‘The story of acid in the America of the 1960s is a story of a nation in conflict between a renewed lust for life and an enhanced drive towards death, between the rebels and the republic, the old guard Don Draper types clinging by their fingernails to the 1950s American dream as it dissolved around them, and the crazy peaceniks mocking and deriding everything that dream stood for. While dad swills a beer and cheers the bombers on the news, his kids are out in Central Park, dropping tabs and flashing peace signs. Seldom before or since in American history has the line between old and young, life and death, love and hate, conformity and free-thinking, been so sharply and clear drawn. And in the field of combat the same line existed between delusional top brass notions of “heart and minds” and the real blood-and-ambiguity-drenched quagmire of the killing field.
‘LSD erased all those lines…as well as all other artificial social constructs. It could make you very peaceful with yourself as you committed horrific violence against yourself or others, merrily merrily merrily, life is but a dream of disconnect… On acid you realize even killing can be an expression of love, just ask the Manson family, or the babysitter nuking the kid in the microwave and putting the TV dinner to bed, or Native Americans apologizing to the buffalo as they kill it, understanding that they’re killing themselves for all is connected. All murder is just projected suicide. The Native American’s knew we always only ever eat ourselves. On acid, we knew it too.
‘Taking acid certainly could prove a boost to your perception, heightening and sharpening your senses enabling the user to transcend their usual social more strait-jacket. Whether over in the war or at home, what seemed like unshakable bedrocks only hours before–marriage, church, state, government, patriarchy, tradition–became suddenly clownish, yesterday’s papers, tools of hypnosis to keep the cattle placid. Acid made killing ‘real’ to non-combatants because it shuckered them loose from the grip of the patriarchy, helped them think like the enemy, or how they imagined the enemy thought, slinking through the jungle, hard-wired and alive to every flapping beetle wing and blowing leaf, and best of all, free of all the moral inhibitions about killing. Smashing open an innocent Vietnamese farmer’s face with the butt of your rifle would be intolerable sober, but is just another freaky thing to trip out once you surrender to the fact that you’re living in a world… of… shit, as Private Pyle puts it in FULL METAL JACKET (1987).
‘An integral — though demonized by the press– part of boot camp is hazing, the beating of lagging cadets with soaps wrapped in towels, to toughen them up, give them a face-to-face taste with unendurable pain, the kind that transforms and darkens you, makes you less afraid since you know it can’t get any worse. Anything less than that level of prolonged and traumatic beating up is just business as usual from then on; the volume is turned way down. This tradition is nothing new, and corresponds to Native American rituals that involve hanging by pierced shoulder muscles until you see your white buffalo vision and know you are a man. Women have the agony of childbirth; men have to find agonies for themselves to equal it.
‘Or, you could just try taking too much acid, a sort of self-induced hazing. Either way, you have to do something to free yourself from living life in a state of fear-based wussiness… it takes a jolt to your whole body-mind-spirit in order to shake the civilized cowardice out of a man, to sever all apron string breadcrumb trails back to mommy. You can’t wait to turn savage after you’re savagely killed, by then it’s too late. You have to be already on fire to fight fire with fire.
‘This “death-embracing” aspect of LSD is something America never has been able to reconcile with its more peaceful half, just throwing baby and bathwater alike into prison and barring the door on any further conversation, at least in the US. In England the late-inning demonizing was taken with a grain of salt, and the Nietzschean rebirth from civilized wanker into super-warrior thing appears in British films to this day. Leo DiCaprio taps into it for his psychedelic interlude during a stretch of THE BEACH (2000) and Cillian Murphy finds his inner psycho for the climax of 28 DAYS LATER (2002). Shauna Macdonald (above) experiences a similar death/rebirth when falling into a pit of menstrual blood signifier slime in THE DESCENT (2005). It’s the last straw of horror that snaps her free into CARRIE-style warrior woman.
‘The Japanese have always been fans of this conversion and the slew of samurai films such as SWORD OF DOOM (1966) illustrate a cosmic understanding of the difference between sympathy and true compassion. The antihero main character played by Tatsuya Nakadai, for example, kills a weary old man he meets on a hill, just because he seems to be a burden to his granddaughter. In sword battle contests he only cares about perfection of technique, barely noticing the corpses he leaves in his wake. Perhaps the Japanese, British, and Germans for that matter, are just a little better at “going there.” May I venture to guess it comes from being bombed?
