* (restored)
—-
Filmography:
Variety (1983)
Smithereens (1982)
Tempest (1982)
Downtown 81 (1981)
Polyester (1981)
Subway Riders (1981)
Underground U.S.A. (1980)
Seduction of Patrick (1979)
Final Reward (1978)
Desperate Living (1977)
Female Trouble (1974)
Pink Flamingos (1972)
Multiple Maniacs (1970)
Books and Stories:
1. How To Get Rid Of Pimples: The Actual Cure
3. Fan Mail, Frank Letters, and Crank Calls
4. Putti’s Pudding (w/ Vittorio Scarpati)
5. Walking Through Clear Water in a Pool Painted Black
6. Ask Dr. Mueller: The Writings Of Cookie Mueller (anthology)
Tribute Sites:
The Cookie Mueller Fan Club
https://www.facebook.com/groups/CookieMueller/
Courage, Bread and Roses: A Tribute to Cookie Mueller
http://www3.sympatico.ca/brooksdr/jw/cookie/main.htm
Quotes About Cookie:
1) “Cookie Mueller was a writer, a mother, an outlaw, an actress, a fashion designer, a go-go dancer, a witch doctor, an art hag, and above all, a goddess. Boy, do I miss that girl.” — John Waters, 1996
2) “The first time I saw Cookie she was having a yard sale on her front porch in Provincetown. She was a cross between a Tobacco Road outlaw and a Hollywood B-Girl, the most fabulous woman I’d ever seen….
Cookie was a social light, a diva, a beauty, my idol. Over the years she became a writer, a critic, my best friend, my sister. We lived throught the peaks and the dread together in Provincetown, New York, New Orleans, Baltimore, and Positano.
… in 1988 Cookie got sick. …in August 1989 the effects of AIDS had robbed her of her voice… On September 14th her husband Vittorio Scarpati died from an AIDS-related illness and after that Cookie kind of gave up. She died on November 10th in the hospice of the Cabrini Medical Center.” — Nan Goldin, 1990
3) Any time she walked out the door, her life was a story. I mean, everything she did. I mean, she’d say ‘I’m going to go get the milk’ and something lunatic would happen to her. So her life was like that all the time.
Cookie in her own Words / Quotes and Passages from her stories:
1) Yeah, life is tough in the real world. Actors wait on tables, ballet dancers work as topless go-go girls, artists wash dishes, and that’s not even the worst part. Someday you might bring your garbage on the subway, someday you might even shit in your own bank. (“Another Boring Day”)
2) A few weeks later, I accidentally got a job working two days a week as a housekeeper. The house was spacious and warm with all kinds of stuff to make work easier…. The only real problem was Wendy, the woman who lived there with her husband, Chris.
She was there most of the time, so I couldn’t totally relax when I cleaned. She stayed in bed though, all day, lying in her flab…
I didn’t blame her for lying in bed. She couldn’t walk. She was crippled from an accident in Mexico when her husband Chris haphazardly ran over her legs with the Volkswagon camper.
I felt sorry for her. Had it been me I would have divorced and sued this Chris person. He kept insisting that the reason she couldn’t walk was a psychological disturbance. He sounded like that misogynist idiot Sigmund Freud….
I cleaned around her.
One day I found some wild photos of Wendy and Chris. I think one of them left them out especially for me. There was a picture of Wendy spread-eagled, inserting huge bowling pins into her vagina. There was a picture of Chris trying to stick silver balls up his ass. There were pictures of the two of them and some other girl. She was tied up and they were all over her….
Because of these snapshots, I was prepared for anything, and sure enough, the day after… Wendy called me up to her bedroom….
“Cookie,” she said, “you might as well know that Chris and I aren’t getting along very well.”
“Oh?”
“I think it’s my legs. They’re not really pretty anymore…. Anyway, I want you to help us put our marriage back together again. You’d do that, wouldn’t you?”
“Well, sure, whatever I can do to help,” I said, and thought oh no.
“Well, I’d like you to come over here tonight, around 2 in the morning, and get in bed with Chris. I’ll be sitting in that chair over there, and I’ll just watch. We’ll play it by ear, okay?”
“I don’t know, Wendy…” I said. Wild horses couldn’t drag me into bed with that husband of hers.
“Please, it would really help out,” she said.
I went back downstairs and stood there for a couple of minutes. Was she joking? I hated threesomes. Somebody was always getting left out. I didn’t want to fuck her husband, I didn’t want to fuck her. I didn’t want to be an upstairs maid!
