____________
Sarah Cusimano Miles Brown Bear (Ursus arctos), 2010
Bear rug

 

____________
Jordan Baseman The Cat And The Dog (1995)
Skinned cat and dog with modelled heads

 

______________
Harriet Horton Hebim, 2015
‘This piece is a domestic squirrel taxied over a hand carved foam skull and skeleton, using the measurements of the creature’s own original skeleton.’

 

______________
David Shrigley I’m Dead, 2011
Taxidermy cat, paper, wood, ink

 

____________
Kate Puxley Senza Terra Cats, 2012
Taxidermy Domestic Cats

 

____________
Juliade Ville Various, 2012
‘Julia deVille’s interest in taxidermy comes from a love of animals and a desire to preserve them.’

 

____________
Maurizio Cattelan Turisti, 1997
‘Ten taxidermied pigeons lifesize, dimmensions vary with installation.’

 

____________
Angela Singer Sore, 2003
‘Singer’s work uses animal bodies as a way to consider not only death and suffering, but also the subjectivity of the animal, and to reconsider the relationship between human and animal – how to “come face to face with an unnameable otherness” (Kristeva 1982, 59) and stabilize one’s own identity in relation to the Other. Whilst traditional taxidermy makes an individual animal an anonymous specimen of its species, botched taxidermy reveals “an identity, and is acknowledged as something not fixed but in flux”: “Alive” yet dead, bloody yet bloodless, Other yet somehow familiar.’

 

_____________
Maskull Lasserre Murder, 2012
19 charcoal crows and ravens

 

_____________
Pim Palsgraaf Multiscape 18, 2009
Taxidermy bird, wood, foam, modelhouses

 

_____________
Katie Innamorato Cannulated Doe Terrarium, 2014
‘Katie Innamorato is a professionally trained taxidermy artist; winning awards and ribbons every year at various competitions and conventions.’

 

____________
Laurent Bochet from 1000°C, 2008
‘L’urgence était de conserver au mieux ce bestiaire fragile grâce à la photographie et rendre ainsi un dernier hommage à ces créatures d’os, de fer et de paille, morts une deuxième fois.’

 

_____________
Cole Swanson Specimen Hides, 2015
‘This collection of miniature paintings investigates historical relations between species by engaging alternative presentation methods. Widely accessible as decorative throws, cattle hides are represented in miniature as entomological specimens.’

 

_____________
Yang Maoyuan Mongolian Horse, 2000
Horse skin, inflated, 6 skins on scaffolds

 

_______________
Idiots Geological Discovery II, 2012
‘Idiots uses the lower half of a bisected female lion’s body as its main material. This section of the animal’s body has been further sliced into two sections and stuffed with amethyst, aesthetically referencing a geode.’

 

______________
Huang Yong Ping Bugarach, 2012
‘Bugarach is the name of a village in the French Pyrenees and of the mountain peak that dominates upon it, called “the upside-down mountain” because of the geological feature that has made it a natural curiosity: its lower layers are more recent than its upper ones. Since the 1970s, Bugarach – a hamlet with barely 200 inhabitants – has been a place of pilgrimage for numerous followers of New Age esotericism. The peak of Bugarach has been duly credited with various extraordinary powers. In particular, it is considered to be much frequented by aliens. It supposedly contains a central cavity – a hiding-place for UFOs, or even the matrix of a supernatural electromagnetic field that supposedly prevents planes from flying over it.’

 

______________
Brooke Weston Ram’s Rest, 2018
‘Brooke Weston’s “Ram’s Rest” is a full body taxidermy whose tummy kisses the earth in a bond where beast is blended with a lichen-rich substrate, absorbing the moss-green color on which it sits, as if the forest essence were sipped up through unseen straws. Cavities pepper the ram’s body – including one carved into its horn – and miniatures are seen therein, provoking one to crouch-and-lean for closer inspection.’

 

______________
Gemmy Buck the Animated Trophy, 2005
‘singing Buck demonstrates some of the songs he sings’

 

______________
Sandra Musy Various, 2010
Does and young wild boar, sequins, pins

Jane Doe #2

Spidercochon #1

Jane Doe #1

 

_____________
Albert Watson Mick Jagger in Car with Leopard, Los Angeles, 1992
‘The photo was for a series for Rolling Stone magazine called the ‘Heroes of Rock ‘n’ Roll.’ The idea was to photograph Mick Jagger in a 1959 Chevy Corvette sitting next to a leopard. However, leopards can be dangerous, of course, so we had to use a “leopard” in the car to protect Jagger.’

