Christian Petzold Day

 

‘When the Association of German Film Critics named Christian Petzold’s Barbara the best feature film of 2012, it affirmed Petzold’s status as the most critically celebrated director of post-1989 Germany. In fact, five of his last eight feature-length works were similarly named the Critics’ best feature (in 2001, 2005, 2007, 2008, and 2012), with no other director winning more than twice since 2000. His appeal, however, transcends the critical community: Petzold’s breakthrough Die innere Sicherheit (The State I Am In, 2000) won the Federal Film Prize in Gold, the equivalent of a best film prize for its year, an unusual recognition for an art-house film. His 2011 participation, with two other directors, in the three-part Dreileben project, has been called the most interesting development in German television in decades. In 2012, his Barbara, after winning the Silver Bear at the Berlin Film Festival, was Germany’s surprise submission for the foreign-language Oscar. Petzold is also regarded as the ground-breaking and most important of the group of filmmakers known as the Berlin School, which some have dubbed a “German New Wave.” Although celebrated at international film festivals throughout Europe, his films are still relatively unknown in the Anglophone world, where German cinema is better known for the Nazi-era historical dramas that Petzold and the Berlin School have generally disdained.

‘Although addressing increasingly diverse topics, Petzold’s films consistently offer characters who find themselves in situations in which they feel compelled, consciously and not, to conceal some fundamental truth about themselves (as in The State I Am In, Toter Mann (Something to Remind Me, 2001), Yella (2007), Jerichow (2008), Etwas Besseres Als Der Tod (Dreileben: Beats Being Dead, 2011), and Barbara). Such secrets colours both their relationships with others and with themselves, yielding an underlying anxiety as well as paranoia that underpins many of his works. Very often, perhaps more than any other contemporary director’s films, the situations compelling such concealment and paranoia are work-based, scenarios in which individuals have distinct wage-earning expectations and ambitions (as in Wolfsburg (2008), Gespenster (Ghosts, 2005), Yella, and Jerichow). This tendency links Petzold’s characters to contexts broader than their own psychologies, constellations sometimes historical and always political and economic. Yet, the films usually unfold in dream-like worlds (as in Cuba Libre (1996), Ghosts, or Yella), where the distinction between (apparent) reality and fantasy is frequently blurred – not a filmic tone usually associated with trenchant analyses of the material world.

‘This dual interest in the material and fantasy worlds of his characters underscores Petzold’s engagement in transformational change: changes to individuals’ desires, dreams and fantasies amid our neoliberal moment. Individuals are recast at the molecular level as they, as he puts it, “become economic.” This becoming economic often entails a refashioning and refunctioning of an individuals’ desire in the direction of some material interest. But such refashioned desire does not dwell on some lack – his characters do not sit around pining – but rather becomes in Petzold’s plots disconcertingly productive, both professionally and personally. Beyond the insidious impact such desire has on human relations, which become subsequently mutually exploitative, a central aspect of this desire’s acting productively is the literal movement it initiates. In almost all Petzold’s films, the characters are on the move well before, and well beyond, their coming to terms with their own mobility. The films therein explore the premium that the current socio-economic moment places on mobility and the “flexibility” of people required for it.

‘Petzold was born and raised near the heart of West Germany’s post-war economic rebirth, near the heavily industrialized Ruhr region. Given its nineteenth and twentieth-century status as the engine of Germany’s industrial power, the Ruhr region was heavily bombed in World War II and then rapidly rebuilt afterward, lending it an industrial and now post-industrial atmosphere that left its mark on many of Petzold’s earlier works (especially Pilotinnen (Pilots, 1995), Die Beschlafdiebin (‘The Sex Thief’, 1998), Something to Remind Me, and Wolfsburg). On the other hand, Petzold’s parents came from the eastern parts of pre-1945 Germany, were subsequently wartime refugees, and then landed in East Germany. Although they emigrated from East Germany before Petzold was born, they continued to visit there throughout Petzold’s childhood, and his father, Petzold recounts, considered re-emigrating to East Germany as late as the 1970s oil crisis. Many of Petzold’s more recent films have been set in, and contemplate, what East Germany was and what has become of it (Ghosts, Yella, Jerichow, Dreileben: Beats Being Dead, and Barbara).

