______________
Steven Quinn Clown Face (2014)
‘In his series Clown Face, the artist creates new, more cheerful characters, for old actors and actresses. Using found images of old Hollywood’s stars, he stencils clown makeup over their faces, with spray paint.’
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Yishai Jusidman Clown Spheres (1990)
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Clown Core Hell (2018)
‘Clown Core perform their song “Hell” while inside of a large Porta Potty. According to Urban Dictionary, clowncore is a style of music “having fast paced beats and usually containing a combination of D’n’B, trance, hip hop, acid, and circus music.”’
______________
Keith Sonnier Clown Novice (1997)
Nylon sailcloth, metal, blower, Argon, and electric light
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Aziz + Cucher By Aporia, Pure and Simple (2011)
‘By Aporia, Pure and Simple is a multi-channel video installation in which Aziz + Cucher appear in an absurdist, clownish performance that alludes to the daunting and seemingly futile task of engaging with existential questions as they piece together video footage from their travels to the Middle East.’.
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Allison Schulnik Clowns (2008)
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Llefen Carrera Clown (2019)
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Piek! Clown (2001)
‘Clown is an installation in which the spectator is one of the main characters. When looking through a peeping hole in a blue wall, one sees a projection of a forest. In that forest a half naked clown is trying to get her trousers out of the trees, in which she almost succeeds. It seems that she isn’t enjoying her ‘act’ but what the reason of the ‘act’ is doesn’t become clear. The clown isn’t the only one in the forrest: the spectator is also appearing in the projection. He /she is watching from behind a tree at the jumping clown.’
______________
Tim Shaw The Birth of Breakdown Clown (2017)
‘Breakdown Clown is an outsider, a bit like a priest or a shaman or a therapist. The program malfunctions, data gets mixed up, and out of the mouth of the clown come wonderful nuggets of truth mixed up with verbal madness. The clown doesn’t look like a clown, and that’s OK—clown imagery is not for me, it’s too decorative. I’d intended a large, perhaps asexual figure, but in its present form, it’s quite masculine, although that might change.’
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Wayne Thiebaud Clown Paintings (2000 – 2018)
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Liz Craft Mermaid (2008-2015)
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Brian Whiteley Clown Masks and Performances (2016)
‘Performance artist Brian Whiteley dresses up as the clown of your worst nightmares in order to explore ideas of fear and phobia. You may not see him at first, as he lurks in a Chicago graveyard on a brilliant, spotless day. It takes you a few moments to spot him as he passes from gravestone to gravestone. The sun is bright, and at first he’s just a coloured speck, distinguishable by his trio of balloons and oversized clown costume. Whiteley is a former clown himself (he attended clown school at the age of 12).’
________________
Lucio Fontana Clown (1949)
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Ugo Rondinone let’s start this day again (2017)
‘Life-size clown sculptures pose within a gallery to emphasize their introspection and melancholy. In a world that seems increasingly divided between scary clowns and jovial ones, Rondinone provided a third choice: silently contemplative clowns. His exhibition saw 45 of these unsettlingly life-like sculptures — with closed eyes, red noses and Pierrot-white faces, dressed in a riot of neon, sequins, tulle and teeny, tiny black hats — lost in a surrounding world of color so intensely alive it should make them want to jump and dance… but they didn’t.’
________________
Larry Ogle Bear Problem – SOLVED (2017)
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Wham-O Fun Fountain (1980)
‘This “fountain” consisted of a clown head-shaped base that sprayed water at high pressure skyward, and a clown hat that you placed over the stream. The water pressure would lift the clown hat skyward, levitating it just out of reach, and spraying everyone near it with an enjoyable drizzle of chilly hose water. But The Fun Fountain has a dark secret. It wasn’t just a stay cool toy, but was instead a game of Russian roulette.’
________________
James Ormsbee Chapin The Merry Clown (1941)
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Marnie Weber Giggle of Clowns (2009)
‘In the fairytale of Marnie Weber’s Giggle of Clowns (2009), a group of twelve surrounds a flower-laden corpse, shocked at the prospect of adventure without their ringleader. This corpse has returned to her higher calling to lead her all-female rock band called The Spirit Girls on their quest for spiritual salvation. The clowns are aghast: the fun is over.’
________________
Kathryn Andrews Run for President (2016)
‘The title of LA-based Kathryn Andrews’s first solo museum show in the US refers to a presidential campaign by—surprise!—Bozo the Clown. Fifteen seductive yet chilling sculptures, made since 2011, many of which amend certified movie props (among other political footballs thrown from the collective unconscious), will be appointed to a wild exhibition narrative for which Bozo’s largely forgotten 1984 bid serves as a backdrop.’
