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p.s. Hey. Today on DC’s the writer, musician, multi-stripe talent, and d.l. Jamie has built a beautiful pole for you. Please let your eyes slide down and up it and see what happens. You’ll be very glad. And of course please be the lovely, attentive people you are by shedding some related words to Jamie himself in your comments today. Thanks. And even meatier thanks to you, Jamie. ** Keathnaos, Hi. Your KK-related reverie is much appreciated. Well, that’s obviously nothing but sunny side up that you’re loving Athens. What did I know? And I was young(er) and full of mettle. Continue that! ** Steve Erickson, Hi. Happy and interested to hear you like ‘Zama’ a lot. It’s the film I’m most dying to see. I love Martel’s work. The sales agency that is handling ‘PGL’s’ international sales and distribution hunting is doing the same for ‘Zama’, and they keep promising to link me up with the screener and still haven’t. Luckily, ARTE is absolutely nothing like HBO, as far as I can tell. They’ve only done this three-episode series deal twice before, and one of the two series was Bruno Dumont’s ‘P’tit Quinquin’, so, in theory, they’re pretty into the adventurous. We’ve met with the people who will be supervising and editing the script with us, and they seem smart and open and cool. ** David Ehrenstein, R.I.P. Stephane Audran indeed. Very sad news that. TV over here is full of tributes. They know a big loss from a loss over here. ** Dóra Grőber, Hi! Glad you liked it. Kinkel is a very fascinating and unique teen school shooter. One of the very hardest to figure out, internally complicated, hard to pin down. My back is very slightly better today. It had better start speeding up its improving though because I have an 11 hour flight on Saturday, and sitting for extended periods is the worst thing I can do to it. Yes, it is exciting about the TV project. Hopefully ARTE will like what we’ve written and won’t want us to normalise it. It’s hard to tell what they’re expecting it to be, but they know Gisele’s work, and mine too presumably, so we’re assuming they don’t expect a sitcom or police show or something. The only good thing about the tag ‘true crime’ is that I immediately know what you mean when you use it. But fuck about your fainting internet. Why does that happen? Can that not be actually and fully fixed? Yesterday I had that meeting with Zac and Gisele. She’d gone ahead and read all three episodes, so we ended up talking about and working on all of them, so that was good. Now we’re making changes, and we’ll have one last meeting tomorrow, and then the whole series script should be finished and ready to turn in on Friday at long last. Otherwise, I tried not to bother my back too much. I found out that Interview Magazine is going to run a piece on ‘Permanent Green Light’, I’m not sure when, but that will be very helpful. That was pretty much my day. How was yours? Is your internet back up to speed for one thing? ** Bernard, Hi, B. Ha ha. The dummy in the series is kind of scary, but more like, oh, Hervé Villechaize or Red Skelton are scary. At the moment I think there are about 28 seconds of classic uncanniness in the show. Not bad considering the whole thing will be 150 minutes +_/-. That is hard to imagine, yes. Asheville, nice. No France, not nice but understandable. Jonathan Williams! What are you reviewing? There’s some new or reprinted book of his or one about him or something, isn’t there? Great to know people are interested in paying attention to him again. He was in Little Caesar at least once. Is Thomas Meyer still around? I’ll devour your Medium thing. Everyone, the eminent Bernard Welt has written something on Medium that you can and obviously should read, and it’s called ‘AT HOME WITH THE SANTORUMS’, and, not having read it yet, I’m taking a wild guess that one of the Santorums is Rick? Go there. ** Wolf, Ah-oooo! The ARTE thing will be contracted up and signed tomorrow barring yet another hold up. We’re supposed to get the first installment of our payment upon signing, so that had better be the case. Second installment is on delivery. And then the rest comes incrementally. Um, the problems and delays with the payment are not typical, I don’t think, but it would take me paragraphs to explain why that process has been so maddening. Well, you can order the American Lynne Tillman book through Amazon or wherever, no? Damn that we’ll both be Stateside and yet so many thousands of miles apart. You should bump into Lynne if you can. Say you’re my pal. She’s my old pal. She’s great. You guys will like each other. ** _Black_Acrylic, Thanks, Ben! We’re trying to convince ARTE to shoot the series in English with French/German subtitles both because we’re writing it in English and because that would create a better possibility of it being shown in the UK and US. And also because our lead actress is German and speaks perfect English but would need to quickly learn French to do the part. They’re not against the idea, but it would be unusual, and my guess is it’ll probably have to be shot in French. ** Jesse, Hi, Jesse! Welcome! I’m excited to hear your track. I’ll get over there as soon as I finish this. Everyone, visitor Jesse has a music project called Liebestod who has a track called ‘The Most Important Thing In The World’ that is an edit of Kip Kinkel’s confession, scored. Keep the Kinkel fires burning and go listen to it. Thanks a lot for turning us on to that. You’ll be at the Art Center thing? Cool. Take care. ** JM, Hi. So is that McElroy book actually in the pipe, or in the launching area of the pipe? Sounds like your chlorinated water tome is going to be well worth the hype my imagination is spinning around it. ** Okay. Please luxuriate visually in Jamie’s creation until further notice, thank you. See you tomorrow.
Now available in North America 
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Beautiful work Jamie. Streetlights make me think of tis song Perfectly executed by Marlene Dietrich
This is really stunning, Jamie. I’d love to see the moving images edited together into a short film. The combination of textures and colors is breathtaking.
ZAMA got its NYC premiere during last year’s New York Film Festival. It was the film I most wanted to see from the fest, but of course circumstances conspired to make it impossible for me to attend either the press or public screenings. Then Strand Releasing acquired it during the festival, so thankfully it’s getting a New York theatrical run.