‘Part of this perceptible eastward trajectory to Petzold’s films corresponds to his own decision to leave his childhood home not far from the Dutch border to study in the (then) divided city of Berlin, at that time a western border outpost in the heart of East Germany. After finishing a masters degree in German literature at the Free University of Berlin, Petzold enrolled (after an initial rejection) at Berlin’s German Film and Television Academy (DFFB), where he was studying when the Berlin Wall fell (1989) and Germany subsequently reunified (1990). This abrupt end to the Cold War and fundamental transformation of Germany in his immediate presence foreground the kind of historical change that would preoccupy him in films like State I Am In, Ghosts, Yella, and Jerichow. An interest in crises and fundamental transformation is one Petzold shares with one of his teachers at the DFFB, Harun Farocki, whom he has credited as a kind of consultant (usually “dramaturgical collaboration”) on his scripts. Farocki has been a key figure in German nonfiction film since the late 1960s, and his work with Petzold is a notable foray into narrative feature film. In their very different kinds of work, Farocki and Petzold both engage moments of crisis and reformulation, those pivotal moments that afford transitional modes of productivity and individualities. In general, both Petzold’s and Farocki’s films underscore how capitalism generates not only new modes of material economy, but also transitional forms of self, thus staging both labour and erotic economies.’ — Jaimey Fisher

 

____
Stills

 

____
Further

Christian Petzold @ IMDB
CP @ MUBI
CP @ Letterboxd
Where to begin with Christian Petzold
Missed Connections: A Conversation with Christian Petzold
The History of Cinema. Christian Petzold
Book: ‘Christian Petzold’
CHRISTIAN PETZOLD: A DOSSIER
Christian Petzold: ‘Cinema desires the end of the world — there is fascism in this’
The modern German fairytales of Christian Petzold
Windows to Other Worlds: Christian Petzold and His Cinema
CHRISTIAN PETZOLD with Anthony Hawley
Interview: Christian Petzold on Afire
Paula Beer on Searching for Truth with Christian Petzold
Interview: Christian Petzold
Films Without Borders: An Interview with Christian Petzold

 

____
Extras

Christian Petzold’s Closet Picks

Christian Petzold on Afire and Next Projects

My 3 minutes with EFA – Christian Petzold

Christian Petzold @ Artforum

 

____
Interview
from BOMB

 

Arun A.K. In several of your interviews you’ve talked about Germany not having the “summer movie” genre. Afire sets out to integrate the French concept of education sentimentale into German culture. Please take me through it.

Christian Petzold A couple of years ago, I was infected with Covid and bedridden for weeks. I was reminded of Emily Brontë’s novels in which characters are sometimes bedridden for three to four months when they are ill. Whenever I am down with fever and on bedrest, I give myself a challenge, an idea, or a subject to think about. One of the subjects during this time was that in Germany we don’t have summer movies like the ones by the Americans or the French. In France, the summer movies revolve around the two months in which people are usually vacationing in the mountains or beaches. You can see a mix of all classes of people, many youngsters on the brink of adulthood discovering themselves and experiencing love, sexuality, heartbreaks, betrayal. You have these American movies where youngsters take life-altering road trips in the summer before going to different universities. These are life lessons in education sentimentale, more like coming-of-age stories.

This idea was reinforced by watching the films of Éric Rohmer, who made many summer movies about young people: their bodies, rhythm, and outlook on life. Margaret Ménégoz from Les Films du Losange, the company behind Rohmer’s and Jacques Rivette’s movies, sent me as a gift the DVDs of Rohmer’s entire work. So, I was in bed with my reflections and Rohmer’s movies to inspire my ideas for a German summer movie. During this time, I also chanced upon Anton Chekhov’s story “The House with the Mezzanine,” which deals with people chilling during holidays and being unlucky in love. When you are down with fever, you begin to see the world differently, as you aren’t actively a part of it. All these influences inspired me to write the script for Afire.

AAK During your illness, you had a lot of fever dreams, including erotic dreams. But in your films, there seems to be a conscious decision to refrain from showing sex.

CP That was more of a joke, but it’s true I don’t believe that a sex scene really adds any value to a film. I’ve had long discussions with cinephiles and filmmakers about sex scenes. There seems to be a consensus that the only good sex scene in the history of cinema is the one in Nicolas Roeg’s Don’t Look Now (1973). It’s a fantastic scene. There is an idea of sexuality, and it’s not obscene. Michel Foucault’s take on obscenity is quite interesting: He refers to the etymology of the word ”obscene,” which means “without a scene,” without fiction, without narration. It’s just camera and action, without any point of view or idea.

