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p.s. Hey. ** David Ehrenstein, Thank you, David! ** Thomas Moronic, Well, hi, T! So great to see you! I’m pretty good, thanks. Yeah, excited about PGL’s birth, and quite busy with that. Otherwise? Still working the script for the ARTE TV series, getting ready for the fund-raising part of Zac’s and my new film, working on a GIF novel, dying to get back to my long dormant words-based novel ASAP. Excellent report there about your novel’s advanced progress! Berlin, cool. I’m not a huge familiar with that fine city, but … Everyone, the honorable author and all around fine fella Thomas ‘Moronic’ Moore is off for a visit to Berlin soon. Does anyone here or out there have some tips for him to see and do while he’s there? If so, please pony up in your comments. Thanks! And wonderful news that you’re heading over here. It’s been ages! I greatly look forward to that! Yeah, the new Sunn0))) is incredible, right? Maybe the album of the year so far for me. So good to see you, my pal! ** Steve Erickson, Ah, okay, about the Herzog. I’ll not rush to it, but it shows up on TV, I’ll tune in. I feel like Makhmalbaf’s films are hugely unseen or unseeable. Even here in Paris, I can’t remember the last time a film of his was on view. ** liquoredgoat, Hey, hey. Happy my post about Kaurismaki lead you happily to ‘Le Havre’. Ace. And I really agree with you about Lucia Berlin. Truly stellar prose stylist, really pleasurable. I’m quite good, just busy, even more than usual, but grateful for it so far. And you? ** Right. You birds out there are welcome to gaze longingly at the perches I found for you. You non-birds are invited to appreciate the aesthetic virtues of the antenna. Something for everybody perhaps? See you tomorrow.
Now available in North America 
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Hey,
Since the first time I saw Hitchcock’s ‘The Birds’ on TV when I was 6, I’ve been absolutely terrified of most birds. People make fun of me for being so afraid of pigeons, just to put an example. I’ve never been able to get rid of this phobia of most birds.
You like Blanchot more than Robbe-Grillet?
“I’m one of those rare people who only like the early DeLillo, up through ‘White Noise’, but after that I’m not so into his novels. although I haven’t thoroughly read the recent ones.”
^ I’m exactly the opposite; but I still love ‘Players’, for example. I take it you like it, then?
I was once in Old Pasadena.
“Yes, ‘The Well-Dressed Wound’ is a short novel, and it’s genius like everything Derek has written.”
^ I really, really, really want to read it. Sounds like something I’d love.
Good day,
a.
The German sculptor Thomas Schütte designed a Hotel for the Birds in 2004 for the fourth plinth project in London’s Trafalgar Square. I never saw the finished artwork but I always thought of that as being a sweet idea.
I’m still down here in Leeds and I’ve found that my dad has been given some “intelligent putty” by his physio to manipulate with his fingers after his recent stroke. Now that he’s finished with that, I’ll bring it back up to Dundee with me to improve the dexterity in my left hand which was affected by my MS. Not saying that all my previous artmaking skills will magically return, but it seems to be a worthwhile form of exercise that could only be of benefit.
I’ve learned from a gig editing an electrical engineering trade magazine that bird shit can cause serious problems for power lines. Here’s an unpaywalled story from a sister magazine:
https://spectrum.ieee.org/energywise/tech-history/dawn-of-electronics/bird-poop-can-cripple-power-grids
The ultimate perch would’ve been the Tesla Tower had it been completed.
https://www.teslasociety.com/teslatower.htm
“The famous Tesla Tower, so called Wardenclyffe Tower, was erected by Nikola Tesla in 1901 -1903 as the first broadcasting system in the world, and transmitting electrical energy without wires to the globe using the Ionosphere (the electrified upper part of the atmosphere of the earth important for transmitting radio waves around the globe). ”
“Tesla wanted to saturate the globe with electricity as a dynamo so that everyone on the surface of the globe could obtain electrical light just by sticking wires into the soil and an electrical bulb would light. When J.P. Morgan heard about the Tesla project, he was asked: “How can we get money from the electricity which Tesla is supplying to every part of the world?” After that Morgan cut the funds and the Tower was never finished.”
I linked a friend who’s obsessed with noise and anything Japanese to Merzbow Day and no surprise he enjoyed it.
I’d like to pitch a story on Eurovision to anybody here who runs a publication or knows somebody who does. I live here in Tel Aviv where the contest will take place May 14th-18th, speak Hebrew, and am happy to cover it from any angle.
