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Norval G./Mark Null and Vanessa by R.Gabrielson, copyright2009
Mark Schultz, aka Norval G. Schultz, aka Bre-X Veal, aka Mark Null, aka Charm Flop, used to find African statues behind his house in Red Deer, where he grew up as a child, like a scene in a scene in a movie about psychotic murder and in it he becomes a red deer. You can see the strap from my camera in a photograph I have of him that I took on a recent visit to my home town, where he now lives. I took the photo of him, and on the way out of his building he gave me a copy of an old Wonder Woman comic. He terrifies me. Walking over a bridge one night, in another place and another time, he made me feel like he was going to push me into the icy pacific below, not out of enmity, since I am one of the 5% of humanity Mark would find worth saving. I agree with him about me, at least. Mark’s menace to me has to do with his gigantic imagination. I’ve never confronted an artist with the same capacity for producing utter, hallucinatory brilliance. Every idea I have in his presence contorts into another form. Everything that comes to him shifts this way, gliding on the surface of percept, rushing past the held lines. Looking at his work you say Guston or Oehlen, Stockholder, Duchamp, but then he’s past it, doing it in a new way, a re-invention of recognition that chastens the impure gaze.
Everything he said was a threat to me, and the other day a man was killed in front of his apartment. Below is a photograph of it from his Facebook, which is better than my Facebook. Mark didn’t commit the murder, I don’t think. I don’t think he murders. It would be murder to find out… The rest of these images are from the same source, except for the photograph that I’ve taken, petrified in fear, but as fear relates to elation, or so the poet says. I have not linked to his musical products as Bre-X Veal, choice cuts. I don’t care how meat sounds. I would recommend a listen with your own meat, go seek it on myspace or whatnot. If you can’t find it, or he takes it down, you should kill yourself.
It is form that comes first and that makes Mark mark, some shitty internal mixture of need that compels the repetitive slop. His father died in a car wreck. He was also in the car. He has an artwork in his kitchen of a crash, a beautiful object of grief, but in the way of uncertainty, in the forensic play of the material world, this coincidence has no narrative structure, the linkage is not held for me as truth. I never asked if there was a connection, but only quietly took in whatever he meant by showing it to me, along with the other amazing things he has collected, unlike anyone else I know, a shocking collection of art that constitutes an artistic trove not unlike Bacon’s studio. I have been to few places as fantastic as his apartment, a monument to hail. Driving together we see some girls eating through the window of a McDonald’s, “They like to eat meat,” one of us says. The girls are very young. We talk about Manson. He is reading “Cosmos” by Gombrowicz, one of my favorite books, and we talk about why we love everything, everything, and about our mutual acquaintance with Robin Blazer, drugs, having regrets about the things that we haven’t done, as opposed to the things we have done. And we talk about the first book that I read on Mark’s recommendation, many years ago, God. Jr. by Dennis Cooper.
One night Mark sends this sequence to me:
“23 August at 06:12
intransigent
I dig ants
23 August at 06:13
FLYMAN !
23 August at 12:17
FUCK FYCUCK CUCK FUCK
tou lost many mad words
maddend sworwds”
What else can you say? After I finish this writing I let him know I plan to send it to DC’s.
Schultz writes:
“WOW,
That’s fantastic! I really appreciate the encouragment John.
Ya, let’s get this shit going. brew up a new pepsi generation (of squid),
the penis mightier than these words.
CHENGG_GA !!”
And then,
“by the way, 4 or five nights ago I took a few sleeping pills with beer (great combo) and during the evening i was doing some art project out on my balcony. I dropped my swiss army knife over the edge onto the ground. I forgot about it until a couple days later when I look over the edge and see it lying on the ground below, it’s blade out.I didn’t get around to retreiving it for the next couple of days, although I do spy it numerous times. Yesterday I get home and go out on the balcony and there is a shirtless rubby lying on the ground a few feet from my balcony… my knife is gone. I assume he took it. And today i get home and there is a fatal stabbing… Huh?”