 

_____________
Soheila Sokhanvari Moje Sabz, 2011
‘Sohelia Sokhanvari’s taxidermied sculptures appeal to the literary genre of magic realism, in which ‘reality’ is punctured with fantastical events, revealing meanings more profound that naturalism could hope to do. Visual metaphors abound in her work that deals implicitly with the Iranian state. The title Moje Sabz speaks to the ‘Green Movement’ uprising of 2009, in which violent protesters’ demonstrations lead to the annulment of a fraudulent election result.’

 

_____________
Edward and Nancy Kienholz The Caddy Court, 1986-87
‘The Caddy Court consists of a 1978 Cadillac spliced with a 1966 Dodge van to house a travelling court chaired by taxidermy animals in various states of decay. It was inspired by the US Supreme Court, which originally rode circuit from state to state hearing cases before the practice was discontinued in 1911.’

 

_____________
Mark Dion Monument for the Birds of Puffin Island, 2006
taxidermy rats, tar, tree

 

______________
Wim Delvoye Trophy, 2000
‘Trophy by Wim Delvoye, located close to the entrance of the MUDAM- The Contemporary Art Museum of Luxembourg, is a sculpture that most people quickly walk past, and if they are with children, they will shield their eyes. On busier days, I must admit that I have enjoyed sitting nearby and watching people’s reactions to Trophy. It has been interesting to see how many adults smirk or comment to those with them that perhaps this statue should be taken away. Meanwhile, many children just say “Look mommy, the deer are playing”.’

 

_____________
David Blyth The Woodcock, 2014
‘Coinciding with his forty second birthday David was given 42 Woodcock heads. The ideas-in-progress artwork was a way to help David formulate the questions to the answers he was beginning to have. Could we end this haunting by fashioning the heads into arrows and shooting them towards that evening’s full moon, sending them back to whence they came?’

 

____________
Vetted Contemporary French Raccoon Plush Bench with Metal Legs, 2010
‘Contemporary French raccoon plus bench featuring numerous taxidermied raccoons to compose the seating. Grey faux fur adorns the bottom half of the bench and is completed with metal legs. This bench is a unique piece to compliment a contemporary home or children’s room.’

 

____________
Vincent J.F. Huang Polar Bear Hamburger, 2014
‘In one of his recent exhibitions, Huang created a giant Polar-Bear-Burger, featuring a polar bear sandwiched in the middle of two classic burger buns. When you consider the fact that the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) estimates that livestock production is responsible for 14.5 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, while other organizations like the Worldwatch Institute have estimated it could be as much as 51 percent, does Huang’s Polar Bear Hamburger 2014 seem too extreme?’

 

____________
Cai Guo-Qiang Head On, 2006
‘For his dramatic and impressive installation, Cai, who resides in New York, chose to fit 99 life-like stuffed wolves into a glass wall. The stuffed wolves appeared to push towards a transparent wall relentlessly crashing with full force against the glass barrier, while the rest of the animals behind continue surging forward valiantly and undeterred.’

 

____________
Björn Hegardt and Theo Ågren Cabinet of Gravity, 2017
‘The idea and dream of levitation and weightlessness has followed mankind through the ages. Farther back in time, weightlessness was an almost mythical phenomenon with religious, magical, spiritual and psychic characteristics. Today we can achieve weightlessness in several ways, such as in free fall in planes or in a space station. If we walk on the moon, the same phenomenon occurs. Earth’s gravitation is partially nullified.’

 

___________
Eva and Franco Mattes Ceiling Cat, 2016
Taxidermy cat

 

____________
Annette Messager Boarders at Rest (Le Repos des pensionnaires), 1971-72
‘In her studio in 1971-72 Messager produced The Boarders, a series of works that featured taxidermized sparrows that she posed in different vignettes. In one piece, dozens of them appeared to sleep peacefully in little knitted sweaters.’

