The blog of author Dennis Cooper

Local Legends, a gif story (for Zac)

 


 

 

 

 

 

 


 

 

 

 

 


 

 

 

 

 

 


 

 

 

 

 

 


 

 

 

 

 

 


 

 

 

 

 

 


 

 

 

 

 

 


 

 

 

 



 

 

 

 

 

 



 

 

 

 

 

 


 

 

 

 

 

 


 

 

 

 

 

 



 

 

 

 

 

 



 

 

 

 

 

 


 

 

 

 

 

 


 

 

 

 

 

 


 

 

 

 

 

 



 

 

 



 

 

 

 

 

 


 

 

 

 

 

 


 

 

 



 

 

 

 

 

 


 

 

 

 

 

 


 

 

 



 

 

 

 

 

 



 

 

 

*

p.s. Hey. ** Cal Graves, Hi, Cal! Solid is a good word for it. Hm, I don’t know who did the lettering. As it doesn’t look GB’s handwriting, I would guess it was Scott? Awesome, congrats, on the ‘one class to go’ front. What’ll happen next? What are your plans? I’m good, working on stuff, and all is well. We’d love to screen ‘PGL’ in Texas. I’ll ask the US distributor if there’s anything happening in Texas. If not, if I can find out about possible venues, we can approach them and see if there are any bites. Take care. ** David Ehrenstein, Ah, I was right. My mom loved that song. Wow, he was a very intense performer. I’m surprised there’s not a rabid cult following for him. ** alex, Hey, hey, big A! Thank you, sir. Cynthia Plaster Caster! Hudson did a show of her stuff at the old Feature space in SoHo, some of her cock plaster casts and other things. I really wanted to buy one of the casts, I can’t remember of whose cock, but I was too skint. I’ll look for that book, cool, thanks. I should do a post on her. Oh gosh, I will. I do agree that there seems to be a big excavating of that period’s stuff right now, and that it’s weird, although it’s also somehow so, so predictable. A mirror … I don’t know, you think? It seems maybe like a cynically wide-eyed wish for actual wildness rather than the wildness branding that passes for it amongst buyers and sellers and promoters these days or something? Anything that stinks of 50% nostalgia makes me bored and vaguely ill, so I don’t know. But there was some great stuff then, and its route upwards had hugely less security checks. Or something. Oh thank you for the b’day gift! I love it, no surprise. I feel remarkably more awake now. Big love to you, you sublime explosive, you. ** _Black_Acrylic, My pleasure, of course. Awesome, awesome about the point in the birth canal where The Call currently sits. So cool. Very excited! ** Steve Erickson, Ha ha, very close, in fact, but no cigar. I.e., Zac made me cold sesame noodle for my birthday, but I didn’t start eating them until yesterday. Cool about the Sneaks download and review assignment. Very curious. One possible reason why Bruce so outstrips GB in the production area is that he’s fame-hungry and very self-promoting, and GB is the opposite. Also, GB is extremely non-prolific. I believe it took her something like 18 years to finish her most recent film. ** Bernard Welt, Hi, B. I’d call you Swami, but, yeah, anyone who really knows me, which obviously includes you, knows where my mouth and heart combination lies. Well, you know I am always extremely into posts by you whenever you have the time and stuff. People are going nuts for that Klimt show. Wish I’d been proximate. When the Billy book happening? What exactly is it? Ooh, killer. I saw or rather read about your fucking snow, and I’m cool with it, I guess, or I mean I don’t blame you for Paris’ climate change drying out. But I bet your fair cities won’t have thousands of people wearing yellow vests and stomping around in a tear gas haze lighting things on fire today, will you? Gosh, if only. ** Misanthrope, G, hi. Uh, hm. I always imagined myself living a long, long time. I must have logically realised that meant I would be gray-haired and saggy faced and aches-and-pain-y by default, so I guess so. But I was never seriously suicidal, and I always wanted to be immortal, so yeah. But I didn’t actually foresee myself looking physically like my grandparents, no. I want that cake. I want that eclair. Especially your mom’s mashed potatoes. Christ, is there anything in the world better than mashed potatoes apart from cold sesame noodle? Writing, good, hit it, nothing better. I will check your FB thing. Did I miss it? Big weekend! ** Keatmosis, I did not know that, huh. God love them. I was basically meh about ‘Les Garcons’. I’m on its side theoretically, for sure. But, Christ, that part on the ship was easily 8 hours too long. Other than that, I get it. Make the weekend turn upside down and beg for tickles. ** Bill, Hi, Bill. Yeah, we just found out this morning that the festival got us three nights in a hotel starting on the 2nd, so we should have more free time than I’d feared, cool! No, we have to head back to LA the morning after the last screening because we’ll have a screening down there. Darn. ** Okay. This weekend I give you my new gif work. Like the previous two gif works I’ve posted, it’s part of a gif novel I’m working on. As always, any thoughts or reactions or takes or anything else in its regard would be greatly appreciated by me. Have fine weekends, and I’ll see you on Monday.

13 Comments

  1. David Ehrenstein

    GIFS are a phenomenological conundrum. They move in absolute stasis.

