‘Process in art has always been a discussion, whether or not its an interesting discussion is a different story. New York-based Israeli Ofra Lapid has a fascinating process behind her series Broken Houses, which explores the concept of scale and illusion by creating incredibly detailed small scale models based on photographs of abandoned buildings she culled from the web. The series focuses on structures that have been neglected by their human counterparts and have fallen victim to weather and decay. They include crumbling miniature houses and neglected barns, some merely dilapidated, others completely collapsed.
‘”I was very intrigued by these images in both the plastic level, their shapes and structure,” Lapid says, “as well as in their subject matter, the idea of a typical house structure wearing down.” Just as the photographers of the original images were moved to capture, and thereby arrest, the decomposing process, Lapid was inspired to rebuild and preserve the buildings before their total collapse.
‘Creating these scale models involves building three dimensional panels, attaching the original photograph to each panel and then assembling the panels using tiny wooden “beams” to keep areas of the newly invented structure upright, creating a 3-D effect. She then photographs them again in front of a gray background. The sculptures are all sized around 12 x 14 inches. In several cases, the houses appear to be plucked straight out of their origins and transported to a photography studio. The end result is an array of stunning photographs, which feature homes that are sun bleached, with crumbling bricks, broken windows and doors hanging from the shingle.
‘On the use of web-based images, Lapid believes it gives her the freedom to appreciate its image and context “namely, the story behind it, the subject matter. I enjoy manipulating the original photograph: erase; cut, copy, and paste; print; create crafty models; build something broken; create an illusion; change the meaning; emphasize something from the past; photograph a photograph; enlarge something that is very small; meet new people; discover remote parts of the world; be in many places at once; humanize the computer; settle conflicts.”‘ — collaged
The artist
Sideshow
An abandoned home fire & collapse, 800 block of Pavone, Benton Harbor
Abandoned house being swallowed by the sea
Dramatic house collapse
The Real Monster House
Mt Airy Twin Arch Rd House Fire with Collapse
Apartment building collapse
Further
Ofra Lapid’s Website
Ofra Lapid @ Facebook
100 dilapidated houses
Residents want dilapidated house in West Deer torn down
Eerie images of abandoned farm houses where even the beds are still made
Planning committee discusses dilapidated houses in Ithaca
Flickr: Dilapidated Houses Group
The worlds most dilapidated houses
The Pease House
NO QUICK FIX: Dilapidated houses
Dilapidated house disgusts, frustrates neighbors
Abandoned Houses: One Block in Detroit
Dilapidated House Escape Game
Show
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p.s. Hey. Launching sometime today, Zac Farley’s and my first two films LIKE CATTLE TOWARDS GLOW and PERMANENT GREEN LIGHT will be the topics of discussion on the latest episode of The Unwatcheables Podcast. Writer Chris Zeischegg and two dudes named Marc and Seth will be the ones talking about them. I have no idea what that will entail, but I’ll be listening, and, if you want to listen too, go here ** Dominik, Hi!!! The pleasure was mine. Well, it looks like we might just have a very happy conclusion to our attempt to fix the film’s biggest problem, but until the signatures of everyone involved are on the dotted lines, literally, no celebration quite yet. But it’s looking very hopeful. ‘System Crasher’, no, I don’t know it. ‘Can’t not’ is a pretty good recommendation. Okay, I’ll seek it out. Another excellent appropriation from love there. Love realising what a great word crumple is, G. ** jay, Hi. Fugazi’s great! Smith too, of course. He lived very near me in LA. I used to see him at the local health food store a lot. I still get Monsieur Hulot-ish every time I walk out the door here in Paris, and I live here. Oh, fake … I guess I mean a few possibilities. There are the guys who post stolen pictures and seemingly make the profiles as a prank or to amuse themselves. There are the guys whose photos are 10-15 years out of date, so they’re real but their ads are fake. There are the guys who pose as escorts and then rob the client when he shows up. I have a friend who was writing about escorts and pretended to be one, and when he met with clients he’d explain his project and ask if he could ask them questions. Some said yes, others kicked him out. On the sites where I gather the escorts, I would say around 50% of them get called out as fakes by the commenters. I just don’t use those call-outs in the posts because I find the fiction more interesting. I am so determined to get and play ‘Lorelei and the Laser Eyes’ now. The clip looks great. And it’s on Switch even! Holy shit! Thank you no doubt passionately in advance. I’m a fan of Bret Ellis’s writing, especially ‘American Psycho’ -> ‘Lunar Park’, so I’m pretty sure ‘TS’ will be worth the slog, but the slog aspect remains off-putting. No, thanks for the game rant. It sold me. You did good, sir. ** Misanthrope, Two of my ex-boyfriends worked as escorts. One was a big reader with excellent taste. The other one liked to use my books to chop up his heroin. ‘We’ll see’ is the by-word du jour. What other choice do we have other than freaking out on social media. Conquer the grind. ** James, I have a friend name James who likes to be addressed as Jamey. Not as Jamie, he hates that, but Jamey. You need some transgressive friends? Enjoy your second chill day in a row. And your me-ness. That’s the spirit! Nice polyp sentence, nicely dense. You’re on a roll. ** Steeqhen, God, I hate steep hills. Especially if the source of some life