ASYLUM DOOR: This animation was the first of it’s kind integrating video effects with animatronic elements to create a truly unique prop. When triggered, a ghoul is seen coming down the hallway. She then attempts to break through the glass before hacking at the door with her axe which leaves actual dents in the door. The Asylum Door also comes with a full digital sound track. This prop must be seen to be appreciated. Price includes pre-programmed control hardware, solid state video player, monitor, flow control valves, digital sound module, 6in. by 23in. mat switch trigger, and all necessary electrical and pneumatic connections. Prop connects to air lines with a 1/4in. male quick connect coupling. Requires 100psi compressed air and 110VAC electrical. $3,750.00
THE LAB ASSISTANT: Every true Evil Scientist needs their own Lab Assistant. The Lab Assistant Halloween Animatronic rocks back and forth while holding a brain and says several sayings. Watch out, he occasionally farts but he will apologize “Sorry.” $1,999.00
SPIDER VICTIM: The DC Spider Victim is a DC Design Studio, LLC original creation. This creation is pneumatic driven multi movement prop that simulates a human figure being entombed in spider webs and eaten alive. Grizzly, life size, foam filled latex, Approximately 6′. You can see only what is left off the face and a hand. Must ship by truck. $3400
GUILLOTINE: Easy to use and set up. Crowd sounds jeer and mock. The blade comes screeching down at high speed and a strobe light kicks in as your patrons are sprayed with blood (water). An unsettling effect that sends them running and screaming! Includes body, table, headbox, blade, squirting mechanism and tank, 2 tape players, 2 tapes and loud amp with speakers. Requires 100 psi air compressor and A/C power. $7,180.00
DIZZY LIZZY: This motorized prop, standing 9′ tall, has a ballerina corpse doing a pirouette. As the sensor is activated, the ballerina’s body spins while her head remains staring at your patrons. This animation has an unbelievable impact on your patrons. Excellent opening scene prop. Your customers will be laughing their butts off giving your actors the perfect opportunity to startle your patrons. Comes complete with: event control timer, PIR sensor, solid state sound board, amplifier, and extra contol circuits for strobes or other lighting you wish to be controlled by the Event Control Timer. $2500
ANIMATED CANDY BOWL: Greedy hand grasps at the goodies in the bowl. Motion activated. Speaks several Halloween phrases! Please note that at the moment we are out of stock of this item however more are due in store in September. If you would like to order this product now please note that we will hold back your order until stock arrives but we will ship your order in time for Halloween! $39.00
MY GHOUL JACKSON: It’s NOT Michael. It’s a dead life-size decomposing zombie in a band uniform. The mask does not resemble Jackson. It’s just a sculpture/mask/mashup. I have been getting a lot of non-fans making DEATH THREATS to ME. WTF? I just made a prop. It’s NOT Michael. I could get sued for an unlicensed MJ product. I never listened to the guy. I like the zombie aspect of the sculpture. Again, this is NOT the artist Michael Jackson. Anyway, you can buy it from me for $2400
SCARY MARY BLOODY HAUNTED MIRROR: Terrify your unsuspecting guests with the latest killer addition in our arsenal of high-tech special effects: the Scary Mary Mirror! This beautiful ornate mirror easily serves as the center piece in any haunted house setting and appears to be innocent enough, until the mirror’s reflection suddenly transforms into a specter emanating from one’s deepest nightmares. Stealthily hidden behind the precisely formulated 2-way mirrored surface is an LCD video screen. Each Scary Mary Mirror system includes: one intricately detailed mirror frame measuring a grand 40″ tall by 28″ wide, LCD panel, DVD player with HDMI output and cable, wall mount, and even a portrait light to illuminate it, if desired. (Mirror frame design subject to change without notice). $2,800.00
GIANT TROLL: This character will get attention at approximately 7′ in heigth. He sits there and snores as his stomach breathes in and out. Suddenly the troll awakens, his eyes open and he begins to speak. $13,399.00
FREAK TANK: Standing 9′ tall, The Freak Tank; is a futuristic cryogenic chamber, containing a freakish Siamese twin corpse, floating in suspended animation. The corpse prop is suspended from an industrial quality slow spinning motor platform. Comes complete with: Motor Platform, Fog machine, event control timer for fogger, and Police Beacon. Simply place a CD Player inside the unit and play our Lab CD as heard on the video on repeat and you have a complete scenic package. $2900
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XRpkSGel2XA]
ZOMBIE GROUNDBREAKER: Zombie Escapes from the Grave! … watch this hideous corpse as he tries to claw and shake his way out of the ground. Includes corpse with moving arms, torso, and head, light up eyes and makes frightening sounds. Requires 3 AA batteries. $899
BUBBA: Backwoods, big boy zombie is feeding … in this case out of a twitching body (DINNER TIME sold separately). This Halloween Animatronic slurps and belches while leaning over, shoveling in dinner with both arms, then stands back up, looking for his next victim. Disgusting! Includes movement controls, digital sound, amp and speaker.Works great with our DINNER TIME Animatronic. $3,950.00
ROSEMARY: Life like movements. Head moves up and down and side to side. Demonic child giggles as she gnaws on a brain, and then lunges at your unsuspecting guests. Glowing white eyes. .Sound activated Item Dimensions: H” x L” x D”- 49″ x 22″ x 28″ Batteries: 4 AA Only $139.99
LIFESIZE HELLRAISER PINHEAD: What’s your pleasure, sir? Please yourself and scare everyone else with this highly detailed Clive Barker Hellraiser Pinhead Animatronic. Demon to some, angel to others – direct from the Labyrinth, this Lifesize Hellraiser Pinhead Animatronic moves his head and mouth and he holds the illuminated Lament Configuration box. The over six-foot tall sound and motion activated figure speaks phrases and utters sounds from the movie to taunt and terrify. $279.99
ZOMBIE GUARD DOG: This high startle effect features a silicone head for realism. A lunging attack combined with lots of noise and realistic head movements create the perfect scare. A great addition to any haunt. Seven independent movements including a powerful lunge and full range of motion in its head and mouth. $5,299.00
