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Darja Bajagić Mollys (2016)
UV printed aluminum-brushed Dibond with motion activated liquid mechanism and shaped MDF frame container / acrylic paint, canvas
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Lu Pingyuan Ghost (2016)
‘A pub’s owner is requesting the return of a ghost, after its famous specter was captured by a Chinese artist. Lu Pingyuan claims to have captured the ghost of James Stanley, the seventh Earl of Derby, who is said to haunt the Ye Olde Man and Scythe, in Churchgate, Bolton, Greater Manchester. A sealed metal canister supposedly containing the spirit went on display this month at the Center for Chinese Contemporary Art, unbeknown to the pub’s owner, Richard Greenwood, after the artist became captivated by the story and traveled from Shanghai to Bolton to catch the ghost.
‘And after discovering that the town’s oldest pub is now missing its favorite phantom, Mr Greenwood is determined to have it returned to its rightful home. In a letter to Mr Lu, he said: “I would have liked to have been privy to your actions and indeed to the exhibition before the ghost of James Stanley was taken out of Bolton, his ties to the town and to Ye Olde Man and Scythe run very deeply. “I feel very strongly that James Stanley’s ghost should remain in Bolton and at Ye Olde Man and Scythe to preserve the natural order of things. That said I do believe that your exhibition should travel and be seen by many people around the world and I would like to contribute to this as long as at the end of your exhibition it returns home.”’
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Korakrit Arunanondchai GHOST:2561 (2019)
‘“The starting idea for ‘Ghost:2561’ came from my feeling of always wanted to start some kind of platform to do research in Thailand, where I’m from,” Arunanondchai told me. “I wanted to work with this idea of ghost-host and possession, a kind of animistic framework that is very present throughout different layers of social fabric there.”’
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WOH & CO Ghost of a Chair (2010)
‘The Ghost of a Chair is handmade from a single 4mm transparent polyester sheet. Each sculptural free-form chair is unique and created using a combination of high- end technology and craft. Each piece is a one-off. The unique translucent effect creates the illusion of the chair disappearing beneath a hidden sheet.’
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Natasha Tontey The Cautionary Tales (2015)
‘The Cautionary Tales is a performance by non-actor and actor located in public area of Sie Kee Gie Junction on 6th and 7th June 2015.’
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Christophe Berdaguer and Marie Péjus Gue(ho)st House (2017)
‘The artists transformed an existing building that was once a prison, then a school and then a funeral home into a “ghost house” using a cloak of polystyrene and paint.’
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Ryan Gander Tell my mother not to worry (ii) (2012)
‘As an absolute muse, Gander’s daughter – who inspired Tell My Mother not to Worry (ii) – becomes the leading actress of a game, frozen and replicated in marble thanks to the medium of sculpture. Not just a phantom of blindless actions, the little girl is an unrevealed subject to whom Gander entrusts all the ghosts in his wardrobe.’
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Angela Singer Ghost Birds (2007)
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Gary Hill Viewer (1996)
‘In the multiple-channel video projection «Viewer,» blatant watching becomes the sole activity. The installation is neither interactively conceived, which would allows us learn more about the performers through their actions, nor does it allow the presentation mode to refer to either a context or story. The juxtaposition of those watching and those being watched—just as easily understood in the reverse—refers to a zero point unable to be bridged with any narrative content.’
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Adam Fuss My Ghost (2001 – 2007)
‘« My Ghost » is the title of a series of photographs Adam Fuss began 8 years ago. All of them express a feeling of silent grief and loss. Rising smoke suggests the trace of a beloved person, who is not part of our life anymore; whose body has been retrieved from the earth but still remains present on an emotional and spiritual level. The intention of the artist is personal and references to his own past.’
