* (restored/expanded)

 

‘My shadow on the wall was exactly like an owl; hunched over, it carefully read my writings… I wanted to draw those eyes, which were now closed forever, on a piece of paper, and keep them for myself. This sensation forced me to action, that is, I did not do this voluntarily — one does not when one is imprisoned with a corpse. This very thought filled me with a special feeling of joy.’ — Sadegh Hedayat

‘Perhaps no other modern Iranian writer has been claimed by his countrymen more than Sadegh Hedayat has. Born in Tehran in 1903 to an aristocratic family, Hedayat studied in Paris and went on to become one of the founders of modern fiction in Iran. And while he had a wide range—he wrote nationalist plays, satire, and both realist and surrealist fiction—he is most recognized for his novel The Blind Owl. Published in 1937 in a limited edition in India, where Hedayat was then living, the novel appeared in Iran in 1941 and went on to have a tumultuous existence in the hands of Iran’s ubiquitous censors. Translated into multiple languages, it has been reissued in the United States by Grove Press, with a 1957 translation by D. P. Costello and a poignant introduction by Porochista Khakpour.

‘A tale of one man’s isolation, the novel contains a maze of symbols, recurring images, social commentary, allusions to opium-induced states, contemplations of the human condition, interjections on art, and references to literary and religious texts—all of which have, for decades, made it fertile ground for critical interpretation. The most long-standing theory was espoused by the Iranian Communist Party (Tudeh), with which Hedayat for a time sympathized. The Tudeh’s claim was that the black mood in the book is an allusion to life under Reza Shah, who ruled Iran from 1925 until 1941. But as scholar Homa Katouzian points out in Sadeq Hedayat: The Life and Legend of an Iranian Writer, while Hedayat did oppose the shah’s tyrannical reign, the book is a far more universal statement about alienation. Often compared to the work of Franz Kafka (whom Hedayat admired), The Blind Owl also brings to mind Fernando Pessoa’s The Book of Disquiet in its stark meditation on dejection.

‘“There are sores which slowly erode the mind in solitude like a kind of canker,” begins the book, and in the pages that ensue we glimpse this solitude, through the narrator’s room, which “stands upon the ruins of thousands of ancient houses… like a tomb”; through the landscape of “crouching, accursed trees,” between which there are “ash-grey houses” where “no living creature could ever have dwelt”; and through the narrator’s estrangement from the “rabble-men” who bear “an expression of greed on their faces, in pursuit of money and sexual satisfaction.”

‘An ethereal girl appearing throughout offers hope. She is the image the narrator paints on his pen cases, a vision he falls in love with, and the portrait on an ancient jar, inside “an almond-shaped panel” (perhaps a reference to a mandorla, an almond-shaped contour found around images of Mary—the almond representing virgin birth). But the girl has a “double nature,” resurfacing as the narrator’s cunning mother, and, later, as his promiscuous wife.

‘Any discussion of Hedayat would be incomplete without mention of his suicide, by gassing, in 1951 in Paris—an event that has overshadowed his work.

‘On April 9, 1951, Sadegh Hedayat entered his rented apartment in Paris, plugged all the doors and windows with cotton, and then turned on the gas valve to liberate himself from all the wounds that had been gnawing on him in seclusion. Two days later, his body was found by police, with a note left behind for his friends and companions that read: “I left and broke your heart. That is all.” The prominent Iranian writer and intellectual had torn up all his unpublished work a few days before his suicide.’ — Dalia Sofer

 

__________
Talking with a Shadow (2006)

‘Documentary about the life and works of Sadegh Hedayat. It follows a teacher, a researcher, and a journalist as they discuss some of Hedayat’s most famous works and their influences. The film intermixes the three conversing along with a narrated history of the author with images.’

Watch the film here

 

__________
From No. 37 (2009)

‘From No. 37 is an Iranian documentary about Persian author Sadegh Hedayat. It was directed by Sam Kalantari and Mohsen Shahrnazdar. From No. 37 lasts 90 minutes and was filmed in France, Iran, Norway and the United Kingdom. From No. 37 explores the private life and works of Hedayat. The film includes interviews with Iranian authors, intellectuals and academics including Homa Katouzian, Nasser Pakdaman, Anvar Khamei, Ehsan Naraghi, and some of Hedayat’s relatives. The film’s dialogue is in Persian with English and French subtitles. It premiered at the Persian Artists Forum in Tehran and the British Academy in London.’