BUTCHER ELECTROCUTION: FULL PACKAGE! Butcher stands with cattle prod, then when activated lowers arm to shock victim. Sparks fly as victim flails on table, then butcher turns and lunges forward with cattle prod trying to shock patrons. Great shocker! Comes with 2 Characters, Pneumatics, Table, Wires, Overhead light, Rack stand for overhead light, 2 Strobe lights, Controller, Motion sensor, Powered Speakers and MP3 Player. PLUG & PLAY! $3,674.00
INBRED AXE CHAIR: Hill-Billy jumps out of chair 7′ with axe swinging up & down with Custom Scream Sound.Comes with programmed controller, motion sensor, Custom Sound & Power Speakers. REQUIREMENTS: AC power and Air 100 psi. PLEASE ALLOW 3 TO 4 WEEKS FOR DELIVERY. $2360
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ngG_ZvMbucw]
THE GATEWAY: The gateway is an illusion where the audience sees the carnage through the portal. Then the doorway is opened to reveal the same hallway they have been watching through the window and which they now have to pass. Prop includes full length hallway fully constructed in modular components that are easy to attach together, a door with LCD display monitor, DVD and built in speakers in the door. $10,899
—-
*
p.s. Hey. Those who’ve been reading this blog for at least a year know how around this time annually my incorrigible Halloween love infects this place whereupon I start decorating its front page accordingly, so you can expect to see holiday decoration-like posts here about twice a week from now until November 1st shows up and ruins my fun. ** Empty Frame, You’re back and from wonderland, it sounds like. Nice, man, very nice. Pine Marten? I don’t know what that is. Like Doc Marten but made out of a wood? Even dolphins like Scotland? Well, I would be very happy to have you back even were you not refreshed. I’m excited about LA Halloween, you bet, but I can’t say that the book tour inspires excitement exactly apart from the cities- and friends-seeing that’ll get to happen on its periphery. ** Pilgarlic, So, the tight space ended up being too much or too little rather? Excellent about starting your screenplay! I would guess that your little knowledge about the filmic and cocksucker habitats will only serve you well. Interesting. Progress reports as you see fit, please. ** David Ehrenstein, Yeah, Schnabel’s the artist-to-director crossover success story so far for sure, We’ll see about McQueen. Oh, before I forget, your lovely TW Day will appear here on Saturday, the 8th, and on the dot. Thank you devotedly again. ** 5strings, Mm, I don’t know about me and the dead. A dead man fell on me — long story — on a bus in Peru when I was fifteen, and it kind of turned me against corpse interaction, but maybe I need to give it the old college try again. I always liked the TZ episodes that had evil, possessed ventriloquist dummies in them. I don’t think 2 – 3 hrs/day of writing is bad. I think when I’m writing I write 24/7, and sometimes there’s a pen in my hand but not as often as there isn’t. I don’t know that Liz Phair tune. I think I was the wrong age or something because I’ve never listened to Kiss voluntarily, but I really like some of their songs via the cover versions by Melvins, The Replacements, etc. ** Kyler, Howdy, Kyler. I would guess that the town Schnabel was referring to was New York. But I don’t know. Yeah, I guess self-absorption is the nature of the artistic beast, and it’s how you behave outwardly that causes the differences. I like your dream. It was tweaked and pretty. Stopping smoking, eh? Well, there’s no good argument in world for continuing to smoke. If quitting wasn’t six months-plus of pure hell and an inability to concentrate and, hence, an inability to write, I’d quit yesterday. If I quit smoking, this blog would either be history or go on a very, very long vacation. No way I could do this. But I am not trying to talk you into continuing to smoke, mind you. I’m just presenting one possible way to rationalize continuing to smoke that has been working for me so far, ha ha. ** Sypha, Hey. Yeah, I think there are writers whose talents are best served by the long form book, Pynchon being one. David Foster Wallace springs to mind. When they go short, it never feels like there’s enough or something. I think maybe it’s rare when a writer can write both long and short novels without losing their total power. I can’t think of examples at the moment. Thomas Mann? Given the completion of your massive epic — huge congrats on that, by the way! — maybe you’re one of those. ** Postitbreakup, Pleased to have amused you, sir. Mm, I’m not a huge fan of Larry Clark’s films. I like the two that were written by Harmony Korine: ‘Kids’ and ‘Ken Park’. I like ‘Another Day in Paradise’ but only because it stars an often semi-undressed Vincent Kartheiser at his physical peak. The film by Clark that most people I know seem to like a lot is ‘Bully’. I didn’t like it much, but I think it might be a way in ‘cos it’s pretty roundly liked. I’m glad you got to see the PR interview, and thanks for lending it your eyes. Well, just ‘cos I think about my work that way doesn’t mean people reading it need to think about it that way, you know? People who go to Disneyland don’t think about it the way Disney CEOs do, you know? That’s totally fantastic that you’ve been writing 750 words a day! That’s great news! It doesn’t matter whether it’s fiction or not. The thing is to get back in the groove, which will help you write what you want to write, So, yeah, that’s splendid, Josh! ** Sublethal, Hey. Thanks much about my interview. Listen, if it gets your writer juices flowing, that’s the best outcome for that thing that I can think of. Having your work inspire others to write is the real Nobel Prize. Yeah, about the PR interviews. I’ve been dreaming about being interviewed in TPR since I was a teenager. I always thought if you were accepted into that canon, you were officially a real writer. So, yeah, that privilege has been an amazing thing. I would think Gary will get in there. He’s such a complicated guy who takes no prisoners, and sometimes that results in him being cut out of honors that he so deserves. ** Squeaky, Oh, I forgot to send the message. Immediately post-p.s. Thanks a lot about the post. And that’s a great story about seeing the Zidane film. Yeah, it’s a deep film in unexpected ways, very strange. ** Sailor, Hey, pal! Okay, cool about your stuff being all squared away. If you see the Rebecca Horn film, let me know what you think. I kind of mostly didn’t like it, but I saw it ages ago, and ages play tricks on one’s memory and all that. I’m good. I hope you’re good too. Are you London-bound any minute now? ** David, Congrats on your popularity at the family reunion. What was the occasion for it? The Salle film has aged well. I