1.
Randomly organized stack of me-related stuff (top to bottom): (1) me reading ‘Dear Todd’ on the Poetry Spots TV series in the early ’90s. (2) Trailer for Gisele Vienne’s film of ‘Jerk’ (3) me interviewed for Hilda Magazine about ‘Little Caesar Magazine’. (3) promo video for ‘Them’. (4) me reading ‘Container’ at the New Museum. (5) Trailer for Zac Farley’s and my film Permanent Green Light. (6) Harper Perennial’s trailer for Ugly Man. (7) ‘Dennis Cooper and friends, San Francisco 11-16-11’ by Michael Karo. (8) My sequence from The United States of Poetry series on PBS. (9) Traduire Dennis Cooper. (10) me talking about Ugly Man on Olive TV. (11) Trailer for Zac Farley’s and my film Like Cattle Towards Glow site. (12) Excerpts from ‘Jerk’, the theater work. (13) Japanese promo video for ‘This Is How You Will Disappear’. (14) Frank Jaffe reading works of mine. (15) Promo video for ‘Read Into My Black Holes’. (16) me reading my stuff at the Soft Targets Magazine launch event. (17) ‘Frisk (An Adapted Scene)’ by danielisuploading. (18) Brief excerpt from ‘Kindertotenlieder’. (19) Me and Ryan Trecartin: Artists on Writers | Writers on Artists (20) Video about ‘Last Spring: A Prequel’ at the Whitney Biennial. (21) Trailer for Dan Faltz’s Weak Species. (22) Me reading ‘Face Eraser’ at the Poetry Project. (23) Trailer for Everett Lewis’ film Luster feat. poetry by me. (24) Trailer for David White’s Oliver Twink. (25) Excerpt from David Bobee’s Dedans dehors David. (26) Trailer for Christophe Honore’s Homme au bain. (27) me reading ‘Dear Secret Diary,’ at the New Museum. (28) Fear of Poetry – Dennis Cooper From Tiger Beat to Eileen Myles
2.
Randomly organized stack of old musical things that make me happy today: (1) Cheap Trick ‘He’s a Whore’ live. (2) Wire ‘Mr. Marx’s Table’ live. (3) Superchunk ‘Slack Motherfucker’ live. (4) Drive Like Jehu ‘Here Come the Rome Plows’. (5) The Melvins ‘Joan of Arc’ live. (6) The Contortions ‘Flip Your Face’. (7) Pinback ‘Talby’ live. (8) Sebadoh ‘Got It’. (9) Robert Pollard ‘Subspace Biographies’ live. (10) Captain Beefheart & the Magic Band ‘Big Eyed Beans from Venus’. (11) Iceage ‘You’re Blessed’ live. (12) Fugazi ‘Rend It’ live. (13) Spirit ‘Aren’t You Glad’. (14) Guided by Voices ‘Little Whirl’. (15) New Pornographers ‘Letter from an Occupant’. (16) Wall of Voodoo ‘Factory’ live. (17) Love ‘August’ live. (18) Chic “My Feet Keep Dancing’. (19) Tricky ‘Diss Never’ live. (20) Pavement ‘Grounded’ live. (21) The Quick ‘Teacher’s Pet’. (22) Destroyer ‘Tintoretto, It’s For You’. (23) Sparks ‘My Baby’s Taking Me Home’ live. (24) Death Grips ‘Get Got’. (25) Glenn Branca ‘The Spectacular Commodity’. (26) Eno ‘The True Wheel’. (27) ABBA ‘Elaine’. (28) Dwight Twilley Band ‘Looking for the Magic’. (29) Pink Floyd ‘Corporal Clegg’. (30) Tobin Sprout ‘The Last Man Well Known to Kingpin’. (31) Cheap Trick ‘Auf Wiedersehen’ live.
3.