necessity rests at the top. I think my lifelong dislike of San Francisco has its roots in its exhausting geography. So winter is your tough time? ‘Cos of the cold or the proximity to Xmas with its inherent pressures or … ? If I can do or post anything that de-struggles you, say the word. Okay, I’ll see what Hayu has in store and determine if I’m ready to fork out. The thing is I basically never watch TV as part of my attempt to evade distraction, so that’s the rub. But I’ll check it out, and that’s a boon. I used to like the early Grimes too, yeah. But, yeah, her thing with Musk has basically put her in my no-fly zone. What’s the novel you’re assigned to read? ‘Origami King’ is remaining very pleasurable, and the Bosses are killable thus far, and, yeah, I’m good with it. What are you playing? ** Diesel Clementine, Hello, my fellow DC! I’ve never been to a gym in my life, can you imagine? That’s not a brag. I’m just lazy and tend to think of my body as a moving platform on which my head happens to rest. I’m good. The massive problems with the film might just be beginning to be solved at long last. And I think we’ll have the location and date of its world premiere set up pretty soon. Significant? The big Arte Povera show at the Pinault Collection was pretty inspiring. I saw a pretty fascinating crow the other day. Edinburgh must be pretty chilly right now. Paris is, and I think we’re kind of on the same geographical through-line? You sound like you have a fair amount to do already. Learning Arabic is pretty huge. You should definitely get a passport. That opens all kinds of stuff. Like Paris. I never submit things to magazines and sites because I’m always writing long-form things. So, I’m not sure. There are a lot of possible venues out there. Everyone, Do any of you have any literary sites or magazines that you would recommend that Diesel Clementine submit work to? They need tips and advice. Thank you if you can help. Maybe you should adopt a persona and make a bunch of friends who like the persona and want to be friends with that person, and then, after your persona has been friends with them for a while, revert to who you really are and confuse them. That might be interesting. ** _Black_Acrylic, Hi, B. Thanks. Yeah, I watched a documentary recently about the Brat Pack, and I could give two fucks about the Brat Pack, but it was an interesting doc, and I thought, ‘Hey, more power to them.’ ** HaRpEr, Slide projectors sound really nice. And they even kind of smell nice. Great about the successful presentation. It sounds super interesting. Were they agog? I like ‘I Vitelloni’, yeah, for sure. Do try his ‘Satyricon’. It’s pretty singular. I only saw ‘Caligula’ in its original, heavily interfered with form, and it was definitely boring. Maybe it’s less so with the soft porn stuff taken out? I mostly just remember feeling sorry for Malcom McDowell because he was really giving it his all to an embarrassing degree. ** Tyler Ookami, Hi! Maybe I should watch all four of the Shin films then. Or at least I’ll start with ‘Shin Kamen Rider’. Thanks a bunch. You good? How’s everything? ** Uday, You watched ‘TD,P’! I tip my hat to you. I tip everyone’s hats and caps and beanies. Bartleby the Scrivener would be a fine topic for your guest-post, yes. Whatever excites you will excite me. I don’t know if it’s possible to eat like the French when you’re vegetarian, but I’ll try. You too. ** Darbzz. 🐡🐡🐡🐡🐡🐡🐡🐡, Yay, Darbzz! The Cloudflare thing is extremely annoying. I’ve asked my host site so many times to fix it, and sometimes they say they won’t, and sometimes they say they checked and nothing is wrong, and it’s absolutely maddening that I can’t seem to do anything to get that fixed. I’m at a loss. Some people have had success using VPN and setting it to other countries in Europe. Justin D just reported today that he set his VPN to Paris and that bypassed the Cloudflare thing entirely! So maybe try that? Three years, wow. Happy birthday to us. France is cool, get into it. I mean France has all kinds of problems, but, for the most part, it’s cool. You have to come over and visit sometime and see for yourself. Mm, if I had to guess, I would say, yes, the vegan turkey was basically Seitan used as a sculptural material that was molded onto the fake plastic turkey skeleton. Did you send the package to my LA address or here? If it was LA, I’ll call my LA roommate and ask. If you sent it here, I don’t seem to have gotten it, sadly. French mail sucks. That’s one of the uncool things about France. I did get to LA and did a bunch of haunted houses, and it was wonderful . Halloween itself was spent sitting on a jet flying back to Paris. How was your Halloween? Great about your teacher’s help in bringing out your artistic mastery-in-progress. Happy day to you. Again, so nice to be back in touch again! ** Steve, Hi. Oh, that podcast I mentioned at the top of the p.s. that’s focused on Zac’s and my films today is the same podcast you were on talking about ‘Elephant’, etc. last episode. Funny and hopefully nice coincidence. ** Justin D, Hi, JD. Wow, so it really is actual espresso and martini in combo. That’s … weird, but good weird, I’m assuming. My Monday … potentially very good news re: our attempt to solve our film’s biggest external problem, so that was a plus, or a potential plus. Otherwise, the usual gaming and blog post constructing and a bit of writing. It was okay if no big whoop. Wow, yeah, I’ll pass along your Cloudflare success. Everyone, Justin set his VPN to Paris to enter the blog today which he says allowed him to bypass the Cloudflare verification trap entirely! So you might want to try to do that, obviously. Amazing if that turns out be a solution. Thank you, pal. You deserve an absolutely stellar Tuesday. ** Right. I have a fondness for Ofra Lapid’s saggy little buildings/sculptures, so I thought I would utilise the blog’s galerie function to share them with you. See you tomorrow.