think it looks much better now than it did, but I’m not sure why. ** Chris, Hey. You have issues with PayPal? Well, technically, I had squat to do with the PayPal thing, although I don’t have a problem with it. Why, is it more evil than other money transaction options? My Facebook quota … you mean the friends limit? Pain in the arse. ** Pisycaca, Hey! As soon as the schedule is set, I’ll let you know. I’m so glad you’re going to come! Other than the surrounding February weather, it’ll be big fun, I swear! ** Jesse Hudson, Thanks again, mighty Mr. Hudson! And the comments keep coming. Talk to you pronto. ** _Black_Acrylic, Hi, Ben. The French postal service seems to have been unusually efficient as copies seem to be arriving on time. Very cool about Saturday. Yeah, I hear you about the lack of ‘the shock of the new’ factor. Maybe you should really shake it up next year. The initial evidence on your blog looks great. I love your Vega simulacrum, and your buddy worked those glasses big time. Everyone, _Black_Acrylic aka the masterful Ben Robinson is presenting visual evidence of the big ‘Yuck ‘n Yum’ AGK 2 event of this past Saturday, and first up is his eerie karaoke simulation of Suicide performing ‘Ghost Rider’ in words and photos with video to follow. Be there. ** Lee, Well, that UT reunion is a case of ‘now I’ve seen everything’. Or you’ve seen everything rather. Are there any bands left whose members are still alive who haven’t reformed that one would be excited to see reformed? There must be, but I’m blanking. I will peruse the listings for every every UT-shaped space in Paris. So, you’re fully back in school, and you’re happy and even communing with nature in your happiness! Dude, so awesome to hear. Any reports along the way that you would be into passing along would be heavily ace. Great, Lee! ** Steevee, I have to disagree with you about the Bela Tarr, or about the 4/5 of it that I saw. Too bad about the Ferrara. Curious to hear from you about ‘Carnage’. What I’ve heard is that it’s okay but not much more than that. ** Tosh, Oh, Japan, Japan … One of these days. Your retrospective idea is a great one. Mixing the underground with the aboveground. As I was researching the post, I found a bunch of artists who’d gone the opposite route, giving up filmmaking to become visual artists. I think I might do a post about that/them too at some point. ** Math, Hey, Math! How have you been, pal? What’s going on? Thanks about the post. Awesome to see you! ** Chris Cochrane, The CD is out today! I’ll change the blog listing thing. Great! Feel physically better, buddy. ** Ken Baumann, Ken! Will, do, man. I’ll know some spooky LA dope by the weekend. Knott’s Scary Farm is the ‘Infinite Jest’ of the spooky house world. An embarrassment of riches. Exciting about the review! I hope the comments section doesn’t get too scary, ha ha. Thank you, Ken! Hurricane of affection to you. ** Creative Massacre, Whoa, ha ha, it took me a minute to figure that out. Very cool. And it’s even French, for goodness sake! Everyone, courtesy of Creative Massacre and also recommended by yours truly, Post-It War! Sweet about your new dog, and also about your having adopted him. What’s his name? ** MANCY, Hey, man. Thank you a whole lot about the interview. That’s very kind. And you? What’s up? Living in Seattle is … (fill in the blank). ** Kevin Killian, Warmest morning greetings to you, Mr. K. Ha ha, the pictures generation, you’re right! Interesting. Thank you about the PR interview, my friend. Oh, let me pass along your Chicago thing. Everyone, the very great writer and dude Kevin Killian has an alert that, not so coincidentally at all, presents an ultra-golden opportunity for you in the Chicago area. Listen up: ‘If there are any Chicago people who read Dennis’ blog, I’m going to be there for 4 days later this week, please give me a holler. I give a public lecture on Thursday at 5 at Gallery 400 called “In the Light.” Yeah, like the old Led Zeppelin number, my theme song.’ Have fun up and over there, Kevin! ** Bill, Hey. I might be mistaken, but I think maybe ‘Young Soul Rebels’ has been recently reissued on DVD? Don’t quote me on that, but I think that might be how I found it. Yeah, the French are covering the Wall Street thing more than the Americans are too! ** Misanthrope, You can download ‘Ken Park’ from a number of nefarious online places. Wow, she scored! How do you fake bipolar? Would being a nice guy who writes vile, disgusting books qualify me or you? Mansion! I’ll start checking the real estate websites. Ugh, sorry about the all-night proofing thing. What is the opposite of the old saying haste makes waste? Maybe there isn’t one. ** Charlie m, Uh, happy to make you feel less film snobbish, ha ha? ‘Johnny Mnemonic’ is starting to get this reassessment/cult fandom trying going on, so, yeah, I’d grab one of those $1 DVDs soon. Great about the return to music! Results, yes! ** Frank Jaffe, Hey Frank!! Thank you! Word over here in Europe at least is the new McQueen ‘Shame’ is a little bit less artistic but not damagingly so. I don’t think I’ve been in Out’s Top 50 thing, but I don’t know. I was supposed to be in some Top 100 Groovy Gay Guys thing they did recently, but it would have involved me traveling to London and being some fashion shoot thing, and I said no to that in my non-groovy fashion. That’s awesome about Richard Labonte writing up your zine. He’s a total hero of mine and of anyone with any brains, that Richard Labonte. Yeah, encourage Luke. That sounds like something he should do: get his writing out there by all kinds of means. Sorry about your wrists, man, but I appreciate it. Just for you, I’ll have a third cup of coffee this morning. Party! ** Okay. I got this done early-ish today, which means you’ll have extra time with my showroom of props, so everybody wins! Enjoy. See you tomorrow.
Now available in North America 
Hello, Mr. Cooper.
I stayed awake last night and this early morning and I just saw your halloween post and would like to say hello to you. I have heard your Marbled Swarm is finished and coming out soon and I am excited to read that this winter hopefully before 2011 year goes away. I have well read your books that I have purchased so far but I also keep your books at one important corner of my living room, as amulets. Thesedays, I have been rereading Blanchot, Deleuze, Kojeve and other more literary figures together, enjoying this fall weather with frequent rain in Buffalo. Many great ways, thesedays are perfect to me, I would like to say. I hope, your days are great as well there wherever you are. Also, I would very much like to deliver my many thanks to your output on the web.