Randomly organized stack of miscellaneous things that create happiness: (1) How to make cold sesame noodle. (2) Pierre Clementi in Partner. (3) The scary sheep. (4) Charles Ray ‘Ink Line’. (5) Greg The Hammer Valentine wishes Dennis Happy Birthday. (6) Vincent Kartheiser montage. (7) Robert Bresson Le Diable Probablement excerpt. (8) Pacific Ocean Park. (9) Bill Murray in Kingpin. (10) Fujiko Nakaya ‘Cloud Parking’. (11) Eric Rohmer Perceval le Gallois excerpt. (12) Sunrise in Los Feliz. (13) Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride. (14) How to make a liberty spike Mohawk. (15) Matthew Barry in La Luna. (16) Helen Adam ‘Fearless Junkie Song’. (17) Peter O’Toole’s scream in The Ruling Class. (18) Pierre Guyotat. (19) Snowing in Paris. (20) Michel & Sven ‘Der Tischdeckentrick’. (21) (nostalgia) by Hollis Frampton. (22) The Clearest Ghost EVP’s Ever Recorded. (23) Eddo Stern ‘Emoticon’. (24) Jacques Tati Mon Oncle excerpt. (25) Samu l’Italiano (26) Frightening Scary Zombie Chinese Knock Off ‘It’s a Small World’ Dark Ride (27) Smack Nightclub, Leamington Spa 2010 – LED Room (28) Terrence Malick The Thin Red Line excerpt. (29) Ryan Trecartin’s ‘Temple Time’ (2016). (30) Redrum vsTornado Mer. (31) Orson Welles The Magnificent Ambersons excerpt.
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p.s. Hey. ** Larst, Hi, L. Nice: that label. I feel like people have been talking about ‘Gris Gris’ a lot more recently, and I guess that’s why. ** Dominik, Hi!!! I used to collect records, so maybe that’s why the post’s idea made me warm. It’s really terrible in LA. I know a lot of people, mostly artists, who live in Altadena, and the city is basically completely wiped out, so I think they all must have lost their homes, and it’s really horrifying to imagine. Hole, nice. And based on a quick search, it seems yesterday’s love came via a band called Deap Lips? True? Oh, wait, I just saw that Deap Lips is The Flaming Lips under an alternate moniker! Never mind. Solved. What is this feeling called love? What is this crazy scene I can’t work out no how?, G. ** James, Right? You would need to have a very clean nose and good lungs to take full advantage of a spinning coke plate. I love ‘Moonrise Kingdom’ too. I think it’s my favorite Wes Anderson. Well, I just hope your Pink Floyd album pre-dates ‘DSotM’ for your sake. I’m sorry to hear about your semi-colon addiction. I think you should go to rehab. Haha. Your parents are trying to mind-trip you into being in denial. I think I’m nice, but I am very capable of fucking up, unintentionally for the most part though. ‘Astute self-awareness is so incredibly unarousing’: except that astutely self-aware porn stars can exude sexiness inordinately if you like the idea of bringing that sort of overconfident type down a notch. Don’t you have that option they do in the States where the university can in some cases pay for a student’s education if they think you’re worthy but financially unqualified? I haven’t read your story due to an overabundance of life activities yesterday, but I remain highly excited to, and it is the weekend. You’re welcome, and so am I. Countdown to Saturday. Keep your chin up. ** kier, Hi. Oh, it’s really bad, the fires. I’ve never seen anything like it. It’s huge. Where I live remains safe at least at the current time. No, I don’t have a record player. I do in LA, but that doesn’t do me any good. I’m keeping in mind that lots of snow has its downside. It’s been so long since Paris got snow that it’s easy to be all Pollyanna about it. I need a long term visa to stay in France. The US just changed its policy re: US people visiting the EU. They’ll need visas to come here starting in May, so I can’t live here like I have been anymore. Thursday was okay. I had coffee with someone from the blog, and that was good, and the rest was mostly figuring out the visa stuff. Insane amount of luck getting through the final show-installing stretch. Big up from newly older me. ** Lucas, Hi. I don’t have a record player or a CD player. I’m a slave to mp3s. Uh, I think I decided that Genet’s stuff was overly self-indulgent and his lush prose was too much like perfume or something. I don’t feel that way anymore, no. Don’t question your capabilities. That’s your brain lying to you. Or probably mostly your emotions lying to you, I guess. ** _Black_Acrylic, I believe I knew you like vinyl, yes. Psst, some of those ‘LPs’ in the post were actually 12″s, but tell anyone, okay? I don’t know Mort Garson. I like Sacred Bones though, so … ** Steeqhen, Hi, S! It was very lovely for me to meet and spend time with you too! I totally bailed on buying records when CDs came in, and now nobody seems to have any respect for the CD, but if CDs