‘But Americans can’t abide freedom from resolve-weakening head games without a little help from their lysergic friends. We need far more of a push to shed our civilized moral paralysis, as we see in our terror of issues like euthanasia, castration and abortion. Comatose, paralyzed, dying patients are kept alive for years, and convicted sex offenders begging to be castrated are turned down flat. Every hospital should have a man like Willard/Kurz in APOCALYPSE NOW or SWORD OF DOOM’s Tatsuya Nakadai (above) to walk through the wards and dispassionately off the incurably sick or comatose, castrating and severing and doing whatever needs to be done. But it’s shocking just to think of it. We are too scared to face death square in the eye! Won’t someone think of the children!!?!?!’ — Acidemic
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Stills
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Ralph Nelson Charly (1968)
‘The psychedelic sequence, where a wounded Charly deals with Alice’s rejection of him by taking drugs, having orgies, and growing his hair long, is a goofy time capsule of 1968’s values, obsessions, and grandiosity. The Ravi Shankar soundtrack, that makes use of flutes, harpsichords, and sitar, is obtrusive in its shouting, “1968!”‘ — Danish Goska
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Bill Brame Free Grass (a.k.a. Scream Free) (1969)
‘The film opens with swirly colored peace signs and psychedelic effects while the rock group “California Spectrum”‘ plays the title song. Then we see bad guys Phil and Barney (Casey Kasem and Warren Finnerty) driving a small camper and chasing a running longhaired hippie into a dead-end alley…where they crush him to death! Next we see Link (Russ Tamblyn) shooting up. Tamblyn must have been filming Satan’s Sadists at the same time because it looks like he walked right off that film set and onto the Free Grass set without changing his clothes or taking off his hat! Next psychedelic swirling lights, a dancing girl holding a snake and a room full of stoners smoking grass and playing guitar. Link tells stoner Dean (Richard Beymer) how to make some fast bread by smuggling grass out of Mexico. Hot chick Karen (Lana Wood, Natalie’s sister) asks Dean if he wants to take an acid trip. Next, lots of kaleidoscope trip effects.’ — The Video Beat
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Alejandro Jodorowsky El Topo (1970)
‘El Topo, a figure dressed in black and carrying his nude son on horseback behind him, uses his supernatural shooting ability to free a town from the rule of a sadistic Colonel. He then abandons his son for the Colonel’s Woman, who convinces him to ride deep into the desert to face off against four mystical gunfighters. All of the gunfighters die, but El Topo is betrayed, shot, and dragged into a cave by a society of deformed people, who ask the outlaw turned pacifist to help them build a tunnel so they can escape to a dusty western town run by degenerate religious fascists.’ — collaged
the entire film
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Harvey R. Langee Trip to Where (1968)
‘US Navy film warning sailors against the use of LSD.’
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Étienne O’Leary Psychedelic Diaries (1966 – 1968)
‘Psychedelic Diaries is the title of the complete film works of Étienne O’Leary. Pillar of the underground and initiator of a new film language, Étienne O’ Leary shot his films in the effervescence of a Paris reaching May 68. The evanescent and incandescent images of O’ Leary films shows us many compatriots such as Pierre Clémenti, Jean-Pierre Bouyxou and Pierre Molinier appearing under dazzling lights.’ –– icpce
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Otto Preminger Skidoo (1969)
‘Tony is a retired mobster living in the suburbs with wife Flo and daughter Darlene, who has an unwelcome (to Tony) interest in dating hippies. A crime kingpin known as “God” pressures the ex-hit man into doing one last job—going undercover in Alcatraz to assassinate a stool pigeon. When Tony accidentally ingests LSD in the pen, his entire worldview is flipped and he decides to ditch the hit and break out of the clink; meanwhile, Flo and Darlene have taken it upon themselves to track down God with the help of a band of flower children.’ — 366 Weird Movies
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Bob Rafelson Head (1968)
‘Richard McGinnis 4 months ago: this is best watched on a 12 inch black and white television while tripping on 1.5 hits of blotter acid. don’t question just try it and within the first 5 minutes you will understand * Bryce Thibodeaux 6 days ago: +Richard Mcginnis That is idiotic. You need to watch this on a 40 inch flat screen and take 5 hits of acid. You want to immerse yourself in the experience and feel and breathe the colours and sounds. How can you do that on a black and white 12inch tv? * Richard McGinnis 5 days ago: the monochrome picture tube does wonders when you’re tripping, and at the beginning when he is swimming with the mermaids? hdtv got nothing on this’
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Terry Merrill & William Grefé The Psychedelic Priest (1971)
‘A group of teenage stoners spike Father John’s soda with LSD! Holy freak out! Father John trips his brains out amid images of religious motifs and becomes the Psychedelic Priest. Setting off across America on a journey of self-discovery, he finds love amidst hippies and heroin until hitting rock bottom on skid row. This dose of acid-drenched cinema is almost worth missing Sunday church for.’ — The Video Beat
the entire film
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Lockheed Corporation The Hotdog (1969)
‘LSD Propaganda film. It documents a young woman’s first acid trip where a hot dog comes to life and claims he has a wife and kids to support.’
