The blog of author Dennis Cooper

Flesh *

* (restored)

 

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Jory L. Bertram Lines Upon Lines (2016)
Extreme anxiety can lead to hallucinations. In the case of 16 year-old French artist Jory L. Bertram, the hallucinations took the form of thousands of lacerations all over her body. This piece is an attempt to convey those experiences.

 

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Fábio Magalhães various (2011 – 2014)
Salvadorian artist Fábio Magalhães paints inconceivable acts and positions in a truly gruesome yet astonishing manner. In which, he creates contours of a very disturbing reality. His hyper-realistic rendering and conditions, metaphorically connects images of his own body, feelings and banal situations.

 

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Hal Flesh Love (Vacuum sealed Couples) (2007)

 

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Adam Brandjes Animatronic Flesh Shoe (2004)
The shoe is stitched together with multiple pieces of latex rubber cast out of molds made from my own skin. The shoe’s toe and heel raise and lower as it occasionally vibrates/pulsates, and twitches on the floor as if it were still alive. The movement is not constant, and usually causes people to jump back while they are in the middle of leaning in for a closer look.

 

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Shen Shaomin Summit (2010)
Summit comprised life-sized hyperrealistic sculptures of deceased communist leaders on their deathbeds (or in Fidel Castro’s case, clinging to life).

 

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Adriana Varejão various (2007 – 2015)
Adriana Varejão, (born in Río de Janeiro in 1964) has -for more than two decades- engaged in an aesthetic discourse that has delved fearlessly into controversial topics such as European Colonialism in Brazil, human slavery, and the body as a mediator for history’s untold violence. Varejão’s work evidences material as well as historical concerns; her paintings, drawings, and sculptures are physical and often, confrontational objects.

 

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Andra Ursuta Crush (2011)
Cast Urethane, wax, sneakers, wig, silicone, 152 x 102 x 23 cm

 

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Gina Pane various (1974 – 1983)
Gina Pane (1939 – 1990), a French artist of an Italian origin, was one of the main representatives of what is widely recognised as Body Art, the artistic trend characterised by the practise of self-mutilation and sadomasochism. Working with/on her own flesh and blood as an artistic media, Pane laid bare the human body’s fragilities; undressing, hitting, hurting, dirtying her own body, she was able to show the sense of danger and pain. Gina Pane, with a distinctive composure and a rational attitude, used the sufferance as a way of representing spirituality, carrying a deep emotional and symbolic charge. In Sentimental action (1973), the proto feminist artist, dressed totally in white, takes a bunch of roses in her hand and hurts herself with their spines. The blood dripping on the bouquet turns the roses from white to red. At that point, the artist cuts herself with a razor blade. An even higher pathos is represented by Action Psyché (Essai), a performance from 1974 – documented by sketches, photographs, notes – where Gina Pane injures her eyelashes to simulate tears of blood, and then engraves her belly. Some prim viewers could be disarmed and shocked by the narcissism, aggressiveness and exhibitionism displayed in such a rough and direct way.

 

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Choi Xoo Ang Islets of Aspergers Type XIV (2009)
Xooang Choi’s Islets of Aspergers series, each with a serial number, shows the characteristics of Asperger’s Syndrome by exaggerating and distorting a body part. These images constantly give doubtful stares to the outer world or act indifferent to everything else besides themselves.

 

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Regina José Galindo Goose Flesh (2012)
Regina José Galindo began her artistic evolution as a poet. It was in 1999 that she started to use her body as part of her work in a more direct manner by adopting performance as her chief medium of expression. Her work leads us into the problems of current society, into a stark reality, through the discourse of her own body and by means of a series of actions that are equally stark, unrestrained and full of symbolism and which lead the artist to place herself in extreme situations that are also intense points of reflection for spectators.

 

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Santiago Sierra 250 cm line tattooed on six paid people (1999)
In 1999, Spanish artist Santiago Sierra paid six unemployed young men in Cuba to take part in one of his installation pieces. The men were offered $30 each to participate, and stripped to their shorts to become a part of its human experiments, this time in the Espacia Aglutinador, Havana’s oldest art space. Santiago Sierra had the men tattooed – one straight, horizontal line reaching across each of their backs. “Having a tattoo is normally a personal choice. But when you do it under ’remunerated’ conditions, this gesture becomes something that seems awful, degrading—it perfectly illustrates the tragedy of our social hierarchies. The tattoo is not the problem. The problem is the existence of social conditions that allow me to make this work. You could make this tattooed line a kilometer long, using thousands and thousands of willing people.”

