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p.s. Hey. ** David Ehrenstein, Hi. Such a fantastic writer, yes. Thank you about the Zoom thing. Okay, I’ll try again. Everyone, The honorable David Ehrenstein, as those of you who are attentive to the comments know, is and has been holding a fantastically rich home/yard sale of amazing DVDs, books, CDs, and much more for a while now. Apparently it’s crunch time, and he really could use your help/shopping, which, I might add, will result in your scoring incredible things at a crazily low cost. I ask, even beseech you to write to David and get a list of what he’s offering both for his benefit and yours. So, please write to him @ cllrdr@ehrensteinland.com. Thank you very much! ** tomk, Hi, Tom. Yeah, she’s a spectacular prose writer. I don’t feel like her writing itself is given nearly enough credit. Cool, man. ** _Black_Acrylic, Avoiding Amazon is always a go-to first response, I think. As you know, I know virtually nothing about the ins and outs and behind-the-scenes stuff regarding futbol/soccer, even though when I watch games, I love it. PSG being my hometown team, I do knee-jerk support them, or as much as hoping they win but not feeling broken hearted when they don’t can be called support. And I’m pretty sure my Paris friends who are much more dedicated to the sport than I am would have a lot to say to you about your anti-PSG stance. But me … I don’t know. ** Maryse, Hey!!! I’m gonna look into the right or most doable way of doing an Atlas post and rectify its absence. Well, at the moment I wish my Naturalia was just a wee bit closer than it is, but, yeah, it’s about 15 minutes walk, pretty breezy. right next to Galerie Lafayette. Yes, “seitan gourmet grill” are the magic words! Whenever I go to a Naturalia, which is usually a couple of times weekly thing, that is always my first goal. Seitan gourmet grill is my bread and butter, my ‘meat’ and potatoes. So your wish on my behalf will be granted a few short hours from this moment. It’s so depressing and ugh that you guys are still so locked down, but … fuck you-know-who. Still early in the film funding, but we’re making progress. Now that we’ve decided to shoot it in English in the US, we have to completely change our strategy about funding, which we have, but we’ll need to physically be in the US to make major progress, and of course that’s impossible for the foreseeable future. But it’s going okay. We’ll get there, I’m just anxious to get this stressful part of the process over. Your book comes out soon, no? Was it November? So excited! I would gather that by spring you will be able to come to Paris pretty easily. I would be really quite shocked if that’s not the case. What?! You have Alice Krieg’s bodice? Holy fuck. It, and just she in general, made such a strong impression that even many years after I last saw ‘IB’ that bodice is crystal clear in my mind’s eye. Wow. That is completely nuts! Author photo! Thank so much about the richness of the commenting amongst the d.l.s, as I call them (‘distinguished locals’). Of course I agree up the wazoo and feel very, very lucky. And, possibly even best of all (to me, at least) is that this place has managed to almost utterly free of the pandemic-like incessant talk about American politics that eats so many others sites, and for that I am especially grateful. Thank you so much, great M! Let’s talk soon. Let’s do a Zoom or Skype, in fact. What do you say? Love, me. ** Steve Erickson, My baby toe, which is the broken one, is long since mush inside, but, luckily, baby toes look pretty much like themselves no matter how busted their interiors are. Welcome back to reading! Victoire! I’ll check for ‘Feels Good Man’, which surely won’t hit theatres here, but will surely be grabble from some nefarious joint or other. ** Misanthrope, David’s into products. People are starting young these days. I hadn’t thought about hacking my toe off. That’s an idea! I’ll get right on that. Thanks, buddy! ** Okay. Today’s restored post from long ago needs no introduction, so … do it. Thank you. See you tomorrow.
Now available in North America 
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Please let me never be stoned and end up in any similiar looking parks as this.
Ive had this possible title “Exit parties” floating in my head for sometime and I think I will form a short story collection around it. I seem to have material under this to go round. Mostly still stories anchored in biographical content, in fact Ive had to reclaim what I thought diary entries and put them on the fiction pile, so progress. Hopefully theres fiction with roots in the imagination in store, we’ll see but heres a short entry moved to the fiction side for anyone who’s interested. Its entitles “Saterday at a brown bar cafe.” Not essential reading tho. But here it is
https://bookssleeper.wordpress.com/2020/08/25/saterday-at-a-brown-bar-cafe/
Dennis Im not actually familiar with prose poetry which I assume the post before yesterday on Helene Cixous’ Stigmata might of been a good example of the genre? I did a google on the term Prose poem and Russel Edson came up. Im clueless.? Yeah some good lines and play on words in that Stigmata exerpt. Also Enjoyed the LARB chat.