…I went back upstairs.
“Look, I don’t think that’s my cup of tea,” I said.
“I thought you were wild,” she said.
Why does everyone think I’m so wild? I’m not wild. I happen to stumble onto wildness. It gets in my path.
“You’re supposed to be so wild,” she almost screamed.
“Well, I’m all finished for today,” I changed the subject. “I relined the stove with tin foil, and…”
She sighed, “Oh, go away.”
I did. I went home and didn’t go back… Too bad. I needed that money for Christmas. I wanted to buy everybody something special. Oh well.
(“Provincetown—1970”)
3) “The worst part is there’s no flattery involved in rape; I mean, it doesn’t much matter what the females look like; it doesn’t even seem to matter either if they have four legs instead of two. Dairy farmers have raped their own cows even.
‘It’s great to fuck a cow,’ they say, ‘you can fit everything in… the balls… everything.’
So I guess it just depends on your genital plumbing as to how you see the following story.
(“Abduction & Rape—Highway 31, Elkton, Maryland, 1969”)
4) “I accidentally burned a friend’s house to the ground once. The friend didn’t approve.”
(“British Columbia—1972)
5) “Aren’t you supposed to do some scene where you get fucked by a chicken?” Divine asked me.
“Fucked by a real chicken?” Mink asked me.
“How?” asked Bonnie.
“In the script it says Crackers cuts off the head of a chicken and he fucks me with the stump,” I said.
“Oh that sounds easy,” Divine said.
“Yeah, that’s pretty easy compared with what you have to do,” I said to Divine.
“Chickens scratch pretty bad,” David said. “Even without their heads.”
“Bird wounds can be dangerous,” Van said.
I thought about Hitchcock’s The Birds, but those were seagulls and I knew just how powerful seagulls could be. Compared to them, chickens were jellyfish.
“I’m not worried about some little scratches,” I said.
(“Pink Flamingos”)
6) I met all the German film stars, people I’d always wanted to have beers with: Udo Kier, Bruno Ganz, Klaus Kinski, and the German filmmakers (Fassbinder, Herzog, Schroeder). I was in Aryan heaven.
(“The Berlin Film Festival—1981”)
7) Biography and Education: I received most of my education traveling and working various inane jobs such as: clothing designer, racehorse hot walker, drug dealer, go-go dancer, underground film actress (otherwise known as independent feature actress), playwright, theater director, performance artist, house cleaner, fish packer, credit clerk, barmaid, sailor, high seas cook, film script doctor, herbal therapist, unwed welfare mother, film extra, leg model, watercolorist, and briefly as a bar mitzvah entertainer, although I’m not even Jewish.
I started writing when I was six and have never stopped completely. I wrote a novel when I was twelve and put it in cardboard and Saran Wrap, took it to the library and put it on the shelves in the correct alphabetical order. When I was eighteen, I left college for Haight-Ashbury and wound up a drug casualty, not unlike a bag lady. I learned a lot in the mental hospital, where I had shock therapy that didn’t work except for eradicating from my memory all the contents from novels I had read in the last twelve years.
A few of the films I appeared in have attained a cult status and I am told that I have a fan club in Los Angeles.
I have a twelve-year old son, who I believe has taught me the most.
I used to write poetry, but now I feel that poetry is archaic unless written specifically as song lyrics. I believe that my short stories are novels for people with short attention spans.
I live with my son in Manhattan and pay the rent as a journalist.