 

______
Further

Sadegh Hedayat’s Corner 
Sadegh Hedayat Tribute Page 
‘This Book Will End Your Life’@ The Rumpus 
Sadegh Hedayat @ Les éditions José Corti 
‘Sadeq Hedayat’s Heritage’ 
Sadegh Hedayat’s ‘Davood the Hunchback’ 
Sadegh Hedayat Page (in Iranian) 
‘The Symbolism of Women in The Blind Owl’ 
‘The Blind Owl’ @ Resistance is Futile 
‘Poisons and Remedies in The Blind Owl’ 
‘What is left for me from Sadegh Hedayat?’ 
Buy ‘The Blind Owl’

 

_____
Media

Naked Solitude: Sadegh Hedayat

‘The Blind Owl’, an extract

Omar Khayyam-Sadegh Hedayat

Tomb of Sadegh Hedayat

 

_________
Adaptation

Raoul Ruiz La Chouette Aveugle (1987)
‘A projectionist falls in love with a dancer that he sees onscreen and finds echoes of his own life in the images he projects. Everything changes when fiction and reality merge… For Ruiz, La Chouette aveugle was not so much an adaptation as an adoption of the novel written by Sadegh Hedayat. Free composition in a labyrinthine narrative, this explosion of imagination and creation celebrates the fantastical power of cinema in a fictional continuity, mixing past and present, dream and reality. An existential work as well as gigantic hoax, this flamboyant, this baroque jewel is as enchanting as it is extravagant.’ — pariscinema.org

Excerpts

 

____
Book

Sadegh Hedayat The Blind Owl
Grove Press

‘Plot summary: The narrator, a pen-case decorator, falls in love with a girl who is at once angelic and devilish. Later, the girl appears by his doorstep, enters his house, and lies on his bed, where she dies. He cuts up her body and buries her. The narrator, seemingly in a past life, recounts his mental and physical decline following his marriage to a woman who refuses to have sex with him but has countless lovers. He accidentally kills her; Main characters: the narrator (present and past), the girl/narrator’s mother/narrator’s wife, an old peddler/narrator’s father/narrator’s uncle, a butcher;? Representative sentence: “If I have now made up my mind to write it is only in order to reveal myself to my shadow.”’ — The Believer

 

______
Excerpt

There are sores which slowly erode the mind in solitude like a kind of canker.

It is impossible to convey a just idea of the agony which this disease can inflict. In general, people are apt to relegate such inconceivable sufferings to the category of the incredible. Any mention of them in conversation or in writing is considered in the light of current beliefs, the individual’s personal beliefs in particular, and tends to provoke a smile of incredulity and derision. The reason for this incomprehension is that mankind has not yet discovered a cure for this disease. Relief from it is to be found only in the oblivion brought about by wine and in the artificial sleep induced by opium and similar narcotics. Alas, the effects of such medicines are only temporary. After a certain point, instead of alleviating the pain, they only intensify it.

Will anyone ever penetrate the secret of this disease which transcends ordinary experience, this reverberation of the shadow of the mind, which manifests itself in a state of coma like that between death and resurrection, when one is neither asleep nor awake?

I propose to deal with only one case of this disease. It concerned me personally and it so shattered my entire being that I shall never be able to drive the thought of it out of my mind. The evil impression which it left has, to a degree that surpasses human understanding, poisoned my life for all time to come. I said “poisoned”: I should have said that I have ever since borne, and will bear for ever, the brand mark of that cautery.

I shall try to set down what I can remember, what has remained in my mind of the sequence of events. I may perhaps be able to draw a general conclusion from it all – but no, that is too much to expect. I may hope to be believed by others or at least to convince myself; for, after all, it does not matter to me whether others believe me or not. My one fear is that tomorrow I may die without having come to know myself. In the course of my life I have discovered that a fearful abyss lies between me and other people and have realized that my best course is to remain silent and keep my thoughts to myself for as long as I can. If I have now made up my mind to write it is only in order to reveal myself to my shadow, that shadow which at this moment is stretched across the wall in the attitude of one devouring with insatiable appetite each word I write. It is for his sake that I wish to make the attempt. Who knows? We may perhaps come to know each other better. Ever since I broke the last ties which held me to the rest of mankind, my one desire has been to attain a better knowledge of myself.