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Valerie Hegarty Ghosts of History (2017)
‘ Valerie Hegarty builds to destroy. Her process involves copying recognized paintings and then attacking them, forging ruins; As if the canvas, eaten away, ragged, had been abandoned, over the year…’
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Hans Richter Ghosts Before Breakfast (1928)
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Alice Könitz Ghost (2008)
Polycarbonate panel and plaster
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Tom Palmer Ghost Mirror (2018)
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Apichatpong Weerasethakul Fireworks (Archives) (2014)
‘In Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s Fireworks (Archives), we see sculptures of mythical creatures from the Buddhist and Hindu cosmology in a garden in northeastern Thailand—a location believed to have been a communist hideout—illuminated by pyrotechnics and strobe lights, inducing a vision that violently teeters between impermeable darkness and blinding flashes. Projected onto a panel of glass, this vision seeps and oozes, with moving images leaking and refracting across the room’s seats and floor. By provoking the viewer’s senses, Apichatpong establishes a correspondence between technological media and the spiritual world, inducing visions that are disembodied or even menacing.’
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Ángela Jiménez Durán Sleeping bag ghost (2019)
‘I find it very beautiful to be able to approach something that is different and scary with a welcoming gesture. How would you talk to a ghost? In the end, the question becomes how do you meet someone or something that is not like you?’
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Duncan Mountford Ghost Library (2018)
‘At the rear of the gallery, on the top of a wall 260cm in height, is the Ghost Library. An empty library that speaks of the loss of knowledge, or the unreachable nature of arcane information. Lit only by the light from an exit sign, and the occasional momentary illumination of a window in one of the three doors, the library is barely visible, fading like a ghost seen by only a few.’
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Bernhard Willhelm Women (2004)
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Vincent Ceraudo Paris City Ghost (2015)
‘After I discovered by pure coincidence in the suburbs of Hangzhou a replica of Paris as a utopian post-modernism architectural project, I decided to live for a week in this urban simulacrum, located more than 11,000km away from the French capital. Using the drone camera technology that reminds the typical surveillance and control systems, I experienced the physical and psychological architectural limits of the place. The video documents the exploration of this ghost city, as if I was going through a double existence, in an deserted future of my own life.’
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Tianzhuo Chen G.H.O.S.T. (2018)
‘G.H.O.S.T is a new video work filmed in December 2016 in the streets of Varanasi, India, immediately adjacent the sacred Hindu spot where every year, millions of bodies are cremated and their ashes delivered to river Ganges.’
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Abbas Akhavan Variations on Ghost (2017/2018)
‘A monumental sculpture by Abbas Akhavan fills the Vide gallery at Bluecoat. Variations on Ghost makes reference to artworks destroyed by ISIS over the last decade, in particular the ancient sculptures depicting the Assyrian protective deities called Lamassu – half man, half lion. Using a technique called ‘dirt ramming’ Akhavan has recreated the claws of the hybrid deity with soil and water. Over the exhibition period, the physical appearance and smell of the sculpture will change, its surface appearing more stone-like as a grey crust develops.’
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Philippe Parreno & Pierre Huyghe No Ghost Just a Shell (2000 – 2002)
‘»No Ghost Just a Shell« was initiated by Philippe Parreno and Pierre Huyghe in 1999. They acquired the copyright for a figure called ‘Annlee’ and her original image from the Japanese agency »Kworks«, which develops figures (almost actors) for cartoons, comic strips, advertising and video games of the booming Japanese Manga industry. ‘Annlee’ was a cheap model: the price of a Manga figure relates to the complexity of its character traits and thus its ability to adapt to a story-line and ‘survive’ several episodes. ‘Annlee’ had no particular qualities, and so she would have disappeared from the scene very quickly. “True heroes are rare and extremely expensive …” (Parreno) Buying ‘Annlee’ rescued her from an industry that had condemned her to death.’
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Kunlin He Ghost face cun (2017)
‘This video work come from I climbed mountains with my friend and family in my childhood memory. In China, There have a lot of strange stone and tree named by people in many famous national parks. Most of there names are associate with local history, myth and, fairy tale. When I came to the Bay Area, I traveled to the city and landscape to evoke my childhood memories of mountaineering and topophilia. I was searching for stone and tree that shape resembled like human figure, organs, and animals in the period of three months, shooting and naming them, recording my movement by GPS and editing them for a video.’