(“Cookie Mueller, born 1949, Baltimore, Maryland”)
Photos:
Clips
Stumbling Onto Wildness: Cookie Mueller on Film
Sylvia Miles, Ronee Blakley, Cookie Mueller at The Chelsea Hotel
Cookie meets Edie the Egglady
cookie mueller “secrets of the skinny”
COOKIE- a new film by Liz Rosenfeld
Justin Vivian Bond Reads Cookie Mueller at Low Life
Dreamlander: The Legend of Cookie Mueller (Opening Sequence)
People remember actress and writer Cookie Mueller
*
p.s. Hey. ** julian, Hooray for other adventures. No, I don’t think I believe in ghosts. I was sure I saw one when I was about 15, but later I remembered how stoned I was when I ‘saw’ it. That’s about it for me and ghosts. Yeah, but of course even if I’d tried to get into the VU gig, I’m virtually positive they wouldn’t have admitted a kid like me. ** scunnard, Hey. Yeah, I’m not anti-AI at all, but I think if Carlsen’s stuff was AI-based and not ‘handmade’ it would be a whole lot less interesting. Sure, I’d be happy and more if you want use something from my gif novel work. Just let me know what you’d like when the time comes, and we can sort it out. They’ve been exhibited in various configurations before. Kier just used part of one in his recent gallery show. Thanks! ** Misanthrope, There were people setting off fireworks on my street until dawn’s early light. Yes, I remember the dangerous-y post football match ‘celebrations’ in Manchester. Walking home was more dodging than walking. Dude, just go to the doctor and get the whole problematic shebang looked at in one swoop. No? ** _Black_Acrylic, Fangoria! Me too. ** Carsten, Hi. Yes, it’s a helluva conundrum. Dude, obviously, teach if that gig comes through. You are greatly needed. Luck galore with the submission. ** Bernard Welt, Hello there, B-man. Holy fuck, the gall bladder eruption — if it erupted, I don’t how gall bladders go bad technically. What shoots one’s gall bladder to hell? In your case, at least, do you know? Excellent suggestions to Carsten, thank you. I should’ve remembered Schneebaum. I reminder you talking him back when. And ‘Eating Raoul’, of course, duh. Yeah, weird about Ed White. He did hang on for a very long time after his multiple heart attacks and considering his girth. Yeah, all those guys are gone, it’s so strange. I don’t how often you were in NYC back then, but I remember the days when John Ashbery would invite Brad and Donald and Tim and me to parties, and there would be Barthelme and Denby and Merrill and Ed and David Kalstone and on and on just right there drinking their drinks, all nice and talkative. Lucky us. Padgett’s bio of Dick Gallup is really nice. I’m reading it right now. Small scars are the coolest. I hadn’t thought of sciatica, but eek, yes. I don’t mind aging so much but it’s so relentless. Big love to you, maestro and buddy. Carsten responded to you if you didn’t see it. ** Sypha, Haha, Sam Smith is pretty inexcusable but a mere drop in her bucket. ** pancakeIan, Glad you dug the work. Yes, the kind of creepy eroticism is a big part of why it’s as interesting as it is, I think. Seaside, that’s the name. I know of Celebration, but I’ve never peeped at it. I will, thanks. Yeah, luckily the poetry canon as officially okayed by schools contains some actual awesome ones, although they don’t help you understand why they’re particularly awesome, I guess because they think all the poets they teach are just pieces of the canon. I remember thinking ‘meh’ about Emily Dickinson in school, and it wasn’t until years later I figured out why she’s so incredible. ** Bill, I’ve yet to see anything AI-generated, at least that I can remember, that had any depth or mystery and subtext whatsoever. But I supposed they’ll figure out a way how to fake that too. So many people are pointing to ‘A Boy’s Own Story’ as a major reason why they became comfortable with their gayness. It’s interesting. At the time, my main reaction was basically, ‘oh, Ed’s stopped being experimental’. ** Hugo, I was definitely intrigued by the evidence of your friend’s game. And wished to play it. And maybe hopefully will someday. ‘A girl died of a stroke after trying to flirt with me’: I immediately see a fictional construct in that idea’s future, but I’m weird. I knew DFW a bit, and I knew people who were close to him, and that now accepted interpretation of his leaving ‘TPK’ out because he wanted it to be published is pretty spurious. People who knew him see it as him displaying his failure and a reason why he did what he did. Who knows, though, ultimately. The Leve thing is a mystery. But he did drop the finished mss. off at his publisher then go straight home and kill himself. ‘The Sluts’ partly took so long because there was no internet as it currently exists when I started it, and it took a few years for that context to become the context of the novel. I literally had to badger the author of ‘Wrong’ to even mention ‘God Jr.’ in the book. He didn’t think it fit into his anarchist/ punk/ queer overview and didn’t want to include it. So he tossed in that brief mention at the last minute under duress. Two novels at the same time, wow, nice. I think I couldn’t do that, but then, yeah, I worked on ‘The Sluts’ while I was also writing ‘Guide’, ‘Period’ and ‘My Loose Thread’. Anything you want to say about the novels? Or the long poem? No pressure. I always find it really hard to talk about what I’m working on until it’s close to finished. ** Steve, I knew Robin Zander’s son was a singer, but interesting that there’s impending evidence. Curious. I personally don’t think any singer could top Robin Zander, but maybe the common DNA will help. Glad things are moving along with the estate at least. I haven’t seen ‘L’Amour’ in many decades. How does it hold up? ** Steeqhen, Hi. I’m happy his stuff broke through with you. Nice story/image about the snails. I had dinner with friends the other night, and an ant got stuck in some melted/stiffened cheese, and I spent about half of the dinner carefully freeing it from the goop and transferring it to the ground, where it probably got stepped on with minutes, but at least I tried. Cool: ‘About Ed’. Using the blog as personal life/thoughts outlayer helpmate makes theoretical sense, yes. ** HaRpEr //, Hi! I’m sorry you’ve been feeling down, but I’m glad you’re back. What a great Berrigan quote. Wow. Feel better, pal, and do feel free to talk here about whatever would help. ** Nicholas., There you are. I think I detect a new tone, it’s true. And the encoding as well. Not the code(s) themselves, don’t worry. Well, it’s morning, so the last drink I drank was coffee. Enjoy the pleasurably lengthy walk(s). xo. ** Uday, I can imagine Nina Simone’s voice evolving those pix. When I was a kid I saw ladybug and thought it looked candy-like delicious, and, oh my god, it so wasn’t. Ed White story … When I was an up and coming young writer and made my first trip to NYC as a writer to do a reading, Ed held a dinner party for me, and he told me he would invite anyone I wanted to come, and I said John Ashbery, who I revered and had never met, and, sure enough, Ashbery was there at the dinner, and he was drunk on arrival and got incredibly more drunk during the dinner and had to be carried down the stairs and put in a taxi, but I met John Ashbery, which was huge, and that was extremely kind of Ed to have done that. ** Okay. I have revived a very old guest-post concerning the wondrous Cookie Mueller for you today, and please fully enjoy yourselves. See you tomorrow.
Now available in North America 
Cookie Mueller has long been a hero of mine, or at least she has long associated with a bunch of my heroes anyway. Thank you Mizu for this post and for filling the gaps in my CM knowledge.
The big news here is that MUBI will be showing the complete Twin Peaks from June 13. This will be worldwide so maybe it will even be showing in France? June highlights on the telly also include Shifty the new Adam Curtis film which provides a detailed recent history as to why the UK is in such a weird state. Must say June’s TV is looking good.
Shifty will be showing online via the iPlayer but hopefully accessible via YouTube eventually.
Hi Dennis, thanks that will be really cool. I’ll have a look and let you know and it is very much appreciated. I’m excited.
I was recently watching something, can’t place it, but Cookie Mueller had a surprisingly large place in a documentary that I wasn’t expecting… wish I could think of it, but gave me a whole other level of insight into her life.
Is the documentary perhaps ‘All The Beauty And The Bloodshed’?
Hi Dennis.
My friend is very happy to know that you’re interested in playing it. Game development seems to be a very gruelling process, especially when alone. Suppose it’s not that different from a novel, though words do not fall apart as dramatically as your usual glitch.
I see what you mean about the dream; there was a whole other section to it where I was in some kind of hell with a bunch of skulls, the place looked like an art gallery (maybe the Tate Modern?), but I couldn’t make too much sense of it. I had a more “narratively driven” dream last night actually, one where a man was declared pope in America and then had a bunch of people become dogs and bite into his legs as he howled in pain. I think they put cigarettes out on him too. I really have no clue what it means, I’m not catholic really. My dad is technically, but I don’t think it meant anything. I note my dreams down, maybe I will find a use for them. If I don’t, then uhh feel free to steal them.
I didn’t know that about DFW. That’s quite interesting. He must’ve known it would have been read, though, no? But like you say, I don’t know and I don’t wanna guess. I once told my friends that they could read my diaries when I pass, but that’s because I often feel regretful about the fact that in waking life, I cannot always say what I mean 100% of the time. I think that aspect of life has become more pressing to me ever since I got diagnosed with autism about a year ago, so now I feel the need to refine words in private rather than just tossing them about in discussions.
I asked about god Jr. because I quite liked it and thought it really got the core of some of the grief in your work; that book feels very fresh to me. It reminds me of thinking about creepypastas with my friends in 7th grade while playing older video games. Idk, I like the haunted feeling of things.