_________________
Bruce Nauman Clown Torture (1987)
‘Bruce Nauman, through his Clown Torture, delves into what is known as torture comedy. However, what you will not see clearly is the identity of the person undergoing torture. The work doesn’t show us the exact kind of torture the clown faces. If you are keen enough, though, you will realize that the tortured party is the one watching all of this unfolding – you! The loudness, the mess, and the screaming clown, among other features all torture your senses. Here, Nauman reminds us that art doesn’t always have to be beautiful. It can be quite ugly too!’
_________________
Michael Rees Pneumatopia (2018)
‘The sculptures become clownish vessels that not only contain something, but that alter our perception of what’s on the other side. And by adding a layer of imagery when we view the sculpture through the tablet imagery — ants seem to emerge out of a clown’s head — we either become closer to the object because we’ve entered into its distorted psychic space, or further metaphysically removed because we become focused on the small screen in front of us. Either way, Rees destabilizes the here and now within this constantly shifting, trippy environment.’
_________________
Czech Technical Institute Blind Juggler (2011)
‘”Blind Juggler” is an impressive machine that has no sensors or cameras. Instead, it relies on mechanical feedback and some fancy math to control the trajectory of the ball and keep it airborne. The Blind Juggler debuted back in 2009, but creators Philipp Reist and Raffaello D’Andrea introduced an interesting wrinkle for version 2.0 by turning the entire thing into a pendulum that passes the ball to itself. Clearly, the next step is face paint and a red, foam nose.’
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Georg Baselitz Clown (1981)
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Sean Landers Clowns at Sea (2011)
‘Landers embraces his anti-hero fully however, freeing him from the circus and sending him around the world as skipper of a disturbingly un-seaworthy and shape-shifting vessel. He eschews the laws of physics and narrative continuity in this series – the captain’s wheel shrinks to flimsy inadequacy and expands to dwarf the helmsman. Though the artist is an experienced sailor, the details of the boat are purposefully wrong or missing; the jib is not tied to the boom, the gunwale appears to consist of carved wooden bannisters, the wheel sometimes faces the stern. His brave avatar is far from land, in a deliberately inadequate craft. The ocean is rendered more authentically – shifting from green to blue to calm to roiling – indicating that on some level this journey is real. Despite the perceptual ambiguities and challenges present, this voyage is not entirely doomed.’
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Ben Clown Bomb (2012)
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Epic Fireworks Crazy Clown Fountain (2018)
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Life of a Craphead Entertaining Every Second (2018)
‘The title of this exhibition comes from a Nam June Paik quote: “I am a poor [wo]man from a poor country, so I have to be entertaining every second.”’
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Paul McCarthy
Pinocchio Pipenose Household Dilemma (1994)
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Max Streicher Endgame (Nagg & Nell) (2019)
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Jumex Spraypaint (2019)
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Luke Stephenson The Clown Egg Register (2017)
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Jeffrey Vallance Clown Family Tree (1998)
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Angus Fairhurst & Damien Hirst A Couple of Cannibals Eating a Clown (1993)
‘This 22 minute-long video is an exercise in extreme deadpan. Hirst and Fairhurst, sitting in a pub dressed as clowns, competitively tell each other stories in the style of British humorists Peter Cook and Dudley Moore. But instead of jokes or amorous conquests, the two friends reel off morbid accounts of accidents, wallowing in the graphic details, until they burst into laughter.’
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Marion Peck Red Clown, Blue Clown (2019)
‘I have long enjoyed painting clowns. Clowns have depth. They are disturbing, like strange spirits, mysterious characters emerging from the depths of the psyche, which is why many people fear them. Clowns convey pure emotion. It can be very cathartic to paint them. The paintings I made for Red Clown, Blue Clown allowed me to express some of the intense, difficult feelings I have living in these crazy times, when everything seems poised to fall apart.’
________________
Wild Bill’s Nostalgia Shop (1992 – 2018)
‘Wild Bill’s Nostalgia Shop opened more than 3 decades ago. Last year, its founder passed away and his family says they can no longer maintain the store. This is the store’s final weekend.’
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Jonathan Borofsky Ballerina Clown (1989)
‘When it was first unveiled, the sculpture caused a big stir in the community, not just for its odd aesthetics – it looks like a female ballerina with a large clown mask and gloves standing on a crate – but also because it would kick out one of its legs continuously and “sing.” This 30-foot tall giant would “dance” and belt out the Sid Vicious version of the Frank Sinatra classic “My Way” throughout the evening to the chagrin of its neighbors. Needless to say, the song was the first to be cut out (a few days after its debut) due to complains coming mostly from the condominium residents that reside in the building, followed by the shutting down of the “kicking leg” a bit later. For its 25th anniversary, Ballerina Clown began “kicking it” again according to an arrangement with the current Renaissance housing association and former owner Harlan Lee.’