Idle thoughts! Perhaps. Yet they torment me more savagely than any reality could do. Do not the rest of mankind who look like me, who appear to have the same needs and the same passion as I, exist only in order to cheat me? Are they not a mere handful of shadows which have come into existence only that they may mock and cheat me? Is not everything that I feel, see and think something entirely imaginary, something utterly different from reality?

I am writing only for my shadow, which is now stretched across the wall in the light of the lamp. I must make myself known to him.

In this mean world of wretchedness and misery I thought that for once a ray of sunlight had broken upon my life. Alas, it was not sunlight but a passing gleam, a falling star, which flashed upon me, in the form of a woman – or of an angel. In its light, in the course of a second, of a single moment, I beheld all the wretchedness of my existence and apprehended the glory and splendour of the star. After, that brightness disappeared again in the whirlpool of darkness in which it was bound inevitably to disappear. I was unable to retain that passing gleam.

It is three months – no, it is two months and four days – since I lost her from sight but the memory of those magic eyes, of the fatal radiance of those eyes, has remained with me at all times. How can I forget her, who is so intimately bound up with my own existence?

No, I shall never utter her name. For now, with her slender, ethereal, misty form, her great, shining, wondering eyes, in the depths of which my life has slowly and painfully burned and melted away, she no longer belongs to this mean, cruel world. No, I must not defile her name by contact with earthly things.

After she had gone I withdrew from the company of man, from the company of the stupid and the successful and, in order to forget, took refuge in wine and opium. My life passed, and still passes, within the four walls of my room. All my life has passed within four walls.

I used to work through the day, decorating the covers of pen cases. Or, rather, I spent on my trade of pen-case decorator the time that I did not devote to wine and opium. I had chosen this ludicrous trade of pen-case decorator only in order to stupefy myself, in order somehow or other to kill time.

I am fortunate in that the house where I live is situated beyond the edge of the city in a quiet district far from the noise and bustle of life. It is completely isolated and around it lie ruins. Only on the far side of the gully one can see a number of squat mud-brick houses which mark the extreme limit of the city. They must have been built by some fool or madman heaven knows how long ago. When I shut my eyes not only can I see every detail of their structure but I seem to feel the weight of them pressing on my shoulders. They are the sort of houses which one finds depicted only on the covers of ancient pen cases.

I am obliged to set all this down on paper in order to disentangle the various threads of my story. I am obliged to explain it all for the benefit of my shadow on the wall. Yes, in the past only one consolation, and that a poor one, remained to me. Within the four walls of my room I painted my pictures on the pen cases and thereby, thanks to this ludicrous occupation of mine, managed to get through the day. But when once I had seen those two eyes, once I had seen her, activity of any sort lost all meaning, all content, all value for me.

I would mention a strange, an incredible thing. For some reason unknown to me the subject of all my painting was from the very beginning one and the same. It consisted always of a cypress tree at the foot of which was squatting a bent old man like an Indian fakir. He had a long cloak wrapped about him and wore a turban on his head. The index finger of his left hand was pressed to his lips in a gesture of surprise. Before him stood a girl in a long black dress, leaning towards him and offering him a flower of morning glory. Between them ran a little stream. Had I seen the subject of this picture at some time in the past or had it been revealed to me in a dream? I do not know. What I do know is that whenever I sat down to paint I reproduced the same design, the same subject. My hand independently of my will always depicted the same scene. Strangest of all, I found customers for these paintings of mine. I even dispatched some of my pen-case covers to India through the intermediary of my paternal uncle, who used to sell them and remit the money to me.

Somehow I always felt this subject to be remote and, at the same time, curiously familiar to me. I don’t remember very well… It occurs to me that I once said to myself that I must write down what I remember of all this – but that happened much later and has nothing to do with the subject of my painting. Moreover, one consequence of this experience was that I gave up painting altogether. That was two months, or, rather exactly, two months and four days ago.