the entire film
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Joe Massot Wonderwall (1968)
‘The movie is so freakish, it’s almost impossible to absorb. It’s hardly a “movie,” at least by the normal definition. Worth noting is that the director is the same guy who later did the fantasy sequences in the Led Zep concert movie The Song Remains the Same. If you liked that movie’s werewolves with tommy guns spurting psychedelic blood, you’d dig Wonderwall. The first thing that comes to mind, a few minutes after finishing the film, is “This must be what it’s like to do peyote, throw up, and then spend two hours staring at your vomit and marveling at how wondrous and beautiful your former lunch now looks….”‘ — San Diego Reader
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Byron Mabe The Acid Eaters (1968)
‘The bikers meet up by a lake, at a dock sporting a sign that reads, “Taking a trip? Go LSD… the only way to fly!” When they arrive, one of their members is already making it with his old lady underwater, emerging from the deep to gasp, “Welcome to the Submarine Club! You passed the test with flying colors!” There follows a long sequence of topless dancing and body-painting, then some lascivious rolling around in the grass, and then, inevitably, the slaughter of a passing motorist for pot money. (The gang’s resident artist hangs a sign around the victim’s neck, reading: “Here lies a man who lost his [drawing of donkey] so we could buy some grass.”)’ — The AV Club
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John Schlesinger Midnight Cowboy (1969)
‘There are a handful of scenes which feel like they don’t even belong in this film, particularly a bizarre psychedelic, acid-fuelled Andy Warhol party sequence, which adds absolutely nothing to the film’s narrative at all. The Warhol party scene in the 1960s was the hottest spot in town, filled with New York celebrities and wealthy partygoers. It defies all convention to believe a low-rate gigolo from Texas and a filthy street hustler would manage an invite to this world.’
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Tito Davison The Big Cube (1969)
‘This amazing chunk of Mexican-lensed trippiness is a lost classic in Acid Claptrap Cinema! Kicking off with groovy credits, it’s another blast from the past, chock full of the hideous threads, hip slang, and idiocy which quickly made the late-’60s a joke. But it’s also graced with several familiar faces and a rabidly anti-LSD vibe. So prepare to turn on, tune out and laugh your ass off! An aging Lana Turner (in one of her last starring roles) plays Adriana, a famous stage actress who retires in order to marry wealthy financier Daniel O’Herlihy (currently starring in commercials for Magnavox, accompanied by a beachful of baby turtles). His teen daughter, Lisa (Karin Mossberg), is pissed off by the event, so she joins the local longhairs for an expedition to a trendy nightclub called The Trip, featuring “a new show from San Francisco” that has them dropping laced sugar cubes into their beer and blasting off. They also enjoy dosing other’s drinks (“I’m gonna cube that mother, but good.”).’ — Shock Cinema
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Edgar Beatty The Hippie Revolt (1967)
‘A trail-filled trip through the world of hippie freaks in San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury district. Love-ins, communes, psychedelic ’60s acid-drenched fuzz guitar. The camera focuses on enclaves in San Francisco, Los Angeles, and a rural commune dubbed “Strawberry Fields.” Lots of stoner action in Golden Gate Park’s Panhandle and Hippie Hill. Psychedelic dance rituals, drug use, body painting and incoherent babbling. Terrific tripping scenes. The Hippie Revolt! Features music by The Warlocks aka the pre-Grateful Dead‘. — The Video Beat
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John Boorman Zardoz (1974)
‘Hoity-toity and self-important to the point of supreme silliness, Zardoz is an odd artifact of a time in Hollywood when moviemaking and drug-taking often intertwined, to the benefit of no one but bad movie fans like us … a lushly photographed piece of psychedelic twaddle … a glittering cultural trash pile, and probably the most gloriously fatuous movie since The Oscar — although the passages between the laughs droop.’ — collaged
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Peter Perry Jr. Mondo Mod (1967)
‘U.S. documentary. If you’re cool and outasite and like to be where the action is, then make the trip to this groovy movie where it’s all happening now! Flip out into oblivion with a mod look at the psychedelic sixties (1966 in particular) that includes stops at… The Sunset Strip, where the “Now Generation” buys their groovy & mod fashions and dances wildly in clubs like The Trip, Whisky-A-Go Go and Pandora’s Box; the beaches of Hawaii and Southern California, where beach boys surf; the road, where motorcyclists race their bikes; and the mind, where drugs like LSD enable you to turn on, tune in and discover how beautiful everything is!’ — The Video Beat
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The Beatles Magical Mystery Tour (1967)
‘Released on December 26, 1967 in the UK, the Beatles gave a nod to Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters with sort of random magicians on the countryside film. The Beatles were at moving into the zenith of their songwriting powers, and they made a film that was heavily influenced by psychedelics. It’s a total mess.’