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Olaf Breuning Ghosts (2003)
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Dorothy Cross Ghost Ship (1999)
‘Cross painted a retired light ship with many layers of phosphorescent paint and moored it out at sea within sight of the esplanade of Dublin Bay. Every evening just before dusk the boat’s sides were flooded with strong ultraviolet light.
‘As the sun faded the lights were turned off. The boat remained visible as a luminous, ghostly presence between the shore and the horizon. The original purpose of the light ship as a marker of reefs and dangerous waters brings to mind the many ships that foundered in spite of every precaution. Each evening crowds of sightseers would come to the cold waterside to watch this mystery unfold and speculate about the history of the sea and of this boat in particular.
‘Cross braved the windswept channel in a dinghy one night to make a video of the glowing boat from the sea. A projection of this video was screened at dusk each night along the edge of the Mersey in Liverpool, where boats from Dublin used to moor.’
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Asta Gröting Ghost (2015)
‘This series comprises life-size casts of the artist‘s immediate family members since 2010. The ensemble of figures morph and change with the passing of time, some growing larger while others disappear altogether.’
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Miguel Angel Rios The Ghost of Modernity (2012)
‘The video Untitled (the ghost of modernity) by Miguel Angel Rios filmed on a deserted plateau high above a distant town in Saachila Oaxaca Mexico, features a set of outlined cube structures built on the site and a transparent cube that floats through the landscape with a will of its own, as if magically suspended. The moving camera establishes a dialogue with the floating and rotating cube choreographed to music composed by John Cage in 1947 for the feature of Marcel Duchamp’s roto-reliefs in the surrealist film by Hans Richter “Dreams that money can buy”.’
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Letha Wilson Ghost of a Tree (2012)
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Thomas Schütte Grosse Geister [Big Ghosts] (1996)
‘With his characteristically critical reassessment of the figurative traditions in art, Schütte here transforms the mythological hero associated with the grand sculptural tradition into a more complex character by evoking a range of figures from popular culture. As Quinn Latimer has observed of this series, “Melty, molten…figures evince both menace and levity: part Darth Vader, part Pillsbury Doughboy. Outsized, they put the viewer at a disadvantage.’
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Antony Gormley Blind Light (2007)
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Daichi Sato Ghost Advice & Ghost Hug, 2019
‘Daichi Sato paints nostalgic and surrealistic scenes which are inspired by images randomly found on the internet, casual photographs and stories heard from his acquaintances. By adding some imaginary objects to the original surroundings, the images he creates engender a timeless and universal atmosphere thus familiar to everyone, and waver between reality and fantasy.’
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Ed Atkins Death Mask 3 (2011)
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Marike Schreiber Setup with ghost (2013)
lab stand, two high accuracy laser devices, blanket, pedestal, photo background
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Wendell Castle Ghost Clock (1985)
‘At first glance Ghost Clock appears to be a grandfather clock hidden under a white sheet. However, a closer look reveals a masterful deception: this entire sculpture was hand-carved from a single block of laminated mahogany. With its meticulous detail, Castle re-created in wood the contours of soft, supple cloth, then completed the illusion by bleaching the “drapery” white and staining the base of the “clock” a walnut brown. This work is the last in a series of thirteen clocks the artist created in the 1980s; like the others, it has an inner mechanism.’
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Thomas Demand Ghost, 2003
Colour coupler print, Diasec mounted
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Rachel Cox Shiny Ghost, 2016
‘In Shiny Ghost, Cox has documented the final years of her Grandmother’s life as she was suffering from a degenerative brain disease. The images were made during moments of conversation, gesture, and experiences of death. The variety of photographic approaches towards the subject are representative of a frantic need for the artist to record all aspects of existing knowledge of her Grandmother (whether performative or candid) in a hopes that these moments could be pieced together again after her death.’
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Chulayarnnon Siriphol Ghost Orb (2007)
‘It is believed that when humans or animals pass away, they are turned into spirits lingering and drifting in the human world unseen to the human eye. However photography has been a mysterious medium that could capture more than we see. Photographs sometimes display traces of orbs on them, ranging in many shades of colors from white, red, blue, purple to green where many believe that these orbs are traces of the spirit’s entity and would often have a relationship or a special bond to the subjects in the photographs. This phenomenon is known as Ghost Orb.’