 

 

*

p.s. Hey. ** adrian, Hi, adrian. I’m doing better, thanks, and, yeah, illness has been going around over here. Oh, sure, having coffee should be good. I guess hit me up with your schedule and availability, and we’ll sort it out. Nice. Safe trip to here. ** Daniel Warner, Hey, no big, I’ve been a bit disoriented myself. Mall Punk Magazine … wow, I don’t remember that. If I have a copy it must in storage somewhere. Huh. ‘The Plague’, no, I don’t know it, but I’ll look for it, for sure. Thanks! ** _Black_Acrylic, Definitely not a liqueur guy on this end either. When I did drink alcohol, I was a vodka guy. I’ll check that track, cool, thanks, B! ** Carsten, Hey. No words about the US horror of the weekend. Better a poet’s perspective than a voyeur’s thrill. Well, if the construction is illegal and you don’t mind the headache and, ugh, expense (?), you should win, no? ** Lucas, Hi! I repeated 8th grade way back when because I was a year younger than the other students due to me having skipped a grade caused by my supposed precocious intelligence, and, yeah, the repeat was nothing but a good thing. Plus I got to be actually good at school for that one year. Paris possibility: cool. 2026 first goal is finishing the new film script finally and setting up RT screenings. No, we’re not going for the next group of screenings, but we will for a few in March/April. So hopefully I’ll be jetlag free for a month or so. xo. ** Steeqhen, ‘Unsolved Mysteries’ had very memorable music. I can still hum it. Do UK libraries give card holders free access to the film streaming store Kanopy as in the US? That’s a really good resource, if so. Great stuff there including both of Zac’s and my previous films. ** Dustin, Hi. Yes, master as an apple and slave as gravity. That was novel. I was sick, but I’m better now, thanks. I don’t think I’ve specifically done a RPG games-centric post, if memory series. Good idea. And in the meantime I’ll see what ‘Yume Nikki’ and ‘LISA’ look like. Sounds like they’ll hit the spot. What’s keeping you busy? ** Florian S. Fauna, I will let you know once I’ve spun the album. Look forward to it. Thanks, and I hope you’re feeling very fit. ** darbz (⊙ _ ⊙ ), I do remember you’re from NC. I really want to get down there and check it out one of these years. When you find some great grotesque non-fiction, pass the titles on. I’m down. I think my sickness is all but kaput. Feels like it, but I’m not counting my chickens or whatever. That’s odd, my local market stopped carrying these falafels I always bought and ate religiously, and it’s a loss. The replacement product here is sadly inadequate, ** Steve, I peeked at that ‘UM’ reboot, and it was blah. My back is virtually normal again, with maybe one more day of being gingerly with it. All hail your return to liveliness. ** Laura, Hey. Verlaine wasn’t such a big schmuck, was he? He seemed self-destructive if anything. I try to stay away from second- and third-hand autobiography. The truth is very complicated, and people are very lazy. I’m doing better, yes, thanks. I’ve never joined Reddit, should I? I feel like peeking at it is probably enough? ** Hugo, Nice sounding visit. Nice artistic input. Enjoy hanging with James, he’s great (like you). I’m post-meds now, so I guess that means I’m as fixed as I’m going to be. Oh, um, well, most of my earlier poems were written when I was still working out how to write fiction, so it would make sense if I was experimenting with narrative in them, whereas the poems in ‘The Weaklings’ came after I’d primarily become a novelist, so it would make sense if I felt freer to tackle them starting from nowhere? Keep enjoying the big L. ** Jeff J, All thanks to you! I’m still in the early stages of listening, but when individual tracks start popping in particular I will feed you back. I should be around approx. the 12th. It’d be swell to Zoom and obviously to investigate an ‘RT’ screening. Where are you going? Or I guess you’re probably there already. A ‘Wanda’ vibe is only a plus to me. Cool, I’ll take the leap. ** Okay. You’ll be getting some restored posts for the next few days due to my recent sickness and consequent inability to come up with brand new posts, and let’s start by re-spotlighting Sadegh Hedayat’s great novel. See you tomorrow.

Jul·ian Cal·en·dar noun
1 calendar introduced by Julius Caesar in 46 B.C., superseded by Gregorian calendar in 1582.
2 alias of multimedia artist born in Berlin in 1989.
3 the name of the band she formed.

