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p.s. Hey. ** David Ehrenstein, Hi. See: _Black_Acrylic’s answer to your question in yesterday’s comments if you haven’t. That is an obscure Robert Altman movie. ** Sypha, Yeah, I think Tool and Taylor Swift are currently battling for the #1 spot on the Billboard chart. What a world. Wow, yes, that shrine. Cool. I wonder if I still have that photo. Guess I must. The shrine no longer exists in that form, but the elements and keepsakes are still preserved in LA. I should rebuild it in Paris. Thanks, man. ** Bill, According to the current status reporting from a hurricane vs. Mar-a-Lago potentiality chart that some weirdo is doing and updating every few minutes, they are not going to have much of a meeting, tragically. Thanks about the slaves. I thought it was quite an exceptional bunch. I hope the distractions held their own vis-a-vis the obligations. ** alex rose, Alex! Hero and god, seriously! Hi, man! So sweetness filling to see you. Your blog is back?! Cool, I’ll rush over there as soon as I rush out of here. I’m good. Stuff’s pretty good. Head cold, but okay. Absolutely in agreement with you that the long hair boy is a plinth readymade. You build the plinth, I’ll kidnap him. Big love to you too! Can’t wait to see you again the next time! ** Steve Erickson, I think the hurricane starts doing whatever it’ll do to Florida tonight or something? I read that you could walk faster than it’s moving. I like the Blanck Mass album too. Very clever and growing steadily on me. If Tool had even the teeniest-weeniest sense of humor, it would make their stuff a teeny-weeny bit better. I was so saddened when The Criterion Channel announced/realised that it couldn’t be an international platform like they originally announced. Grr. ** _Black_Acrylic, Hi, Ben. Not only is Josie Heavenly obnoxious, aggressive and a racist etc., he’s also, in his comments, a whiny, wussy pity Patty. Worst slave ever? ** Armando, Hi. Well, yeah, that’s a more raisable budget, I would think. The shooting schedule is where most of the money goes, i.e. paying actors and crew and everybody to keep them around and working, or at least it did in PGL’s case. That’s why we had to shoot it in 12 days even though it needed 3 weeks and even though we managed to do it that fast. I skipped the Re:Voir event just because I was too headlong into novel work. They have screenings quite often, so I’ll go to the next one. Thanks about my novel. I just finished it yesterday, or rather an incarnation of it. Now I have to ask a trusted person to read it, and then I’ll know better whether it’s finished or almost finished or a disaster that ain’t going nowhere. It could be any of those. Fingers crossed. Norman Mailer? I only like the really early stuff: ‘The Naked and the Dead’, ‘Advertisements for Myself’, maybe ‘Of a Fire on the Moon’. You? Today: Reread my ‘finished’ novel to be sure, get my head into TV script re: editing, … You? ** Okay. I restored this old, silly post because I like it. So there. See you tomorrow.
Now available in North America 
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I’d love to do something in France!
Hey,
So today’s phrase is “in France”. Works for me.
Well, if you shot ‘PGL’ in 12 days I should be able to shoot this project in 6 days. *Maybe* even less.
*PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE* do let me know if you’re able to find out anything regarding possibly interested producers/granting/funding. Thank you so much.
Please let me know if/when the screenplay is needed. I still have to translate it into English, but that would take just a little while, this being such a short screenplay.
Well, I hope the next Re:Voir exhibit you go to is a very good one and you have a great time.
CONGRATULATIONS on finishing your Novel!!! *APPLAUSE*. *VERY BIG HUG*.
I think I know who this Trusted Person who’ll read your novel is.
Fingers crossed here for you as well! đ
Of all the things I’ve written I’ve only asked the opinion of one person with a very short story. I definitely don’t regret that at all; it really helped me realise it had a good amount of things that were utterly unnecessary/dumb/against my very intentions/whatever that I could/should just eliminate. That person is one of the most notable and popular Locals of this blog and the past one. They’re also one of the Locals with the longest seniority hanging out and commenting, by the way.