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Richard Rush Psych-Out (1968)
‘For those interested in 1960s culture, Psych-Out acts as a rare time capsule of the 1967’s San Francisco and allows a precious glimpse into the world of the hippies at the time: from Free Shops to Guerilla Theater scenes; while trying to deal, at least superficially, with some of the issues of the era like the ideas of ego dissolution, mind expansion and bad trips. Even the talks about the STP-Fright seem highly characteristic of the time and place (STP was a major drug problem in the Haight-Ashbury around the end of 1967).’ — The Daily Psychedelic Video
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the entire film
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Ken Brown Light Show (1967 – 1969)
‘Between 1967 and 1969, Ken Brown shot super 8 films to projected with the light show at Boston’s premiere rock club The Boston Tea Party. The resulting films were later edited together to make a longer untitled film, often referred to by the name Psychedelic Cinema.’ — Ken Winokur
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David Greene Sebastian (1968)
‘Early in the production of Sebastian, somebody should have called a meeting to figure out what the movie was about. I guess nobody did. Strange interlude at a party, at which someone gives Dirk Bogarde LSD because the cameraman was complaining the movie was almost over and he hadn’t had a chance to try out his psychedelic special effects.’ — Roger Ebert
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Dave Dixon Curious Alice (1968)
‘This drug abuse educational film portrays an animated fantasy based upon the characters in “Alice in Wonderland.” The film shows Alice as she toured a strange land where everyone had chosen to use drugs, forcing Alice to ponder whether drugs were the right choice for her. The “Mad Hatter” character represents Lysergic Acid Diethylamide (LSD), the “Dormouse” represents sleeping pills, and the “King of Hearts” represents heroin. Ultimately, Alice concluded that drug abuse is senseless.’ — Change Before Going
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Kenneth Anger Invocation of my Demon Brother (1969)
‘Anger is the godfather of homoerotic cinema, having made his pioneering Fireworks in 1947. He has been famously obscene (and charged as such for Fireworks in California), happily hallucinogenic (his Invocation of My Demon Brother from 1969 was famously evocative of an acid trip), and quite consciously provocative (see all). Inside the industry, he’s never found a place to rest—he has Lucifer tatted on his chest. And he’s seen UFOs three times.’