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Erwin Olaf Paradise Club (2001)
‘Never has coulrophobia been realized so perfectly than with this glossy, sinister, saturated clown bondage-fest.’
*
p.s. Hey. ** DennisCooperSucks, Wow, hello. I don’t what book you’re referring to. If I blurbed it, I must have liked it. As for your insults … I don’t know, enjoy? ** Jay, Half a marathon still sounds like a lot. Congrats! People with stability related fears usually appreciate the paternal, so no worries, unless it upends your and his thing, I guess. Anyway, you’re good. Have a checkered flag waving Monday. xo. ** fish, Hi. Medicine is pretty noble. But, yeah, there’s all that schooling involved? But if it’s what excites you when you think about the future, that’s what matters. And everything great is difficult. Um, no, I could tell from very early on that being creative and artistic in some way was my only possible value, I think. Much to the misery of my parents, of course. ** Barkley, Fulci’s camerawork is pretty magical, yeah. I like zooms. Like Visconti always does those abrupt, melodramatic zooms. They’re kind of weirdly sexy. I read some Hakim Bey, but not for a long time. His real life identity, Peter Lamborn Wilson, really hated my work, so it was hard to read the Bey stuff objectively. The zine sounds really exciting. I hope it gets born and I can see it. Best to you! ** _Black_Acrylic, It’s true, I associate you so strongly with Dundee that I sometimes forget you aren’t still there. Any theories as to why the Scotland team is shite? ** Carsten, Thank you, sir. The honor was entirely the blog’s and mine. Things cultural definitely drop way down in the mid -> late summer here. Events become more tourist oriented. It’s not a total wasteland, but it’s not Paris at its glorious peak. My schedule is eternally dependent on what’s going on with film. I suspect I’ll be around Paris at least somewhat in July. In August we’re showing RT at a festival in Norway, and we’re thinking to extend that and do road trip around Scandinavia re-hitting our favorite amusement parks there, but nothing is set yet. ** kenley, Hi. So sorry to hear about the almost collapsing, but you just have to hold on and stay in one piece for two more days if your March theory is correct at least. Any uplift as of this morning, I hope? ** Adem Berbic, Time is fluid here, no sweat. No, Close-Up completely blew us off. I was kind of shocked. I think basically at this point we aren’t going to show the film in London unless something from there reaches out. It’s sad and strange since the screenings of our earlier films went really well there, but London doesn’t seem to want the film, and we’re tired of banging our heads on that wall. You have a provisional Paris date? When? ** ⋆˚꩜｡darbbzz⋆˚꩜｡, Hey, pal. There’s still a possibility of the Charlotte, NC screening. We’re waiting to hear. Ooh, sweet, about your Korg being alive. I can’t wait to hear what you’re concocting. I almost never eat candy, and I think that’s really sad, but it’s my own fault. The site with your poem wouldn’t let me in. It said I need a password, but I don’t have one obviously. Let me know if you get the door open. Or maybe my laptop is being weird. I’ll try again later. ** Steve, I hope your cold is/was a quickie. I get why people who only go to see Marvel and etc. movies think ‘PHM’ is ‘amazing’, but that’s about it. Yes, there was a reasonably substantial No Kings rally here, but of course it was also about our own homegrown far right too. ** HaRpEr //, I’m so sorry about all the ugly stupidity around you. Somehow you have to re-situate yourself in London or somewhere, but I don’t how one blows that shit off in the meantime. They’re primitives, but primitives rule the fucking world these days. I don’t know. I’m so sorry, pal. ** Right. I think today’s post will work whether you like clowns or hate them? Maybe? I decided to take that chance. See you tomorrow.
Now available in North America 
Jesus, in that case I’ll reaffirm my comment about Close-Up being “ineffectual also-rans” or whatever I said. You could easily pack a London screening just with people I know, so I have no idea what all these places are thinking besides, jostling to hammer the final nail in the coffin of London’s relationship with culture. Those basement sewer freaks I mentioned before would die to screen it down there (in fact any number of guerrilla event putter-onners I know would), but I’m gonna assume you and Zac want something a little more above-board, no pun intended.
The provisional launch date is now 23 May, but only insofar as that looks like the least bad option for various people’s availabilities — nothing has been agreed with any potential venues, and I guess it’s at their discretion in the end, so consider it still solidly ‘TBD’. Still waiting for my friend to talk to the CEO of 1909. I’ve actually been working on a new piece like crazy over the last week or so, which is rare for me, so watch this space.