I remember the time when I was a teenager and came back home from a dance club, and I could hear my parents having sex. That made me feel ashamed. So, it doesn’t make any sense for me to have sex scenes in movies. In Afire, the two boys hear Nadja having sex in the adjacent room. This triggers the imagination, which is completely different. That’s acceptable to me.

AAK You’ve described Leon as “playing the writer’s role,” and that’s why his second novel, Club Sandwich, feels pretentious. You haven’t been too kind on your second film, Cuba Libre (1996), calling it a charlatan’s work for drawing from other works. Afire throws in references to literary figures like Heinrich Heine and Heinrich von Kleist, yet there isn’t anything pretentious about it. How challenging is it to retain uniqueness while being inspired by literary texts and other artists?

CP I grew up in a small village where there were no cinemas. The only movie I saw as a child was The Jungle Book (1967) at a cinema which shut down when I was around seven or eight. I used to visit the library often. That’s how the reading habit developed. To become a filmmaker in Germany, you need to study in one of the three big academies here. That’s the only chance because we don’t have an industry of making movies. I believe around a thousand people apply each year for the director’s course; only seventeen are selected. That makes you part of an elite club. So, when I made my first movie, Pilotinnen (Pilots [1995]), which was a success, I was over the moon. Attending film festivals, giving interviews, and being part of panel discussions made me feel like a star. I received money for my next film very fast. All of this went into my head. I was no longer the idealistic filmmaker I had set out to become.

When the shooting of Cuba Libre commenced, on the third or fourth day of the shoot I realized something was wrong with me. I was putting on an act of a big Hollywood-style filmmaker and was thinking about manipulating the audience instead of making the film from my heart. In such situations, it helps to have good friends to keep you in check. Fortunately, my wife was one of them. She told me I was playing someone else and not being myself. That’s when I decided to change my approach to Cuba Libre, which is based on Edgar G. Ulmer’s Detour (1945). I rewrote the script to salvage it. Since then, I’ve learned to rely more on my original voice.

AAK The motif of love blossoming amid tragic or catastrophic conditions is prominent in your work. What attracts you to these kinds of scenarios? Have you ever analyzed it?

CP All love stories in the history of cinema are situated under pressure. One of my favorite love stories is Red River (1948) by Howard Hawks. There are two love tracks in the film: one between a man and a woman, and the other between a father and son. Both these love stories are subjected to pressure. I was interested in exploring love against the backdrop of historical events—how couples might have expressed love through kissing, glancing, touching, and thinking during the dying days of the German Democratic Republic in the ’80s. This thought of love persevering when the society around you is decaying fascinates me.

Afire is different from these love stories. The characters have a nonchalant attitude and live in the moment. The youth here are unaffected by external circumstances. When I look at my children, who are around the age of Leon and Nadja, they do not have this notion that their lives would be better than their parents’ after ten or fifteen years, unlike we did.

AAK There are three soundtracks in the film. The Wallners and Tarwater tracks are diegetic, but the last one by Ryuichi Sakamoto isn’t part of the live action. What influenced that choice? Also, what draws you to use existing compositions more than creating new soundtracks for your films?

CP The composer, Stefan Will, who has scored almost all my movies, was a bit disappointed when I told him before shooting that there wouldn’t be any fresh soundtrack in this movie. We used the Wallners and Tarwater songs as they resonate with young people. I came across Sakamoto’s “andata” at the time when I made the decision that Leon’s book editor, Helmut, played by Matthias Brandt, would be hospitalized with cancer in the end. Incidentally, Sakamoto was also diagnosed with cancer when he composed this record. He knew he had to die eventually. This makes the track very poignant, and we were deeply affected by it.

AAK This is your third collaboration with Paula Beer. How has her acting evolved since you both first collaborated in Transit (2018)?

CP It’s wonderful to see Paula grow up and evolve so fast. In Afire, she plays a self-assured adult who is independent. That’s how she is behind the camera as well. The best thing about her is that she isn’t pretentious or insecure like Leon or my former self. There is no trace of vanity in her. I can freely discuss my scripts with her, and she gives input objectively without being biased toward her character or screen time.

AAK You tend to shoot a lot around water bodies, and hospitals are also a recurring backdrop in your films. Is it merely incidental or is there more to it?