News details on the stabbing:
It surprises me to this day to look at the press photograph of the event as compared to the one that Mark has taken. Ever since seeing it I have paid little to no attention to the details of the case. To me there is no value in explanation.
Mark’s new blog:
http://charmflop.blogspot.com/
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p.s. Hey. ** David Ehrenstein, Hi. True enough, but one side is a lot more fun than the other. ** Misanthrope, Hi, G. The Parc Asterix Halloween shebang was a lot of fun. Four haunted houses, one quite superb, the others charming. And lots of roller coaster riding, much needed. I’m looking forward to your trek through the Trail of Terror too. Imagining it and then getting the scoop. Oh, yeah, how’s the guitar thing going? Can you play ‘Classical Gas’ yet? ** Sypha, But yours was less evil. Or maybe less “evil” and more evil. Based on that soliloquy, maybe that unpublished memoir deserves a revisit? ** Bill, Oh, yeah, the prose in those things is mind-mumbling. I really need to get off my whatever and start getting graphic novels in my lexicon or whatever. Maybe via Tsutomu Nihei’s ‘Blame!’. The illustration at the end of your link is beautiful. Thanks. I keep planning and not going through with a crosstown trip to the great manga/graphic novel stores/area in the Bastille. ** Danielle, My pleasure, D. I shared it on Facebook too. Happy Tuesday! ** _Black_Acrylic, My only real investigation into the occult was a study of Chaos Magic when I was writing ‘Guide’, but it was pretty un-dark. Oh, Luke Fowler, very cool. I see that video is private on Vimeo, so I’ll also try to be patient. ** Steve Erickson, Hi. Oh, um, I don’t remember. I guess you could hunt down that video and find out? Very interesting: the Saudi and Dubai ghost hunting vids. I don’t have Snapchat, but I’ll see what I can dig up. Thanks. I don’t know re: Thomas Harris, but it certainly makes sense that the titles are connected. Everyone, a twofer from Mr. Erickson today. Take it away, Steve: ‘My interview with WHITE RIOT director Rubika Shah came out today. As did my review of Tyler Taormina’s HAM ON RYE, a very leftfield teen drama that starts streaming through Anthology Film Archives Friday.’ I’m very curious about both of those films. Happy about the AFA streaming of the latter. ** Brian O’Connell, Hi, Brian. I wish I could feel the spookiness. Maybe like you, I’m just very interested in that stuff’s existence and how it’s represented and absorbed by believers, etc. Yeah, I guess for me the GIF works are something of a stab at my old visual art aspirations, but I don’t think of them as art. Maybe that’s the trick. Well, you have that corn maze. I assume it’ll be stocked with faux zombies and psycho farmers and stuff, no? Right, ‘The Kindly Ones’. I admire your perseverance. I’m not drawn to historical fiction either. Can’t even remember the last time I read a novel in that genre or even contemplated doing so. Strange. I hope the schoolwork ponies up with some unexpectedly tweaking tidbits amidst the drudgery. I’m looking at lots of art today, so it should be A-okay in the long haul. A fine day to you too, sir. ** Okay. Here’s another odd old post from the graveyard of my former, murdered blog. It was made by another legendary and long lost distinguished local, Mr, JW Veldhoen, whose name will likely be very familiar to you long term readers out there. Interesting chap. I wonder where he is. Today’s post will also be your last non-Halloween themed post for the duration of Halloween’s approach. So you can use it take a deep breath, if you like. See you tomorrow.
Now available in North America 
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We all have stranger friends here and there along the courseof our loves. But today proves that some are TRULY strange.
Dennis! I was too lazy to go back and look up “Parc Asterix Halloween.” Sorry about that. But I am glad you had a really good time. And roller coaster rides! Sounds like a lot of fun.
Yeah, I’m actually starting to look more and more forward to Friday’s shenanigans on the Trail of Terror. I expect it’ll be fun.
We’re gonna go out to eat after that. My friends’ kids are pretty cool, so it’ll be fun. Kayla is going too. My one friend’s daughter just loves her.