Now available in North America 
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Hi!!
I never heard of Ofra Lapid. I’m really impressed by how realistically detailed these little houses/buildings are. Very charming. Thank you!
I’m trying very, very hard not to start celebrating prematurely, but I’m so, so, so, so happy to hear you got hopeful news! I do hope those signatures land where they belong very soon!
I have to agree with love. Very expressive. Love getting ready to listen to The Unwatchables episode about “Like Cattle Towards Glow” and “Permanent Green Light,” Od.
Hi! I’m great – thanks for asking! You should totally relisten Eric’s Trip – they are great!
I’m currently writing a piece about a second person narration in books – using Robert Coover’s Noir and Edouard Leve’s Suicide as examples! Have you read a lot of Coover? I was so sad to hear that he passed away – he’s most recent novel Open House is a fuking masterpice of contemporary postmodern fiction – you should check it out!
And i’m stressting that I just can’t fucking order Flunker to Russia!! Uhhhhh
Dennis, Well, there you go. I think I’m way too insecure to have a boyfriend who’s an escort. Shit, I don’t think…I know. Erp.
I’m one who actually likes social media. In doses. I think it can be a good thing until it isn’t. It’s always good to get away from it and kinda realize not everyone is an edgelord who wants clicks and engagement and will say just about anything to get those things.
So far, so good re: the grind. Wait, I just jinxed myself, no? Oh, wait, you don’t believe in jinxing, that’s right. Frankly, I don’t think I do either, but I feel like I have to say it. 😛
I really did enjoy perusing Ofra Lapid’s wonky structures so thank you for this!
My friend Alex told me about the new project Dundee Radio Club that some former members of Yuck ‘n Yum are now involved in. I sent them the new episode of Play Therapy v2.0 so maybe that will be of some use to them?
Oh, these are awesome. There’s something I find very appealing about these “chains” of representation, I think I talk about that a lot. Like original house collapse -> photo of house collapse -> sculpture -> photo of sculpture. What a treat, I’m sure these are even better to see in real life!
Oh, that’s cool about having seen Elliot Smith. Oh wow, that’s interesting – it’s fun to get a different perspective on this world from the one I’ve experienced. I agree, it’s much more compelling without the “exposure” – although I am also a huge fan of the very very obvious fakes, with celebrity photos, and such. Excellent, I’m glad that game sounds good – the people who made it encourage you to use the internet to solve puzzles, FYI. Hmm, yeah, I’ve only read American Psycho and Less than Zero (plus the Shards), so it’s possible I’ve missed a huge amount of development from him as a writer – less so in terms of quality of writing, and more just refinement of technique/idea.
Oh, and I’ve sort of started to be drawn into emo again, I’ve neglected my laundry for a while so the only pair of jeans I had were some very embarassing black skinny jeans, so I ended up going full emo to make the embarassing part of the outfit less noteworthy, and it was actually a really fun little nostalgia trip. I’m going to see how I feel, but it may start to be something I do more often. Oh, and for Cloudflare, I fully close down my browser, go into Incognito mode, and then it allows me to comment after Cloudflare verification. Hopefully that works, if nothing else does. Anyway, see ya!
P.S. James, I’m sure you’ve seen, but I left a reply to your last post twice yesterday, sorry about that!
Hi jay, I’ve got a P.S. in my comment so wait for that to get through Cloudflare, but also have some extra me rambling to read:
Less Than Zero and Imperial Bedrooms are partly responsible for me listening to Elvis Costello (fav song by him is Everyday I Write The Book – lyrically you’ll probably see why, it’s all about text), and great short reads too. I just love terrible hot rich young people being debauched.