 

Sleeping Pill

 

COS-PLAYING A BAND

“In my early twenties, I had a hard drive full of musical and lyrical ideas that I wanted to turn into songs,” Julian Calendar explains. “The problem was that I didn’t want to be in a band or play live.” So she hit on the idea of putting together a group who could flesh out, perform, and record her material. “I was looking for new ways to collaborate and subvert the traditional idea of a band. Most pre-fab acts are all about image and style, so I purposefully chose people who were older than me to front the band.”

Julian assembled the group while living in Charlotte, N.C. “There’s an amazing local music scene there,” she says. “Everything fell together quickly.” She recruited multi-instrumentalists JEREMY FISHER and SCOTT THOMPSON and paired them with two non-musicians as the band’s singers. HANNAH HUNDLEY was selected for her cinema background and novelist JEFF JACKSON (whose work has been praised by Dennis, Don DeLillo, and The New York Times) was chosen to help shore up the lyrics.

They became the public face of the band. Over the years, Julian has added and subtracted members to this core line-up to keep the project fresh, most recently introducing tape manipulator and multi-instrumentalist SEAN ROBINSON and percussionist and drummer NATHAN MATTHEWS.

Black Moon
Video by Robin Doermann

 

NO STYLE

Julian Calendar purposefully zigzags between styles. “Everybody listens to different genres,” she says. “Why should a band be bound by a single sound?” The band’s early series of Crimson Static EPs (2020-2021) range across post-punk, disco, noise, new wave, and folk. Their most recent EPs employ loops and sampling, drawing on everything from Drum n Bass breakbeats to string arrangements.

“Every musical possibility is on the table,” Julian insists. “We’re trying to serve the song, not build some fucking brand.”

 

THE DEBUT ALBUM

Julian Calendar’s debut Speaking A Dead Language is based on songs from their live set. It’s more rock-oriented – imagine Sonic Youth mixed with The B-52s – but still eclectic. “It never stays in one place for long,” Julian confirms. There are garage rock rave-ups, hypnotic grooves, new wave anthems, and ambient lullabies. There’s even a cover of Green Day’s “Longview” that reinvents the song’s feel and meaning.

 

WORKING WITH PRODUCER JOHN AGNELLO

“John’s a legend for a reason. He’s worked with so many favorite artists like Dinosaur Jr, Kurt Vile, Mary Timony, Waxahatchee, The Breeders, Alvvays, etc. It was a dream to collaborate with him and watch how he gave the songs a muscular sound with so much detail and dynamics.”

Sleep Together

 

WHAT DO YOU MEAN BY “SPEAKING A DEAD LANGUAGE”?

“Look, we know rock doesn’t have much cultural currency these days,” Julian says. “It isn’t a hip musical language, but there’s still beauty there and plenty of interesting things that can be done with its sonic vocabulary without resorting to nostalgia.”

I Need A Hole

 

ABOUT THE SONGS ON THE ALBUM
Comments by Julian Calendar

Black Moon
We thought there weren’t enough garage rock songs about premature ejaculation.

I Need A Hole
A love song about (w)holes and not settling for less. And it’s an answer to the Bee Gees immortal question: “How deep is your love?”

Longview
We wondered what happened if you stripped the giant chorus out of Green Day’s “Longview” and left Billy Joe Armstrong’s carefully observed character study. And how do the words change their meaning when a woman sings them?

Keep Yr. Secrets
They don’t need to know.

Sleeping Pill
Sometimes you don’t want to wake up.

Our Poison
The air we breath is polluted with all sorts of hate and it can work its way into your bloodstream. How do you undo the damage? “Do you still want me like this?”

My Treachery
Ever fallen in love with someone you shouldn’t have? Don’t fall for fascists. But still: “My politics won’t rhyme with my love for you.”

Conjure Me
Sometimes, if you’re lucky, music can become a form of possession.

Knife Party
This used to be titled “For Your Own Safety.” It’s about radical body autonomy and how authorities think they know what’s best for you.

Sleep Together
A climate chaos booty call song. Insisting on connection in a catastrophic environment.

 

 

BUY THE VINYL RECORD –

It’s available as a very limited edition from Suah Sounds – and stock is already running low. It comes with download code for the album, PLUS our last five (5) EPs. More on those below. So it’s, you know, a good deal. And it makes a nice holiday gift.