Damn, I finally just looked up The Shaggs. Really, Dennis? REALLY? Hahaha. They are/were cray cray. Somebody commented on one of the videos, “This is what eating cereal with water sounds like.” Bahahaha.
Yes! The guitar is going well…finally. Chord transitions have been my bane, but I’m getting there with practice. Just muscle memory, you know. Just doing them over and over and over. I have a friend who’s self-taught who’s helping me with advice. Of course, the advice is, “Practice, practice, practice.”
Sometimes, I get ahead of myself and next thing you know, I’m online reading music and guitar theory and then have to stop myself and be like, “WHAT am I doing?” It can be quite intimidating.
Just watched Glen Campbell totally dominate “Classical Gas.” I’m not there yet, hahaha. But I will be.
Just learned the riff to MC5’s “Kick Out the Jams,” though. 😀 Gonna keep working on that one.
I’m getting there and getting better at it. Thanks for asking. Strangely -or not- this is important to me.
Looks like JW is still working at that photography place up in Calgary. Good for him.
@ JW Veldhoen, wherever you may be, thank you for this intro to the disquieting world of Mark. Regarding scares, the forthcomig Halloween posts already have a lot of competition.
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Hey, Dennis,
What a curiously intriguing post today. I’m sorry to have missed the days of JW Veldhoen; he (and indeed Mark Schulz) seems to have been an interesting dude.
Agreed about the occult. Belief and the ways in which it expresses itself are often more interesting than the content of the beliefs themselves. I can see that with the GIF novels: there is a certain visual art component to them. It’s kind of a way into a more representational form, sort of. Unfortunately, no psycho farmers or faux zombies at my corn maze. It’s “family-oriented” (groan), so you just kind of scavenger hunt and get lost in there. I meant it when I said dumpy!
A tweaking tidbit has turned up in the drudgery today, actually: Criterion is holding a 24 hour flash sale. I will definitely be grabbing something. I’m thinking probably “Diamonds of the Night” (or maybe “Hausu” for Halloween), but another part of me is saying it’s time to watch my first Bresson. I know he’s been a big influence on your work, which is part of why I’m so curious. My brain tells me to go with “Au Hasard Balthazar” or one of those earlier black-and-white films, but the one I’m most interested in is “L’argent”, even though that probably isn’t the best starting point (being his last film). Do you think it matters where I start? Because given the choice I’d definitely go with the latter, but maybe it’s better appreciated within the context of his whole oeuvre. Any guidance is appreciated; you’re the expert.
Happy Tuesday. Enjoy the art! Talk to you tomorrow.
I’m not sure how well this song works, but it was an attempt to write anxious and jumpy but relatively quiet music: https://callinamagician.bandcamp.com/track/in-my-swamp. I sampled more ASMR videos, as well as Tangerine Dream’s score for SORCERER.
I don’t think I saw this one the first time around. Hope JW is doing ok in this crazy 2020.
Blame! actually comes in 6 volumes, each 400+ pages. I’d say a quick skim should be enough to decide whether you need one of them. Fortunately my amazing public library has a copy of Vol. 1, and maybe of some of the later ones. The Piranesi-an cityscapes are really amazing, but I think 400 pages is plenty. Look forward to hearing your report of the graphic novel store.
Bill
Dennis, well, re: the memoir, I wrote it back in 2017 and sent it to a few publishers over the last few years but got no bites. It wasn’t super-long (not even 60 pages) and at one point I considered adding it to both my 3rd horror collection and/or my Pleasant collection, but it didn’t match with either one. Still want to do something with it one day, just not sure what. It was set in 1989 and mainly revolved around the time I played a vampire doctor in a Halloween play when I was 9 in the 4th grade, though there were a lot of digressions to my childhood memories in general, plus some alternate history tossed in (like I mentioned how Stevie Nicks beat Reagan to become President of the United States in 1984, ha ha). Recently I’ve been toying with the idea of a horror novel dealing with an FBI agent (named James Champagne: it’s kind of a New Narrative thing) getting assigned to investigate a mysterious case in his old hometown, and how revisiting his hometown triggers old memories, and I was thinking maybe I could sneak it into a book that way!