Oh those ineffably sad abandoned children’s amusement parks! There’s a Russian novel in there. Bu Gogol, of course.
That Teletubby in the 4th pic down looks like he’s straight out of a “Meth, Not Even Once” meme.
I have the new issue of Gutter here to read, which is always welcome on a rainy day like this one. A journal for fiction and poetry from writers born or living in Scotland (and featuring literature from around the world), it’s enough to make me feel very homesick for my adopted land.
Truly terrifying. Does every Russian child have tetanus?
Ah, this post is such a treat; I keep coming back to it whenever I need a break from work. It has this ethereal feel to it? And I’m not sure why but although the images are very unsettling, there is also something really camp about some of them? This could be just me. I’d definitely visit some of these sites if I could – perhaps not on my own though… Pleased the toe is getting better. I hope you’ll be keeping an eye on it until complete recovery. I watched your Zoom on Writing Sex with Jonathan Alexander. Beautiful.
These almost horrify me in a strange kind of way. The Russian-ness of them evokes memories of overly constructed documentaries about Soviet ‘fascism,’ as well as gesturing toward the artifice of, like, you know, Czech Hunter or whatever. Pornos of that specific type all seem specific to this type of location. I find it especially interesting how many of these cultural reference points exist within ‘my world,’ too. That broken slide is great. We have a giant slide here in Christchurch at a park called Victoria Park, which used to be my favourite place to go. It was partially my favourite place to go because I found out pretty early on about this disturbing murder that took place there. Two girls, maybe lesbians, took one of their mothers out for a birthday lunch. They slipped a brick into a sock and beat the mother to death on one of the walking tracks. Peter Jackson made it into the film Heavenly Creatures using the real house they lived in, and that real house belongs to my current University at the moment. Anyway, point being, parks specifically alongside playgrounds have this specific kind of psychic geography to them that other places don’t always.
I haven’t been able to afford a copy of Diarmuid’s WRONG yet, and my University haven’t agreed to buy it unfortunately, but I did get a digital copy of his PhD thesis on interloan and it’s really excellent. I especially really enjoyed the stuff he has to say about your work in tandem with Frank O’Hara, a poet I’ve always admired but never loved and been a bit scared to touch because my ex was reading his complete works when we broke up. You know how we attach ritual meaning to artists and artworks even though they might have nothing to do with people. An unfortunate avoidance.
Me: I’ve been writing poems with increasingly sparse and childlike words lately, moving into a kind of regressive focus on the past. SOLA VIRGO which is my next AS book uses a kind of adult tone, or at least one that projects toward the future, and in some ways so does CIRCLES which Evan Isoline is releasing in the next week or two in a gorgeous-looking limited run. I’m really interested in the way small words like ‘big’ or ‘and’ can hold numerous meanings when they’re overloaded. I’m also interested in the ways that repetition recodes narratives when storytelling arrives in different contexts. Otherwise, I’m pretty stressed. Life itself is throwing me no bones right now and the global news mill is typically detrimental. How are things with you? How is I Wished coming along, if anything is moving on that front?
Taking some time out from the theatre practice tonight to go to a pub quiz instead, probably an irresponsible choice of me but I always find those vague, quaint events quite genuinely stimulating in a kind of sociable, communal way.
Sending the best,
J
p.s. pass on to Ferdinand tomorrow that as far as prose poetry goes, there’s some really good stuff in the New Zealand scene if they can be bothered working out overseas shipping routes and stuff. Tusiata Avia, Iain Wedde, Janet Newman. I’m a big fan of the short story collection “Sex, With Animals” by Laura Borrowdale, too, which isn’t prose poetry but has a few incredibly short stories.
hey Dennis, just wanted to pop in to drop this link to a stream of the 4K restoration of Son of White Mare
https://vimeo.com/ondemand/whitemareafs/444639409?autoplay=1
this is one of my favorite films of all time and one of the greatest animated films ever to be made and I just want to help get it some buzz and attention however I can in the hopes that they might release a Blu-Ray of it.
btw I love all the how wonderfully dreary these park statues are, something about whimsy rotting away is too beautiful. the subtle sexual undertones to some of them is nice bonus too
all the best