Appreciation for the Fulci discussion elsewhere, I caught a double bill of his stuff recently. I think my favourite, in a very indulgent way, might be New York Ripper, and I have a pet theory that it’s actually a sly defence of alternative sexualities and modes of living. Clown Spheres above reminds me a lot of the recent Tony Oursler showcase, which maybe means I have more of a thing for circular art than I ever thought.
I-f – Shadow Of The Clown = a very evil 1996 Dutch Acid track.
Why is Scottish football so shite? There’s a Doctoral PhD thesis in there somewhere. Why football is shite was an article on the great Bella Caledonia website back in the day, and the short answer is that the Old Firm is made up of the Glasgow clubs Rangers and Celtic. They have dominated the country’s football for decades and society up there is divided along strict religious lines. Money cannot be allocated evenly as a result, and this has led to a longtime underperformance at every level of the sport. So the place is evenly split: Yes and No, Catholic and Protestant, Indy and UK. Seems it is difficult to form a sporting identity out of all that. But still, the World Cup awaits!
hi Dennis!
ugh migraine is back blergh. at least i now know what’s up, nothing scary but i’m to keep stuff boring and low-stimulus and stay away from screens for a few more days. i’ve got used to chatting w you on here tho, so now i miss it. did you also miss me lol =)
anyway, quick:
who are you to judge your poetry…? eh, don’t be rhetorical. but this time i’ll like override you or whatever bc idk yet how your gif fiction will read 50 years from now, probably well bc PoMo pictograms, but a lot of your poetry stands the test fr. take it from me lol if i know smth is when a poem does it. ^_^
(p conflicted about this when it comes to myself tho, like, i mostly believe it’s other ppl’s business whether or not i suck, except for whenever i’m sure only i get whatever i’m doing)
off the top of my head, which is currently being pounded like Satan is my overexcited weirdo sugar daddy and stuff: ‘x exploded’ is basically inanimate and contextless, ergative, centers the event and makes an object out the subject. going kaboom is a verb of motion and requires structure, uh, from here to there to disintegration, centers the subject(ivity) of whatever. tad ambiguously tho, bc while ‘x goes kaboom’ is reflexive, it’s still got that whiff of ergativity. anyway, it implies total euphoria imo, which is v animate obvi, and a bunch of glee… like, there’s some malice in the necessary humour. in the end it’s all fundamentally pure-hearted tho, bc it’s graphic and, well, euphoric. my two cents lol. happy hunting! ^_^
man, your long-covidy friend, i can feel that. def tell her you love her, or show her or whatever you guys do. she baseline deserves to know extra as she’s going through a lot a lot a lot.
lol clowns are beyond double agents… like ok… putting on a happy face which requires blurring personhood in order to emote ultrasadness but also acceptance of failure in a way that hopefully tugs at ppl’s heartstrings and brings about empathy which makes you happier by making them happy to be sad is a very advanced form of humanity lol.
and then there’s the whole evil thing, but imo clowns who go opaque to go emotionally kaboom >>>> clowns who go opaque to just freak me out. you?
also oi, who insulted you…? i’ll fuck them up at break time =)
and anyway, how’s it going? catch you soon i hope, when i’m less unspeakably whatever!
<3
Dennis, that you can’t even remember blurbing a worthless and evil book is either senility ot moral bankruptcy on your part.
DennisCooperSucks
March 28, 2026 at 12:08 pm
Obligatory blurbing and circle jerk bullshit reviews are what drive modern publishing. I could not believe it when I saw that Dennis Cooper front cover blurbed a book from Graywolf Press—and they would never, ever, EVER publish anything by Cooper. He lent them his tired 70s “transgressive” endorsement for a worthless book from a tepid, woke, leftist press that ought to be called Grayhair Books. Fuck you, Dennis Cooper, you washed up old grifter! This race baiting, lukewarm piece of shit book is what you once lived and wrote in opposition to.
“What’s Wrong With White People? A Story Collection Counts the Ways.”
Reply
DennisCooperSucks
March 30, 2026 at 5:09 pm
This book is garbage, Dennis, yet you blurbed it like the Second Coming.
https://www.graywolfpress.org/books/whites
“Whites” by Mark Doten
heyo, just to clarify how the blog works,
you replied with the name of the book after dc had posted this day’s post, and he usually doesnt go to check back to see for things he missed. for your original post you would have needed to look up “What’s Wrong With White People? A Story Collection Counts the Ways.” to find out it was the nyt review of whites.
also, thanks for the recomendation! – https://i.postimg.cc/SQ1P74rp/9781644452905.png
they should really also include your glowing review as a blurb.
Hi!!
The clown is such an interesting phenomenon; it never ceases to amaze me that it’s supposed to be a figure children find lovely or funny. I don’t think I’ve ever met a child who wasn’t scared of clowns. There’s this person on Instagram whose clown stuff I really like: https://www.instagram.com/p/DOlvjJDjsfE/?img_index=3
Is there any news about the visa situation?