are coming back into style, that’s excellent news for my voluminous CD collection. Thanks for alerting me to Cian’s kindness. How was the rest of your yesterday, and, well, today too? ** jay, Hi. I’m okay, just worried about LA friends who are too busy scrambling around and so on to be bothered with a check-in call yet. I like CDs too, but they don’t make for such interesting gifs, unfortunately. Audrey was dressed in her schoolgirl outfit, but it was quite cold, so most of that was covered up by a large, heavy coat. But I could see it under there. Great, another ‘Autoportrait’ fan. It might be one of those books where you can almost judge a person by whether they get/like it or not. Maybe. Maybe not. That anime sounds pretty good. Hm. Thanks, buddy. I hope your Friday is like a discotheque without the fascist groove thing. ** Derek white, Derek white! It’s very awesome to see you here. I’m a serious fan of your work, as I think you might know. I’m in Paris, so the fires are distant, but a lot of my friends are in hell or approximate to it. Yes, about sasha hawkins! My current email is [email protected]. You could send me a pdf or something if you want. Thanks a lot for, well, everything. It’s really a pleasure to meet you. Have a happy my birthday. ** Justin D, Thank you! For the sentiment and for the two-part entertainment. Haha, ChatGPT writes like the robot it is. Actually, it sounds uncannily like the birthday text my sister just sent me. Oops. Anyway, thank you, pal. Do something inordinately fun today. I order you to. I’m the birthday boy so I have that temporary power. ** Misanthrope, Yeah, I understand. Old friends are of high value. Just, yeah, keep your eyes open and your instincts attuned. Maybe that’s just how she manifests her insecurities, but that doesn’t make it okay. Aw, thanks bro. Ditto re: you and your younger gifts. ** Steve, Hi. Wow, I hope this place really is starting to thaw out. There are signs. I’m in touch with some LA friends, yes, and I’m relying on second hand info mostly because I don’t want to add to seemingly affected friends’ no doubt onslaught of worried queries. I don’t know, some artists work very hard to sound dated, and considerable numbers seem to find that cool. ** Måns BT, Bonjour via megaphone, Måns! Thank you about the blog, my friend. Well, you sound like you’re fully back to your old self, or, if the plastic bag’s liquid changed you, it seems to be a minor change. If you see that girl again, please tell her thank you from Zac and me. We loved that event. Evangelion rebuilds … no, I haven’t. Hm, okay, tempting. I’m okay. Creative and fun, not so much, mostly just business-y stuff with the film and a visa I need to get. But I think creative stuff will be back to encroaching on my being starting as soon as later today? Are you feeling creatively up to speed? xo from you-know-who: me. ** Dan Carroll, Hi, Dan. I don’t have any kind of player right now, just my laptop, It kind of sucks. But I was most into CDs until I got deprived of physical manifestations of music. So, I get you. Nice: that new and large and helpful material. Not to mention painting outside on a porch. It’s too cold here stand very still outdoors at the moment. Even just opening a window to smoke a cigarette is kind of perilous. ** HaRpEr, Oh, thanks. Yeah, that fated and ultimately mildly dreadful annual day of the year has arrived. Quin is great. Really quite great. Lots of her books. No, I can see why one Pym felt like enough. Unlike Quin, say, Pym’s books are kind of many slight variations on the same basic thing. Wise thoughts on the values of way back when writing-wise in the UK. I feel like the interest in that period or work is on the rise, but that may be mostly the case outside the UK amongst those of us who aren’t associating that period with real world contextual stuff out of ignorance. What a funny rule: no ‘bamboozling’. Thoughts on how to ace that? The problem is the vagueness of the that, no? Weird. I was a big record collector, especially during the early punk era. I really should sell that stuff or something, I guess. I have, like, every slight variation on every 45 released by most of the late 70s bands. ** Dev, Thank you, Dev. Apparently something did eat your first comment. I wonder if it exists in some structural outlying dimension of the blog. I’m sorry about your bug, but happy you are bug-free. Efteling is dreamy. Still no concrete plan, maybe in the next couple of weeks, I’m guessing. Yeah, Efteling aka Holland is, mm, four hours drive from here. Crazy, right? It’s not much more of a hassle than driving from one part of LA to another. No, I have nothing to play physical media here in Paris. I don’t even have a DVD player. I only