CP I love hotel rooms, cars, gas stations, and hospitals because these are common places. The stories in common places are much deeper than in private places. When I see a movie like Gus Van Sant’s Gerry (2002) in which two people are sitting in a car and you know nothing about them, I’m curious to know more. The house in Afire was initially built by us like a studio, but then the set designer turned it into a place occupied by people years ago. The traces of other people’s roots make it a strange place which in no way symbolizes the characters’ environment.

 

____________
12 of Christian Petzold’s 18 films

____________
Cuba Libre (1996)
‘A dark and moody neo-noir shot on Super 16, Cuba Libre is Petzold’s made-for-television second feature co-written with Harun Farocki, which already exemplified the filmmaker’s fixation on transactional relationships, societal malaise, and money as a great leveller and dampener of love. The film stars Richy Müller as Tom, a perpetually down-on-his luck drifter who tries to win back his ex-lover Tina (a fierce Catherine Flemming), whom he abandoned and betrayed. A sex worker trying to get her life back on track, seeking to repair the damages wrought by time and hardship, Tina hasn’t forgotten their once shared dream of fleeing to socialist Cuba. When Tom is creepily befriended by a lonely, wealthy man named Jimmy (Wolfram Berger), an escape path from misery appears to open, but the film’s characters are all equally ensnared by a pattern of manipulation and ulterior motives. An idiosyncratic road movie modelled after Edgar G. Ulmer’s Depression-era noir Detour, Cuba Libre is haunted by the spectres of the Berlin Wall, its lost characters struggling to find a place in the new Germany. There’s an undercurrent of melancholia and despair that attends the cyclical deception and reconciliation, drained of colour and energy as the film starkly observes an existential disquiet amid the dystopian backdrop of European neoliberalism …’ — Morris Yang

Excerpt

Excerpt

 

____________
The State I Am In (2000)
‘The word terrorism is never mentioned in The State I Am In, but it hangs over the film like an omnipresent, menacing fog. For, with his first theatrical outing, director Christian Petzold has chosen to comment on the 1970s, Germany’s dark decade of politically motivated violence. His subtle and quietly approach hits home in a no nonsense way by dissecting the lives of his protagonists. Co-writer Harun Farocki also adds weight to the proceedings.’ — Andreas Kern

Trailer

Watch the film here

 

____________
Something to Remind Me (2001)
‘This film is told with a steady hand in an almost classical style. In very precise, clear and tranquil shots, it evokes a continual and repressed tension. Christian Petzold directs the actors with a directness that helps tell the story with the utmost conviction and excitement. With this refined murder story, Petzold places himself without hesitation in the great tradition of Alfred Hitchcock.’ — IFFR

Watch the film here (in the original German)

 

_____________
Wolfsburg (2003)
‘Christian Petzold is a serious, even formidable cinephile, but that shouldn’t be confused for humorlessness. His referentiality is streamlined and polite, endearingly obvious, but only if you choose to tease it out, as he’s otherwise content to foreground the immediate virtues of each film, an approach that 2003’s underseen Wolfsburg embodies. Petzold’s emptied-out frames are typically chockablock with all the ornaments and window-dressing of modernity, and little else: the oft-kilter opening shot is like a James Benning tableau, a long stretch of verdant grass giving way to obtrusively erected factory towers. Wolfsburg already centers so much around cars — their being bought and sold, and, of course, the accident — and it becomes more and more difficult to ignore that, as the film continues, nearly every location functions as a transient space, a suffocating lack of permanence animating characters’ unsure and tentative movements. The ending then plays as a perverse manifestation of divine providence, not unlike the finale of David Cronenberg’s Crash, with one accident swapped for another. The cars keep getting sold, the wrecks keep occurring; life goes on.’ — Patrick Preziosi

Trailer

the entire film

 

___________
Ghosts (2005)
‘The spectral figures at the center of Petzold’s dark, oneiric film (the second in his “ghost trilogy”) are young nomads on the margins of Europe’s economy. Following a violent altercation in a Berlin park, Nina and Toni—two young women drifting between state institutions, foster homes, and menial work programs—forge an ambiguous but tender alliance. But an encounter with a well-to-do French couple convinced that Nina is their long-lost daughter, kidnapped as a toddler, reveals physical and mental scars and exposes them to the cruel indifference of the world.’ — filmlinc

Trailer

Excerpts

 