 

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Daniel J. Martinez redemption of the flesh, its just a little bruise; the politics of the future as urgent as the blue sky (2008)
The hypnotic mechanical nihilism of a masterful Daniel J. Martinez installation, “redemption of the flesh, its just a little bruise; the politics of the future as urgent as the blue sky”, a 2008 animatronic sculpture that squirts what appears to be blood onto the walls of the museum. Behind this carnage are hand-scrawled recounts of the known plagues of history that have taken a million or more victims each.

 

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Cao Hui various (2011 – 2015)
Beijing-based artist Cao Hui insists that people used to be given the title of “artist” based on their “degree of mastery in imitating nature” though now, he says, “It seems artists are no longer happy just being artists, but are driven by their inborn love of performance to try out new roles, such as philosopher, scientist, doctor or perhaps even engineer. I think artists really want to play god more than anything else, and will stop at nothing to construct a truth that validates the self.”

 

 



 

 

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Karen Paddington Taxidermy (2011)
A woman dressed in white clinician’s overalls methodically flays the skin off a mannequin.

 

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Michael Zajkov various (2013)
Artist Michael Zajkov worked making puppets for a theater since 2010, after graduation from Kuban State University of Russia, who made his debut at the “Art Dolls” expo in Moscow, 2013, where he presented a few creations and attracted the attention worldwide. By using French mohair as hair and hand painted glass from Germany as eyes, Zajkov makes these extremely realistic Russian dolls dressed in exquisite costumes.

 

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Elmgreen & Dragset Death of a Collector (2009)

 

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Yang Shaobin Body (2009)

 

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Berlinde De Bruyckere various (2004 – 2015)
An unsettling, reconfigured concept of the body, helpless yet contorted, takes centre stage in Berlinde de Bruyckere’s faceless sculptures. Abject deformation is turned into beauty as if the artist is trying to wrestle a shape from abstract form. That each body, whether human or equine, stands on a plinth or inside a cabinet, as if posing for the viewer, emphasises their monumentalised objecthood and the tension between what these objects represent and what they actually are. De Bruyckere began making work around ideas of the human figure in the early 1990s, first through its absence, stacking and draping woollen blankets on furniture, symbolising shelter and vulnerability. Then she added bodies made of wax, almost completely covered in wool; imperfect, sexless and headless.

 

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Alex Katz Boy with Branch 2 (1975)

 

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Andrei Molodkin various (2012 – 2015)
Russian contemporary artist Andrei Molodkin is taking body art to a whole new level with a machine that boils corpses down to oil, which can then be poured into molds to become sculptures. Paris-based Molodkin says that he has tested his high-pressure invention, which in three to six months turns a corpse into “yellowish, sweet crude”. BBC reporter Sasha Gankin has already signed up, saying he wants to be turned into a sculpture of a brain, and French porn star Chloé des Lysses has asked to be made into a model of praying hands. According to Molodkin, who will represent Russia at this year’s Venice Biennale, a few HIV-positive New Yorkers who are expected to die in a year or two have agreed to the project as well.

 

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Tony Matelli Double Meat Head (2008)
Tony Matelli’s sculpture “Double Meat Head,” a self-portrait diptych, represents the two stages of Matelli’s existence — the first stage signified with live, fresh meat, the second stage signified with decay, in which the flesh decomposes, consumed by maggots.



 


 

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Isidro López-Aparicio Learning How to relate (2012)
Two hundred people hanging head-down in random group sizes, as human relation close groups.

 

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Andrew Krasnow various (2001 – 2013)
The Nazis at Buchenwald concentration camp did it. And so did serial killer Ed Gein. Now, Andrew Krasnow is making sculptures and lampshades out of human skin, all in the name of art: His works include human skin lampshades – a direct response to the belief that similar items made from the skin of Holocaust victims were found at Buchenwald concentration camp. Using skins from white men who donated their bodies to medical science, he has created freak versions of mundane items including flags, boots and maps of America – in effect using skin like leather. His work, he says, is a commentary on human cruelty and America’s ethics and morality.