Best regards, H
everything ready for the trip to stockholm except…me, but i'm working on it. i've condemned myself to sitting on an empty stage floor with my computer in front of me, and a first run through the lecture today just informed me that this is a quite uncomfortable position for doing a lecture. i don't interrupt my talk with parts where i am dancing like xavier. maybe i should. anyway this needs some more rehearsing. weather forecast says rain tomorrow but good weather for the two days after, which is just fine. the venue is on one of those small islands that make up a part of the city center – looks very charming on the map. if i happen to bump into cute blond boys i'll tell them to watch out for the gisèle vienne performances to come soon, and especially for the author who is this really cool transgressive guy from LA and a must-meet. have a nice time & i'll be back soonish.
"My Ghoul Jackson" is most appropriate for Halloween. Especially this year with the trial of Dr. Conrad Murray. Cable TV is going to go 24/7 with it, but the public fascination with All Things Michael has waned. Ths concert rehearsal film This is It was a bust. He's yesterday's Mass Hysteria. At the height of the frenzy when he was put on trial for fucking one of the many boys a whole slew of parents lined up to offer him, I came to regard Schlesinger's grievously underrated adaptation of The Day of the Locust as a documentary.
Saw Cronenberg's A Dangerosu Method (or as I prefer to call it Freud and Jung Go Boating) last night. Highly sober-sided for Cronenberg, thanks to Christopher Hampton's script and an overall sense of awe towards the subjects. But notable nonetheless for Keira Knightley's remarkable performance as Sabina Spielrein — a young, beautiful, well brought up maspchist hysteric and patient of Jung's. Jutting out her chin and widening er eyes as her body convulses, she's quite a sight. (Who knew this hellcat lurked within the tasty bit of crumpet in the Pirates of the Carribean films?) When Jung (the very fine Michael Fassbender) gets her to calm down — via the "talking cure" his pal Freud (the ever-babe-a-licious Viggo) was inventing — she becomes a patient of great prize. He trains her to be an assistant, and eventually she becomes an analyst herself. She also becomes his lover. Full-on fucking at first, but spanking sessions soon follow. What's fascinating is the more (guiltily) emeshed Jung becomes with Sabina, the more he questions Freud's emphasis on sexual dysfunction as the root of all ills. Eventually this leads to a break between the two that Cronenberg, most appropriately regards as far more serious for Jung than his eventual breaking off with Sabina. Freud is a Father/Brother to Jung in quite a profound way. And when Jung gets into religious mysticism Freud is appalled.
Still for all it's obvious intellectual interest the film comes off as an unhappy romance, with parental figure conflict thrown in for good measure. Not at all bad as the material is super ambitious. But it'll be interesting to see how audiences are going to take it. Or not.
David, thanks for that review, I'd like to see it. Sounds like a film version of "The Talking Cure," which I saw in London with Ralph Fiennes as Jung. The original actor playing Freud had just died and they had a new actor playing the role on book. I wanted my sister to see it (she's more the Freudian type, while I'm more Jungian), but its run at the National Theatre ended right before her visit there.
Howdy Dennis! Well, I told myself I wouldn't smoke until I heard what you had to say on the subject. But since I was up so early, it wasn't difficult to wait and check you out. Lit up soon after and rationalization or not, it was good as always. Yeah, it's mind food, the element of air, and I do it in moderation, 8 home-rolled American Spirits a day, all natural. What do you smoke over there? I love the smell of French cigarettes, but not the taste so much. La fumée!
Dennis!
My French Hole arrived today – thank you KP, both for your prompt posting and the volume's beauty – and I just wanted to say fuck the reviews so far: if this is a taste of TMS, I think you've done something wonderful and mystical and very very clever. Can't wait to read the whole thing.
You know, listening to you talk about it here, saying how much of a departure the style was for you and how it was so different from anything else you'd written, I was kinda squirming and thinking 'Man, I'm not gonna like this and I so want to like this.' But I needn't have worried. Yes, the sentences are a fucking mile long with sub-clause upon sub-clause and I had to go back quite a few times and re-read from the start. But I got into it fast. The 'voice' kind of reminds me of the 'nice' father in 'Try'. The style's so fucking mannered it made me think of my cod Jane Austen –but older, yeah? Almost Swiftian. And it made me laugh – and, knowing you, you're setting the reader up for some horrible emotional sucker punch.
Just wanted to say that.
Much love and grudging admiration, you bastard!
Latest FaBlog: Homage a Jacques Demy
Hey! I think the Scary Mary mirror would give me a heart attack, but if I survived, I'd want one.
I love the run-up to Halloween on here every year – the English Halloween is just so lo-fi and tame in comparison.
Haha, oh, yeah, I didn't know what a pine marten is until last week – I think they only live in the northwest of Scotland here. In the US they're just called "martens", according to their Wiki. Basically they're like aggressive looking teddy-bears. Apparently they like peanut butter and jam, which sounds weirdly and specifically American to me, and they absolutely hate squirrels. They sort of look like God was bored and decided to invent an animal out of bits of other animal, I guess.
And yeah, I didn't know dolphins hung out in Scotland either, but they do, on the East Coast. There's this headland that you can stand on and they come past, usually whilst chasing salmon. They're huge show-offs, go through their full repertoire of somersaults, etc. Everyone seemed to dig them, but I'm ambivalent – the needle-teeth, the needy exhibitionism, and there's something about their skin that makes them look like a really really big fish that's been forced into an incredibly tight condom. They make me think of balloon-fetishists or latex-devotees. I didn't mention that to the old ladies with their cameras and binoculars standing at the water's edge waiting for a glimpse, obviously. That would've just been weird.