That being said I don’t think I’ll ask anyone’s opinion on anything I write again. I mean, of course I guess I’d like to keep on showing a person I trust projects I’ve written after I’ve finished them, but not anymore in search of opinions. It’s like my thinking regarding all of this is: “OK, this is it; I’ve revised and revised and edited and edited this thing for so long now. If it’s a load of shit (which is what I *ALWAYS* think anyway) there’s nothing I can do to better it. This is it.”
It’s also like I think that if I didn’t succeed completely or AT ALL (which again, is what I *ALWAYS* think anyway); that’s on me and no one else. It’s hard to explain; but to try to make it as short and as simple as possible, it’s like there’s a method to my madness regarding my “writing” and no one can read anyone else’s mind; so if maybe someone thinks something doesn’t work or is plain shit, maybe that thing does “work” for me in my mind and is there for a very specific reason and I consider that to be extremely private; something only I know and only I *should* know.
Lol, I’m so so sorry for the madman’s rambling. Do I make any sense at all??? Lol…
I see. My favorite Mailers are ‘Harlot’s Ghost’, ‘Oswald’s Tale’ and ‘The Deer Park’. In that order.
I really don’t know what I’m doing today. I really SHOULD write as much as possible; that’s for sure. I’ve also been procrastinating in regards to beginning the research process needed in order to write this more complex and much longer screenplay I’ve in mind. I’ve already all the basics; the “third act” just came to me last week, but still I really really really need to do ample, serious, maybe quite long research in a variety of subjects in order to finally be able to sit and write it down.
All the screenplays I’ve written I’ve written them only once I have them already in my mind literally from start to finish. Novels and stories are a very, very different thing/process for me; definitely.
But then again, this is screenplay is only one I’m writing for utilitarian purposes; like don’t let my brain become unable to write screenplays/keep “flexing” the screenplay “muscle”. This one’s for a movie that wouldn’t be made at all (too expensive, too non-commercial, etc, etc).
I’m so sorry for this long-ass comment where I kept going on and on and fucking on about myself. I’m sorry. You know I try to refrain from posting comments like this as much as possible.
Take good care,
Good day, good luck,
a.
Hi!!
I’m back from Amsterdam! It was an interesting (this word againâŠ!) trip – at certain points I seriously had to fight my anxiety which has been quite severe lately and I kind of got slapped in the face by a few realizations about myself and my own self-perception I could’ve made a lot sooner but somehow never have. (Sounds like a worthy weed-high, haha.) Of course, I had lots of easy fun too – I showed Anita my favorite pub (Hill Street Blues), we browsed bookstores (I got my hands on an old copy of John Rechy’s The Sexual Outlaw), I saw heartbreakingly beautiful and trashy boys and finally had the time for some satisfying conversations both with Anita and MĂĄtĂ©, my brother. It pretty much sucked to come back home but I feel calmer and more collected now than in a very long time.
I just read the p.s. under today’s post and was absolutely thrilled to learn that your novel or at the very least, the first draft or version of it might be finished! This is very exciting and inspiring! How do you usually feel about letting your work out of your own mind’s privacy for the very first time – in this case, giving it to your trusted friend for their opinion?
The work on the TV show sounds pretty challenging and honestly, quite tedious and painful too, at times. If you said “about a week” last week, I guess you’re diving back into it full-time nowadays?
Lots & lots of love, Dennis!!
I guess France is the place where things happen! Oddly enough I do not remember this old post at all…
Thanks for answering my question re: your shrine. Yeah, you should certainly rebuild it!
Glad to hear you possibly got the novel finished. Very exciting news!
Hey Dennis, I’m soooo tired. Wanna do something in France?
Yikes. Seems a lot of people wanna do something in France but have no idea what they want to do.
Well, I tell you the great thing about Labor Day this year: 3 straight nights of 8+ hours sleep. Fucking intoxicating.
I’m seeing Interpol and Morrissey Thursday night, so I’m taking off Friday. I’ll be good for nothing work-wise that day. I’m sure I won’t get home till like 1 in the morning and probably won’t get to sleep until 3.
You ever read Lanark by Alisdair Gray? I’m almost finished with it. I really like it.