 

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Marilyn Minter Green Pink Caviar (2009)
It is difficult to tell if Marilyn Minter’s subjects are meant to make viewers uncomfortable—or turn them on. A self-proclaimed “still life art photographer,” Minter’s pornography-inspired portraits of women seemingly possessed by the voyeuristic lens all appear to be objects of her wildest hallucinations. Yet, upon closer inspection, the images reveal the simplest reality that exists in beauty: imperfection. Her camera catches, with peephole discretion, tongues and fingers intermingling with precious stones, body hair and birthday cake, rendering her subjects in a miserable yet erotic state of disarray.

 

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He Yunchang One Meter of Democracy (2014)
He Yunchang performance One Meter of Democracy, he had a 0.5 to 1 centimeter deep incision cut into the right side of his body, stretching one meter from his collarbone to his knee. A doctor assisted in this procedure, though no anesthesia was used during the entire process. Before the surgery, he held a satirical “Chinese democracy-style” vote, using the farcical methods of Chinese elections to ask the roughly twenty people present whether or not he should carry out the procedure. The final tally was 12 votes for, 10 against and 3 abstaining, passing by two votes. The process was shocking to watch. He used a self-abusive, self-mutilating method to push himself to the edge, near the brink of death, and attained a self-redemption of both spirit and flesh. Perhaps this is the price of democracy, and perhaps He Yunchang is using his own suffering to awaken and probe the languishing soul.

 

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Folkert de Jong The Dance (2008)
Styrofoam, pigmented polyurethane foam, artificial gemstones.


 


 


 


 

 