This actually segues quite nicely into you asking about my work. The poem I mentioned came about because I wanted to write about growing up with all those gory internet videos, specifically the Budd Dwyer tape and “Alfred Alfer” by Emily Youcis (have you heard of the latter? it seems like something that would be on your radar, and I would be interested in knowing what you think about it.) – I wanted to draw that to the language of advertising and old mondo films, I think there was something very comforting about being morbid and scared as a child, and I wanted to put that in a lineage of relating to the pain of others through all these cultural signs. I haven’t finished the work, though, mainly because of my novel, but also because it’s hard to talk about without losing something. I will share some lines from it that I think will stay though:
“The words fade out-
cowboy in orange sunlight
He lights a Marlboro and splits the frame
spewing guts and anuses and
comments and repetitions and
and–and–and
traumastained excess memory
eating you on the other side
a film taped back into itself.”
It is hard, though. All my other poems are spontaneous, but this one came from memories that I think I love a little too much. Which is probably why it frustrates me to no end, but I will finish it at some point. There’s a reference to reading “Apocalypse culture” for the first time that I wanna make work without sounding too traditionally “poetical”, but it takes time, and my mind is elsewhere. The first novel I’m working on rn is probably gonna be very long, and I only have 12 pages and some drafts figured out. Part of it feels like a mildly gonzo take on “In youth is pleasure,” where every character is as weird as Orvil Pym, and another part of it feels like “Lord of the Flies” meets “Tomb for 500,000 soldiers.” It’s gonna be fun at heart, not gonna be too gloomy, just very free and sweet in ways I hope some people are willing to recognize. I know that sounds strange, but it’s true. I think kids are kinda fucked up, and I think more should embrace that truth rather than hide from it. You probably know that better than I do, though…
The second novel was unplanned, though. It mostly came from me trying to write a long love letter to somebody, but then I got bored with myself, and the letter became the letter of someone else. So the book I’m writing is addressed to a “you” from someone who isn’t “me” – and the chapters of the book are different love letters from different “me”‘s to a constant “you”. The idea has probably been done before, but I liked the structure.
Anyway, I’ll stop writing now. I think I’ve said too much. Have a good one
Cookie Mueller always seemed like a very cool gal. The kind you fully expect to have accidentally burned a friend’s house down.
Submission to Tough Poets Review confirmed. Hear hear, my first ever submission. So far I’ve been content to bypass the print route, but it’s time to start submitting. For all my ties to the oral, I do love the printed book as an object of almost mystic appeal. I still have to pick the right potential publishers for the chapbook. That’s next.
I wanted to ask you about casting: what route did you & Zac take there? Online ads? If so, where? And I think I heard you say that you don’t do typical auditions.
I should add that I want to use only non-actors too
The funny thing is I’m spending a couple days tweaking photos of Cookie Mueller (among others) for a friend’s book. Can’t make this up.
Edmund White sounds like a nice guy from your stories. Not sure I would have gleaned that from his books that I’ve read. Totally understand your reaction to A Boy’s Own Story. I think it was just in the right place at the right time, for me anyway! I might go read those sex scenes again, but I doubt that I’d be enthusiastic about the rest.
6/20 is creeping up fast. Any thoughts on your plans other than the screening?
Bill
When do you leave for California?
I have some great news. I’ve been speaking with an actual radio station about moving “Radio Not Radio” there. While nothing has been settled yet, it looks like a real possibility that I may start DJing for them. I would love to be able to reach a larger audience and increase my ability to get music for free through working with an established platform.
The screening of L’AMOUR takes place this evening, so I’ll report back tomorrow.
I found Chloe Griffin’s biography of Mueller extremely grim. The book brings home the horror of heroin and AIDS destroying the lives and artistic potential of so many people during the ’80s.
PS: I’ve gotten confirmation that I’ll be DJing on East Village Radio, starting later this summer. I’m doing a biweekly show on Saturday afternoon.
Dennis, Rigby and I almost got into four fights that night in Manchester. None of our doing, of course. I always say those were the angriest white people I’ve ever seen, those Mancunians.
Well, I’ll be getting the whole neck/shoulder thing looked at in one fell swoop next Friday. This bruise thing seems to be a hematoma and no worry.
Fucking neck started hurting last night and woke me up with a headache so bad I thought I was having an aneurysm or had meningitis. 800mg of ibuprofen eventually took care of it, but fuck, man, that was killer.
RIP Edmund White. I’ve only read his collection Skinned Alive. I liked it. I’ll get more of his stuff and read it eventually.