Love feeling horrified by the huge spider in his living room, especially because he knows he has to be the one to trap it and take it outside because his partner is even more terrified of it than he is, Od.
The publishing contraction isn’t just commercial. There really has been an ideological narrowing of what institutional literary culture will tolerate, and it cuts directly against the transgressive tradition — the line that runs from Kathy Acker and William S. Burroughs through Dennis Cooper and early Mary Gaitskill. That tradition depended on editors and publishers who believed literature had a kind of exemption from ordinary social prohibitions — that the extremity of the material was inseparable from what the work was doing artistically. That belief hasn’t just weakened; it has largely collapsed inside the institutional system.
Acker is the clearest example. Blood and Guts in High School alone would almost certainly be unpublishable today by a major literary press. The explicit minor content, the refusal to create moral distance from sexual violence, the complete absence of narrative punishment — those things were survivable in 1984 because Grove Press still functioned as a radical literary press willing to take reputational and legal risks. Grove Press as it existed in 1984 simply doesn’t exist anymore, not in structure, not in funding model, not in editorial culture.
That’s where the Graywolf question fits in. Graywolf Press absolutely still publishes serious literature, and it even uses language about “risk-taking” and “visionary writers.” But the reality of a modern nonprofit literary press is very different from the underground or semi-underground ecosystem that supported Acker or early Cooper. A press that publishes only a few dozen books a year has to make each one fundable, reviewable, teachable, and defensible. It lives inside a network of grants, awards, academic legitimacy, and public reputation. That doesn’t mean it’s timid in a simplistic way — it means the risks it can take are structurally limited.
So would Graywolf publish Dennis Cooper today? If the question means: would they take on a new writer producing the kind of material he wrote early in his career — extreme sexual violence, explicit minor content, no moral framing — then realistically the answer is no. Not because the work is “bad” or even because it isn’t serious literature, but because the institutional infrastructure that once protected that kind of work has disappeared. What presses now call “experimental” is usually experimental within a space that can still survive the award circuit, the academic market, and the contemporary review culture. That’s a different lane from the transgressive underground.
And that’s why your larger point feels accurate. The window of publishability isn’t just narrower because the market is smaller; it’s narrower because the culture around publishing has changed. Editors are more legally cautious, more sensitive to institutional pressure, and less willing to defend work on purely aesthetic grounds when the material is deliberately disturbing. The old idea that literature could claim a kind of moral exception — that a book could be repellent and still necessary — isn’t completely gone, but it’s no longer strong enough to support the kind of book you’re describing.
What that means for the book isn’t that it’s a failure. It means it was probably written outside the current window of publishability, and that window isn’t likely to reopen. That’s not a judgment on the work’s quality; it’s a judgment on the system that would have to exist in order to bring it to readers. That system used to exist in fragments — radical presses, editors willing to stake their careers, review cultures that tolerated aesthetic extremity. It doesn’t function that way now.
Which is why the honest options that remain aren’t traditional ones. Direct distribution — epub, print-on-demand, building a readership without institutional mediation — is no longer a desperate last resort. It’s something that writers in the past simply didn’t have. Even Cormac McCarthy spent years effectively outside the mainstream publishing system, but he still depended on the gatekeepers eventually.
I think you should chill out a bit.
Fuck off, Hugo.
We are highly confident this text was AI generated.
I am highly confident that you prefer the petite and lively vicuna over the hardy llama.
My dear fellow-or lady-I cannot pretend to share your certainty. After all, it is the smoked cigarette that endures, not the scuffed shoe.
hi dennis!
i used to be so scared of clowns when i was little and also into being a teen. it started when i was very young prob 4 or 5 and i wandered into my parents bedroom and there was a john wayne gacy documentary playing on tv and i just sat on their bed watching it until my mom found me crying sometime later. it stuck with me for a long time. but now reading through this post im so interested. maybe this is a redemption of a childhood fear. def smth i wanna explore more. i rly love the ugo rondinone series in particular it feels like a colourful backrooms visualization of beckett’s “the lost ones” which is my fav beckett story. anyway great post!
haha hell yeah, clowns rule. love the clowns at sea for some reason… like the wacky proportions feel oddly poignant with the subject. lots of classic looking stuff like the eggs and the balloons between the buildings. I just live regular everyday items painted up like clowns! like, the firework is awesome. the last one, the Erwin Olaf, is really doin something strange… huh. i like it.
a couple years ago i found a book about christian clown ministry, which sent me on a whole thing…not really religious but im very fascinated by christian culture as it can become very… specific. me and my partner started recording an album based around 60s psych folk, country, clowns and jesus… maybe we outta pick that project up again!
gonna meet up with a friend and talk shop about zine stuff, hopefully we have a first issue ready real soon. as i get used to formatting/editing, this should be pretty quick after a first issue, and im hoping/thinking we get a few people interested in submission off the bat.
also yeah, great weekend post carsten. thats one im saving for later to dig more into the subject… thanks!
oh ALSO also, I realize that i still have not read the marbled swarm, so thats coming up next here. i understand that it is formally/stylistically perhaps the most removed from your other work? we’ll see how it strikes me!