Relate to the emo label. I have been ’emo’ since, like, Year 6.
And fret not about the double reply, we’re all human and make mijaykes. Mistakes. That one didn’t work.
Merry Mardi!
Aw, these little houses are cute, so seeing them so smashed makes me a lil sad. I’m surprised by their size, thought they’d be bigger. They’d spice up a desk, that’s for sure. You do wonder how people end up deciding that this is what they want to do with their life. I’m *helpless* with (most things) anything to do with craft. This post has made me recall a disastrous gingerbread house, and a little hut I made of lollipop sticks back in Year 4.
Hi though, D-Dawg. Had some funky dreams last night. James is generally quite a good name, in my humble opinion. That dude in the Bible, Joyce, Paul McCartney, James (V)I, James Bond, James Dean, James Brown, Henry James, etc. – I could go on. Proud to share a name with these chaps. I’m sure that ey/ie makes all the difference. I remember being younger and positing the idea of Jamie as a nickname, and being told that that was more of a girl thing, and me not giving much of a fuck about that. I got mistook as a girl all the time as a littlun. Not sure why I’m rambling about this.
Do we ever truly *need* anything (woah, deep)? Silly faux-profundity aside, I suppose it would be nice to have some more transgressive friends. Everyone I know ‘irl’ are generally quite vanilla (of course, they’ll all have their degenerate secrets, but they won’t share them with me), and though my friends tolerate/are used to my ”’weird”’ aspects, they don’t quite engage in these ”’weird”’ things the way I do. The internet is a gift for that purpose, finding other people who share my interests, want to communicate the same way I do (very long messages, over the internet) – but obviously, there’s a difference between in-person company and words on a screen. I think I’m far more palatable a person in the latter form, though I often wonder how the numerous acquaintances I’ve had thanks to the internet would find me in person. Doubtless, it’d be catastrophic. Again, supposedly I am more likely to find ‘my tribe’ at uni. We. Shall. See.
A most chill day – sleeping in, finishing Demian by Hesse, drinking tea – super sound. I think I ought to spend some time brushing up on texts I’m likely to have to have to be able to have conversations about what with interviews in a week. I’m a little worried by how I’m feeling… less… worried… about the interviews. Misplaced confidence is something I’d rather not suffer from. But hey, go me, for my various cool features and contributions to the world. And go you! And go everyone who reads this and everyone who doesn’t.:]
A Level Geography does seem to me an underrated mine of writing resources. Since 1st year I’ve had the line ‘I chased you through brownfield sites’ just sitting in my head, tugging me in the direction of… something, to write. And still, I have yet to do anything with it. It feels like if I pull at the edge of it until the whole thing is in the light of day it’ll turn out to be a poem.
Zooxanthellae is such a cool word, anyway. I’m far too artsyfartsy guy to be able to write capably about technical science-y stuff, but that doesn’t stop me from trying it occasionally. Like, hard sci-fi gone soft. Flaccid sci-fi. God, what a phrase. Thank you, brain.
Here’s hoping that roll continues, and that you can hit one too, presuming you are not already in the middle of rolling. Cya!
P.S. jay, hope you’re feeling good tojay (N.B. the ingenious pun)! Ah, Hannibal – I have seen it, the whole thing. Absolutely crazed about it back in my Tumblr days (like, 4yrs ago). Am a sucker for cannibalism, but gay. Ages ago, when I was very tired, I read an entire essay on homosexuality/cannibalism in Melville. Here if you want to read: https://steamthing.com/cannibals
I haven’t even read any Melville apart from Moby Dick.
Do you save gaming just for the weekend? I don’t know why I thought that might be the case. I play when I’m in the mood for it – *rare* – and when I’ve finished a novel the same day, and have studied, and have done stuff that ‘matters’ so I can allow myself a lil bit of moderately-sized fun.
Visual novels seem disproportionately popular as a queer form/with queer creators. Dunno why. I guess I’m just desperate for anything queer, being surrounded by so much overbearing heterosexuality. As if adolescent alienation wasn’t hard enough as is, I’ve gotta be gay on top of that, boohoo.
‘FOOD HYGIENE RATING: 1/5. THOSE WERE NOT EVEN NORMAL PIGS, MAN. WOULD NOT RECOMMEND.’
Brennenburg Castle would make a *stellar* Travelodge.
Deus Ex is one of those games I’ve heard of, know of, seen, thought about playing, and then never played.
Siratori – what on Earth am I looking at? I haven’t found any of his writing itself yet, just these loopy-looking images. I’m sure that writing is fun, will do some digging at some point to actually find it.