Hi Dennis . Yet another person I’m not familiar with……..which shows once again that I need to watch more John Waters, one of these days. Her writing is funny. I feel bad for her kid, since she died of AIDS so young . Although he must be around my age, by now.
Creepy eroticism can be fun, going back to Carlsen. David Lynch was great, in that respect. Have you ever heard of Angelo Badalamenti ? He composed the scores for many of Lynch’s films, and also ‘Twin Peaks’. I knew Angelo, because his son and I played in the same youth orchestra in high school . Very very nice man.
Celebration is very Seaside-ish . That’s one of the reasons I lived there for so long. Plus, it’s right on the edge of the Disney World property line, so convenient for work. Rents are super high though. But I’m sure I don’t need to tell you that. Think Paris has one of the highest rent prices in the world, eh ?
I really am lax when it comes to poetry. The only E Dickinson I vaguely remember is that one where death kindly stops for her . I did go through an E A Poe phase…….I liked ‘The Bells’ a lot. I’ve also been a huge Shakespeare fan since I was young. Many of his best plays read rather like poetry, what with the iambic pentameter.
later…..
(Old me)
Ahh I discovered this guy some time ago when I was interested in photography manipulation and there is this artist on Instagram kind of inspired by him, at least he must be hahah.
I’ll find him
Oh
I’ll find it later ok? By tonight. Busy-minded atm.
Well I suppose if you ever need bat SFX for a movie you could look to your hallway and hit record to save money.
Well anyways one of my project goals for this month is to continue the Louis Wain article I promised for the blog. I was planning on finishing it quickly but there is a lot to the story I feel I must add going all the way to 1960s medical science and psychedelic imagery and mescaline experiments etc.
Not to say they tested Louis Wain during the 30s on Mescaline but maybe I’m just being productively distracted by going down medical rabbit holes of psychedelic use which I already know bits of because i like medical history.
Oh btw can I add my own self-made collage as a memorial in the end of the post? I’ll probably scan it for aesthetic, and make it with Decoupage techniques or idk whatever calls to me in his style.
(Got tired and went to bed. Didn’t know if I should finish the comment or not so waited till the next day)
(Today me)
I just got back from work and I’m hungry but forgot to get the Chana Masala so maybe I’ll walk later and get some. Listen to this: this morning in the lobby They were playing what sound like dub techno at work in the lobby and it was raining so sounded so nice and atmospheric. Fun coincidence considering I’ve been studying/listening to alot of dub techno for . Oh my co-workers are kind and I suppose nothing is ever idyllic but I wish i wasn’t so weak and stupid and feel like talking more like it seems everyone can no matter how weird.
id love to get my hands on a sampler one day! Korg has a good sampler and I think Bjork actually used the Korg Volca sampler for her album Homogenic.
The Korg minilogue xd is my next grab but I need to fix my laptop first unless I get the hardware workspace which is something I’d have to do more research on.
Did you ever play a synthesizer piano?
Wait how fun, I just remembered you telling me about the creepy pervert piano teacher you had. Ok take care and be safe. When was your last awkward conversation? Do you have many?
Sorry if my comment was imperfect in Grammer I really feel it is today.
As a huge John Waters fan, I’m very happy about today’s post. My dad has a copy of one of Cookie’s books, so maybe I’ll convince him to let me borrow it. I didn’t know she was in any movies that weren’t made by John Waters. I’ll have to check those out. Growing up I always wanted to believe in ghosts and at one point I tried to visit every allegedly haunted location in my city, but I never had any encounters. I still like ghost stories a lot, though. Could you tell me about your weed-fueled ghost encounter? If you remember.
Yeah, everything just kind of sucks at the moment but I just need to get through this period. I’ve just sort of crashed after working really hard for ages and certain things not coming to fruition. I think that’s what it is, I don’t know. It’s just the same old stuff, but worsened by certain things. My landlord trying to scam me into giving them random money for one thing, but I’m trying not to think too much about that. We’re coming to a sort of compromise, anyway.
My dreams and daydreams are sort of disturbing, and I’m kind of spaced out in general, finding it difficult to write as opposed to the huge amount I was writing the other day. Maybe I push myself too hard sometimes, but I think it’s just the isolation. I kind of revel in finding weird altered states that aren’t strictly dependent on chemicals, but instead working myself into a weird mania. Maybe that’s harmful. The perk of being spaced out though is that you’re not that stressed, but I am crying a lot.