the entire film
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Albert Zugsmith LSD, I Hate You (1966)
‘Producer/director Albert Zugsmith’s acid-therapy “comedy,” complete with a tinted trip sequence “in hilarious LSD color.” A suicidal film star named Honey Bunny is sent by her producer to a rest home run by an unhinged Dr. Horatio, who gives his patients LSD as a cure. The wacky patients include female impersonator Skippy Roper as an effeminate dress designer, a midget, a fat lady, and lots of actors, directors, and producers, including Zugsmith himself.’ — letterboxd.com
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Barry Shear Wild in the Streets (1968)
‘Max Frost and the Troopers are an extremely popular rock and roll group with all the teenagers. A series of events results in Max Frost becoming President of the United States. Everyone over 30 years old is sent to LSD camps. Psychedelic images and sounds.’ — collaged
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Leonard Horn The Magic Garden of Stanley Sweetheart (1970)
‘The Magic Garden of Stanley Sweetheart is a 1970 American film made by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) about a confused college student’s experiences with sex, relationships, and drugs in late 1960s New York City. Although Richard Thomas was originally intended to play the lead role of “Stanley Sweetheart”, Don Johnson was cast after having been seen in the lead role (“Smitty”) of Sal Mineo’s Los Angeles stage production of the prison drama Fortune and Men’s Eyes. Robert Westbrook has stated that he did not like Johnson, considering him a “hustler of the worst kind” and “utterly miscast”, but was overruled by producer Martin Poll. Warhol superstar Joe Dallesandro was originally cast as “Danny,” Stanley’s older, more experienced counterculture friend, but clashed with the assistant director and was fired from the film after only one day. As reported by The New York Times and other newspapers in October 1969, MGM announced that Andy Warhol would make his commercial film debut in the movie, in his first-ever speaking role as a “freaked-out psychiatrist” in a hallucination orgy scene. It was further reported that Warhol superstars Ultra Violet, Candy Darling, and Gerard Malanga (as well as Joe Dallesandro) had also been cast in the film, with Ultra Violet playing a nurse during the hallucinated orgy scene. Candy Darling has an uncredited brief, wordless cameo reclining on a mattress in a room during the scene where Danny takes Stanley to an underground psychedelic performance. Neither Ultra Violet, Malanga nor Warhol appeared in the released film.’ — collaged
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Kō Nakahira Go Forward! (1968)
‘First there’s hidden diamonds and a mysterious girl with a big nose. Then, a sinister looking man in dark sunglasses sips milk from a straw—we see him regularly. He likes milk. There’s an airport briefcase mix-up. Lots of cool 60s mod op-art rooms and sitar music. Magical Mystery Tour-type “love child” fashions! The Spiders watch TV and see a cool garage beat group. During rehearsals for their big TV appearance, a dead guy falls out a speaker cabinet!’ — The Video Beat
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John Korty Go Ask Alice (1973)
‘This is the true story of a shy, overweight teenage girl who, in an attempt to be popular, hangs out with the wrong crowd and takes drugs. In no time at all Alice goes from being a “nice girl” to comfortably fitting in with drug pushers, pimps and prostitutes. As Alice takes LSD we hear the Traffic song, “Dear Mister Fantasy.” The movie ends with a freeze frame of Alice poised to start a new school year as her mother’s voice-over informs us that Alice died of “an overdose of drugs” shortly after her 16th birthday.’ — collaged
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Arthur Dreifuss Riot On the Sunset Strip (1967)
‘A police captain (Aldo Ray) is caught between businesses operating on the Los Angeles Sunset Strip who don’t like the punks hanging out, and his belief in allowing the kids their rights. But when his daughter (Mimsy Farmer) gets involved with an unruly bunch and gets hooked on LSD, his attitude starts to change.’ — IMDb
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Nicholas Roeg Performance (1970)
‘Even in an era of cinematic experimentation, Performance stands out as a visually daring major-studio film that deals with questions of sanity and identity rarely touched on in mainstream filmmaking. The elements of Performance certainly looked attractive to studio executives at Warner Bros. — a gangster on the lam hides out in the home of a reclusive rock star — especially since that musician was being played by Mick Jagger of the Rolling Stones.’ — RT
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Eric Le Hung Delphine (1969)
‘Delphine (Dany Carrel) is a country girl who travels to the big city in search of feminine emancipation and freedom. Attending wild parties and nightclubs, she meet a young rock star. She becomes pregnant by him and after she has an abortion, the singer could care less about her. Delphine is always followed by a little boy throughout the feature who constantly asks “what is your name?” She also confides in a boozing, middle-aged cynic who has given up on life but helps the young girl.’ — Unifrance