    Latest FaBlog: Judy and a Half

  2. JM

    my internet [not your blog] ate my comment this time around, so i’ll shorten the sentiment because rewording is bad luck:
    this one’s very light, fluffy, cathartic, even despite the closing moments. much of it feels to me like it’s operating on a 🙂 rather than a 🙁 or >:(. read it while listening to blondie one way or another which was a good pairing.

    have 🙂

    j

  3. Keaveilllance

    I think it’s ticklish. I feel kind of ticklish myself. I feel like I’m always explaining the south. didn’t get laid I’m scared I’ve never wore a condom survived 50 or better. met this kid tonight wants to be a Scientologist. I think I want to be a novelist. les garçons was different. I like girls like rob plant lyrics but I like boys like burroughs\cooperish. crazy gif I like it

  4. h

    Hi Dennis! This is very pretty and great. Particularly I love some tunnel reiteration. Doors too. A mysterious work. I love those handwriting (?) gifs too. Thank you for sharing it with us.

    How was your birthday? I think I read somewhere you had nachos. Hope that was a good one. We emailed about it: I’ve been ill and stayed in for a while but I think I’ll be out today to do some errands. And in the next day, Peggy Ahwesh has a MoMA show for her Doris Wishman zine republication so I will be there too. It sounds like an attractive event. I haven’t been to MoMA for a year I think. Have a nice Sunday and Monday!

    • h

      Oh I haven’t commented on the narrative structure, but I felt it’s very compelling. It feels very focused.

  5. h

    Dennis just saw the Paris news. Are you okay? Hope everything is okay. Stay safe.

  6. Misanthrope

    Dennis, Great GIF story. Again.

    Yeah, I got in late on the FB birthday wishes, which is why I got in early here. I knew I’d be getting on late on the10th.

    I’d say we got about 7 inches of snow. I’ll be shoveling that shit today. Of course, no help from the lazy ingrates here. Ugh.

    Of course, I’m not inside your body so I can only comment from what I see on the outside. I tell you, there are so many people where I work who are in their 60s and 70s who can barely get around. All hunched over, many way too overweight, and can barely walk. I’m thinking they just never took care of themselves. And they talk like really old people, even older than they are. It’s like talking to my great grandmother 20 years ago. So yeah, all that to say, you ain’t doing so bad, fella.

    I just told someone the other day -and man, I think about this too much, but I see these people every day- there’s no way I’m going to be some little hunched over man who can’t get around or do for himself. Granted, Life throws all sorts of curveballs and anything can happen -illnesses, accidents, etc.- but I’m determined to be a vibrant and full of life as long as I’m alive.

    Okay, time to get some shit done here, and then some more writing…

    Oh, and fucked up about that bakery. What the hell? I guess bad shit like that happens. I hope they don’t find it was intentional or anything.

  7. Bill

    Sorry you’ll miss the Frith/Massacre gig, Dennis. Let me know if there are plans for some social/meal thing while you’re here.

    The opening sequence today is rather different from your earlier sets today. The pairings/treblings (?) are very intriguing; I have to keep pausing to chew over the connections. I assume I’m being nudged into different tempi through the set, hmm.

    In case you haven’t heard, the new Al Columbia is pretty great:
    https://floatingworldcomics.com/shop/art-books/amnesia-the-lost-films-of-francis-d-longfellow-by-al-columbia

    Bill

    • tender prey

      I didn’t know about the new Al Columbia – that’s exciting

  8. _Black_Acrylic

    I felt this was a more playful instalment of the gif stories and I had a fun time with its wavering pace and lovestruck tone. The ending came as a jolt that lingers long after the scrolling has stopped.

  9. Cal graves

    Hey Dennis,
    another fantastic gif piece. the use of text is fresh, i like it.
    Im gonna check out more about Scott–he seems weird and weird is the best.
    After my classes, im hoping to become a teacher, but I gotta go thru the certification process still. So a bit more school after school lol. Dont know about any festivals coming up in TX. But Austin’s got a decent arthouse theater: the AFS Cinema; they might be done. Regardless, i’lll be snatching up the PGL dvd ifwhen it comes out.

    Do you have a a favorite ghostly show/movie/place/inspiration? I’ve been all about ghosts, werewolfs and kungfu lately.

  10. tender prey

    Hey D!
    Great to see the development of the new gif novel – do you ever tweak or change the chapters significantly in relation to the whole novel after posting them here?
    I’m still unsure how I personally read them – i.e. as writing or visual art – but that uncertainty for me is part of the pleasure. I love how they’re like machines in that I’m looking at all these linked moving parts that are affecting eachother, and the scrolling mechanism is like turning a wheel in a sense.
    I really like how the blank white space between the gif constructions is working
 is there more white space than usual or am I imagining that? (I can’t quite tell without going back and looking the previous ones)

    Did you get time to zip over and see the Cabinet show in the end? I want on Friday – I thought it was a really great show as a whole and the installation of the gif novels was dealt with very efficiently and intelligently. I liked how it was set up, whereby with ZHH being visible on a desktop monitor as well as a big wall based screen, you could as a viewer kind of intervene in the overall curation of the room,
    leaving this or that gif constellation up on the wall.

    Really looking forward to seeing PGL again in a couple of weeks – do you know how long you guys are staying for yet? I dropped in the other day to wish you a Happy Birthday btw but got pipped to the post by the PS so I’ll belatedly wish you many happy returns now! Oh, and I have to say how much I enjoyed the Ken Jacobs and GB Jones days

    Mx

  11. Corey Heiferman

    Happy belated birthday! I really enjoy the structure in pairs and triplets with a mix of figurative images, abstract images, and words. It has a different feel for me from your GIF work that’s a long scroll. I got a kick out of the jumping boy making cracks in the wall underneath him. How hard was that to time out?

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