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Tom Friedman Ghosts and UFOs: Projections for Well-Lit Spaces (2017)
‘Usually, the minimum condition for projecting a video is that the room is dark or at least in semidarkness. Not in Tom Friedman’s case. The videos in this exhibition—the American artist’s first works in the medium—are conceived to be displayed in fully illuminated spaces. The projected images are mostly simple outlines of light in motion, white on white walls: an ovoid that slowly rotates on an axis (One Minute Egg, 2017); the silhouette of a man—the artist—walking (Guardian, 2017); a simulated blazing sun (Sun, 2017). Friedman contrived the unusual approach after he witnessed squares of sunshine refracted by a window onto a wall in his home. One of the most alluring works in the show, Shaky Window, 2017, reproduces precisely this phenomenon, to unsettling effect. Observing what appears to be slanted daylight, one’s first impulse is to look around in search of a window that isn’t there.’
*
p.s. Hey. ** Jay, Yeah, that was a keeper alright. I’m going to go find someone who’s playing Tomadachi and allowing the world to watch over their shoulder today. Day of days, buddy. ** _Black_Acrylic, Yes it was quite the pleasant, bright day here as well, and I spent a bit of it eating a bagel cream cheese in the sun, and now my face is pink. High hopes for good electoral news. Following that from afar, the prospects seem awfully confusing. ** Carsten, That Yoruba festival sounds like your best bet to me. I may have thwarted your RT viewing, but I guess you’ll find out. I happened to see your comment last night, and I was livid because the producer has no right to make the film viewable outside of France. The led to a firestorm of texts between him and Zac and me, and he subsequently closed that account. Sorry for the possible problem, but he was not supposed to do that. ** Laura, Yep, I was giddy when I came across that tidbit. A Blanchot/Wittgenstein mashup … that could work. Huh. All the luck getting them married. That actually does sound pretty ghastly. Proost! ** Steve, Hm, I don’t think special effects makeup in particular was a big interest. I think it was just one of the ingredients to me. Luck with the new track and high five for the reminder that it’s Bandcamp Friday as I never seem to remember. I’m in the peeing multiple times a night phase now, and, well, you get used to it. Could be worse, and probably will be. ** Hugo, Yes, I had an ‘Animal Crossing’ problem. I don’t remember the villagers. It was the first incarnation, and it was long ago. I did like the guy who showed up every once a while to sell stuff. I don’t think the Wild Child thing is overdone. It was kind of a thing at one point, but that was decades ago. Proceed apace, I say. ** rewritedept, I guess between those two I would go for buttpussy: the band. Everyone, rewritedept wants some input on whether it would be better to name a band buttpussy: the band or asbestos factory. Thoughts? I would need to dig deep into my notes to answer your ‘TMS’ question, and that would take some time. The playroom thing is correct. The different spellings is a piece of one of the systems, but it’s not a major part. ** julian, Yes, me too about worriedteen. I hope that he and Shinyman_MUC hooked up because that seemed like a possibly ideal, mutually beneficial match. Me too, I suppose, on the ‘had I made some different decisions’ front, but I would have ended up in the comments section. Failed ambition is at the center of my work, it’s true, most especially the films. Oh, sure, any fake gore interest must completely play into that, absolutely. When porn was relegated to theaters, attendees would have full-on sex in the theaters, not just jack off. The theaters often had these little side rooms where guys could go do that. I always felt like a weirdo because I just went there to watch them like they were real movies not to get off sexually. And I’m actually maybe a rare person who watches porn quite often without even getting hard much less jerking off. I like studying them to see how and why porns work. And any resulting titillation is just part of the research. But again, I’m a weirdo. ** HaRpEr //, Sure, the slaves are advertising themselves, and I assume at least a bunch of them do try to calculate how to annunciate their self-styled appeal. And maybe slaves trying to come off powerful ups the tops/masters’ conquering instincts. Anyway, yes, the machinations of that negotiation is very interesting, to me at least, obviously. Back when Gass and Gaddis were both alive they were often points of comparison due their names’ similarity and their high positions in the metafiction genre. Gass was kind of the friendly, fun one as opposed to Gaddis who was kind of the chilly, nerdy one. Something like that. And, yeah, the androgynous thing plays into that, although back then I don’t remember people in that less binary friendly time referring to his work in that way. ** Okay. I’ve brought a new gaggle of ‘ghosts’ to the fore for you today. See you tomorrow.