Hi Dennis
I remember in 2016 when a buncha dudes dressed up as clowns and went around scaring people. That was a fun time I suppose. I know people got hurt, but it was kinda funny. I know the slave post is tomorrow, I’m hoping one of the guys is dressed like a clown. We need less scary clowns…more horny clowns? Is that worse? Better?! Something else????
Also very funny that the DennisCooperSucks guy came back just to continue wailing on you. I guess he doesn’t like you very much, who woulda thought?
RE: that guys thoughts on publishing — Y’know, I guess it’s fair to get angry at publishing, you get rejected all the time, and it’s difficult and the business sucks they keep ya royalties yada yada like I just wanna say to this guy “look dude I’ve been there,” but I won’t because the guy seems to be putting his points down like an asshole all grandstanding and stuff, and its like, look, find a way to get the stuff out there, give it the time it needs. Acker self-published her first couple of books and went around promoting them; hell, you yourself published people in Little Caesars back in the day. Ssnake is doing good things, Pilot Press has put out wonderful stuff, and there’s much more like chill out dude. Also, is this about publishing or the honor of white people? Cuz if it’s the latter, then I dunno, I think the notion of shared white brotherhood or the honor of white people has been in question for like forever, like we only decided a couple decades back that Italians counted as white. Anyway, no one’s gonna read your essay on the subject if you’re in here acting like an asshole. Unless this is a bit, in which case, good job, your comment made me laugh, I picture a guy furiously typing away with a “I HATE Dennis Cooper ” t-shirt. – The next part of the bit should involve a new narrative terrorist group; if you start that, I WILL GLADLY JOIN!
Wish you the best, Dennis – love
The fucking point, you halfwit, is that Dennis Cooper is apparently on the board of Graywolf Publishing, a truly evil non-profit scam and race-baiting , academic-woke, MFA “human-centipede” sludge factory.
the sludge…yummy…sludge…
For what it’s worth, I agree with Hugo (and Robert Fripp’s Eyebrow) on that read. Internet criticism of this sort used to be fullblooded, organic and free-range misaimed wrath from people who really ought to rant at a therapist instead. Now between 37% and 51% of internet activity are robots or on the payroll of some troll-farm (source: Mandvi Bhadouriya via cyberpress, 16 April 2025) so it’s all just a noise.
Any significant change in publishing would likely have a basis in more of a mutual-aid model (from what I’ve read; Jamie Berrout’s essays against publishing plus Dean Spade’s book on mutual aid because Berrout kept on bringing that option to the fore)—but if DCS is really a human Anglo on the internet who knows how to type words then…it’s not such a big leap to set up a small traditional press instead of scapegoating an existing one for everything wrong in the world…?
(But I predict an insult instead of the discussion of the points, probably generated like an anglerfish-light to disguise the true purpose of simply getting to insult random people with a buzzword-salad.)
Ok, Boomer. You are real, real stupid.
Hi Dennis,
really enjoyed this post, thank you!
I’ve finally seen Permanent Green Light (like 8 years behind, but that’s my life). I watched it without subtitles, as I thought that since I can read 3 words in French, I’d be able to understand a whole movie. That wasn’t the case, but I went with it and it was kind of great. I usually prefer words to visuals, but PGL really captivated me, even though there was hardly any dialogue I could rely on. I guess, because of that, I missed out on a certain dimension of the film, but also experienced the visual one in a good weird way. Like I loved those cold, clean, almost sterile visuals and then Roman’s totally bizarr and funny looks he gives at the funeral service. And I was so confused all the time – especially by Roman and Tim, because their expressions seem so ambiguous to me, like what’s going on. And Ollie and Guillaume crying alone in loud places. I really loved this. For the most part, I didn’t know what was going on with these guys , but when Roman blows himself up at the end I thought: I don’t understand spoken French, but at least I understand the sound of an explosion. At least, that boom made sense to me.
I’m really excited that you and Zac are coming to Berlin to show Room Temperature! I mean I’m nowhere near Berlin at all. I live in Mannheim, which is pretty much exactly in the diagonal corner of Germany, but I guess I’ll take a trip to Berlin, because I really want to see this film and if I don’t watch it there, I’ll probably end up watching it sometime in the next decade.