The Gateway is my favorite. There's something particularly frightening to me about seeing something through a window, or by peeking around a corner. I have a strange fear of blind corners, meeting someone coming around at the same moment and being startled, so I always take a wide turn. My startle response is off the charts. And the idea of a small window, or keyhole view, or seeing something through a crack, slit, or between blinds, etc, the category of secret or accidental observation, both thrills and unnerves me. That old Coppola movie The Conversation crytallized that for me. What a winning streak he had there in the 70s.
Yeah, I'd just go to their shows for skinny boys in tie-dyes.
A dead person fell on you? That's crazy.
"No seriously, don't touch me."
LOL I think I used to have some really strange Peruvian socks.
A new Child's Play could be totally killer, no?
LOL hehehe dummies are freaky-tikki.
What, I can't hear you I'm so blind I'm going deaf?
I so need to practice writing with a pen on paper.
These fucking computers are fucking burning my eyes out.
Only problem is, I can't read my own hand-writing LOL.
I think that LP tune is about how sex will keep you young.
LOL learning Kiss is Jewish is almost as hot as learning Jesus is Jewish.
They translate well, they've got a good sound.
They're like my guilty I like 70's boys band.
We've got a rivalry with a house in our neighborhood that does animatronics!
I love something about Martha Stewarts new Halloween mag.
There's a house in there that is done very Family Circle, it looks like a Halloween ginberbread house.
All my friends hate it, but I think it's really spooky.
Oh animatronics, did you ever see Kiss and the Phantom of The Park.
The evil guy running the park has Haunted House robots attack Kiss.
That's Spoooooky!
Hope to journey to a Halloween store in Ohio this week.
It's done like a Haunted House with pricetags.
Have a good one
Dennis!
Zombie Groundbreaker is my favorite and genuinely creepy. Knott's Scary: I'm sold. I've never been and have only heard "I almost had a heart attack" from guests, so that's good. We'll see about the HTMLGiant comments; it's been a real shithole lately.
Yours,
K
And Empty Frame is right: the Bloody Mary mirror is great.
Hey Dennis–just got my copy of French Hole (#9)–gonna go read it now.
Also, the library idea–I'll try to set up something–what you described is pretty much what I had in mind. Maybe a thread to make requests on, too. I'll try to work on it this week and upload a couple of books I have.
Ok, time to read! Thanks.
Is not a pine marten the same thing as as the so-called 'pine weasel' immortalised in Twin Peaks? I think Wolf will back me up on this…
Dennis – long time no see! Excellent annual fest of spooky animatronics today…
Yay! I was longing for it and now Halloween Fest has officially started! November 1st=killjoy. I like the guillotine, why is it so expensive?!
February snowy fun. Looking forward to that.
Love,
Hellraiser. I'm pretty sure I was no older than eight when I found an old abandoned VHS out playing and decided to watch it with my older brother.
He freaked and I finished watching it by myself all fascinated. Needless to say I had a few nightmares after that. I still remember the blood looking way too thick, though.
Received FH & the zine today! I can't wait to read it, but until I find the perfect moment I'll let it rest on my desk looking beautiful. Red wine and candles feels appropriate.
X
hmmm – i like this reunion question. i think a working version of live skull could still walk the earth, and that's something i'd be totally excited to see. i'd also bite off a finger to see the original throwing muses line up (leslie langston is a fucking incredible bass player). oh, and DNA – whom i don't know too much about, but UT have re-stimulated my no-wave curiosity gland. a DNA show would be pretty exciting, no?
further art school updates to follow, as soon as i do something more exciting than paint the studio (so great to perform that ritual again). p.s. don't tell about the nature thing – i have a reputation to maintain as a flinty urbanite who hates clean air, and this could blow me out of the water.
Dennis: A brought home The Paris Review today, and I just read your interview. Wow, Dennis. This is very beautiful. Honest and lucid and brave. I've always marveled at how clearly and devotedly you talk about your art and its influences and aims, and this was the most bountiful resource for that. And, most importantly: the way you talk about George is so sublime and respectful; makes me both really sad for George, for the great loves that go away–and terrified of losing someone like A–and joyous that such relationships can and do endure, no matter the limits… I've only read two of the books in the Cycle, but already I can tell you that your tribute to George is successful and alive; it is a gorgeous, inspiring project that does make George Miles a figure in many lives; a friend, a close spirit, and a living force. You have provided and continue to provide such important and nourishing experiences for many people.
Congratulations on interview. It's remarkable.
Yours,
Ken
@ DavidEhrenstein, I've never had any hots whatsoever for Keira Knightley, but maybe A Dangerous Method will lend me a fresh pair of eyes.
Just been to see Haxan: Witchcraft Through the Ages with the William Burroughs voiceover and the jazz soundtrack. Never seen that version before, and it was most enjoyable.
Just received Bresson's The Trial of Joan of Arc on DVD in the post. Looking forward to it.
Yesterday I was at the hospital for the latest of my Tysabri jabs. Call me crazy, but I do think there may just be an infinitesimal improvement. Also tomorrow I'll be going to see my neurologist for the annual checkup. I'll report this to him.
Both films I saw today were pretty good, without blowing me away. The Polanski film does a good job of avoiding the usual traps of "filmed theater," but there's something middlebrow and sitcom-ish about it, like WHO'S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF? rewritten by the staff of FRAZIER. (Or in one startling moment, by the Farrelly brothers.) I'm not familiar with playwright Yasmina Reza's work, but I'd assume the tonal flaws are probably hers. (She wrote the script with Polanski.)
MISS BALA is an engaging neo-noir with a nightmarish premise – beauty pageant queen gets trapped into working for drug cartel – that suffers from a protagonist who remains almost totally passive. (It doesn't help that she undergoes sexual degradation several times.) The one time she does take action, it backfires on her. It would make a good double bill with the documentary EL SICARIO, ROOM 164, which fills in the background on issues MISS BALA touches on, like the widespread political corruption caused by Mexico's war on drugs.
I'm now listening to the new Mastodon album. I like it better than CRACK THE SKYE – the grunge influence seems better integrated, and the occasional use of pop hooks works surprisingly well.
Tomorrow, I see James Benning's TWENTY CIGARETTES.