Now available in North America 
I saw a ghost in this church during a scout meeting ages ago and some surreal experience of me being scared to walk past the piano because a visible ghost was playing it, and someone had to make me close my eyes so we could al walk. I still believe I saw it no matter what people say of my recollection. My recollection is quit surreal so who knows.
Hello! Haha so I sent my tattoo pic but totally forgot to comment yesterday. If you couldnt tell, wihch im sure you could but im going to say it anyways, it was Shozin Fukui’s Tetsuro the Iron Man movie poster. It cost only 256$ as I was expecting a lot more, and it came out so fucking good and realistic! She is an amazing tattoo artist and we talked and had good conversation while tatooing. even smoked together outside. Hope u r doing pretty swag lately. Im subconsciously adding swag sauce to your coffee this morning in hope it invigorates you. Yes I reread that little trippy prose i sent the other day and I am plannig to post it on my website as a “Chaos entry” a section I want to dedicat to my more disorganized and unstable writings.
Im so excited. Remember when I was talking about how I wish I could find some kind of group related to writing? Well, I recently joined the Portals magazine club at my school, a group dedicated to editing and reviewing submission for our community college art/writing magazine. Its so fun! Right now I get to look at all the stuff people submitted and decide what I want to keep and which ones I like for what reason. It was my College english writing teacher who got me involved in since she is one of the staff hosts of the meetings. I really like my teacher, im glad i’ll be able to see her during the meetings after classes end next week. She is so kind and always compliments my assignments, she’s even given me extra credit on two different ocassions. She’s the one who encouraged me to submit my creative narrative story to the magazine. Fingers crossed about that one! Although I think there is a high chance it will get accepted. I think I would be interested in talking to her about ways I could publish my book considering she had showed us a book she had published, it was a thin sort of illustrative memorial book dedicated to memroies of her grandma, but still! Apparently she also worked in a circus as a trapeze artist?! Or maybe im wrong about that second part, she did work in a circus though!
My reading of Neuromancer is highly enlightened in detail by the pill I swallowed thte other day, which effects still linger in the cavities of my crativity reservoir.
☕︎ <your coffee break
wait omg you went to a furry convention??
Hey there Dennis! Hope all has been well for you since I last messaged
Been some time since I last commented, and I’ve mainly had a lot happen to me in the past few months. Perhaps the main thing is that I’ve moved into a new place! I’m no longer bound to a student accommodation, and I’m instead living with some friends in a shared house. The weather has been consistently bright down here, so it’s been nice to take advantage of that with the garden space and a “smoke shed”, which is our designated smoking spot. Really though, it’s been an entirely new experience for me as I’ve always lived in rooms that are limited in what I can do with the space. However, this is the biggest room I’ve lived in by far, and I’m somewhat intimidated by the potential in what I can do with decoration. My main aim is to find some shelves for my books and games, as I have so much that’s just packed in right now. It’s provided excitement for what I can do.
Talking of games, I suppose that’s been my primary artistic outlet as of late. A friend of mine sent me a drive containing a bunch of libraries, so I’ve been picking things up here and there and seeing how I feel about them. For the first time ever, I’ve been playing Final Fantasy 6, and I’ve been engrossed by it so far. The way I’m approaching it is that me and my friend are taking turns playing different characters using a system on the emulator Retroarch called Net-play. It’s a way to play with you friends who are especially at far distances, and we’ve been thinking of different games to play together. I know we’ve talked about Jet Force Gemini, and I’m interested in exploring the Dreamcast library. Referring to the series I mentioned earlier, do you have any experience with Final Fantasy, and if so, what is your favorite game?