 

_______________
Daniel Firman Nasutamanus, 2012
Elephant skin, fiberglass, polymer, metal

 

_______________
Robin Kid Various, 2016 – 2017
oil-painted silicone, various materials, taxidermied animals

Back to School

Michael Jackson for President

Rise and Rise Again Until Lambs Become Lions

 

_______________
Ryan Gander I… I… I…, 2019
‘With I… I… I…, Ryan Gander stages an animatronic taxidermy mouse with a stutter, nestled in a hole in the wall, surprising visitors as they wait for the elevator. Trapped in its animated “loop”, this unlikely mouse, condemned to live cycle after cycle of the same experience to the point of exhaustion, encourages us to think and even smile about our own condition.’

 

_______________
Kirsha Kaechele Eat the Problem, 2019
‘One of Australia’s most renowned museums has come under fire, accused of glamorising “animal torture” with an interactive exhibition that features graphic imagery of a deconstructed rabbit. Tasmania’s Museum of Old and New Art (MONA) on Tuesday spruiked American contemporary art curator Kirsha Kaechele and her controversial ‘Eat the Problem’ exhibition, which is due to open to the public next month.

Despite mounting public anger, MONA adamantly defended the display, telling Yahoo News the concept of eating “invasive species” is far more sustainable than just killing them off. “We know it’s not for everyone, but eating or finding other uses for an animal that wreaks havoc on the native environment is more sustainable than simply culling them, and far more sustainable than the meat most people eat,” the spokesperson said. “It is interesting that chicken nuggets – the embodiment of animal suffering and environmental degradation – appear on billboards across cities and no one makes a fuss.”

‘The exhibition, which features a cook book as well as musical and spiritual elements, boasts the creation of delicious feasts through “impossibly sumptuous courses of invasive species”, including the likes of sweet and sour cane-toad legs, fox curry and dead rabbit.’

 

_______________
Peter Friedl Zoo Story, 2007
‘Zoo Story was one of the most popular art works at Documenta 12 and was a central photograph in many of the articles reviewing the Documenta. It’s clear that the sad looking nine-year-old giraffe, which died under tragic circumstances in Palestine in 2003, was a great attention drawer. There is clearly a gimmick: a badly stuffed childish animal with a heroic life story is of course an attention-grabber. But there is nothing wrong with a gimmick, if behind the gimmick lays a deeper meaning. And this is where my uncertainty comes. According to the catalog, the artist wanted to “trigger a narrative distinct from the stereotypical impotent media images”; on the surface he managed to do this – we don’t really see many giraffes, talk about zoos, or even think about children’s leisure time, when the media deals with Palestine. But many visitors to the Documenta did not even know the giraffe’s tragic history, or had any idea about Qalqiliya being a town in Palestine. Friedl said that he views the giraffe as a sculpture that can and should help visitors invent stories to go along with it. I feel, that that might be asking too much from the visitors. If the story of the journey, the documents of request, the permits, the descriptions of the giraffe going through the check points were also presented, it would have given the work a whole new layer of meaning. But Friedl was not interested in showing us the whole amazing story of how the giraffe came to Kassel. He is interested in the “miraculous metamorphosis of (turning) the dead giraffe into an idea”. This he has done very successfully, but now that it is no more a giraffe, we must deal with the Idea, and as an idea, what is it saying? Is this giraffe-idea dealing only with narrative, and/or perception? Is it touching the Palestinian story in a fresh non-impotent medial way?’

 

 