*

p.s. Hey. ** Misanthrope, Well, excellent. We align. Dialogue is a lot tougher than it looks, for sure. Writing films and this TV thing, you have to focus so much of everything on dialogue only. The art of shoehorning. It’s interesting. Well, just ever more intrigued about this novel of yours. I’m appreciating the dissection. ** David Ehrenstein, Hi. Oh, okay. Well, Bresson seriously deciding to put movie stars in one of his films would be a massive, massive, massive break from his central oeuvre-long thing so, obviously, it sounds very strange. ** Steve Erickson, Hi. Well, yeah, of course folks like Tarantino prefer the earlier Godard. I like the vast majority of Godard, but, obviously, prefer the later and more innovative work. I saw ‘Four Nights …’ last night, which contains that crazy fake crime movie within the movie, one of the funniest things Bresson ever did. I think in general ‘Four Nights …’ might be the film of his with the most humor in it. I’d forgotten how funny it can be. Very strange if that’s true about Film Forum showing that ‘Four Nights’ print. It wouldn’t have been a print, though, but a DCP. There hasn’t been new prints struck of the film in decades, part of the legal stuff. But, yeah, that’s strange since DL at Lincoln Center was told it was legally impossible to show the film at our event. ** JM, Hey. Sorry, yeah, that happens, although I almost always see all the comments, even the ‘disappeared’ ones, but anyway … This one of yours is safe and sound. Thank you so much about ‘The Weaklings XL’! That’s very kind of you to say. How’s stuff? ** Simon, Hi! I’m very happy you love Faucon (too). I spent some of the weekend exploring your music list, which is fantastic. There are a number of things I didn’t know and that are now spinning wildly over here. Particularly so thus far maybe the Pendant, Menuck, Tropical Fuck Storm, and Topdown Dialectic. Thank you a lot. I tend to put what I’m into at the moment into those gig posts I do here about once a month, so I guess those tracks would be recommendations of sorts. Oh, you’re in Dusseldorf. I was there once years ago ‘cos I interviewed this artist Jorg Immendorf who lived there. I just remember it being kind of forbidding, but it was also the first place in Germany I had ever visited. I may well ask you for advice then, thank you! I’m going to try to draft up an initial trip itinerary this week. I think we’ll be driving. But for now, that walking coaster … I’ve always wanted to walk one of those, and I didn’t know there was one around there. Huh. I’ll see if it tickles Zac’s fancy, which I think it will. The Tetrahedron is really curious too. Thanks! They’re totally up our alley. Excellent week ahead to you too. ** Bill, Hi. Oh, you’re doing the family visit. I kind of guessed, I don’t know why. No, I’m skipping Venice. Zac’s going for a couple of days. I honestly can’t bear the idea of the heat/humidity for one big thing. And I’d have to pay for the trip, and I need to be a little careful right now. So, no. What are you doing? ** Caitie, Hi! That’s a good way to think about it. Huh. Yeah, I like that. I totally get needing to refill with words. I’m sort of dog-paddling on the surface of language myself right now at the worst possible time, but oh well. Well, enjoy the time that I won’t get to see you, and I look forward to glorifying in your return. ** James Nulick, Ah, interesting story/history with that Faucon postcard. Thank you for recounting that. It’s a boon. I think the chances are getting next to nil that we’ll get to Japan in October since we have a film festival in Portugal to do in mid-month and then we really kind of need to go to LA for Halloween to research home haunts for our new film. So I’m guessing it’ll be more like November or December before we get there. I can’t imagine writing a novel that matters to me without those spates of self-doubt. Natural slippage in the pursuit of the best. Don’t worry. The ARTE challenge is a massive challenge and daunting and exhausting to even think about, but we are at it with hopes almost reasonably high. Love to you. ** Jamie, Hi, J! Oh, wow, cool! About you and Faucon. So happy. My weekend was mostly pretty good. The Bresson film was sublime and all that I could ever ask for from life just like every Bresson film is for me. Otherwise, hung out with my visiting friend. Saw art. New Palais de Tokyo show was fun and less awful than most of their shows are. We did get the ARTE notes. They’re both no surprise and quite challenging/depressing. But right now I’m basically in the position of having to keep Gisele from freaking out and quitting the project — which would a very bad move — because her ‘no compromise’ thing is being severely tested. So there are the demanding notes, and then there’s having to be the soothing ‘it’ll be fine’ guy for her, and it’s exhausting. But we’ll start making our new proposal later this week. Ha ha, vegan food from the days when only diehard vegans/ vegetarians like me would deem to eat that stuff. I do remember. Oh, great, about the mostly complete essay! Yes, please, a link. The film script goes really well. We’re working like beavers on a new and possibly final or very close to final version. The film part of what’s going on is great and exciting. It’s the week again, so what does yours portend? I hope your first day of the week makes you feel like the world’s biggest Beatle fan would feel if George and John rose from the dead and The Beatles played a reunion concert in his bedroom. Firehose propelled love, Dennis. ** _Black_Acrylic, Hi, Ben. That’s probably true, ha ha. A new writing project! Any hints? I’ve seen the cover of that book you’re reading on social media a lot lately, so, yeah, it seems to be trending. Happy day! ** Corey Heiferman, Mm, I think it’s all paint but I’m not entirely sure. Faucon is very nostalgic, obviously. I’m, like, the least nostalgic person alive. My childhood is just one of my file folders. So that part/thought is really foreign. That’s cool about how you’re reading the interviews. Your brain is good. Darn, we’ll miss each other in NYC by the skin of our or somebody’s teeth. Have a good day. ** Right. Someone, I think on Facebook, asked me recently to rebuild this post, and so I have. See you tomorrow.

11 Comments

  1. David Ehrenstein

    Flesh

    “Four Nights of a Dreamer” does contain a soupcon of humor as I recall. Dennis are you familiar with Paul Vecchiali’s “White Nights on the Pier”? Same Dostoyevsky story (likewise Visconti’s “White Nights”)

  2. Jamie

    Hey Denjamin,
    I think when this was originally posted I commented and said that I liked everything here, and that still stands. This was a delightful slow-scroller post for me, thanks!
    Damn about the ARTE notes/Gisele’s potential quit. Oh dear, it sounds like this project is extremely consuming. Did you make any progress with things today?
    But great that the film script is progressing so well. It’s nice you’ve got that for balance, I guess.
    This week is so far consisting of me catching up with an online course called The Business of Film or something equally rubbish, that I forgot I signed up to, so having to try and take in four weeks of work in a few days. It’s all about funding films and stuff and is actually pretty interesting so far.
    What about yourself? Was Monday magical?
    Hope Tuesday makes you feel as happy as Larry.
    Big bubbles no trouble love,
    Jamie

  3. Bill

    I can’t remember if I’ve seen this one, Dennis. But I love it. (Ok, I’m sure that doesn’t surprise you.)