I’m interviewing director Jed Rothstein, who made a documentary about corrupt stockbrokers called THE CHINA HUSTLE, at 1 PM today, and then seeing Hong Sang-soo’s CLAIRE’S CAMERA this evening. Probably half of Hong’s films have gotten theatrical runs in New York, but all of them have closed quickly in NYC till now. CLAIRE’S CAMERA is the first to look like anything close to a hit, probably because it’s set in France and stars Isabelle Huppert (although his film NIGHT AND DAY was about a Korean man living in Paris and IN ANOTHER COUNTRY starred Huppert in Korea, and nobody cared about either film in the U.S.)
@ Jamie, this is a thing of great beauty and I am very much in awe of your skills. Kudos!
These are exciting times for Yuck ‘n Yum as today Alex took delivery of the YNY compendium proofs and I must say, we’ve got pretty much exactly what we were after! This is a pic of the cover and this is a film of Alex flicking through the 500+ pages. I’ll be back in Dundee tomorrow, where I can see it for myself.
@ Dennis, I sent you this as a PDF yesterday if you have any time to contribute a foreword? The actual thing could get to you by courier if that’s possible, although it’s cutting it a bit fine by now I know.
I’m pretty sure the McElroy-non-fiction-water-book has been in the very real pipeline for about a decade now, and should be close to being ready? Unless my information is generally misinformed.
Jamie, that was a blinding good show! With a gif from A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night, too!! Such a great movie. Have you seen that eerie photographic of series of winter streetlights in Iceland? Might be right up your, uh, street.
Dennis De-light! Oh man, I have to stop my terrible punning. I’m turning into my dad. It happens to us all, no?
Ha, I’m not ordering the Tillman from Amazon, fuck no. One, I only ever order a book from Amazon if I absolutely cannot find it anywhere and my local awesome bookshop could get it for me in import if I asked nicely (I’d pay double the Amazon price but conscience does not come cheap). But two, I will do even better, and buy it in the US! What bookshop do you recommend I visit in NY? I can’t get over the closure of St Mark’s.
I hope you got paid today and celebrated by buying an outreageously-priced-but-worth-it designer Oeuf De Pâque! Fancy Parisian chocolate is not just for Xmas, man!
Hi!
@ Jamie! Fascinating! Amazing atmosphere! Thank you!
Agreed. What always stands out to me about him (especially based on his confession and his public journal pages) is the almost complete lack of that violent kind of anger most other school shooters express, one way or another. He talked about hatred and mentioned some violent fantasies, yes, but mostly, he sounded – at least to me – extremely confused and desperate.
Eh, shit, I really-really hope your back decides to be in its very best form by Saturday! How are you today?
I just smiled so hard – I imagined what a police show would look like if you and Zac and Gisele put it together. But jokes aside, I don’t think ARTE expects something ordinary. It wouldn’t make much sense. Gosh, now I’m not only excited about ‘PGL’ but your series too!
We’ve run TONS of rounds with our fucking internet connection and it really sucks because ours is literally the only available option in the area. I thought there are alternative options, like smaller companies or something, but there literally isn’t even one! It’s crazy!
Wow, that sounds good! How you could work on all the episodes. And tomorrow, the whole contract mess is coming to an end too, right?
Congratulations on yet another article about ‘PGL’!! Please let me/us know when it comes out!!
I had a good day. I met a friend in the afternoon. It was pretty warm (or at least not too cold) so we took a big walk by the Danube and just talked about stuff. It was nice.
How was your day? I hope your back is getting better by the minute!!
Here’s the film that topped MUBI’s list of the best shorts at an avant-garde film festival at Graz, Austria: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SIE1PxODhiw. YouTube is presenting it as a music video by hardcore punk/noise band MoE, rather than “a film by director Billy Roisz,” but its use of on-and-off abstract striped imagery is not your typical video.
Thanks for the very kind words, everyone. Your responses are greatly appreciated. Apologies for not being as chatty as I’d like, but I’m a little under the weather and reading and writing very much is making me queasy.
Hey Dennis,
Thanks to you for having me and for making it look so nice. I’m really pleased with it!
Guess what? I got really sick at the end of our trip to Dublin. Completely sucks.
Great news about the tv show! Congrats and hope all the hard work’s going well. How goes it?
I’ll be back in here when I’m feeling a bit better.
Prebiotic love,
Jamie
Jamie: AWESOME. Whoever Hannah is, she should be in tears. Quite the honor, if you ask me. I love this.
Big D! Man, I fell asleep tres early last night -yes, first in my haunted rocking chair and then hopped into bed. I think I’m fighting a sinus infection or something. The area under my right eye is painful, especially if I sneeze or cough or get jostled.
Yes! Principal news. I forwarded everything to the principal last night. I noticed that the French teacher had mentioned talking to a vice principal who isn’t LPS’s vice principal, so I copied her on it too. We’ve met this VP…she’s the one we met with at the school to tell us he’d be suspended to the superintendent.
Well, I got an email today from the French teacher. She couldn’t have been sweeter. She apologized for taking so long to reply, she attached a 44-page packet of work for LPS, and she just wants the best in the world for him.
Very interesting turnaround, no?
Man, this adult stuff, along with being his guardian, really sucks. It’s making me grow up!!!!!!!!!!!! ARGHGHGHASFHJAS:GJH:GJ!
I filed my taxes Monday night and should be getting a decent refund soon. So…if all goes as planned -fingers crossed!- yes, I’ll have both of these little monkeys with me in June. 😛
Jamie, this is a surreal and lovely set today.
Hope the ARTE proceedings go smoothly tomorrow, Dennis.
Things are pretty crazy again. The new Dennis Johnson collection is a good distraction though. I just have to do more Coil and ativan. This too shall pass.
Bill