Definitely seen Chiang’s name somewhere, before. Cool – sidenote: I get so frustrated with myself that I sometimes can’t think of better words than ‘interesting,’ ‘fun,’ ‘cool,’ ‘engaging,’ or whatever to talk about things that appeal to me – that tech, something we kind of take to be inhuman, unfeeling, can be so emotive. LORD I love writing, aaa, I want to contribute to its coolness, and I will, in some way. And I’m sure your stuff is so funky and cool too, if you write, which I believe you do. How much time do you devote to writing, what does your schedule look like, what’s on your author’s mind at the moment?
If you don’t write, I’ve just made a royal tool of myself.
Yeah, and guess what – I checked it today, and spotted a typo. ‘outrageously’ with an incorrectly placed e after the a. And yet – 2 offers so far, and an interview. So. Yeah. Still kicking myself, though.
What would *you* look for in the Library of Babel? I think I’d look for all the puns, ever. Is Project Zomboid isometric? That’s another zombie game I know. Re: isometric games, the first Fallout really kicked my arse. Never before has a videogame made me feel so much like a helpless young whippersnapper who wouldn’t have lasted an hour in The Olden Days. That combat, man. Godawful.
Morrowind is one of the games I would play were it not for my anti-videogame brainblock I have. I learnt how to speedrun the intro dungeon in Daggerfall, and then I just dicked about with commands. Oblivion was meh – Skyrim, however, has my heart. Are you any Elder Scrolls-y?
I tried BJM a while back, I wasn’t crazy on them. Into shoegaze? I think mbv announced a tour or concert, or something recently.
Polachek is one of those people I know of but should listen to more of, probably, because that’s what The Gays(TM) seem to be into at the moment. Not that I am snide, as I love Charli XCX, much to my straight friends’ disapproval, though my two girl semi-friends (in that neither interact with me regularly) approve, probably a bit because of the whole, you know, how girls interact with gay guys in that kind of cliché way. Yass queen, slay, etc., that type of stuff. Any Caroline recs?
Okay Kaya’s fully new to me.
Dyou know Underscores? One of the (seemingly many) transfem electronic music artists these days are seeing. Quite like them.
Oh, and last night I learnt we’re in for a night at the theatre on Boxing Day evening – My Fair Lady, a classic musical which I hadn’t heard, so I listened to that today – God, it’s wonderful. Musically, it’s beautiful, I’m a sucker for strings, and lyrically it is *genius.* Rhymes like Gibraltar and falter, or ‘Hear a Yorkshireman, or worse/Hear a Cornishman converse,’ I adore it. Henry Higgins is unfortunately, very me. My favourite numbers are Why Can’t the English?, I’m an Ordinary Man, although I really do love the whole thing. Just wonderful. I LOVE musicals, Sondheim is *so* lovely and makes me cry. I’ll stop gushing.
Brr, cold. Tea and blankets needed!
Yeah, I also used to be crazy about Hannibal when it was airing, but I think it’s aged very well compared to a lot of TV/books/music that I liked at that particular period. I am extremely curious to read that essay, I love Melville. I guess I sort of save gaming for the weekend, but it’s not a hard or fast rule I set myself.
Yeah, visual novels seem to be ideal for marginalised voices, because they’re so easy to make. It’s basically just one step above writing a novel, from what I can tell. I also tend to just use “cool/fun/interesting” a lot, even when I do genuinely find something remarkable. Such a curse. I almost wonder if I should just go all the way and only use one adjective to discuss things I like.
I’m excited to read your writing, when you inevitably make something amazing! I do write – a lot of the time I think about writing for long periods of time, while I’m at the shops, or cooking, and then I rush to my laptop to get what I can out before the ideas dissapate. Hmm… on my mind at the moment… I’m very interested in VRChat, currently, and I’m sort of trying to transplant some Ballard-isms into that world.
Hmm… I actually don’t know, RE:the Library of Babel, I’d probably want to just find a geometric sequence, like the alphabet being repeated in sequence over and over – like some literary equivalent of finding a perfectly circular lake in nature, or something like that. Daggerfall is a game I conceptually love, in terms of scale, but I find Elder Scrolls-ish stuff sort of slips out of my brain pretty quickly. I love super manicured experiences from games, with a ton of detail, so I think the undiscerning wasteland of Skyrim’s copy-pasted tree models starts to turn my brain off after a few minutes. How about you, are you a TES person?
I’m somewhat into shoegaze, as long as it’s heavy enough. I’m less into the guitar-fuzz style, and more into the electronic stuff, like Have a Nice Life, or a band like that. Haha, I’m the same about capital-g Gay friends, it’s probably the thing I code-switch the most intensely with. I can’t say I’ve listened to My Fair Lady, actually – musicals largely go in one ear and out the other, for me. Sounds lovely, I hope you enjoy that musical! See ya.
Bleh, mood is beginning to sink. Darn. My capacity to waste time is a force to be reckoned with.