__________
Yella (2007)
‘Is Yella a political ghost story? An allegory of German reunification? A young woman from the East’s dream of life in the West? It’s all of these and more. As a vision of the contemporary world, it’s perhaps best described in the words of Walter Benjamin, the great German critic whose insights resonate throughout the film: “the sensation of the entirely new, of the absolutely modern, is a form of becoming as oneiric as the eternal return itself.”’ — Chris Darke

Trailer

 

___________
Jerichow (2008)
‘Christian Petzold’s thorny and complex Jerichow (2008) melds the global and the local—capitalism and the fallout from German reunification—by using as a template the classic 1946 noir The Postman Always Rings Twice. Its narrative draws a triangle between Turkish entrepreneur Ali (named for that icon of immigrant cinema from Fassbinder’s 1974 Ali: Fear Eats the Soul) and two ethnic Germans—his wife Laura, and her lover (and his employee) Thomas, who hatch a plot to murder him. Part of Jerichow’s appeal lies in its meta-cinematic move, the way it inserts itself as a kind of corrective into a particular lineage of film history.’ — Girish Shambu

Trailer

the entire film

 

____________
Barbara (2012)
‘Despite critical acclaim and a number of award nominations, Petzold’s previous work has been largely overlooked by international audiences. This is partly because Wolfsburg and Yella lack the news value of works such as The Lives of Others (2006) or Good Bye, Lenin! (2003), but also because they refuse emotional manipulation. Like his heroine, Petzold has frequently been accused of being overly detached, his films glacial. In Barbara (which won Petzold the Silver Bear for best director at this year’s Berlin Film Festival), the urban Germany of those earlier works – all minimalist modern interiors, grey steel and brushed aluminium, Audis and injection pumps – is transformed by DP Hans Fromm into a palette of browns, ambers, greens and blues, infusing the film with a soft-focus warmth that stands in counterpoint to the chilly gusts of wind blowing ceaselessly through the small town and the woods surrounding it.

‘The timeless aesthetic and uncanny setting lend a ‘there but for the grace of God’ quality to the film, forcing us into closer proximity with Barbara’s situation. And as we reach the closing act, the possibility for redemption enters Petzold’s purview. As André and Barbara are finally shot together, facing one another, Hoss’s hard-set mouth finally breaks into a full smile. The moment of release foreshadows Barbara’s ultimate, quasi-maternal sacrifice, which transforms the film in its dying moment from thriller to melodrama and imbues all that has gone before with an uncharacteristically moral undertone. For Barbara, detachment is a mode of survival, for Petzold an aesthetic strategy. But by the film’s conclusion, it seems that both may have softened somewhat. Neither is worse off for it.’ — Catherine Wheatley

Trailer

Excerpt

Excerpt

 

____________
Phoenix (2014)
‘This evocative and haunting drama, set in rubble-strewn Berlin in 1945, is like no other film about post–World War II Jewish-German identity. After surviving Auschwitz, a former cabaret singer (Nina Hoss, in a dazzling, multilayered performance) has her disfigured face reconstructed and returns to her war-ravaged hometown to seek out her gentile husband, who may or may not have betrayed her to the Nazis. Without recognizing her, he enlists her to play his wife in a bizarre hall-of-shattered-mirrors story that is as richly metaphorical as it is preposterously engrossing. Revenge film or tale of romantic reconciliation? One doesn’t know until the superb closing scene of this marvel from Christian Petzold, one of the most important figures in contemporary German cinema.’ — Criterion Channel

Excerpt

Excerpt

 

___________
Transit (2018)
‘Christian Petzold is the film-maker renowned as a modern master of suspense and a poet of Germany’s divided self. Of his recent work, I loved his Stasi thriller Barbara (2012) but put myself in a minority of one by objecting to a serious plot hole in his hugely admired postwar noir Phoenix (2014) – a plot hole that I couldn’t accept was unimportant or some anti-realist stylisation. Well, now I have to admit that Petzold has shown himself to have a flair for just this kind of anti-realism or quasi-realism in his new and rather brilliant film, Transit. Its experimental premise was alienating for me at first, but its mysterious, dreamlike quality began to surround me like mist.’ — Peter Bradshaw

Trailer

the entire film

 

___________
Undine (2020)
‘Christian Petzold puts a unique spin on an ancient myth in this urban fairytale, combining legend, romance and architecture to magnetic effect. We dare you not to swoon at the chemistry between Paula Beer and Franz Rogowski, who prove themselves to be one of the greatest contemporary cinematic duos.’ — MUBI

Trailer

Excerpt

 