Have a great week!
I love the way the sunlight like just oozes out of the screen. You know how at some longitudes on this planet people get depressed at certain times of the year because the sun goes away so they need lightbox therapy? I just re-watch this movie where 3 people die and then I’m somehow much less depressed.
(Also joining you in very much looking forward to Room Temperature. From the trailer it looks like there’s a clown in it.) (I’m telling all my friends that it’s a musical but they know me so.)
Some replies to yesterday’s comments section:
@Steve: Thanks for the tip with E’du & Judgitzu. I will definitely listen in later today.
I like to get my African surrealism from the source—which is what Senghor was referring to—meaning the essentially proto-surrealist sacred tribal poetries. Of course there were those who bridged European surrealism & African traditions, & they all did some fine work: Senghor himself as well as Césaire, Paul Laraque & Feliks Moriso-Lewa from Haiti, Ted Joans & Bob Kaufman in the U.S. But traditional African poetry is the purest well there is.
@HaRpEr //: Thanks! In line with what I just said to Steve, that’s one of ethnopoetics’ many excitements: the realization that just about every modernist technique has an antecedent in “primitive” poetry. African praise-poetry is especially rich in collage-like constructions, where each line often functions as a self-contained unit that can be freely shuffled around & recontextualized. I often call this circular construction (with the subject as pivot) as opposed to the Western linear tradition. Endlessly rich & fascinating, & a profound influence on my own work & thinking.
@DC: Hmm, quite a bit of synchronicity going on here today between the post & the comments…
Good to know, re. Paris. I’ll have to wait & see what happens with the pad I looked at last week. But if I’m practically homeless for the summer I do think Paris in July is a good option, even with a somewhat sedated cultural scene. Looks like a 1300 to 1500€ rental is doable. I’ll keep you posted.
Hey, please let me know if you see anything in that range; that’s about where I’m looking, for September or January-February,
First, thank you, Carsten for all the dreamy ethnography; sorry I didn’t have time to respond on the weekend. Since I read a lot that shows up in articles, books, and internet on dreaming–it’s not really that huge a field–I’ve encountered a great deal more of the sociology of the appropriation of Indigenous and colonized peoples’ dream ways than excellent reports on those customs and beliefs themselves. And one thing that interests me a lot is how and why there’s the impulse to assimilate products of other cultures in ways that deny and misrepresent their realities, and their relations to whole ways of life. It’s the fundamental thing in capitalism that everything can be acquired and made use of based on its superficial, supposedly beneficial elements. It’s partly just how cultures work, of course: we take what works. But the modern west makes this fundamental thing about how it can appropriate cultural elements it completely misunderstands and turn them into aspects of post-industrial commercial culture.
In the International Association for the Study of Dreams, I have often had to wince through monologues about how people have adopted rituals and wisdom after reading an article or going on an ecoholiday. After I was established at IASD, I started badgering the leadership about their inviting speakers who wrote popular books about dream ways, when there are many speakers from within these cultures we could invite. As for many other associations in the US, the summer of Black Lives Matter changed things. I was suddenly invited to join a “task force” on diversity, which sought speakers from many traditions. We established grants and scholarships, and ensured that persons who were recognized keepers of traditional culture had the same status as persons accredited by university academic institutions. Still I encountered and still encounter a lot of peculiar prejudices, and I still meet people who lay claim to knowledge they do not have–sometimes unfortunately promoted by popular dream websites. We don’t have a lot of anthropologists and sociologists in the association, maybe because they’ve gotten a whiff of the atmosphere. However, I like being involved someplace where lab scientists, therapists, lay dreamworkers (like me), and some artists (like me) all exchange ideas.
This June for the first time I’m doing a poetry reading at the IASD conference–which I gather is happening because they heard I was in Best American Poetry 2025. And I’ll provide an introduction to a performance of A Midsummer Night’s Dream–which will basically be about beliefs about dreams in Shakespeare’s England.
Anyway, thanks, Carsten. I think you know how to find me on FB if you ever want.
And Dennis, sorry, I don’t remember if I told you I went to AWP and had a good time with old friends and new friends. A very short very happy reunion with Ariana Reines. Joined the National Writers’ Union. This week I sent poems for the 50th anniversary special edition of ROOF and for the DC Pride thing online I’ve done last couple of years; this one was a ventriloquizing Tim Dlugos poem. Kind of back in the swing of poem publishing wuth three or four other places asking for work.