Dyou remember much of what you were into back then?
Is a good essay, from what I can remember. I hadn’t read any Melville when I read it but I was interested enough to devour it before falling asleep like immediately.
I wrote a short story about boyfriends eating each other a while back. Vaguely relevant.
I try to be very harsh on myself when it comes to rules/standards.
Vaguely contemplated doing a visual novel when one of my internet acquaintances whose blog I stalk started making one. I don’t see the point now. I don’t write enough as is, let alone w. visuals/coding in mind. I just need to write, damn it. But I have so much reading to do. Sigh.
Maybe we ought to just go back to basics and say something is good or bad or meh.
Gosh, thanks for the kind words. I wonder about the inevitability. Your ideas seem more developed than mine, which, I mean, age probably helps. I’m sure you’ll chuck something in the world’s ball court that we’re not ready for. Maybe we’ll *both* be awesome. That’d be cool.
VRchat can be quite funny. Source of many memes. Re: memes, they led to my father explaining memetics to me(me) when I was like, 10, or something. And then I became vaguely aware of SCP-055 which has…something to do with memetics, I think. You ever read any of the SCP stuff? There’s possibly some stuff in there you’d like.
Ballard! I’ve only read the Atrocity Exhibition. He just felt like Burroughs with more maths to me. It was awkward when my grandmother asked me what I was reading as I turned a page to the chapter titled ‘Why I Want to Fuck Ronald Reagan.’ Again, I know Ballard (and Burroughs) thanks to my father. One does wonder why he lets his son read such stuff. I don’t know if many father/son conversations are about the kind of books we talk about. He’s how I discovered Pynchon – I was probably too young to be learning about Brigadier Ernest Pudding and his inclinations. Sometimes I just feel like I’m a smaller rip-off of my father.
Weird, I was doing some reading on Webster earlier today, and geometry cropped up. ‘geometrical progression of torture’ is a great phrase. If curious: https://doi.org/10.2307/450365
Skyrim definitely has small areas/instances/moments of those little details that make little stories which can be funny and sad, but I get that in a big open-world you’ve got to do a lot of searching through stuff. I quite like something about Skyrim’s immense greyness. I’m a TESbian insofar as I really love Skyrim and am aware of the series’ lore (kind of) and memes/fan culture.
Oh, HANL, yes, I remember. When I was *really very quite bad* emotionally speaking at 13 Deathconsciousness was like all I listened to, on the way to school and back. I’m no longer quite so crazy on the heavy reverb sad stuff, but I can play Worm, Bloodhail (arrowheads, amirite), Holy Fucking Shit 40k on guitar. Those and No Food and Earthmover and I Don’t Love are my favs. Have you read the booklet about Deathconsciousness? Or listened to Giles Corey? Or Black Wing?
That stuff is all a bit too overbearing for me these days.
It is just a *little* soul-crushing when I’m gay enough to annoy my straight friends but not gay enough to act the way girls expect me to, or like the few far more… ‘vocal’ …queer people in my town. Once more, the internet saves the day when it comes to keeping me sane. Surely this will not become an unhealthy dependency, haha.
I’m a sucker for musicals. Just love them. Seeya in the next comment.
Hello Mr. Cooper, hello Mr. Cooper’s blog comments section.
Hello James and lowercase jay (are you the same person as Jay with the uppercase J?) I read the word musicals. Either of you heard Bare or Falsettos? I want to read the original graphic novel version of Fun Home before I hear the soundtrack.
Also if anybody wants to be snail mail pen-pals please feel free to send your P/O box address to [email protected] …or the street address of someone you trust enough to get seditionary materials to you but whose kidneys you don’t mind me harvesting. That was a joke, I’m not mailing out seditionary materials. Also I can’t harvest anybody’s organs because I’m too far away which is why the snail mail. The internet’s been great but I just think some robotic overlords have been getting too overlordly. I’m not sending seditionary material. I’ll write you all with a pen made out of a bird’s feather.
Hi Poe, cool name! I’m the one who’s big into musicals – I *have* heard Falsettos! I think The Thrill of First Love is my favourite number, possibly Baseball. Re: Fun Home, I only know it vaguely, and that one song, Changing My Major To Sex With Joan, that one.
Inspiring that you even entertain the possibility of sedition via mail. Could it be, are you the Twonabomber?
(This is a bad pun. Portmanteau of two – as in, the second version of – and the Unabomber. Who mailed bombs. Anyway)
I don’t think we have PO boxes as it were in the UK.
Nice to meet you though, and that you enjoy musicals too. Feel free to discuss them and other things if you’d like :]
Hey, Poe! Nice to see you again. Yes, it’s still Jay, I must’ve just accidentally just dropped the exclamation point at some point. I looove Bechdel, Fun Home is spectacular I think – although I haven’t seen the musical. Unfortunately… no P/O boxes near me, I fear. What kind of seditionary materials are you sending out?