have a Switch, but I download my games there too. I think about changing that, but I also think about how I’ll then want to buy a bunch of CDs and LPs, and then about where in the world I would put them, and that stops me. Thanks, yes, the fires, really unbelievable. Have a great, great day and weekend too! ** Cletus, Good, I’ll be hitting you up for tips. Apparently the game has a lot of very challenging puzzles in it. The postcards in ‘Shame’ are addressed to Wolfe himself, aren’t they? Mine are. Maybe I got a special addition or something. ** Uday, Wonderful theory about CDs there. Wanting to be a baby, wear diapers, have your diapers changed, plushies, drinking baby formula from a bottle, etc. is so big right now on the master/slave sites, and it’s getting bigger and bigger. It’s almost bigger than guys wanting to lick other guys’ feet, and feet licking is massive. Weird days. But of course all power to the baby guys and to each one’s own. Hm, I don’t think anything has to limit you, no. My friend Zac is close with his parents, and he’s barreling along. No, I think keeping long term people close while chasing new people is possibly ideal? I don’t know. Very scary in LA. Luck to your grandma’s family. ** Bill, Hi, B. My apartment is not currently in danger, but I live at the foot of Griffith Park, so anything is possible. I have a number of friends whose houses burned down. Most of them artists. Paul McCarthy’s house burned down and he lost everything, decades of his art and art people gave him, and everything else. It’s really just terrible. Huh, yeah, Lucia Berlin, I can see that. Probably an influence on her, I would guess. I hope you’re doing way alright in SF. ** Okay. So, it’s my birthday, and I seem to have decided to mark the occasion by doing something I’m generally sort of allergic to doing, that is orienting the blog around my own stuff. And that’s what I did. And there you go. May my birthday bring you luck. See you tomorrow.
Now available in North America 
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Happy Birthday Dennis!
Hope you have a cool day x
Happy birthday to you, dear Dennis!!
What an excellent compilation of your stuff!
I hope you have some fun today and eat some extra nice cake or dessert.
I’ll play some GBV in your honor.
The fires in LA are heartbreaking, man. I hope all your friends are safe.
Much love from Xet and me.
Happy birthday, wonderful Dennis! Hope you have as good a day as you possibly can and thanks for this cornucopia of you-stuff, I love it.
How are you? I’ve been unable to comment of late, but still enjoying the blog on a daily basis. I’m so so glad to hear that Room Temperature will be with us at some point (fairly?) soon.
Fingers crossed this reaches you.
Lots and lots of love to you,
Jamie
Hey Dennis,
Happy birthday!(?) I have no idea how I didn’t connect in my mind the LA fires and you, so sorry I didn’t ask about how you were doing in regards to that.
The rest of my day was nice, I wandered around Montmatre for 2 hours, just just going where my mind would take me… which left me walking down a street of sex shops and cinemas right down to Moulin Rouge! Idk what that was saying about my mind, but what I was thinking is ‘how many sex shops do you need on one street??’. It’s something I noticed a lot actually, that some streets just have 10 of the same shops, like this one that was exclusively guitar shops.
Today I went to Pere Lechaise and it was gorgeous. Honestly, if I was to move here, that cemetery would be where I go for walks when I’m homesick for the woods and that I wander through when I’m bored back in Ireland. Later on I’m meeting some French friends, and then hopefully one of my friends who just moved here from Cork will be around. I’m hoping I can drag everyone to some Irish pub.
Thanks again for yesterday, hopefully today will be good whether you go out or just rest at home.
Hi!!
Happy, happy birthday, Dennis!! I hope your day is perfect – whatever your definition of that word might be. Any special plans?
I’m saving this post to my all-time favorites folder right away. I can’t wait to finish everything for the day and give it my full attention! Thank you so much!
I can’t even begin to imagine how horrible it must be to lose one’s home like that. My heart goes out to everyone affected by the fires, including your friends. It’s hard to find the right words, really.
I’m gonna have to break love’s lovely pattern for just a day: Love reopening the Paris Hard Rock Cafe, Od.
Dennis, Happy Birthday, Big D! Celebrate all weekend.
Thanks for that. So much appreciated.
I have to go into the office Monday, so this weekend will be a little truncated for me. But I’ll still try and have fun and get some stuff done.