*

p.s. Hey. ** Dominik, Hi!!! Oh, fuck about your brutal heat. According to the weather forecast site I tend to check, tomorrow will be your worst day and then it’ll drop 8 degrees on Sunday and then drop to a relatively divine 24 degrees on Monday, so hang in there. No, we’re shooting the film in Southern California. Originally we were going to shoot it in France in French, but the script didn’t translate well, and no funding organisations here understood at all what we were planning to do — ‘home haunts’ are completely unknown here — so we reverted to English and chose the LA area because Zac and I have a lot of connections there. The casting of the performers is extremely interesting. That’s when the film starts to become a real thing — when the characters have actual faces and presences and personalities. It is tough because Zac and I are looking for particular qualities that have almost nothing to do with acting ability. We want the performers to just be the characters with some shaping and fine tuning on our part during rehearsals. We usually know if someone’s right immediately without even talking with them too much, but we can’t pay a lot, and it’s hard work, so there’s a lot of luck/hope involved. I guess when we go to LA and meet with people in person and explain stuff like how long it will take and where we’ll shoot and stuff is when we’ll know if they’re willing. Completely different person indeed (JA), like no trace left at all that I could see. Ah, aging! Enjoy your time with Anita, and I hope that happens and that you guys can find good hiding places from the sun. Ha ha, I always open and read those spam emails just to be absolutely sure. Love noticing a button on a wall somewhere that has the word ‘Go’ written next to it and having idea what that means and pushing it, G. ** Tosh Berman, Hooray! ** Bill, Hi, Oh, good, I’m really glad you liked it. And in the teeny tiny edition, no less. I think his earlier book, ‘Rene Ricard 1979-1980’, which is back in print too, and which my Little Caesar Press distributed for a while upon its first release, is even greater. ** _Black_Acrylic, Awesome, thank you so much, Ben! Very excited! ** Steve Erickson, Uh, oh, watch out, TV can eat your time alive, or that’s my theory, but congratulations! ** David Ehrenstein, Philip Larkin! I haven’t thought about him in ages. Thanks. ** Brendan, Hey, B-ster! Thanks for being and chiming in. How are you? How did the fashion shoot work pan out? Love, me. ** Okay. The blog hasn’t done a taxidermy thing in, gosh, a long time, so I’ve gotten us up to speed today. See you tomorrow.

 

One lifelong, obsessive theme persists: a perverse celebration of pop iconography. It manifests in love/hate liaisons with commodity culture, or elevates to symbology the preposterous yet tenacious expression of the mythic in the personal – the poly-verse of sexual personae that holds and molds our identities. Because mass artifacts are inherently low-, middle-brow, I sometimes joke with the coinage “archetypical,” as dusty tropes and avatars turn expressive when re-idolized in the everyday.

Induced by music, verging on apotheosis, and rendered in the rituals of sex/romance, branding, Disneyfication and dreams, these icons are expressed furthest in cosmology, which is a literary art. An essentially comic one.

In other words, enjoy the rides!
—

Interstellar Theme Park published August 1, 2022. Available from BlazeVOX, online book sellers and bookstores. Cover art and eight original collage illustrations by Erin Alexander. Video by Karina Bush.
Perfect bound, 202 pages, 7.5 x 9.25 inches. ISBN: 978-1-60964-411-6. $22.

Buy it here
Or here

 

 

Jack Skelley’s writings are mind-expanding, vision-inducing, orgasmic, psychedelic drugs, but their poetic beauty is no hallucination. His method: discovering the transcendent in the trivial, the mythic in the mundane. He is a Pop Gnostic who unearths utopic desire just below the surface of our ultra-mediated culture, hoping to usher in “a Golden Age of pantheistic spasms.” Like any realistic revolutionary, he demands the impossible – “I want a planet of toys … jihad of joys … a thick, chewy anarchy in a candy-colored shell.” Interstellar Theme Park is a funhouse that grants those kinds of wishes and more. Book your trip now!
– Elaine Equi, The Intangibles, Coffee House Press

We need Jack Skelley’s work now more than ever. Jack’s mind on the page helps parse our media-besotted, celebrity-drenched, digitized lives. Skelley’s ability to syncretize pop culture, history, product placement, Catholicism and beyond is a necessary wonder of the contemporary world.
– Amy Gerstler, An Index of Women, Penguin Random House

Jack Skelley has been sifting through the detritus of our modern age for 40 years, decoding hidden truths buried deep within our pop icons, media obsessions, consumer culture(s) and other soft delights. As brilliant as the L.A. sun – a singular visionary.
– Lee Ranaldo, American musician, co-founder Sonic Youth