Cookie is a hero of mine. After semiotext(e) re-published ‘Walking Through Water…’ I’ve noticed lots of people talking about her who have never even seen a John Waters movie, which is great obviously, because it means that she’s not being judged as an underground legend who wrote some autobiographical pieces but by her merit as a writer. Though not great that they haven’t seen a John Waters movie.
I’ve had some writing I wrote for university marked. They both passed but one of the professors said that my story risks alienating the reader and also recommended I break up my writing into smaller paragraphs to make it easier to read. That’s not a real criticism in my book, but whatever.
Hey Dennis,
I enjoyed typing out that snail story; felt like I needed to truly capture my love of those weird creatures and the futility of spending 20 minutes holding a bin open so snails can get out safely, knowing they’ll probably just be dead soon anyway. It had me wondering if that was their first experience of light? I don’t know the lifespan of snails but I assume they were born in the bin, and I only opened the bin to put a cigarette in… maybe they saw me as some deity, or higher dimensional being, giving them an experience they didn’t even realize was possible.
Was woken up this morning to some construction vehicle shoving metal sheets into the ground outside my house, which I took as a sign to finally leave my parents place and return to my regular life, which I did, though I spent the day incredibly exhausted from my lack of sleep.
Finished Pikmin 2 earlier today, and I think it was perhaps the most anticlimactic of the quadrilogy (?), once you hit 10,000 currency from collecting treasures, you get the credits. Now, there is postgame content, but it was so strange to do half of a dungeon, leave, and then immediately go to credits. It’s being noted and taken into account in my mental spiderweb / graph / scoreboard of Pikmin ranking and comparisons.
Fell down a rabbit hole earlier on the history and fallout of this one band, The Civil Wars. They’re a very folky singer songwriter duo, I like a few of their songs; my real intrigued and fascination is that they apparently haven’t spoken since a concert in Camden in November 2012, which left them cancelling the rest of their tour, but still recording their second album, albeit entirely separately. The guy, John Paul White (or something like that), didn’t even mention Joy Williams, the other member, when he accepted a Grammy for the band… Apparently the assumption is that they were having an affair (both were married to different people) of some sorts, John’s wife found out and gave him an ultimatum: his family or the band. He chose the former. Something about a short lived band that is built entirely on a passionate love affair and burning up as quickly as it started… it’s fascinating to me!
Hi there Dennis, my name is Alice and I hope all is well for you
I’ve been reflecting on the concept of transgression. Recently I finished my third year of university. I’ve been studying a degree in English Literature. I wrote a dissertation about that subject and its relationship to sexuality in three different novels. Whilst developing it, I had a conversation with a friend who made a comment that stuck with me. She believes that true transgression is found in the act of empathy. It resonated with me, especially as I considered the act of elevating perspective in order to achieve a transgressive response. I would like to know what your thoughts are on that statement
It’s informed some of my private writing. I’ve been sitting with loose ideas for a novel. They came to me when I realised I repressed certain thoughts in order to process issues I underwent. I mention that because my research into transgression has informed me to confront those thoughts. As I develop what may be a novel, I find that there’s a sense of truth that speaks solely to my experience. I suppose in that sense, something transgressive is occurring in the empathy I grant myself.
One of the three writers I was looking at was Kathy Acker. Her essay Against Ordinary Language really spoke to me in this regard. This particular quote has been sitting with me – “when I reduce verbal language to minimal
meaning, to repetition, I close the body’s outer windows”. There’s an awareness about ways that we perform that speaks to me. I think of my writing as operating under a sense of truth. I’m just trying different ways to translate it for myself. I’d like to know if you feel similarly.
I hope all is well for you today. Take care
I can absolutely see you wanting to meet John Ashbery, and that kindness also absolutely tracks with what I’ve heard from other people about Mr. White. Met a childhood friend yesterday who I’ve since fallen out of touch with, which is always an odd experience. I think I was playing Lita Ford in my head the whole time, which became apparent as I grew more intoxicated and nodded a little too enthusiastically in response to a question because I had an imaginary guitar going on. Love Cookie Mueller. Her unpublished (unfinished?) essay Escape From New York got me through being basically broke my first time in that city, and generally is my go to resource when I’m trying to induct people into the joys of cold urbanism (the joys of warm urbanism are entirely different). I maintain that I can never fully understand people who prefer to live outside of cities, and so my best endeavour to try is to convert them, I suppose, like 19th century missionaries-cum-anthropologists with an evangelical zeal, except far less racist and hopefully more perceptive.