Hmmm… I think I was pretty normative around that time, nothing particularly remarkable, I’d just say typical 12-year old stuff – Halo, Percy Jackson, that kind of thing. I think I played a ton of Spore too, for some reason.
Haha, well, if you do make a visual novel, I’d be curious – I think it’s an amazing medium. Yeah, VRchat is fascinating, I think I’m more interested in the sort of intimacy/distance it creates – there’s this one video of a veteran talking about his war trauma in VRChat that I’m sure you’ve seen, which is totally incredible I think. I also go crazy for the total breakdown of reality when players start attempting to touch other players, where they start phasing into one another, I think the friction between those two states is wonderful. If any of that makes sense, haha.
SCP went over my head, but my flatmate goes feral for it. I like the movement, but I tend to like a unified vision behind my fiction. I’m more creepypasta inclined than SCP inclined, maybe. Yeah, Ballard is great, although Atrocity Exhibition isn’t my favourite of his. I think I slightly prefer his scope to Burroughs personally, it feels like his novels try to be a little more about societies than characters. Although, I’m not a big Burroughs fan, so I may be biased. Well, you definitely seem to be deviating from the whole literary scene your dad likes in some ways, so I wouldn’t stress about that!
“Geometrical progression of torture” – that is nice, you’re right. Duchess of Malfi… is that still on the English Lit course? I remember my sister despising that text, haha. “Immense greyness” is something I love hearing about in games, but I think I have a little too little time to really enjoy splashing around in games that revel in boredom. Fun to think about, though. I have read the HANL booklet… pretty strange. I think I perhaps enjoy them sonically and find the surrounding wrapping a little “overbearing” (as you said). I have listened to the frontman’s other work, but it wasn’t quite as much of a revelation to me.
I get what you mean about not being the right balance of gay/straight-acting. I think I have no idea exactly how “gay” I sound, sometimes people instantly assume I’m gay and get confused when I mention an ex-girlfriend, and then sometimes I get a surprised reaction when I say “my boyfriend”. Soul-crushing indeed. It’s nice to find little oases (if that’s the correct plural) which are a bit separate from all that. Anyway. See ya!
Hey Dennis,
I think my biggest thing with winter is that I have such a sensitive temperament, that the lack of sunlight and cruel weather disrupts me. I start to fall into hibernation mode, which goes against the workload that college entails. I probably should start taking supplements or vitamins, but I’m too disorganized to keep that up.
I always associate winter and that loneliness and sadness i feel with electronic music; when i was young and on a drive at night, the radio stations would always play 90s garage and house music and I think that made me associate the cold and the dark with that electronic sound. Couple that with my fascination with vocoders and robotic vocals (Daft Punk were one of the first bands I adored) and every winter I listen to that dreamy, artificial, cold music. 2019 was a particularly bad year for me, and that winter was one of the worst, so all I listened to was Grimes and Crystal Castles and Aphex Twin and other electronic cacophonies.
The two books I need to read are Snowflake by Louise Nealon and The Country Girls by Edna O’Brien. The former is from 2021 and is a coming-of-age about a girl in the countryside going to Trinity College, though more about identity and growing up in modern Ireland. It’s Nealon’s debut and the name is almost a reclamation of the ‘snowflake’ generation label. I haven’t started it, but it’s won some Irish awards and my avid reader friend said it was one of her favourites from 2021, so hopefully I’ll enjoy it.
The Country Girls is the first of a trilogy (with the same name) from the 60s and is a similar story about rural girls moving to Dublin for college, but in a pretty restrictive and Church-controlled time. It was banned in Ireland and seen as offensive for ‘explicit sexuality’ and criticism of the country at the time; her worked was adored in France and England. It’s interesting as really those books characterize a young Irish woman in the same way that authors like Sally Rooney, Louise Nealon, Naoise Dolan would, but Irish was such a backwards country that it was too provocative and made her a pariah. She passed away only in July, and thankfully got to see the country respect and admire her work, seeing her as one of the seminal Irish fiction writers.
At the moment I’ve just been playing a bit of Super Metroid. I’ve booked my flight and hostel in Paris: I’ll be there from the 7th to the 11th, tho really the days I’m around are the 8-10th. I’ll email you either photos of myself or a link to my Instagram so you can actually be able to recognize me haha. Can’t wait to see Paris again, I loved it last time and I feel like I might like it more in the winter.
To paraphrase Bernie Sanders: I am, once again, asking Cloudfare to let me comment here.