William Blake warned us about the “mind-forg’d manacles” that inhibit the imagination—if only he could be alive today to experience Jack Skelley’s writing break those manacles. Spanning four decades of Skelley’s fascination with (and suspicion of) America’s society of the spectacle, Interstellar Theme Park: New and Selected Writing is a wild ride through the radiant debauchery of contemporary popular culture. Skelley’s irresistible poetry and prose take us on a tour of a cosmic, psychosexual playground that features a mock-epic mocking Elon Musk, a supplication to “Botox Jesus” for the miracle of migraine relief, a Mary Wollstonecraft so “busy inventing goth” that she bequeaths us punk rock, the distorted echo of Meat Puppets guitars heard in a lover’s gurgling stomach, twelve Lady Gagas performing “Lady Madonna”—in short, as Skelley writes, all “the levels / of paradise.”
– Tony Trigilio, Ghosts of the Upper Floor

Jack Skelley’s Interstellar Theme Park is a Monster. The gravitational pull of its linguistic and other intelligences is so strong, that it’s hard to get close without being sucked in. The television is always on and it’s always playing America’s game, channel-switching audaciously through melopoeia, phanopoeia, logopoeia, and radiant space. Don’t read it unless you’ve got a ticket to ride through the luminous dimensions of its cosmic ra(n)ge.
– David E. James, Rock ‘N’ Film: Cinema’s Dance With Popular Music, Oxford University Press

 

 

Interstellar Theme Park
Based on Alejandro Jodorowsky’s lost epic, Dune

I want whore-ships

And I want these whore-ships to dock in orbital flesh

I want ruby-throated ornithopters sipping the nectar of dwarf stars

I want Emperor Dali on a toilet throne of dolphins

I want drones that say Yes Daddy

I want H.R. Geiger mausoleums for the 27 Club

I want quasi-suspended animation (genital arousal optional)

I want a planet of toys

I want a jihad of joys

And a gulag of Karens

I want Rimbaudian grammar police

I want woke Stormy Daniels balloon rides

I want light-rail Stations of the Cross

I want Picasso’s pajamas 50% off in all emporia

I want Vibrators by Dre standard

I want Syd Barrett-era Pink Floyd to levitate the Tomorrowland Terrace

I want 50-foot Miley Cyrus mourning her Dead Petz on Dog Star Sirius

I want time itself to eddy and unhitch from its turntable of deception

I want Moon Juice cougars – see them jump-start adaptation, anointed with next-gen Kardashian lips and hips

I want Fruity Pebbles vaccination bars, with stalactites nippling jelly babies, but without the jingle-jangle crash

While we’re at it, I want fingers that are 17 trillion light-years long, probing asteroids & healing hemorrhoids

I want Aristophanes’ tranny-globe beings, rolling around & layered with eyes – day and night, without ceasing, they sing

Don’t forget: I want on-demand K-holes mouthing the words “now” & “wow,” drooling and dripping with ahegao

I want rings, blue rings, and rings around rings of Berlin-blue orbs

Get me Stanley Kubrick, I want him to edit all humanity to grunts and symbols

On gas-giant Neptune I want Hello Kitty to be Hell Kitty

I want fresh-baked hosts branded with the Holy Ghost

Oh, and I also want bio-feedback donuts that induce satori

I want 12 Lady Gagas to perform “Lady Madonna” – each one is pregnant and haloed with 12 stars

I want drunk-surfing on a river of anti-gravity

And into this river I want a comet called Wormwood to crash with cold fire nightly at 9

I want Kali the Destroyer decapitating Parvati from Survivor

I want to occupy octopi to learn their language of shape & texture

I want a sunken palace where the spirits of lost lovers murmur

I want thick, chewy anarchy in a candy-colored shell

I want to live-stream Apocalypse Dreams

I want universal chaos

I want the abyss

And, when the Singularity finally arrives, and dumb matter rises to gaze upon itself and remember who it always was, I want everyone to defragmentize into their star-child, co-mingle dimensions, and upload into each other’s arms

 

 

from Artificial Heart

Plastic Orgasms from Inner Space

The human heart beats itself up
as divas sync lip-filler to
proxy lust for longing in
inner-singer aphrodesia zones,
while your atria palpitate in vain
for a pulse in fuck-me pumps.

At 116 beats per minute the average pop banger pounds faster than a resting heart. Producer Mark Ronson algorhythms cadences and key changes to stimulate and simulate with pulsatile
thumping
thrumming
throbbing
in time and tune to prod the systole and diastole of the organ. Through this contraction and dilation, love object X rises to the occasion.

