those labels where you can trust that anything they put out is going to be interesting enough. Your laptop is a bratty bottom. I really don’t think The Wire expects their writers to be experts on the universe of non-mainstream music. I could be romantic, but I vibe that they’re more open than that. I do love Jim Steinman, but, yes, I remain wary. Thanks, but the weekend is going to be film film film as we have a tight deadline. How was yours? ** Sypha, Aphex Twin plays a fairly big part in this weekend’s post, coincidentally. See, I never got into Goth really. I always thought it was cool and pretty looking and sounding, but I couldn’t enter it with any really interest. Are you planning a Middle Ages-y novel? Safe trip home unless you’re already there. ** Mark, Hi. I wish I could’ve seen you at the gig, but I guess it was one way. Or two way: Jack vs. store. Wow, cool about Atomic Books. Thank you. I think Antonia will probably take the zine. She likes me. After8 is the best thing/place in Paris. I just need to get to the p.o. to pick up that petit package that I hope is the zine. The editing schedule fucks things up, but I think I might finish early enough today to get there pre-closing. We’ll sort it. HBD to Mr. Alfred Jarry. Thanks, Mark! ** Charalampos, You could start your Duvert experience with that book. My fave is ‘Strange Landscape’, but it’s pretty impossible to get without spending a fortune. I bought the Clementi book After8, so it’ll probably come back in stock. Hey back from hell on earth (weather-wise) aka Paris. ** _Black_Acrylic, Glad you dug them, B. ** 2Moody, Cool. Yeah, Big Freedia’s a joy. It’s true I think I could have been a good referee for your angsty gang. I’ve always had a weird logical side. I think Kanye West flew over an audience, but I can’t stand him, so he doesn’t count. As brutally hot as it is, or at least as it feels, here right now, I think I’ll keep on the no AC if your bugs are the alternative. My parents were Texans. I spent a fair amount of time there growing up, and I remember those bugs, and … long story short, no thank you. My apartment in LA is at the foot of a hill where there’s a big park (Griffith Park), and there have been occasions when mountain lions wandered in the yard of my building. I don’t whisper to them, no. I just whisper to whoever’s with me, ‘Is it still there?’ And coyotes for sure. Pretty nature-y. That is a potential long sit. I just read that the craziest of the most fanatical Taylor Swift fans wear diapers to her concert so they won’t have to go to the restroom and miss a second of her performance. You could try that, ha ha. The event last night I just co-hosted. It was hot but not as death-oriented as I’d feared. But it was too hot to spend an extra minute looking at books, so my tote bag came back empty. What happened to you between now and Monday, eh? ** Montse, Hi, Montse!!! Cool, yeah, The Chap are fun. I’m glad you liked that. The heatwave is supposed to start to end on Monday. It’s bad. Be glad your visit wasn’t timed for it. I hope you’re not frying. Love, me. ** Ollie🦉, Great things! Wait, let me go smoke a cigarette at my window so I can be relaxed for the news. One sec. Back. Okay. Show me the finch. Hm, no I’ve never had a pet bird. The pigeons by my windows are such regulars that they almost are, but they’re also free. I think the editing is going very well, I think. I’ll know better today. Hopefully there’ll be a way for you to see the film. We’ll figure it out. I will do a related post too. It’ll be a while, though. I’m excited you got the Halloween job! Any job with the Halloween attached its exciting to me. Nice that the therapist took you seriously. Well, I mean, why wouldn’t he, but yeah. I hope you can continue with him, if he’s that promising. Okay, no brainbomb answer. I’m boring because my favorite Neutral Milk Hotel album is the obvious one: ‘In the Aeroplane Over the Sea’. What’s yours? Good … morning? ** Corey Heiferman, So Frankfurt lives up or down to my memory of it. I’m glad you found good in the festival, because, yeah, they’re always wobbly. Enjoy if you’re still there, enjoy more if you’re back home. ** Matt N., Good day to you, sir. DJ Arana …. no. I’ll go find out. It’s true that my approach to the performers/ performances in our films is ultra-influenced by Bresson’s. His book ‘Notes on Cinematography’ is kind of a Bible. No, I’m hardly reading. The film is eating everything. I have book pile ready to be devoured though. It sounds like your situation is similar to France in terms of film funding. We couldn’t do that with our new one because it wasn’t French enough, so we ended up just asking lots of people for smallish amounts until we had enough. My weekend is film editing and trying to stay out of the broiling sun as much I can. Enjoy the holiday. What’re your favorite John Ford films? ** Bill, Thanks, Bill. It was at After8. Was it extant when you were here last? It’s the best bookstore in Paris by a million kilometres. Oh, wow, ‘Flaming Ears’. I’d like to see that again. Welcome home! Enjoy the lack of heat. I’m just going to try to survive until the supposed temperature drop come Monday. ** Nasir, Hi! Yeah, busy’s good. I do really like it. Obviously, I encourage you to do what’s necessary to get back to your writing. Thank you about the film. We’re just trying to lock down a solid cut/edit right now. Not very exciting to report on. But exciting to do. Have a splendid weekend however and whatever. ** Right. Welcome Mr. Kazemi’s novel until further notice please. Thanks. See you on Monday.

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