    Sorry to hear about the continuing ARTE saga. Sigh.

    The trip has so far been a lot of jet lag, some hanging out with the folks, and work shit. It will get better.

    Just finished Millhauser’s fascinating “Paradise Park”. Hard to read it without thinking of you…

    Bill

  4. Steve Erickson

    Do you know anything about French director/actor Gerard Blain? He’s getting a retrospective at the Metrograph starting Friday. I plan to see his 1976 film UN ENFANT DANS LA POULE Saturday. He gets repeatedly compared to Bresson in the program notes, and when I was interviewing Olivier Assayas once, Assayas praised his work to me. The program notes call attention to the fact that his film’s narratives repeatedly use the device of young men hooking up with older men sexually without necessarily being gay, who act as mentors, and then getting in trouble when they fall in love with women. David Ehrenstein, are you familiar with Blain’s work? Was he gay or bi himself? (His son Paul acts in one of his films.)

    This is a fascinating collection of art. LINES UPON LINES is particularly disturbing, considering how common self-harm is and that there are many people who have scarred themselves this way rather than just hallucinating it. It made me think of Huarotron’s music video “XXVI Crimes Of Love,” which depicts a man who is tied up slowly being drowned cross-cut with images of slabs of meat and beautiful views of the Finnish countryside and sea.

  5. Sypha

    Today is a good reminder of why I usually check out this blog after I eat lunch rather than before. There goes the appetite, ha ha…

    Dennis, when you read long books, do you find that the second half always goes by faster than the first half? That seems to be my experience. For example, last night I finished Denis Johnson’s ALREADY DEAD, which I seem to recall you once complained suffered from a case of a gigantism in a review you wrote for one of his other books. At 435 pages, the halfway point was around pages 217-218. It took me 13 days of reading to hit that point: yet I read the remaining 217 pages in only 3 days! I’ve had similar experiences with some of Pynchon’s bigger books, Hugo’s “Les Miserables,” Wallace’s “Infinite Jest,” and so on. I guess the first half of a big book can be likened to climbing up a mountain and the second half to falling down it!

  6. Dominik

    Hi!!

    I’m Dóra but I decided to start using the name ‘Dominik’ here too – if it’s alright with you. Everybody calls me that and I like it more than my given name, I feel more comfortable with it. So I thought maybe it’s time.

    I remembered bits and pieces of today’s post from last time – I loved it then and I love it now. A lot. My favorites are Berlinde De Bruyckere’s and Choi Xoo Ang’s works. Especially Berlinde’s. Thank you for reviving this inspiring collection!
    Also, Michael Zajkov’s amazing doll faces just reminded me how much I want a “ball-jointed doll” – now that I’m a working person I’ll really treat myself to one, haha! They’re super expensive and a little bit hard to get but… I’m fascinated with them. They could be an extremely rich platform for my boy-visions/aesthetics. Them, for example, god!
    https://i.pinimg.com/736x/f3/b8/c4/f3b8c4411d6cc3934d75a7e0a5dab70a.jpg
    https://www.flickr.com/photos/issybjd/15234801306/in/album-72157647109560977/

    I kept my fingers painfully tightly crossed for some not-too-devastating ARTE script notes throughout the whole weekend. Well… I just read what you wrote to Jamie and it’s really not what I was rooting for. I’m sorry you’re in this double-difficult situation right now.
    Haha, yes, daunting it is. This White Eagle stuff. But I let it rest a little these past two days so I was ready to work on it again today. Thank god, the whole book is only about a hundred pages long!

    I hope you’ll have an amazing week, Dennis, despite the TV script agonies! I’ll be back on Friday, as usual! May the Force be with you!!

  7. _Black_Acrylic

    Flesh makes me think of this record by A Split Second that was played at the wrong speed and launched the early 80s musical genre of Belgian New Beat. Yeah I remember that Santiago Sierra artwork in the 90s, it left a powerful impression at the time and still carries heft. I wonder what those poor Cuban guys think of their museum-approved tattoos now?