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René Laloux Fantastic Planet (1973)
‘FP is an animated sci-psych-fi film directed by René Laloux in 1973. The story is based on the novel Oms en série, by the French writer Stefan Wul. The film depicts a future in which human beings, known as “Oms” (a word play on the French-language word hommes, meaning men), are creatures on the Draags’ home planet, where they are seen as pests and sometimes kept as pets (with collars). The landscape of the Draag planet is full of strange creatures, including a cackling predator which traps small fluttering animals in its cage-like nose, shakes them to death and hurls them to the ground. The Draag practice of meditation, whereby they commune psychically with each other and with different species, is shown in transformations of their shape and color.’ — PsyAmb
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Jack H. Harris Mother Goose a Go-Go (1966)
‘After a disastrous wedding night (i.e. no sex!), Tommy Kirk seeks help from a bikini-clad sex therapist who diagnoses LSD which causes soft-core hallucinations of scantily-clad incarnations of Goldilocks, Little Red Riding Hood and Snow White! Tommy Kirk croons several numbers including “Mother Goose A-Go-Go.” Barbara McNair sings, “Queen of Soul.” Set in Shoreham Towers (a deluxe Sunset Strip apartment house popular with the ’60s swingin’ singles set). In real life, Art Linkletter’s 20 year-old daughter Diane, plunged to her death from one of the towers’ upper windows while (rumor has it) tripping on acid.’ — The Video Beat
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Roger Corman The Trip (1967)
‘The Trip has been called one of the worst ever made, but I’d like to take a minute and discuss that. Here’s a movie that had a pretty good idea. It came out around the time that “underground” cinema was running amok, and director Roger Corman had already been making films for 12 years. He decided to radically stretch the cinematic boundaries he had been exercising. He wanted to film an LSD trip. Although this style of filmmaking has been aped millions of times over on MTV and television commercials, it’s still a pretty radical idea. (Oh, and by the way, Jack Nicholson wrote the screenplay.)’ — Jeffrey M. Anderson
the entire film
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p.s. Hey. ** jay, Hi. Oh, yeah, it’s very nice, right? I’m pretty sure those Sade mistakes are just because he lost it before he could finish and edit it. It’s interesting because that last section of notes to himself of what he intended to write is probably the most influential thing about the book. Post-modern literature kind of accidentally started there. Museum sounds very cool. I’ve always dreamed of going to the Mutter Museum in Philadelphia, which I think is in that same realm. Never heard of ‘Peep Show’, no, but I’ll hunt its traces at least. And, you know, fantastic about the related conversation’s … revelation, if that’s not going too far. You sound good. ** Uday, I always found Anais Nin’s writing mushy and overheated and lax. (Which are probably the qualities that make people like it). Seriously enjoy the cavorting and presumably being the center of attention. Things I can’t ‘get’ immediately are the things I most gravitate to. ** Steve, I know, right? They were a real find. I’m glad you liked a slew of the assembled. I’ll check into the things on your playlist that I don’t know. My sister was the caretaker of my mom when she was dying, and my sister seemed to manage going sort of insane with sufficiently dutifulness. It’s cooling down here, at least temporarily. I think I’ve given up on Shymalan, but let me know if you think I should change course. ** _Black_Acrylic, I had thought that all the success around her ‘Zone of Interest’ score might normalise her work, but seemingly not. I, of course, would be happy and hungry for that blog post if you feel doing it. Thanks! Eek, well, I hope there’s the pay off you suggest. People here are still pretty bent out of shape by Mbappé’s departure for more moneyed climes. ** Huckleberry Shelf, Hi! No prob, late is a relative term around here. Ah, enjoy the honeymoon. I think being bfs with another writer is probably a really wise combo. Someone who understands and shares the need for paramount dedication to the written word. Sounds ideal. Nice 80s playlist. I miss The Pale Fountains. I’m going to go indulge. Have a really fine, romantic, but not entirely writing-free weekend! ** David Ehrenstein, Rude is as rude does? ** Jack Skelley, Hey, Jackerooni. It’s out! It’s up! Cool. Let me … Everyone, Maestro Jack Skelley and I had a tete-a-tete in ‘print’ about our respective new books — the great ‘ Myth Lab: Theories of Plastic Love’ in his case — at Write or Die, and if you’d like to see us shoot the shit in our respective styles, you are most invited to click this.. I like that I’m Dennis Copper. Do you think it’s too late to change my name to Dennis Copperfield? Chris is very cool, you’ll have fun. Only a week until the big ‘you’ shebang, and me stuck over here dodging crowds of people with French flags painted on their faces. What a world. ** Lucas, Hi. Happy to throw the unknown at you. I’m