Dennis, I'd hate to think that I've crossed over into the bloated novel territory. Theoretically, the fantasy novels I wrote could just as easily be broken into three parts (indeed, that's the manner they were written). But then I thought, well, it would be cool to have at least one sprawling massive Pynchon sized novel to my credit. The next book I do won't be nearly as long. Though right now I see myself going on hiatus, to recharge my creative batteries, as I'm a little burnt out right now. I don't even know if I'll ever try to get my fantasy book published… I'd have to type it out first, after all.
I guess I should focus on "Grimoire," though who knows when the hell that'll be released. Since March of this year I've sent the publisher 4 e-mails, spaced out of course, and they've yet to get back to me on any of them, which is maddening. There's a part of me that wonders if they ever intend to publish it at all.
I heard back from the CNN anchor whom I had approached about appearing in my short. I feared that his silence had meant I did something to piss him off or that he was just acting flaky, but he said he was very busy and had just returned from Libya. (He has recently switched hosting programs.) Anyway, he says that the CNN vetting department lost the copy of my script I first sent them and asked me to send another one. Things are still up in the air, but at least he and his bosses haven't yet said no.
Ohhh, it's a limit on Facebook. Right. Don't they have pages or something? I don't know. I have one, but I only use it for seeing how people back home are doing.
Oh, right, PayPal. Yeah. The first time PayPal let someone try God knows how many times to get into my account from another country, and then when they did get into my account they let them add a new email address and do a whole bunch of Ebay/PayPal transfers to addresses in India, all without even sending me an email to confirm the changes. I forgave them, obviously, but…
The second time they screwed me was when I was selling on Ebay, some pretty rare collector digipacks, and PayPal said that the payments from the US had gone through and were in my account. Not long after I posted them, PayPal then went and reversed the transactions because it turned out the payments weren't honoured because the card was stolen. Took them ten days to dishonour the payments – made by a credit card, which PayPal don't check as being valid when it's added. Then they debited my bank account with the difference in my PayPal account while I was disputing the payment – then they took EBay and PayPal fees on top of it. And when I complained, they basically told me I was stupid for sending the stuff and I should fuck off. And then blocked my account, with money in it, for criminal associations, and only unblocked it when I had a lawyer write to them.
The THIRD time was when I wasn't even living in the UK. Two years after I moved away and closed my bank account, they sent me continual reminders to update my cards (because they don't let you close PayPal accounts and ignored me asking them to send no correspondence), which I ignored, because I'd cancelled the cards and removed their debit authority. But then they sent me an email telling me that a payment taken from my bank account had been rejected – they'd tried to debit a closed bank account without any authority or reason. And when I wrote to them to ask them why, I never got a reply.
Turns out that if you're a buyer – which most people are – then you basically rule. You can dispute items within 45 days and then, on a very low standard of proof PayPal will refund the buyer's money if they say they don't have the goods. For example, if the seller hasn't requested the item to be signed for (which isn't up to the seller usually, it's the buyer's delivery choice) then PayPal will assume that the seller hasn't sent, and give the money back to the buyer. And there's so many of these types of request that they just automatically take the buyer's side – because they have to, because consumer law usually falls in favour of the customer.
So many people are honest, though, and so many transactions do go well, that the minority of people who get screwed over just stay screwed over.
Oh, AND they're not regulated in their individual countries in Europe. Because they didn't meet the UK and Irish FSA tests for electronic money brokers, they moved all their operations to Luxembourg where the tests aren't as strict and consumer protection isn't guaranteed.
With this singular exception, where I didn't store a card with them, I won't use them. I'll use Google Checkout and Moneybookers.
PayPal rant, win! I hope French Hole gets here soon…
Dennis – lol Post-It War is awesome, I so want to try that!
Love the Halloween post. I wish I were rich enough to own all of those, they're great!
The shelter named him Radar, so far that's what we've been calling him. He's really cute. Dog he's a miniature pinscher.
Paris here we come – humid over here – nothing else
Hey Dennis,
Nice to see the Halloween posts beginning. A sure sign of Fall.
Loved the post yesterday as well. Any of those films listed you think are particularly bad? Or particularly genius? I'm a huge fan of 'Hunger' though I haven't seen too many of the others.
I just showed 'A Woman Under the Influence' to my class – with a long set-up from me. It seemed to really hold their attention throughout. We'll see what the discussion turns up next week, but I'm pretty encouraged.
And thanks again for your earlier email. Deeply appreciated, man.
Dennis, First things first: Another Day in Paradise is a really good movie, in my not so humble opinion. 😀
Hahaha, I almost wrote the same thing re: a nice guy who writes vile, disgusting books. Hehe. Though, I think there's a method to your madness and mine, so maybe that doesn't qualify as crazy. ;D
I mis-spoke yet again: I didn't mean that she fakes bipolar so much as I think it's a wrong diagnosis that she -and her state doctor and lawyers, the latter of whom will be getting the 30% (almost $15k!)- is sticking with.
I'm no psychiatrist or psychologist, but I've known and seen firsthand three people who are bipolar in my life and she exhibits none of the symptoms I've witnessed: the highs, the lows, the hallucinations, the suicidal thoughts, the delusions of grandeur, etc. Though I think the definition of bipolar is so broad nowadays that almost everyone qualifies in one respect or another.
Here's the very true story of her diagnosis: She went to a state doctor and after talking to her, he determined she was bipolar. So we asked her what her symptoms were. She told us, "I have thoughts." "What thoughts?" "That David [my brother] is cheating on me?" "Is that it?" "Yeah." Huh?
What's funny is that those thoughts weren't irrational or strange because he was indeed cheating on her and she was indeed cheating on him. And that's bipolar? Hmm.
Oh, my procrastination abilities are legendary at this point. But I was told the project was 11 1/2 hours of work. There's just no fucking way. I'm checking all the links on the site, and there are literally tens of thousands. It's pretty insane. Hence my ten-years-in-the-waiting novel. Which I intend to finish by year's end. Ugh.