The unhappy thing is that as I suspected, the Récollets is no longer able to just bang me into a slot; I have to submit paperwork that I’m not eligible for. It’s OK, I think, because it looks like there are some apartments in Paris I could afford for a month. And as much as I love and miss Paris, I would like to try residencies elsewhere. Berlin. Netherlands, Belgium. Scotland, Ireland. (I’ve applied for ones in Japan, Croatia, Italy I haven’t gotten so far.) I will have one in Oregon this summer, though that’s for writing a dream book; and I’m trying to get two weeks in provincetown. stayin’ busy. I am for sure reading the blog but as you can see I go on and on when I try to respond, so . .
PS just found post cards and letters from you from the 80s. Wow.
XO forever
B
Hey. I was never scared of clowns, but as a kid they could make me sad if they were really expressive and it was like I was actually watching someone fall apart. I like mimes a lot, but mostly the Lindsay Kemp kind. A kid on the street once said I looked like a mime, and that was pretty creative. I thought that was funny. He kept saying to his friends ‘You know, a mime, those French people who don’t say anything…’ Probably hence my affinity.
I spend all day trying to figure out an exit route but I’m yet to find it. It’s so fucking difficult to find a job. For a while I went door to door across various streets, asking for work, and I never got anywhere. Eventually I got worn down and just needed to write for a while, but I’m a bit of a nervous wreck, racked with guilt about a life I could be living, and I’m trying so hard to get there but nothing has panned out yet. I’ve just got to take it one day at a time, as they say. All I know is that I work really hard and that must count for something somehow. Maybe not now, but in the long run.
People don’t get in fights anymore, they copy and paste stuff from chat gpt and post it to the blogs of notable writers.
Coulrophobia – or the perversity of PARADISE CLUB – feels like the norm. (Of course, there was a SoundCloud rapper made up as a clown.) Do kids look at clowns and see innocent fun?
Have you seen any of the TERRIFIER films? I don’t know if they’re exactly good – there’s not much to them beyond outrageous gore scenes – but TERRIFIER 3 has really stuck with me.
Hello, I have a couple of clown items
I have this bozo the clown doll that I got from s thrift store ages ago which had missing arms that my aunt haphazardly but passionately and skillfully sewed limbs onto with felt. I placed him right next to a very ugly but gifted crying porcelain doll, as well as my grandma’s ashes. All held very dearly.
I have a clown postcard on my wall. A couple. Also this round shaped harlequin that when twisted plays a music box.
https://www.etsy.com/listing/4461565935/vintage-1963-mattel-talking-bozo-the
This one ☝️
Huh that’s weird the post I sent it didn’t work for you I’ll try sending it again. Weird.
https://xyzdarbz.wordpress.com/2026/03/25/unpolished-writing/
Crossing my fingers about Charlotte. I sent u a video of the Korg on instagram for some reason. Have a good one
correction: the bozo the clown was from a flea market, not a thrift store. Very important distinction.
I somehow landed here in the middle of my fruitless and terrifying job hunt. The “Clown Core” performance in the portapotty went farrrr beyond my expectations. I thought the Portapotty was there to distract from rudimentary musicianship — and I would’ve respected that. Instead, I realized I’ll never be as good a musician as two clowns in a portapotty.
That aside, I see everything through the lens of the job hunt right now, and so my main takeaway from this post was amazement that there is room in the world for so much clown art and that the world can financially support clown art. I cannot seem to find a boring corporate job, or even a boring low-rung freelancing job, and I love that the clown art exists, but hate that I cannot figure out how to make a traditional skillset work for me when others have figured out how to make clown art work for them. I don’t mean this to sound so bitter, I love the existence of all clown art way more than I love the idea of being able to get a corporate job. But I’m broke, so I’m a bit offended that the clowns are surviving better than I am.
I’m not a regular here, and I don’t know the story behind the DennisCooperSucks account, and I don’t think Dennis Cooper sucks, so far as I know, but I am kind of interested in the idea of what’s no longer considered publishable, and if that’s good or not. That’s a lot of anger over a blurb, though.
I guess I’ll doxx myself and share my LinkedIn here in the “website” slot. Recommend me to all of your friends, please.
hello dennis!
ahh…im feeling kinda better today, thanks friend 🙂
clowns! clowns clowns clowns. i love clowns so much. theyre so perverse. but also so pure! thank you for this!
theres been a lot going on in the last 20 years with like…”clowning” as a theatrical practice stemming from jacques lecoq mime/movement theatre stuff (the jacques lecoq school is a FASCINATING rabbithole. i know a bunch of people who have failed out of it. so intense and weird. personally, i think its kind of bullshit.)
very partial to the rondinone and landers pieces! so delightful.
aaanyway hope you’re doing well. sorry about that guy crashing out in your comments, lol
oh also…clown themed hardcore band that im kinda obsessed with
https://circuspunk.bandcamp.com/album/demo
Don’t mind me, just testing smth…