You got some gears turning when you mentioned your appearance at Art Basel. Congratulations! I’ve never been to any of its incarnations so it sounds like a tempting long weekend getaway. I could potentially defray costs by selling my friend/documentary subject’s tarot cards and acting as his agent. It’s kind of irresistible and I’ll let you know when/if I book the trip.
Good luck with all of your busyness. My next few days will be full of boring but necessary tasks fueled by Turkish coffee.
P.P.S. A newly released metal EP that’s almost all in Hebrew:
https://karkait.bandcamp.com/album/yekum-kiyum?fbclid=IwAR0BLz2M-WL75dItuPA7ftHFhISkl1-FEzL1mx8KJlqSKj9SKsJaVqj3VqI
YOU FORGOT THIS!
love the post!
Hey again,
From what I’ve heard so far I think the new GBV; ‘Warp And Woof’ is brilliant. Sounds really exciting. Of course I know you already Absolutely Love it.
I agree with birds that these antennae/power line structures are irresistible.
Sorry about the recent disappearance, Dennis. I blame it on jet lag and allergies. I think things are trending well, at least.
I love Berlin; will be there late May. Thomas, what are you in the mood for? The bigger modern art spaces are great (Hamburger Bahnhof, Martin-Gropius Bau etc), but can be exhausting. The New National Gallery has a super collection of early 20th century German/central European art. I’m also a fan of the Sammlung Scharf-Gerstenberg’s collection of fantastic/surreal art. The Charite hospital has a nice medical history museum. The video game museum houses a copy of the Painstation, Germany’s claim to fame when it comes to art/gaming technology.
There are lots of good and affordable places to eat, lovely walks along the different waterways, and a spectacular new music scene (see echtzeitmusik.de). Happy to ramble more; message me on goodreads or wherever.
Dennis! For the birds indeed. Hahaha. Suede had an early, excellent B-side called “To the Birds.” It’s actually one of my faves and what I consider “real” Suede. You know, the Bernard Butler-era Suede (though I do love their third album, Coming Up, and like a lot of their new stuff, which is quite experimental in parts). If you’re ever really bored, look it up. I think you’ll like it.
Thanks for that well wishes about my back and phone. The phone was replaced Monday night. I was back at the gym Tuesday doing my “heavy” (read: not that heavy but the heaviest I go these days, which is really light compared to how heavy I used to go about 12 years ago or so when you first met me (and really, maybe it’s heavy for others, I don’t know). Anyway, the back is still sore, but it is better.
However…I developed a sore throat Tuesday night, along with some good ol’ swollen lymph glands in the right side of my neck -very tender, visually noticeable- and have just been going to bed early every night right after I eat and not getting online. It’s getting better, though. I think. If it’s not better by the middle of the week, I’m going to try to get in to see my doctor on Friday.
I can’t remember if I told you this LPS stuff or not. Quick rundown. His mom showed up here Saturday. Ain’t seen the cunt in 4 years. She was all right. Was going to leave Thursday but abruptly left Monday. We think she stole our DVD remote. Seriously. She just takes shit and we can’t find anywhere, especially nowhere near the chair it was in and in which she sat when she came by. Before she left Monday, she checked her purse to see if she’d “accidentally” put it in there but came up only with a…fuck Xbox controller! What the fuck, right?
We go to the Board of Education May 3 so LPS can discuss his 100+ absences this school year. I don’t have to go, as I’m no longer a guardian, but I’m going to anyway. They said they want to discuss this. I have a feeling it’s like before: they’ve already decided what they’re going to do and are going to do it no matter what he says.
Last, he and his girlfriend broke up. Maybe finally. Got in a hell of a fight. She punched and scratched him a bunch of times, he got her in a headlock, he poured water on her and destroyed her phone, she dumped water all over his bed and soaked it through. While I was at work, thank God.
Most of Makhmalbaf’s early films, up to the point where he had his international breakthrough around 1996, came out on VHS in the US but they’ve never made the leap to VOD/Blu/DVD. I assume that rights issues have something to do with this. His evolution is fascinating – his third film FLEEING FROM EVIL TO GOD is an Ed Wood-level Islamic allegory, like some bizarro world version of very primitive fundamentalist Christian American B-movies. His fourth film BOYCOTT shows his skill as a director coming together, but it’s still the work of someone who believed deeply in the Islamic revolution. That quickly changed in his work and life.
My interview with Andre Singer went very well. I do find it interesting to talk to directors of films I don’t like and find out what they intended, especially around things that bothered me. No one sets out to make crap, especially in low-paying documentaries, and the gap between intention and execution can be worth probing.
The new Sunn O))) is awesome!