__________
Afire (2023)
‘While vacationing by the Baltic Sea, writer Leon (Thomas Schubert) and photographer Felix (Langston Uibel) are surprised to encounter Nadja (Paula Beer), a mysterious young woman staying as a guest at the holiday home of Felix’s family. Nadja soon distracts Leon from finishing his latest novel, not only because of her passionate liaison with lifeguard Devid (Enno Trebs) but also because her brutal honesty forces Leon to confront his artistic inadequacies. As Nadja and Leon grow closer, an encroaching forest fire threatens the group and pushes the writer to discover whether he can truly care for anything beyond himself. Christian Petzold’s acclaimed latest film was the winner of the Silver Bear Grand Jury Prize at the 2023 Berlin International Film Festival.’ — Criterion Collection

Trailer

the entire film

 

 

*

p.s. Hey. ** jay, Hi. It is indeed, and Mr. Skelley himself gave you recommendations I agree with. Oh, interesting, nice: I’m going to scout out the undersexed doms set then. Sounds fruitful. Well, I’m sure it’s the same there, but there are increasing venues here where they don’t even accept cash anymore. One’s will gets bent. ** _Black_Acrylic, It is. I’m not a Gaga fan, so I’m definitely not the best judge. Skateboarding and breakdancing are happening right down my street. I can even hearing the cheering crowds distantly through my window. ** David Ehrenstein, Kluge is so vastly underknown in the US. It’s kind of shocking, Speaking of, I would be quite shocked if you didn’t really enjoy that ‘Little Joe’ book. ** Bill, Hi! The ‘Little Joe’ book is a lot of fun, no surprise. And nicely designed. Oh, fuck you got the Co. It does seem to be making a comeback over there in the US. Are you taking meds for it or just toughing it out? ** Uday, Oh, haha, I’m sure ‘Red Asphalt’ is disappointing compared to its title, which is really all I remember about it. I’m trying to remember the last time I walked out of a movie rather than just really wanting to. I think it might’ve been Gaspar Noe’s ‘Love’, so quite a while ago. I don’t know how I find my titles. They just pop in and I like or don’t like them. I’m pretty good with titles, I think. People are always asking me to title things for them. I don’t have any curtains in my apartment, but ugly ones would be my choice. I wish you a mellow sun. ** Dev, That sounds really tough. It’s tough enough just watching people do that on TV. Try Synchronised Swimming. Seriously. You’ll be surprised by how sparkly you feel. ** Darby, That’s okay. Great luck with the assignment. What is it? In person, awesome! Drawing in person, even more awesome. Will there by naked models and stuff? I will, I will. Staples sound plenty bad enough. Ouch. I would eat that, yes. I have a love/hate thing with marshmallow. I do like smores. Excellent about your driving! I miss driving a lot. Damn. No, no trauma from my weird piano teacher. Just a strange story to tell occasionally. I’m okay, but my ear is taking forever to get better, but okay. You? ** Steve, Okay, that sounds bad, that theater movie. As theater movies so very often are. So you go to your parents’ place … tomorrow? I hope you get what you need done in the meantime. As I think has finally sunk-in over there, it was a Dionysian feast they were parodying not the Last Supper. Podcast! Everyone, Steve did a podcast (Backtalk) about Charli XCX, and I think you’ll want to hear that since the knows his Charli XCX. Be there here. ** Nicholas., Hey. Nice sabbatical. I quite often reopen cans of worms when I write. It’s a way to do deep. ‘I Wished’ opened my biggest can of worms, and I feel like it was well worth it. I guess feel lucky you have something so intensely full of feeling and complicatedness to write about? That’s how I feel. I never drink fizzy drinks. I don’t like them. My last was probably a glass champagne at some point. I’m a water, coffee, and tea only guy almost exclusively. ** Nika Mavrody, Thanks. Most of them probably need shrinks, so it’s good you’re on the case. ** Charalampos, Cool. Vibeage galore from way up here. ** Lucas, Hi! No, the Manson thing didn’t freak me out. I was a radical hippie boy, so I think I was more like, ‘Yeah, fuck the upper classes’ or something. It was interesting and kind of exciting to see adults freak out. That’s all I reminder. I’m okay-ish. My ear improves but not quickly enough at all to my taste. It’s supposed to get hot here today and tomorrow. I hope you’re spared. Great! I’ll go look at your new collages as soon as I’m outta here. Exciting! Thank you! Everyone, the masterful collage maker (among many other things) Lucas gifts us with a chance to see their brand new collages, so go here and do. Ooh, I