Beyond that, I’ve been focused on finishing my coursework. I’ve had to focus on two assignments, and the first one was focused on the development of my novel. Lately I’ve found an approach that’s helped me refine the aspects I want to improve. Simply I just write in my journals, then I type, and I go back and forth between the two. I suppose thinking of my writing as if its a conversation that be shaped has helped me consider punctuality and how to approach certain aspects with the intimacy I need to elevate the voices. Funny because I think it’s also the third time in one of my essays where I’ve mentioned a work of yours, this time being Try.
In terms of anything social, my partner visited my home town last month, and that was sweet because I’ve never had an experience like that. Things came together with introducing them to my friends, which was helped by the fact that a lot of them were coming back during a break from their studies. I’m going to be seeing them again in 2 weeks, possibly with Hugo too. I’ll be visiting London, and I think we’re going in with the approach of just finding whatever seems appealing as we walk around different places. One thing I do want to see are the posters that Boards of Canada have been putting up. I know some of them have been stolen, so I’m hoping there are still some laying around by the time I arrive. They’re one of my artists, so the announcement of their new album has reignited my interest in them. Specifically, I went back to their album Tomorrows Harvest, I came to appreciate it more for how its narrative imposes itself in this kaleidoscopic way, when you can approach its order in any fashion. I think it’s a reflection of the displacement of information in a race to find meaning.
Nice to speak on here again. Hope you’re taking care, and I wish you all the best :3
I remember back in 2007 Thomas Schütte was commissioned to design a sculpture for the 4th plinth at London’s Trafalgar Square. Hotel For The Birds may not have been such a hit with its intended avian audience, but it was up there with my favourite proposals for that project. Always thought big things of that guy’s work.
Ghosts on May Day, a good combo. I saw Fireworks when it was here years ago. I didn’t know the concept, but I think I enjoyed it more than some of his films. That Lu Pingyuan piece, ha. Wonder he actually returned the ghost!
Saw the new Inkboat piece, very different from their earlier work that I’ve seen. Not very butoh-inflected, and kind of sprawling.
For some reason I’ve seen more dance the last couple months than I usually do in a year. There was also Mayako Okura, a butoh dancer from Japan, at SF’s intimate Zen Center space. Just lovely technique and minimalist theatrical design perfect for the small space.
Bill
Hey Dennis! Hope you’re well. I love ghost stories, but I don’t really like ghosts. I think the rituals and difficulty they have communicating is so much cooler than the actual story behind them. Although I loved the ghost from the original Japanese Ring novels (which are weirdly different from the movies), and the ghosts in Shirley Jackson’s Haunting of Hill House, which always make me really emotional to think about. Is ghost porn something you’ve ever come across, wherein someone gets molested by an invisible force? It’s sort of terrifying, I think there’s some weird stuff about people being assaulted by ghosts that’s really terrifying.
P.S., I was about to ask if you’d read anything by Tony Tulathimutte, because one of his stories felt like a much sillier and more impotent (in a good way) version of The Sluts, and I just saw you met him at some point, lol. You’re so cool, and on the ball and everything! Hope you’re well, see you.
I really wish I believed in ghosts or had any notable paranormal experiences. I guess there’s still time. My mom says she thinks the apartment we lived in when I was 4-6 was haunted, but I don’t remember ever experiencing anything myself. I had a phase when I was a kid where I was really into ghost hunting and watched a lot of those reality TV shows. I had this book of haunted locations in San Diego and I visited almost all of them, but never saw anything. I should try investigating haunted places in Chicago now that I’m here. Shinyman_MUC’s comment was really funny to me. Who’s to say that his sperm won’t “be allowed to live”? I think a lot of the types who end up as slaves eventually become the ones in the comments if they live long enough. Now I’m realizing that Frisk and Room Temperature both start on similar images. Maybe I would be more like you if I didn’t come of age during a time where you can fast forward porn. I’ve tried to watch porn like a “real movie” but I usually have to skip through the sex scenes after a while. I just don’t have the attention span for it. I guess it can be different if the actors are talking through the whole thing. Like, for example, and I don’t know if I’ve mentioned this before, but for the past two years I’ve been working on a project where I transcribe those interview-style gay porn videos, only the dialogue. I can sit through those uninterrupted when I’m doing that.