Dennis – I was the occasion. no, jesus, how conceited can I get?? we ( my dad's democrat-voting redneck side of our family) used to gather every summer when I was a kid. Now, that we're marrying ourselves out of existence, we meet yearly to chow down and gab with one another. I was delighted to meet 29yr old Cam and would have abducted him centaur-style if I had enough legs.
Last night I watched part of Apt Pupil. I found it kinda sickening, perhapsd because of the contrast between beautiful fifteen year old Brad Renfro ( the homoerotic displays of his resting body are really quite bold for a mainstream film) and the agitated wreck whose swan song was that atrocity The Informers ( kind of a favorite bad movie w/me but that's a blog post). Dirty Story will feature my thoughts haha on Psycho and Touch of Evil. Arguably Hitchcock and WELLES' #2 masterpieces, both feature Janet Leigh in peril in a motel room. In my film addled mind, this is NO COINCIDENCE.
I guess I'll have to get after Justin Taylor for his interview answers, as you, sypha and hopefully Frank Jaffe or misa are lined up for what I plan to be an ongoing feature of either DStory or Worth a Look.
Work proceeds nicely. At least I can go out for a drink and a movie now.
That last paragraph of mine is so confusing.
dennis, my rotten brain hasn't been able to parse a lot of the posts lately, but this one with its relatively simple format (just videos) was an accessible way back into the blog, and i enjoyed it a lot. i think i like the concept of the mary mirror and the asylum door the best, although i wonder if that 10,000$ asylum door that's supposed to have a hallway behind it actually has a hallway.
you've probably already seen this, but here's this documentary i watched about Hell Houses, which is the evangelical christian version of a haunted house about the horrors of abortion/gayness/etc (feel like you probably did a day on this already, sorry for my shit memory)
part one of nine (they all proceed in order)
it's pretty good.
anyway thank you very much for your encouragement, about to get in my 750words now. it's really a cool site, keeps me motivated with checkmarks and stuff and it does a free analysis of your words like a mood ring type thing, gimmicky but cute. anyway. happy ante*(n)-penultimate-halloween
Oooh, I can totally use a freak tank in my office.
On the theme of movies made by artists, just saw Miranda July's The Future with Nb. I thought it was very charming; probably enjoyed it more than Nicholas.
Bill
hey dennis!!
top 100 groovy gay people?? You should have done it! oh it would have been so so cool!!
Today was fun, worked on some stuff, took a test, went to a poetry reading, got stoned, watched Weak Species and a Jim Henson's Storytellers episode which was so weird!!!
Oh I never told you, but someone checked The Sluts out of our library that we have in the center and they returned it two months later in wrecked condition. When i asked her what happened she said that she'd rented it out in that condition which made me super angry cause i know she was the first person to check it out since i was the one that purchased it in the spring. Grr!!
I'm psyched about Halloween Horror Nights! I think I'm going the weekend of the 22nd!! Luke's never been and i'm so excited to see him actually scared for once!
Alright it is super late, sorry for the quick post, but I hope everything is great and I hope you have an awesome morning!
xxfrank
p.s. Fuck yeah, HALLOWEEEEEENNNNN!!!!! 🙂
Dennis,
I think you may enjoy this ventriloquist's story
Tales From The Crypt
This day is amazing and grand.
The first prop reminds me of the first time I went to asylum.
It was in a hospital built into and around an old city mansion.
I remember crossing my arms very tightly and walking into the long hallway when the door opened.
There was a girl lying on the floor to the right, she said something very ID and I kept walking.
The door is a big deal in the asylum.
The only other way out is violence or a window.
That particular asylum had a cigarette lighter on the wall.
There is a gif of the last execution in France.
Gericault painted a fascinating picture of guilliotined heads.
It was strange to learn upon visiting the haunted state penitentiary that my cousins were the first executed in the electric chair.
I think the Place de la Concorde is second only to Montemartre for the spookiest haunt in Paris.
The Spider Victim is a really great piece.
Very dynamic and imminent.
I vaguely remember a sociological/philosophical theoretical construct called a "spider".
Excellent fucking way to break into Halloween!
"Lets show the dead-ones what some real live ones can do."
Happy Halloween
"They were haunting long before he died, though they will never be pinned down now, stood at some distance from, or glance away, sorry he ever came." – a brilliant artist
Hey D-
You asked, how do I manage to do so many nature sojourns? Well, I think I just mention them whenever I do, cuz I'd want to do more but am lazy. We got a free car and last friday when it was sunny Jen txted me and said lets get a yurt. So I booked one, and ha! We sat last night in a yurt on the edge of north america where the mighty columbia river meets the pacific and it was so fucking insanely windy and stormy and it was like we drove 2 hours to hide in this weird round teepee and drink some wine and read books and well, it was awesome. so yeah. last skullhum tonight, went out with little fanfare, had a couple friends hang out, think i did a rad show. looking forward to the 6 free hours and 25 extra bucks a month. things are good. halloween on DC's gets me pumped. love ya man, and hey hope to hang out with heliotrope next weekend!
-love-L
Sunn O))) was amazing, deafening and impressive. Yesterday especially Attila – he did a voice and electronics duo that was really awesome.
Yesterday French Hole and Kiddiepunks fanzine arrived. Thank you all! Perhaps the mailman here does not know the english language because "do not fold" didn`t kept him from squeezing it into the mailbox. But everything looks save and cool!
Great opening of the Halloween countdown. I want the demon dog to take care of me at night!
Coopermaton: How do you, sir? I'm salivous to see the roll-on of all-Hallow's-month around here. Very nice. And those animatronics, wistful sigh, make me want to start a Spooky House or something. You know, even though Australia doesn't celebrate Halloween, I think opening one here would turn a pretty penny just quietly, because the interest is there and there aren't any rival contenders. Oh well, stow that away under entrepreneurial things I'll never do. Anyhow, hey, I read the Josh Cohen review of TMS, which Alan very kindly sent to me, and honestly, I was surprised because it didn't seem down on Swarm exactly at all. It may just be the way I read it but I think Cohen's intention in it is only laudatory, but modulated through a critical prism that probably doesn't wear well with you exactly. He writes:
"Cooper has published some of the most violent and sexual fiction of his era, and his withholding here seems to be an admission that trying to make a novel novel – trying to make the next shocking book – has turned, for him, into an attempt at autocannibalism. As he couples the exhaustion of the vanguard with the exhaustion of a gay subcultural aesthetic, it's difficult to drool over the offal left: a pile of unsignifying verbiage. Nearly a half century after the uncensoring of William Burrough's Naked Lunch – that book so frank about penises and orifices – it's a revelation that Cooper has written a book that transgresses primarily by emphasizing the cliches of its transgression (an emphasis most painfully conveyed when his narrator perserverates in the comparison of yet another underground passageway to yet another rectum.