GET IT HERE: https://juliancalendar.bandcamp.com/album/speaking-a-dead-language

 

**

There Is No Radio

 

THE FIVE EPs

In the dark days of the pandemic, we had no drummer and no place to rehearse. Reinvention was the only option. We threw away our usual tools and started from scratch. Negativland whispered in our ears: “Copyright Infringement is your best entertainment value.” And we listened. These five EPs were the result.

Softer Than Bombs: https://juliancalendar.bandcamp.com/album/softer-than-bombs

“Pump Up the Jam”

Hushed and minimalist tunes about how to navigate life during wartime, hoping that it’s possible to talk with the dead, and a lost in the K-hole cover of the once ubiquitous “Pump Up the Jam.” Yes, that “Pump Up the Jam.”

 

**

More Songs About Class Resentment and Surveillance Capitalism: https://juliancalendar.bandcamp.com/album/more-songs-about-class-resentment-and-surveillance-capitalism

“3 Teens Kill 4”

“3 Teens Kill 4” is a David Wojnarowicz tribute in a few different ways. There’s also a dance song about how algorithms shape our daily lives and a hot-wired New Wave tune about shooting your way across the class divide. Dedicated to Shoshana Zuboff and Liz Pelly for their revelatory books “Surveillance Capitalism” and “Mood Machine.”

 

**

Swimming Lessons: https://juliancalendar.bandcamp.com/album/swimming-lessons

“The Deep End”

A swan dive into unknown waters. Some days it feels impossible to tell the difference between waving and drowning. “The Deep End” is powered by furious Drum n’ Bass rhythms. “The Drowned Boy” is a swoony New Wave ballad and string quartet, a mix of sugar and poison. “No Kingdom” mixes vintage Drum ‘n Bass beats and woozy synths, plus cut-up with lyrics from King Lear’s mad monologue on the windy heath.

Dedicated to Reza Abdoh and Arthur Russell.

 

**

Severed Tongues Speak: https://juliancalendar.bandcamp.com/album/severed-tongues-speak

“Dekadenz”

“Language Lessons” is an electro rocker about how every new form of resistance is its own start-up business. “The World Won’t Listen” offers a clattering groove, booming bass interludes and cut-up trumpet licks. “Dekadenz” is a glam ballad about giving up on society, with nods to Berlin in the 1930s and 1970s.

 

**

Forgeries of the Future: https://juliancalendar.bandcamp.com/album/forgeries-of-the-future

“Property Is Theft”

These songs swap studio atmosphere for cut + paste aesthetics. Guitars for samples + keyboards. Unusual textures + rhythms that push the music into fresh territory. The idea: Weirder + catchier. Dedicated to Ian Curtis’ copyright lawyer.

 

**

Thanks for listening.

xo Julian

 

 