I have no idea have cloudfare is letting these through or not, but I’m trying the europe VPN thing. In case this does show up in the morning: Hi Dennis, miss ya! Cloudfare has kept me out of here for months, which, among other things has kept me from letting you know about Casey Anthony, Renowned Trapeze Artist coming out in September. It lives here: https://schismpress.tumblr.com/neuronics
Hey! Another damn presentation tomorrow. This time I have to talk about my big creative project I’ve been telling you about. I know what I’m talking about but have a tendency to sound crazy so I’m trying to invert my dreaminess into something more sober and collected. I’m just reminded of something I read recently, about how a lot of creative people typically really like talking about the process of how they work but not what it ‘means’. I definitely agree, partly because the act of writing is often me trying to work stuff out, often about why it is that I’m interested in what I’m writing about, so the reader’s guess might be better than mine. Do you agree with the statement? I can’t remember who said it, I remember I was reading an interview with someone.
Anyway, after the presentation in the morning I have a long day ahead with university stuff. Me and a few others are going to the national gallery for something and then on some kind of literary trek through the city, so hopefully it’ll be fun.
I finally got around to reading ‘Horse Crazy’ by Gary Indiana. I’ve only read ‘Gone Tomorrow’ by him about two years ago and have owned ‘HC’ for a while but was prompted by his passing to finally take it off the shelf. I did a sort of stupid thing and read some reviews about it before I read it, which I rarely do. A lot of people were saying it was archetypal and like a reincarnation of ‘Death in Venice’, so that worried me (I like ‘Death in Venice’ for the record, I just mean that lot’s of places were billing it as some archetypal tale of tragic obsession). But actually reading it, anything archetypal about seems to just be a thing to tie the loose ends together. A lot of good art gets initially compared to something it’s not even that similar to. I think a lot of queer writers have struggled with that. They divide the queers either into the mass market category or the Burroughs / Genet camp if you do something vaguely transgressive.
I also like how the book kind of fragments as it goes on and gets really intense. My favourite passage is probably when the narrator starts taking a load of speed and writing a novel because it’s the only thing that can stop him from thinking about his lover.
Hey, Dennis! I’m so happy things are looking up re: the film. Finally! Thanks for the intro to Ofra’s work—it’s so charming. It’s the focus of the work that really sells it for me (human neglect/natural damage), and finding beauty in the aftermath. My Tuesday wasn’t exactly stellar, but it wasn’t bad either. How was yours?
So, I once went to Blowing Rock in Watauga county NC, and there is this tourist attraction called “Mystery hill that is notable for the peculiar gravity vortex (There’s science behind it but that would denigrate the allure)
So basically you go into this long room that’s slanted but as soon as you step into it, you are literally dragged down towards the “bottom” of the room which really still looks like a normal room due to the optical illusion. IT has bars on every side of the wall and then a stripper pole in the middle for if you lose control going down and down faceplant into the bottom wall (I did that I vaguely remember)
Oh that sucks about Cloudflare. I’ll pretend it’s like a video game villain every time I write.Set a VPN to France? Haha, maybe I’ll be visiting France sooner that I thought ( corny joke)
Oh what a fun Halloween. Hey did I tell you about that guy I met at the hospital who was a carnie at the state fair for 20 years? He told me that he set up the rides. Which sound’s pretty cool. He said he liked setting up the Tilt-a-whirl for reasons I can’t remember.
when I was first admitted to the hospital they asked me my diet and I naturally said Vegan. Little did I know that this meant getting
the same
Lentil Burgers (shit)
Every
Day
and
nothing
else
but like a carnival cookie (ok)
and mashed potatoes. (Not real)
Insanity.
For Halloween I watched some sweaty interesting people eat fire and dance through flaming hula hoops.
Def not France. I remember you telling me that your roommate grabbed it because you mentioned them being a stoner and that you had to remind them etc yada yada
Sidenote/ramble Maybe I have a photographic memory or something cuz I’m always surprised when people forgot things that I remember. Like I can remember some obscure shit. Anyways yep I think its in LA but idk I’m not clairvoyant unless a bird took off with it.
Oh btw Frankie says hi. She is still here, happy and content. Cats can snore. She’s snoring right now. That’s how you know a cats peaceful and happy when they snore. How are the pigeons?
Ive got a lot of cool projects planned for art. The other day I found this big albino stuffed spider and I also got really cheap fabric paint and I’m thinking I’m going to paint tribal scars on him or something. I also w
So the book cover to CLOSER fell off some time ago and I added it to my wall collage. The other day(Same day I got the albino spider and cat litter) I bought some glow in the dark paint ,pink and blue and I put it over the two bodies Viscera and skeleton and its a good photo actually. I really like it, and I like the modified version glowing in my room next to Trent Reznor and …I think Bob Dylan.
I’ll be back soon
Oh wow, these are just beautiful! In love with these houses!
Missing Paris and sending love,
Thomas xoxo