    Re my writing “project”, I have nothing concrete planned as yet but intend to begin something when I’m back in Dundee next week. I’m hoping that once I’m away from this heatwave and my dad’s not watching the Tour de France all day, then I might get chance to think about doing something worthwhile.

  8. Corey Heiferman

    There’s too much here. I’m overwhelmed. And reluctant to respond to most of these individually.

    I’m not at all surprised that people do stuff like this and I’m not that deeply interested in talking about it, since it comes from a primitive yet essentially human urge for which either words are totally at a loss or I’d have to think way longer and harder than I’m willing to for a blog comment (sorry).

    What I am curious about is, since most if not all of what you’ve shown here appears to have above-the-board artistic legitimacy, is what really went through the curators’ heads when they chose these things vs. how it’s written up in artspeak. I’d like to see a compare and contrast between the trendiness of this stuff in the art world with the widespread removal of shrunken heads from display at natural history museums.

    Scientifically sanctioned cadavers, of course, are still fair game for museums. Whenever I meet medical doctors, whether in their professional or personal capacity, I almost always think for at least a moment at how scientifically dissecting cadavers was a rite of passage for them, and wonder they responded to the experience.

    The post also reminds me of one of my favorite movie moments, appropriate for the week it was announced that 3D printed guns will soon be legal in USA:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-wyrwOJJtNw

    By the way, how’s Jean Cocteau thought of in Paris nowadays, either in general if it’s possible to say or at least in your circles?

  9. JM

    hey, no need to apologize about the disappear-ing comments, i always know that’s a possibility 🙂 the martinez flesh exhibit is like a semi-slasher movie boxed into the body of sanitary considerations which is an effective midpoint for a post that is largely flesh based than locale based, naturally. kind of this post functions on a similar predisposition as the punchline in benning’s RR, actually, where there’s that one shot with no train in it… i haven’t heard much about gina pane but a performance artist who went to my school just spent two months dressed exactly the same as his friend every day which i have no idea where that went or what the outcome was but i should ask sometime. things are generically good, but i’ve been felling pretty sick lately. we just started work on my final show for this year, “the lost & found place,” which is a killer title but may not be a killer show, that is yet to be decided and we have a lot of time so that’s coo;l.

    did you see godard’s IMAGE BOOK yet? i saw you talking about him with, uhm, i think it was steve, above, and i really want to make it to that next week or the one after. maybe i already asked this a few weeks ago. gina pane is cool because gee-nah pain which is a ridiculously way of reading and looking but also i’ve been doing it a lot lately in reference to John Barton Wolgamot’s In Sara Mencken, Christ and Beethoven there were men and women (which is published in a beautiful symmetry with two essays by Robert Ashley and another collaborator I don’t recall the name of).
    //high recommend:
    http://www.ubu.com/historical/wolgamot/wolgamot.pdf

    it’s like 122 pages but even just a skim reveals some interesting stuff..

    hopefully yore flesh is well

    j

  10. Misanthrope

    Dennis! Yes, dialogue is…interesting. I don’t know that there’s anything interesting in the dialogue in this novel, frankly. It’s more about what’s said and not said than about what’s actually said and how/if it pushes the story (yes, there’s a story, sorry) forward or backward. Also, this novel, in this first half anyway, is pretty dialogue heavy…but that’s the way these characters interact with each other…by things said and not said.

    I’m on the 13th chapter now. The 14th to come. And then the second half, which is totally different from the first half though it’s all about the first half. I think it works or will work, but we’ll see.

    I just finished reading The Little Prince by Antoine Saint de Exupery. I’d never read it. Just picked it up in NYC while buying some other books at the Strand bookstore. Now I’ve started Paul Russell’s The Coming Storm. It won the Ferro-Grumley and was a finalist for the Lambda back in the day.

    The premise sounded promising, but I made the mistake of looking to see if there’s a movie version and stumbled upon the Wiki for it…needless to say, I think I’m going to hate it, hahaha. We’ll see. Maybe Russell will surprise me.

    But it did give me an idea for something I might write in the future.

    I have logged this line for another future novel/story: “His face looked like an old woman’s ass.” I think that’ll be the starting point for that whenever I get to it. 😀

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