*

p.s. Hey. This weekend’s blog entertainment is provided by the colorful, brainy, hyper playful band Julian Calendar whose primary members include the acclaimed novelist/writer Jeff Jackson, with whom I suspect you are already familiar. And the occasion for this post is the release of their first album, which is generously described and sampled therein. Your fun is virtually guaranteed, so do have said fun. And great thanks to Julian Calendar for selecting this venue for their launch. ** _Black_Acrylic, Hi. No, the actual start and end dates are coincidental. I just wanted them to be long gone. You must have some idea as to why that vermouth is Italo Disco flavored? ** Lucas, Hi, Lucas! Wow, how nice to see you. It’s been, yes, ages. HNY back to you. Yeah, I was sick, but I’m bettering rapidly at long last. Glad you’re returning to yourself too. Those minecraft arg videos sound really interesting. I don’t know of them. I’ll go see what their deal is. Thanks for sharing their existence. What are your immediate ’26 plans? xoxo. ** Dominik, Hi!!! Yes, as someone who almost never gets sick, being actually sick was quite a shock. But I’m getting back to normal, and my back got worked on yesterday and is notably better today. That would be a nice job: going missing for $$$. Better than escorting even. Love wondering if the phrase ‘conking out’ is the ultimate way to describe falling asleep, G. ** jay, Hey. Agreed. It’s so boring (to me, at least) how people always want to eroticise everything they can’t solve. Thanks, good to know about ‘Expedition 33’. Any clue as to why it’s become such a thing? It’s pretty cold here, but not painful. More like brisk with a bit of extremity mixed in. Happy snow tromping. We got a little on the roofs here late last night, it looks like, but just frosting. ** Laura, Hi. Ginsberg was too much of mixed bag to characterise easily. Did he possess kindness? Yes, I would say so. Was he also a manipulative letch? Yes, I would say so. My back’s much improved today and only barely painful atm. I have to be careful for the next day or two though. I haven’t seen Yury since yesterday, but I’ll catch him and ask before he sets off today. My weekend will be better than my previous weekend, and I’ll take that. I hope you get to fully investigate yours. ** Uday, It’s possible that at least some of those missing kids discovered a happy, parents-free world and thrived. Blake as in William, I’m guessing? ** Jack Skelley, Yeah, my fucking lifelong back bullshit reared its whatever, but I’m bettering now. Urgent care, shit. You flying a little higher now? Rather desperate to hear your Disneyland report, so get your thoughts in order. Lurve, D-man. ** Steeqhen, I ran away a few times as a kid only to always eventually realise my parents had all the power and surrendering. Orly is almost fun now, but the 14 line stops right next to my apartment, so … First ’26 goal is to finish the new film script then start the process of getting it made. And continuing to give RT a theatrical life through the spring before letting it loose on the streaming services. Otherwise … waiting for the year to amaze me. ** alex, Hi, alex! Really good to see you. I’m upswinging, heath-wise, yes, thankfully. Me too, about those posts obviously. There used to be, and may still be, a number of TV shows focused on those sorts of cases, mainly a big one called ‘Unsolved Mysteries’. They were super addictive. To me. If your aunt has any info, pray tell. Maybe you can Zoom with the cat at least? Enjoy home. ** Florian S. Fauna, Hi, F. I think I know what you mean by those super uncanny mock-ups, and yes, if so. I was sick mostly in bed for the whole holidays, so they were nothing, which was fine, I guess. An uncertain Christmas album? Whoa. I’m trying to imagine but I guess I don’t have to, do I? I’ll seek it out. Everyone, the very fine artist and composer Florian S. Fauna made a Xmas album under their moniker uncertain, and I can assure you that their notion of Xmas-y will surprise and dreamify you. Don’t let Xmas get too far away without listening here. My pleasure about ‘Eusect’. It’s a very beautiful book. ** Carsten, Hi. My back is significantly better today, thank everything. It was so much easier to disappear before there was DNA. And it was a serial killer utopia. A second pool is more than a bit ridiculous and transparently greedy, for sure. Hopefully they’ll accidentally unearth ancient ruins when they start digging, although I suppose that would only jack the rent up even higher. ** Charalampos, HNY to you. Thank you for thanking me for the post. I’m gradually returning to my normal healthy state, I think. I’m always writing, it’s just a matter of what. I want to finish the script. That’s my goal. After that, who knows. Happy for your strawberry occasioned promising vibes, man. High five from here. ** Jeff J, Thanks for your no doubt significant part in building that post up there. I don’t actually think I’ve ever seen Solomon’s films projected. He doesn’t seem to be known much at all over here. Uh, I think I found a couple of the missing younguns and then searched further until I’d found a bunch? Here and there, in other words. No, I don’t know Ann Scott. Zac might, I’ll ask him. And I’ll look for that book. No, I haven’t seen the new Reichardt. I’ve never been 100% into her films, but maybe this one will break the ice or whatever. ** HaRpEr //, Yeah, especially these really old cases where there’s little telling physical evidence to be had and the imagination has to do the ‘dirty’ work. Portrait Artist of the Year, that’s it. I remember not knowing any of the celebrities except Nile Rogers was the poser for one episode, which seemed very odd. Oh, it’s at the ICA. That does sound very interesting and promising. Huh. Luck galore. ** Steve, My back has been doing this to me two or so times a year since I was a kid, and I’ve never figured out what triggers it. Anyway, it’s much improved as of this morning. Like I said, the pre-DNA world was capable of such richer mysteries in these situations. Benson Boone is truly the pits. He even makes YungBlud seem like Captain Beefheart. ** Right. Rock out to Julian Calendar’s new album, you guys, and I’ll do the same, and we’ll converge again on Monday, okay?