just glanced at them. They look incredible! ** Joe, Thank you, thank you, Joe. And again for the great Hellman post. I wrote to you yesterday. Awesome that you’re okay with ‘Flunker’. And, yeah, take every liberty if you have another post in mind. Wow, thank you, pal. ** Dominik, Hi!!! ‘Twisters’ is fun. There are about three and half big tornado scenes that are super fun. The in-between narrative stuff is blah, but it always is. It did the job. It isn’t trying to be anything more than a flat amusement park ride, and it is. No, it cost to go watch the Ceremony, and it was pounding rain, so I watched it on TV like everybody else. Did you watch it? Well, at least you won’t waste a lot of stalking time trying to find out his address. Love giving the sun a spanking, G. ** Måns BT, Hi! Welcome, and thanks a lot for coming in here. And thank you ever so much for your great, kind words about my work. I’m thrilled and touched. Means a lot. Oh, ‘The Pyre’. It was a theater/dance piece in four parts. Three of the parts were staged, and the book was the other part. When the audience arrived, they were given that book and told not to read it until they were alerted to. Then the theater part happened, and it was a theater piece shown in reverse. So a voice (mine actually) announced ‘Part 4’ and they would watch that, and then ‘Part 3’, then ‘Part 2’, and finally the voice said ‘Part 1’, and the house lights came up and the audience read the book sitting in the theater, and that was the end. So ‘Part 1’, the book, kind of set up the theater parts. It was a strange piece. It was filmed, but the film isn’t public, at least not yet. I think the only things online are this short excerpt and a short interview with Gisele (in French) about the piece here. The piece had a huge, complicated electronic set, and unfortunately it ended up being destroyed, so I don’t think ‘The Pyre’ will be performed again. Thanks a lot for asking. I’d be really interested to know more about you and what you do/like, if you want. In any case, take good care! ** Thomas H, Hey. Thanks for the report! All in all, it sounds pretty fun and enviable, although that trip home, ouch. As someone living in an Olympics barricaded world at the moment, I feel it. Interesting about the not good drone show. I’ve still never seen one of those drone light spectaculars in the real. They look awesome (or can) on, like, TV, but … too bad. Thank you. That lit up my life as that song used to say. ** Harper, Hi. Cool, glad some of the books transferred successfully into your curiosity bank. ‘Nothing to Write Home About’, yes, that’s the book. Well, he quit writing and making art too. I knew him quite well, we became good friends, and I couldn’t figure out why he stopped — he actually did keep making things in his loft, he just didn’t make them public. I wish I hadn’t burned that Sade thing. Years later I found one page that I didn’t burn, and it’s actually in my Selected Poems book, although, reading it, one can see that a masterpiece was definitely not lost, haha. ** Deisel Clementine, Hi Thanks for reading ‘Frisk’, on the beach no less! That might be a first. I’m still dealing with the grief/confusion around the death of my friend George, and he died in 1987, so … yeah. ** Don Waters, Hi, Don. I’m the same. An exciting book makes me immediately pick up my pen, or, well, open a Word doc these days. I’m Mr. Exciteable. We should have an excitement contest, you and me, like that hot dog eating thing. I don’t how one would win though. Cool you got those books. I hope they earn their keep. Haha. ** Justin D, I know, predictable, right? Hey, I finally heard your mixtape, albeit with one mushy ear, so I might have missed some of the stereophonic effects. It’s great! I’m going to listen to it again maybe even today so I can have a more detailed thought/response, but I actually really liked everything, and the flow and tonal crosshatching. And there are maybe 1/3 of the artist I didn’t know. And artists I was excited to see/hear there like Soccer Mommy and Dum Dum Girls and Mint Julep and … Thanks so much! I really appreciate it, and it really perked me up when I really needed that. Pizza and ice cream cake. I don’t think ice cream cake exists here. Cakes themselves don’t exist here except in rare speciality shops. Quite a place. My ear is really slowly improving. I’m hoping it’ll just pop back at any moment. My weekend wasn’t so bad as such things go. It rained: yum. I did a podcast. I wandered amidst sporty tourists with the names of sports figures emblazoned on their clothes. Not so bad. May your week provide. ** Right. Today blog concentrates on the interesting filmmaker Christian Petzold if you’re so inclined. See you tomorrow.