Hey Dennis,
I’d really love to believe in ghosts, and it’s something I love to try and find “proof” of or stories of ghost sighting, but ultimately I just don’t believe. I would love to be proven wrong, or maybe I wouldn’t, I don’t know. I finished reading God Jr a few days ago and yeah I really loved that last bit. That way of living half in reality and half in a fictional reality, and the two melding together is something I experience a lot, especially in my worst moments
I’m certain I’ve seen ‘No Ghost Without a Shell’. I remember it clearly. The Tate apparently have ownership of it, so I think I’m right.
I always mean the ‘androgyny’ of a work as a compliment. I use it very loosely in terms of when an artist lets go of binary thinking. I don’t really know what I meant in terms of Gass, but it somehow made sense.
Very exciting day for me because I figured out how I’m going to frame my next book! As I’ve said before, I’ve been working on a kind of conceptual trilogy where each book can be read in any order. (I am not expecting any publisher to do all three, the ‘trilogy’ tag is more for me than anyone else.)
This next book is the one I’ve been trying to write for years and have a huge box filled with terrible scrawls attempting it going back to when I was like 14, ending about two years ago. This particular framing was one I actually attempted in the past but wasn’t equipped enough to properly attempt.
The idea came to me somehow when I was reading this book ‘Circus’ by Wayne Koestenbaum which I’m really really loving. Very much my thing. My copy has quotes on the back by – get this – John Ashbery, John Waters, and James McCourt (who called it a great work of fabulism and a successor to ‘Pale Fire’). If I had those three people on the back of a book I wrote I’d probably die peacefully but instantly.
I think ‘Circus’ (and probably ‘The Tunnel’ as well) made me think broadly about sentences which create mazes and cover up ‘the truth’ so that its absence is looming everywhere. And the device which is still lots of loose parts in my head just struck me suddenly.
hi Dennis!
ughh super symptomatic day, i feel just like the ghosts. except for Tell My Mother… and Ghost Hug which are actually lovely lol.
also had this fucked up nightmare which i unfortunately must also be a bit in awe of bc i can trace each single element back to like micromoments from the previous day? most of them totally benign in isolation, but subconsciously combined they created this horrific magnifying glass/funhouse mirror experience. yikes. say smth nice to me lol, i still feel bad =(
def hope Blanchot and late Wittgenstein can make super sweet posthumous love bc the wild finish would amount to just what i like. i mean, ‘nothing—> everything —> the thing, that’s good too’. i attempted it in poetry before i’d read either of those guys and maybe got somewhere, but then i did read them and felt v genealogically connected lol. like this is were i get it from only dozier. =) now i’m trying to see how to make the point in prose w/o getting didactic & stuff. think i know the scene where the philosophy or whatever should come to fruition but let’s see if it works out.
(actually think i’ll email you the old poem so you can read it if you want to and see what i mean about uh meaning)
now since your Try has sort of become my comfort book, i’ll probably go read it for nightmare relief. ya habibi i’m so chuffed this book exists. in fact, and to illustrate how much of a goner i am, i’ve got one of those cosy, clip-on reading lights but i’ll have to order another bc i can’t bear to take this one away from Ziggy— it’s his nightlight. if i ever manage to have kids, they’re gonna eat me alive lol
<3
This comment might be too late to make the cut. I freaked a bit when I saw your reply yesterday, because I had no idea the Vimeo VOD would lead to unnecessary beef between you guys & the producer. And I know that the latter has already caused you enough grief. That’s why I reached out on FB. But sounds like it was a helpful tip, so all’s good I hope.
It still says this: “This title is no longer for sale on Vimeo On Demand, but you have access to it until May 2, 2026.” Was out with friends again yesterday, so depending on when my rental expires today, I might not make it.
Shit like this goes to show how much behind the scenes drama lurks behind every film production that the viewer has no clue about. Must be exhausting, no, these legal & monetary squabbles?
Anyway, have a good weekend man.