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p.s. Hey. ** David Ehrenstein, Hi. Major indeed. Dusty Springfield had it going on. ** Dominik, Hello!!! Our video shoot/presentation got delayed until today so I’m still solitary for a couple of more hours, but I did get out for some food purchasing. It’s so absurd, but I am nervous about the police today because my impending little trip across town is the height of illegality, and apparently they cluster in certain metro stations, so I have to be ready to semi-bullshit about the essentiality of the video thing and hope that if the cops notice me they’ll either not speak English and let me pass out of laziness or, if they speak English, they’ll think possibly getting a grant for our film is an essential enough reason. Mild gulp. Will do about the Honore film. It’s really short, 50 seconds. I haven’t watched ‘Don’t F**k with Cats’, but of course I know about Luka Magnotta. He was actually hiding out in Paris for a while during his evading arrest phase. I don’t know if the show or you looked into/at the porn videos he was in, but, even before he was arrested, I happened to have watched bits of a couple of them, and I remembering thinking, ‘That guy is the least sexy, dullest gay porn star I have ever seen.’ Anyway, interesting story for sure. I should find and watch that show. Ha, nice love you sent me. Love of the type that seemingly everyone in the entire world wants everyone else in the world to know they feel for that new Fiona Apple album, Dennis. ** Sypha, Hi. It is indeed a rarity when you’ve read a book I feature here, much less two of them! Under the circumstances, I would say save that money or a portion of it. What a mess among messes. ** _Black_Acrylic, Hi. Happy you agree about the ‘Magician’. That Kathryn Scanlan book sounds very intriguing based on those goodreads reviews, both the good ones and the bad ones. I’ll try to pick that up. Thanks. And congrats on reconnecting with your old friend. ** Bill, Hi, Bill. I had to save your gig for this evening or tomorrow due to unforeseen circumstances. (Lengthy dead internet connection). But I remain excited. Dude, so completely relate on the focus issue. It’s weird and nonsensical even. No, I do not know Nino Cipri. Where do you get your tips? Thanks, B. Good luck with your muse/focus wrangling. ** scunnard, Hi, Jared. I thought I had already said yes to doing a blurb. If not, yes. Of course. ** Steve Erickson, Hi. I’ve been hearing what a total nightmare it’s going to be for filmmakers/producers what with the giant backlog of films that will be competing for festival slots once this is over. Very happy I don’t have something ready or almost. That documentary sounds like the worst kind of documentary. There must be some Rolling Stone article or something about him that I can read instead. ** Misanthrope, Thanks, bud. Or thanks on the authors’ behalves. The thing is I personally do not want to put any more work into the cursed fucking TV script unless making it is a viable and likely outcome. And Zac feels the same. So Gisele and crew can do what they want and then Zac and I can decide what we’re willing to do or not once/if they get somewhere. Until there’s actual testing on a broad-ish scale going on, these stats seem kind of meaningless. Ah, okay, it is him. Fry. Is he mainly one thing and does other things as bonus extras? ** Right. I made a light show for you this weekend. Super easy, offering fun of a particular kind of you’re into it, etc. See you on Monday.
Now available in North America 
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Wow. Gettign across Paris sounds like going across the border between Eat and Wst Berlin in the Bad Old Days. That reminds me of a marvelous film I saw years ago– forget the title – about the romance of two guys in Berlin who have to cross the border to be together.
There’s a massive new Warhol biography out this month by Bruce Gopknik who was given access to everything at the Warhol museum. Would love to read it if only to see what he left out. He says Andy is as important as Picasso. however Andy said “I want to be Matisse.” Not exactly Tomayto / Tomahto
Gorgeous GIFs today!
Hi Dennis, sorry I thought was still hypothetical. Thank you, that would be lovely and amazing and much appreciated! Thanks.
So many lovely items today, Dennis. I’m taking notes and stealing quite a few ideas.
I think I found out about Cipri through a tor.com “panel” on queer fantastic fiction. These things are usually extremely hit-and-miss with me (you know how picky I am!), but Cipri has been a very pleasant surprise.