My friend Nero told me to wish you a happy birthday too! She read ‘The Sluts’ recently and loved it. I’m probably hanging out with her later today too. Good luck with the visa process. I remember you telling me about it the first time we hung out, sucks that you have to do it now, but at least you’re not dealing with German bureaucracy. Are the French any worse? I can’t imagine it being possible. On a related note, started reading ‘The Trial’ by Kafka yesterday. I’m liking it, surprisingly. I always told myself I wouldn’t like Kafka because everyone I know loves him, but I guess they’re all just right. But I still don’t love ‘The Metamorphosis’ as much as everyone apparently does. Oh well oh well. Have a nice day and nice weekend, xo.
Happy birthday!!!!! Lol you’re right about the postcards I think. I just didn’t see that. Anyway cool post today. My life has become much more artistically and creatively full since reading the blog regularly. Glad you’re alive dude.
Hey hey, Dennis,
Happy birthday!! Hope you had a good day!
Awesome post… I remember taking Ant to see “This is How You Will Disappear” when it was on at Sadler’s Wells a few years back… he loved it. I’ve booked to see a few performances there this year, they’ve got some interesting things on this year.
How was your xmas/new year? I was out of London in the wilds of Sussex with the Southern branch of my family. Was fun, jolly. Calm. I’ll spare the negative details of the other branch, but suffice to say, my cat-on-loan was put down and I was only informed as an afterthought weeks after the event.
All is good and busy here, as always.
bisous et câlins
Dom
Happy Birthday Dennis! And a second apology for the timing of yesterday’s email… Thanks for all this great stuff, especially interviews and readings. Really enjoyed the music too. Wall of Voodoo were a great band. Hope you had a nice day of treats, and at least some distraction from the catastrophe in LA. J x
Happy birthday Dennis! I went to see Jerk at the Traverse Theatre in Edinburgh back in 2011 and reviewed the performance for the Skinny, back when I was styling myself as some kind of cultural critic. Feels like a lifetime ago but the play itself is eternal.
D-
Happiest Birthday! I hope everyone and everything you love in LA has been safe so far and remains that way.
Much love,
Larst
Happy birthday!!
Dennis, Dennis, Dennis! Wishing you the best day. Love, Derek
Happy birthday from here too and all the best coming to you!
Loved many of these, love this Pinback – Talby live, this is one of my favourite ever songs and they did it amazing live, Love Rend it – Fugazi I play this song every single year on my birthday so I relate
Locked in a body in love with the process of…
Loved many of the third chapter videos like Sunrise on Los Feliz, Rohmer and Bresson excerpts
Love vibes from Crete
DC, I’m sorry for dropping off the face of the planet last year. My uncle’s random suicide at 70 took me out, along with having to emotionally nurture my cousin’s who were in such a state of devastation and trauma. It was a rocky year but I hope to ‘return to myself’ in new ways. How’s everything going with you and Zac’s film? Still knee deep in the editing process, hope you aren’t getting fucked over by producers or investors or whatever. I saw Gummo for the first time yesterday. I don’t know man. I’m more interested in how those pieces of work are fetishized and idolized, and how it influences the way artists create and what the ‘disturbing teen movie’ lit/genre means. Anyways sending you the most love in 2025. Fuck these fires, I’m far from them but dear close loved ones have lost their homes and their family members have too. What an absurd planet.
Oh and of course, HAPPY BIRTHDAY!! That got cut off in the last message. Wishing you a beautiful and incredible day.
Happy birthday Dennis. What a treasure trove of projects. I found the full Oliver Twink on dailymotion, but it’s giving me a lot of trouble for some reason. Will try again later. Apparently there’s also a gay porn movie called Oliver Twink, ha.
I’m doing ok here, mostly recovering from all the traveling. The new music calendar has ramped up earlier than usual this year, already too many events to choose from this weekend.
[I was last yesterday, let’s see if I can pull that off again]
Bill
Happy birthday! Hope you’re having/had/will have a great day. 72 is a nice number – lots of mysticism around it. It has 12 divisors (1×72, 2×36, 3×24, 4×18, 6×12, 8×9), and is divisible by 12 – so, meaningful to some. Happy birthday from my friends too, lots of love coming your way. See ya!
Happy birthday, Dennis! Do you feel older and wiser yet? Hope you get gifts and cake, a hat, streamers, etc. Here’s to more bdays.