starting my cigarette stocking up today. I hope my daily ATM withdrawal limit can handle it. So sorry about the migraine. I don’t know that suffering myself, but I’ve seen many friends’ suffering faces. Well, there’s a bunch of seriously non-taxing and potentially amusing movies up above if you need to play it safe. For sure max out your last two free weeks, but don’t pressure yourself. Just chilling can construe maxing out, or people say (I wouldn’t know). Great weekend to you whatever it entails, pal. ** Misanthrope, Whew, I can still induce a gasp. ‘Flunker’ should be some kind of test of your relationship. Think it through. ** Sypha, Hi, James. You know how it is, if you’re really into something, you just concentrate on exploring it. I quite often am initially introduced to music I like by The Wire, which is the only magazine I read religiously. Interesting stuff you’re revisiting. Well, except for maybe Garbage, haha. Maybe that can transition you into liking harsher electronic groups from nowadays? ** Måns BT, Hey! We’ve cooled down today here, but I think it’s only supposed to be okay outside until Monday. Too bad humans aren’t like chipmunks so we could store up the cool weather in our pouches to get us through the upcoming blasts. ‘War and War’ has been the one I most wanted to read next. Thanks for the reinforcement. Probably to preserve my love of those Tarr films, I’ve been careful not to read the related Krasznahorkai books just in case. Sounds like maybe that was a good instinct? I don’t know of Ronda, but I’ll take a google peek. Have you been to France? We have some fairly obscure but pretty interesting little towns here and there. And, obviously, Paris is no slouch. Have a weekend totally protected by AC at every necessary moment! ** Joseph, I’m happy to foist a bunch of newness on you. Thanks for watching the Chris/me talk. I have seen American porns with fake blood and stuff, but they had a ‘vampire’ narrative, so I guess there are loopholes. Not very big ones. There was a scene in my never realised porn film that took place in a small town, and there was a twinky sort of guy there who was very visibly in his mid-20s, but the conceit of the scene was that everyone in town thought he was 13 years old for inexplicable reasons and wanted to have sex with him because they wanted to have sex with a 13 year old. That’s the scene that most freaked the living hell out of the porn producers. I thought it was funny and surreal. But porn producers don’t seem to have very sophisticated senses of humor. I quit university after one year, and I’m fine just like you are. High five and all of that. I hope the loveliness of your weekend is groundbreaking. ** Harper, Good, the feeling better. There are definitely people who are the opposite of us. One of my best friends rushes to see a doctor when his finger feels kind of achy. Glad you like the Hyper Gal. They’re fun. The first King Crimson album kind of has a lot more going on in it than just prog machinations. It’s kind of photo metal at times, and post-psychedelic too. I love Queneau, and I do wonder what happened between the French originals and the English transferences. There’s gotta be a lot of liberties there. Yeah, we need funding to finish the last little work on the film, but the big problem is we’re in serious debt for the earlier post-production work because our monstrous producer lied that he would raise the funds to pay for it and never did and still won’t. It’s a big mess and hole, but we’ll get out of it somehow. Thank you for the much needed crossed fingers. And yeah, the film is really fucking good, if I don’t say so myself. ** Justin D, My total pleasure. Criterion is wising up these days. Enjoy ‘Pecker’, it’s so lovely, I think. And it was kind of Eddie Furlong’s last hurrah. ** Thomas H, Maybe not so unwise, all things considered? I can’t wait for you to see the new film too. Okay, that audiobook sounds actually pretty exciting. My friend and collaborator Zac is a queer dinosaur nerd too. You guys should have a coffee someday. ** Corey Heiferman, Hey! Heat was up, and life was rather down, and the heat is down for now, and life has an upward motion potential. The Hyper Gal record is really good, yeah. I hope they tour. Good, good, about the good dynamic with the love dude. Oh, I made a John Duncan post, thanks to your bringing him up. Upcoming. My first dance collaborations were in the early 80s when I was living in NYC. The dancer/choreographer Ishmael Houston-Jones came up to me and said, I like your writing, do you want to make something together? I said Sure, not having any idea what we would do. But it worked, and we made pieces together for 10 years. With Gisele Vienne, she wrote to me when I was still living in LA and said basically the same thing, and I said the same thing. And we got together, and it clicked, and we’ve been collaborating ever since. But I’ve always been the passive one. I’ve never reached out to a choreographer and sought to collaborate. I think you should do it, obviously. It’s a great thing to do. ** Okay. I give you a weekend of acid-infused or fake-acid-infused films to trip out to or to fake trip out to. I hope you enjoy the ride. See you in the clear light of day on Monday.
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