Hope your crosstown trip isn’t too stressful. You couldn’t get an official-looking email or something from the grants people to back you up? Please say hi to Zac for me.
Bill
Dennis, Great light show.
Okay, good, I hear you on the script. I agree, of course.
Well, there’s not going to be such widespread testing that everyone gets tested. I mean, there are 330 million people in this country. Even at 200,000 tests a day, it’ll take a very long time. So what the scientists will do -and that’s what they’re doing now- is random but statistically significant testing of areas all throughout the country. If done with scientific rigor, then you don’t need to test every single person, and you can get a great bead on just how many people have had it and recovered, either asymptomatically or with mild illness…things that aren’t being recorded now. So far, across all countries that have started antibody testing, we’re seeing very similar results: there are/have been at least over 10X the infections so far recorded. Depending on density of the area, it’s sometimes 50X higher than recorded so far in the confirmed positive tests. So yes, we need widespread antibody testing and the countries are working on it, slowly but surely, but the possibility of testing all 7.6 billion people in the world just isn’t going to happen.
I looked up Fry’s work, and he’s got his feet and fingers in everything and pretty uniformly too. Directing, acting, fiction, non-fiction, playwright, voiceover work, part of a board of a football club, talk show host, documentaries, a little bit of everything. Guy’s busy as hell.
I hope you have a good weekend. I’m going to try to have a damn good one myself.
holy fuck dennis you almost killed my eyeballs today lol.
love you, hope you’re doing well, just wanted to drop by and say hi.
<3
Oh and The Magician is a fabulous book! 😀
Strobe lights are so good, providing a transcendental experience for minimal budget. Stick one in a basement with some dry ice and techno and everybody’s happy!
Hi!!
Okay, by now I can definitely ask: how did your meeting with Zac go?? I kept my fingers very tightly crossed for you, I hope the police didn’t give you any trouble! How surreal – we’re talking about a simple trip from one end of the city to another. And how did the actual presentation turn out?
My weekend was pretty much eaten alive by Luka Magnotta. He appears to be quite flat and monotone on his interrogation tapes too – he’s said to suffer from schizophrenia which might come with this kind of “dullness” in expression. Probably not the luckiest feature for a porn actor…
How was your weekend – apart from the meeting with Zac too?
(Looks like I’m the only person in the entire world who hasn’t heard the new Fiona Apple album, haha.)
Love that definitely doesn’t claim to date Karla Homolka!
My vision is continuing to deteriorate, and it’s making life harder (under circumstances that are hard enough.) I am gonna call my eye doctor tomorrow, but I am certain he’ll say “You can’t do anything except get surgery, and you can’t get surgery till COVID isolation lifts.” In the meantime, it’s hard to read and write off my laptop when I have to sit at the edge of my chair to see anything and my prescription glasses are now useless.
I read about a feature-length QAnon documentary which has, uh, gone viral on YouTube over the past few years. Have you heard anything further from that nut?
But this weekend’s moviegoing was rewarding: Joris Ivens’ THE SPANISH EARTH, SELAH AND THE SPADES, HARISHCHANDARACHI FACTORY. The latter’s a very upbeat, brightly colored, entertaining Indian film about the first movie made in the country, set in 1911. It’s fun in a lighthearted way that Hollywood rarely hits these days (and available on US Netflix.)
Here’s my “fake New Wave” Spotify playlist: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/19OSwKtH6cLWMun4wGv9il?si=dJms_Yu6TYSzUZyE-exxvQ
Woah, every single one of these is spellbinding. I’ve been trying to understand non-Euclidean geometry and found this light show video helpful and aesthetically pleasing:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eGEQ_UuQtYs
And here’s a brand new discovery of a star dancing around the black hole at the center of the galaxy, illustrated in a light show:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bXZGTl-UyqA
Restrictions starting to let up a bit here. Still very far from anything like normal conditions but a step in the right direction, I hope.