A while ago I stumbled on that vid of you reading Dear Todd. I was up late so half-asleep, it was an odd dream-feeling moment. Mind explaining that first GIF choice, with the stick man and gun?
How do you feel about reading your own work aloud? I prefer reading silently, my mouth gets so dry when I talk.
I only know the two Fugazi songs everyone knows (Waiting Room, I’m So Tired). Pavement I like. Death Grips – their first mixtape is their best work, Exmilitary, that’s my favourite. MC Ride amuses me and my brother and friends I have shown Death Grips too. Eno – yay! ABBA – politely suppressed groan.
Guyotat mention! I’ve read basically none of him. I remember going to great lengths to try and find .epubs of Eden and Tomb. The words Oliver Twink have been on my mind intermittently today.
Lavishing my attention on the blog today has been a bit trickier – had to use my phone’s sluggish data connection, while I type on my laptop. I’m in a friend’s bedroom at the moment – he saw me on the blog, and I tried to explain, but nothing clicked. It’s okay, straight guys are like this.
My nose isn’t super clean, probably, what with being filled with mucus and bleeding most of the time. I think my lungs are okay? I don’t smoke, or anything, but just secondhand in this town is probably bad enough to do some damage.
Moonrise is super cute, the intro is my fav bit. I’m just a sucker for any Wes Anderson – my favourite probably has to be Fantastic Mr. Fox, because I grew up on that film, as I grew up on Roald Dahl. It’s a film very close to my heart. There’s a scene in a dark bedroom with a train set and lights – and that’s just, totally engraved into my brain. I’ve seen the French Dispatch several times. And Budapest Hotel. There’s not a film by him I dislike. Yet.
The Pink Floyd album *is* DSOTM, which is an album I like, but think is overrated. The Syd Barrett stuff I confess to not being so big on. If I’m to listen to proggier stuff, you’ll have better luck with King Crimson. Interstellar Overdrive is a great riff, though, the pater wanted me to learn that. So I have. Pink Floyd are good, but I’m not crazy about them.
I’m so straight-edge that semicolons are probably the *only* thing I would need to go to rehab for. Could be worse, at least I don’t get my high from interrobangs, or whatever.
Are they? What do they want me to be in denial of?
My parents want me to think they’re right in everything, I imagine. I’m confused by how much they want kids on their side. If I were a parent I’d want my kid to piss off.
We (humanity) are all capable of fuck ups. Sometimes fuckups are happy accidents, though, to steal Bob Ross’ words, and they’re cool. And sometimes what you think is a fuck-up is in reality, not too big of a fuck-up. Sometimes it’s not a fuckup at all. Ignore my inconsistent hyphens.
Good point, sure there’s something hot about using sex to bring someone down a(ny) notch(es). I just meant that watching porn often makes *me* feel very self-aware, and that rather ruins the mood.
What fascinates me is the idea of porn in theatres/cinema, whatever. That people used to (still do?) go to public spaces and watch(ed) porn with other people the audience. I wonder what that would’ve been like.
Scholarships/bursaries/whatever might be something I could possibly look into. Student finances is possibly the worst level of understanding I have with uni stuff. And accommodation confuses me, but I’m sure I’ll work things out. Or struggle. I don’t know if I’m good enough for any kind of grant, or what have you.
Life activities come before reading my story, duh. Like life activities come before reading the blog. Most of the time, save for like, weekends. I sure hope your high excitement isn’t disappointed, eek ;-;
The weekend! Yay! Today was nice enough – I’m starving (running off one kitkat, two chocolate digestives, and tapwater) and tired (6hrs of sleep, or so?) – but class was fun. My new English teacher continues to be a really great guy. Class went well, we had a chat at lunch, we’ve made each other laugh, it’s great. I’ve clicked with him the way I clicked with my other English teacher from 1st year – who I bumped into today, so I had a chat with *him,* too, and I had a chat with my *friend* on the way to *another friend’s* house – the one I’m in right now – turns out, he’s bisexual. Crazy.
Hello, adding this having gone on like a 5hr walk with my friend(s). It was dark, cold, we ate unhealthy food, we stopped by a friend and his cat was adorable but scratched my left hand (drew blood!), we crunched over ice, we sang and danced, I’ve had a great time. My friend is unemployed now so Friday walks are back on!!!
Thanks, I’ll try to keep my chin up. You too!