Okay, at the risk of sounding like a braggart or just a really horrible person, the others in my poetry workshop were, um, not very good. Not that I was or anything, but man, hahaha, these poor guys and gals just had no idea what was what, you know? I think they took it with the aim of learning how to write fiction/poetry (the professor allowed both). I remember one guy reading my stuff and going, “Wow. I don’t even think about stuff like this.”
I do remember one guy, though, who was very good but in another workshop with the same professor. We’d run into each other and talk “shop” and all that. Never heard from him again. I’ve always wondered what happened to him. He looked like Kurt Cobain -it was the early 90s, you know- and I think he may have thought he was him.
But yes, drive. You’re right. It’s something I think a lot of writers don’t like to talk about, but it’s something every great writer has, I think.
Reading Lanark is a rite of passage for Scottish art students. My own encounter was when I first started the course here in Dundee back at the turn of the millennium. It took Alasdair Gray nearly 30 years to write that book, and it should give hope to us all.
Ha! Great post for these cranky times, Dennis.
The weekend went ok. I think helped that the most obligatory part was in the beginning, and tapered off to make room for the more distracting parts.
You probably know 9T Antiope, the Iranian duo based in Paris? I’m enjoying the new album, to be released soon:
https://soundcloud.com/eilean_rec/9t-antiope-grimace-album-preview
Alex, great to see the updates on your blog. Very nice work, as usual.
Bill
Dennis!!!!! I remember this post, not the detail, but its sentiment or something. I just wanted to say hello. How are you? Hope your filming and writing are going well. Can’t wait to read your new book, I mean, it’s been a while. I’m too busy, can’t report on anything right now. But I’m here đ Hope to see you soon. I miss you greatly. Yours.
So I guess “in France” must be a euphemism for something? They’re all enjoying themselves, so good for them.
I can picture this post as a song which repeats “in France” as a refrain after every line.
Tomorrow I’ll be watching FIGHT CLUB again and starting to write my essay about it for the Quietus. I’ve been reading critical essays on the film and watching videos analyzing it on YouTube. I suppose this is to be expected, but it’s received diametrically opposed readings: some praise from Marxists although many leftists call it fascist. It’s also been brought up ad nauseam in the social media debate about the potential negative effects of cinema on young male spectators after JOKER premiered at the Venice Film Festival. I’m not that interested in passing political judgment on it as just analyzing what it’s doing re: its depiction of the attraction between the Narrator and Tyler and the implications of the fact that this turns out to be narcissism rather than homoeroticism which could be fulfilled, but I want to connect that to the cults of personality and restrictions of sexuality among the Proud Boys, Jordan Peterson and the alt-right “no fap” movement.
Bill inspired me to check out the latest ep by 9T Antiope, whom I had never heard of, on Spotify. I like the combination of pretty female vocals, electronic drone and samples of thunder on “Blue As In Bleeding.”
If you think Tool need a sense of humor, talk with some of their more ardent fans!
Hey Dennis,
Good to see you, what a long weekend it has been. Indulged in my more hedonistic tenancies since the new school year has been going great and will continue to go great if my mindset isn’t trying to fuck me. I feel more focused than I’ve ever been in my life, maybe it’s because I can actually see the finish line. But that also means I’ll do whatever the fuck I want when my obligations are met. I won’t bore you with the details since I’m sure you’re familiar with the general gist.
Just got home from seeing Sunn (O))), what a fucking show. Closest I’ve come to a religious experience at a concert. Extremely meditative, thought of my grandpa a lot who first introduced me to Rothko. Very moving stuff.
I’m almost done with the book. Or I’m so ready to be done with the book so I can move onto other projects. It’s been a great learning experience, but I can’t wait to put it past me. I’m actually extremely grateful for energy it’s seem to have instilled in me. This has been by and large my most productive summer, and I’ll keep this momentum going any way I can. When I’m “done” with it do you think I could send you the manuscript? I’d love to get your thoughts or whatever.
News: New issue of SCAB coming out soon, very excited. Getting a few poems published at Back Patio Press, but not till later this month. And I’m waiting on the boys from New York Tyrant to get back to me on a piece I sent them. Beyond that it’s mostly school and vitamins. How are you doing? Read here you’re pretty much done with your novel. Can’t wait to get my eyes on it, obviously.
Have a great rest of your week.