Cooper, projecting onto his serial killer, murders his artistic progeny by murdering his parentage, thus achieving freedom: not as the foremost gay novelist of his generation, but as a foremost novelist, toute de suite."
It's pretty hard for me to see how a higher compliment could be paid than in the end assessment that you've gone from being best gay writer to one of the great writers of our moment, period, with this book. Why I think it rubs wrong is because it seems to suggest that this work roughly trades in a meta-fictional transvaluation of all values from your prior work and, in a sense, caps off your career (or, at least, your career as 'gay novelist': i.e. as inventor of freshly 'shocking', 'violent', 'sexual' material and so on). I fundamentally disagree with that on every level: the style here is inauguratory not exhausted and concluded, it has to be understood as starting off into something else, not closing the door on what went before, which, if anything, was what The Sluts was about; the equation of your specific power as a gay novelist and the shock value of your attitude toward sexual violence strikes me as a very heterosexual (though not heterosexist) understanding of what you do (I should add: I don't even know if Josh is straight but I'd glean by this reading that he is); and lastly the idea that the dual exhaustion of the vanguard and the gay subcultural aesthetic is indicated by the transgression of the sex-violence nexus itself as composed, at this point, of a meat bouquet of cliches seems to think that "the offal" of the prose – which is not a wrong word for it exactly, so long as we're not dissing it as rank and blobby thereby – is a critique, rather than a very smooth, very manipulative method of seduction. Or, in other words, is the continuation of your concerns by other means.
Josh seems to assume that you transgress in this novel by emphasizing the cliches of transgression and he's saying he finds it an amazing achievement that you pull it off. At least, that's how I understand him. But as would follow from that understanding of the book, there's little where else to go: hence, I gather, his second-to-closing line: "Though Cooper might believe that his readers read him to be titillated – 'an orgasm so rash' – he also has to believe that he writes for more than titillation: He writes what he writes because he must." Here, he's reading off a passage from the end of your book where you talk about Bataille and The Story of O. I think he's ballsed his reading of the passage here by assuming that it's purpose is a message in a bottle that's aiming to be an auto-critque of your own career: when in point of fact, I don't see either Story of the Eye or The Story of O as tracking, in any workable way, and even in the context of your narrator's relative illiteracy, your own writerly efforts. The "shallow novels" the narrator speaks of are not your prior work – or the spurning of its lineage per se – just as the Swedes aren't some imputation against the horniness of your readership (and yourself): rather, the whole thing hinges on the continuation of the narrator's parting shot: "an orgasm so rash they might have gotten pregnant through their hands had I not been there to swallow it." It's this "swallowing function" that the book takes into its sights and if it does indeed seek to reconceptualize transgressive literariness, it is precisely because of the relation between the rashness of the orgasm and this strange attentuation of the swallowing that prohibits pregnancy via the hands: or, in short, conception, and a very queer kind of conception it is too.
In that long email I wrote you some time back on Swarm, I said that "I was fascinated by how the book seems to form – well, I don't want to say a riposte, as that's too strong a term, as well as misleading about the book's attitude vis-a-vis transgressive literatures like it – but a kind of rethink, let's say, of the working avant-garde understanding of transgressive sexual fantasies in art as being something like literary chandeliers that hold up limit-experiences as the truth, or subvert them as the non-truth, rather than operationalize them as the line of exploration for, oddly, a kind of densely involved emotional peace. The kind of peace that finds being absorbed by a fantasy more consistently interesting than needing to simply locate a seemingly tangible receptacle to squirt out some of your DNA – which, if I read the characters of Francois, Azmir and Mon Petit Bichette right, is shown to be something any dreary degenerate, oversexed stereotype or corny pedophile can do, and does." I also went on to add that the above shouldn't be taken as the end of the interpetation because, if so, it would come over far too moralistically. And that's where one has to leave literature behind for the pornographical tradition the book stands in and which its many different artistic avatars – sculpture, architecture, guro, TV repeats of classic movies, clones – stand in for and refract. Despite the negative dimension that's given to the idea that your books titillate, I believe, like Sade, that's exactly what they do, and what's more, like Sade, that's their enduring scandal, with most people reading Sade insisting, for all intents and purposes, there's no sex there: that his repetitious, obsessive, mechanistic representations of sexual perversions are utterly unsexy. And unsurprisingly, this has become the way to rehablitate him: to speak of Sade in terms that won't get you pregnant through your hands. That response to Sade has always intrigued me because it shows, more than anything else, how little people can allow themselves to appreciate not so much the hawtness of Sade, which is not what he's about, but the obscenity of pleasure, its exposure to light of a vulnerability and powerlessness it grooves on, always. And, as anyone who gets to the end of your book will find, that conundrum is always squarely at the centre of your new book, and not as critique, but as something much more unnerving: as I said in my email, the mandatory "emotional tampering and buzz" that informs on every level "the pornographic lure of lust".
Alright, I'm off to laze about. Later dude.
Small correction because the grammer in this part is atrocious: "and lastly, the idea that the dual exhaustion of the vanguard and the gay subcultural aesthetic is indicated by the transgression of the sex-violence nexus itself, a transgression composed, at this point, of a meat bouquet of cliches of transgression that themselves trangress: this conception seems to think "the offal" of the prose – which is not a wrong word for it exactly, so long as we're not dissing it as rank and blobby thereby – is a critique, rather than a very smooth, very manipulative method of seduction. Or, in other words, is the continuation of your concerns by other means."
This comment has been removed by the author.