Again – wildfires suck, but I hope you can enjoy your birthday D-Dawg. Have a good, great, amazing, fantastic, incredible one!!!!!
you should definitely read guyotat! should I send you a pdf of those books in my next email? if not they’re pretty easily available on ‘anna’s archive.’
btw, btw james, sorry again for not getting back to you as quickly time either — mostly only stared at my phone or at my wall this week, will try to find time to write to you tomorrow.
Hey Dennis! Happy birthday, I know you’ve probably heard that a trillion times today, but I thought I may as well say so regardless haha. Hope your birthday goes well, I also sent something to the email wrt the book, no rush on responding though.
I hope everyone you know in LA is managing okay with the crazy fires going on, devastating to see.
Happy Birthday Dennis! Trans-oceanic love hurtling through space from me to you
Dennis,
It’s been a while! Happy birthday to you. Wishing you a lovely day with your favorite things to do.
I have been thinking about you and LA this week. Heartbreaking news… Warm wishes and thoughts to you, community, and nature in your beautiful hometown.
h (now j) from Seoul at the moment
I hope you enjoyed your birthday. How were the cold sesame noodles and Hard Rock Cafe nachos? Did you get any rare Guided By Voices vinyl as a gift?
Hey, Dennis! Today’s post is a veritable gold mine, so thank you for being self-indulgent. Lots of stuff I’ve never seen/heard. And a recipe for sesame noodles—I’ll definitely try that out soon. Some really annoying/trivial things kept happening today, so even under your temporarily-ordained powers to do something fun, I failed miserably. I was hoping to at least make it to my favorite bakery to get a slice of carrot cake. Maybe tomorrow. Did you eat anything special? How was the festival? I might watch ‘Flow’ in a bit—maybe that will be a highlight of my otherwise throwaway day. I hope your birthday was dreamy.
Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you, happy birthday dear Dennis etc.
The old songs are the best songs.
Me? Oh, I’ve been traveling quite a bit, looking after family a bit, writing, got poems out and coming out, that’s all very good. I didn’t even tell you I made it to the Poetry Project event for the publication of Joe Brainard’s letters, and that was a very very good time. We are heading to Mexico City next week, got to get out of DC for the most demoralizing inauguration week of my lifetime, first visit, expect to fall in love with it and want to go back over and over.
The news from LA is horrifying and compounding that is the fact that news media and social media are now entirely incapable of representing human beings and their pain and suffering as reality, because Americans are now brainwashed into believing that bad things don’t actually happen and that we’re not actually at the end point of this way of life, reaping its consequences. (See? Even I feel a little loony saying it, because we are somehow not supposed to really see that the cities are either burning or drowning, and we are hanging on till the next plague, and we’re sleepwalking toward fascism.)
But you — you I wish happiness. I haven’t been following things on the blog as well as I might–are the new visa requirements going to mean you will have to run back and forth between France and the US? Or find another country? I’d like to see you in Paris, you know. I hope in the fall. (The ambience in the Récollets was quite different last time I was there, and staying didn’t seem quite as much like a sure thing, but we’ll see.(
Weird thing happened: I discovered quite by accident that someone had devoted most of a chapter in a book on autobiography and irony to my story in a Raymond Pettibon catalog; the book just arrived today and this will be a strange experience.
My favorite movie recently was Guy Maddin and Evan and Galen Johnson’s Rumours. I was the only person in the theater when I saw it.
TCM is doing Friday nights in January on dream films and I am sick that they didn’t call me, especially because RIGHT NOW AS I WRITE THIS they’re showing The 5000 Fingers of Dr T and I’m kind of a big expert on that film. (I am, though, doing a talk on Winsor McCay’s Dream of the Rarebit Fiend in June.)
I gotta get out more.
HB <3
Happy birthday!! Enjoy your EDM concert. Today’s post almost crashed my laptop because of the size of the embedded videos. I think I started on here exactly a year ago with Mandelbaum day. That’s cool. Also love the Elaine shoutout. Will have to delay the rest of today’s comment to later because I think keeping this open any longer will actually kill my laptop.
Happy birthday, Dennis! It’s still your birthday in the mountains. Yeah, this post is delightful. And decadent. Like a chocolate truffle with ganache and some surprisingly tolerable (nay pleasant!) fruit filling. Hope you had something nice, if you like that sort of thing.
Hope to catch up or otherwise engage more soon.