Fill ‘er up!!

And yet, branded as a pump slut,
the over-affection you affected
for your victim/accomplice
came true and filled with real feels.

drip, drop, the brain pops.

Too hot to trot, the operation
succeeds, but the pain remains
as love surgically sours drama to
trauma, silence to sobs.

Invented in 1980, the Roland 808 Rhythm Composer gave users the power to program parts. Now, in its machine song, medieval romance hardens with kick-attack date-stamps. Its monstrous doom-boom darkens dance-floor chords into dirgy loss and minor-key disaster. The coronometer now must monitor arhthymic depressions.

You stare at the text. You feel the blow. Faint with a pressure-drop that drains the face, you flinch in horror as blood reverses course, and undergoes throes – erupting with compulsions to atone.

Until, thrashing through blackouts, bedside arias bleed tears: “I’m sorry. I’m so fucking sorry.”

 

 

Helium Kid in Space Mountain

I had the whole car to myself,

blazing to the bone, science fiction city,

screaming my head off through comets and clusters

and the 2-D doughnut that rolls around,

until, taking that last turn speeding down

through total black to hit a thousand white

explosions, my car jerked still,

all lights frozen and this pimply

employee with a flashlight and cap was saying

stay in your seat and no flashes when I knew another

car was speeding down the track to smash

mine if I didn’t say OK and get moving,

closing my eyes hard to bring on the black

and opening them again to the dark wind.

 

 

Athena Del Rey
California Names New Pandemic Avatar

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

VENICE, Ca — United CityStates of California (UCC)

Homeland Secretary Miley Cyrus announced today the appointment of Lana Del Rey as new Chief Avatar of Pandemic Defense. Del Rey, founder of Venice Bisch, the “goddess co-op” launched last year, replaces retiring Avatar Vanna White.

The new position includes a new name for the Avatar department: Tyche.

“Tyche is no Wheel of Fortune but a Wheel of Destiny,” sang Cyrus. “Flood, Drought, Fire, Quake – and yes, Virus – obey our tutelary spirit, Queen Califia. We hail Lana Del Rey, and trust our Health not to chance, but to destiny!”

Avatar branding is also new. Created by Artemisia Gentileschi, the Tyche bureau’s Wheel of Fortune logo now depicts Queen Califia holding: ¬¬

—–— A Cornucopia: Spilling serpents, sunglasses, skateboards.
—–— A Gubernaculum: Ship rudder on whale-watching craft.
—–— Tarot Cards: A collaboration between poet Elaine Equi and artist Jules Muck. (The deck includes a portrait of Dr. Anthony Fauci.)

Designed by architect Zaha Hadid, the Queen’s crown is fashioned as a citadel woven with Sativa leaves.

Del Rey reports directly to UCC Co-Presidents Nicki Minaj, Ariana Grande, Dua Lipa, Exene & Grimes.

 

Jack Skelley Q&A, from Lisa Haselton Blog

This is a “New and Selected” volume – 200 pages of poetry and prose, including literary fiction. Can you outline its mix of newer and older work?

The book assembles decades of verse and prose. The earliest work – from the 1980s – comes from Monsters, my poetry collection on Dennis Cooper’s Little Caesar Press. That early book included the ode, “To Marie Osmond,” which has been anthologized many times over the years. It’s in this book, too. There are many pieces from the following decades. And a huge chunk of writing came during the pandemic and right up through 2022.

There are also excerpts from what’s been deemed my “secretly legendary” novel Fear of Kathy Acker. That book will publish in April 2023 on Semiotext(e).

In the “Rawk” section are story-cycles on Led Zeppelin, on Brian Jones (the brilliant, tragic founder of the Rolling Stones), and on Dennis Wilson (of the Beach Boys) and his relationship with cult killer Charlie Manson.

What are some of the “adventures and attractions,” to use a Disneyland term, among Interstellar Theme Park’s poems and stories?

The verse veers through antiquity, technology and iconography. Making appearances are Plato, Wilma Flintstone, Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, The Ramones, Yahweh, Lana Del Rey, Alfred Hitchcock, Satan, Pac Man and Vanna White. I think Miley Cyrus is in there twice. So is Richard Wagner. There are evil ventriloquist dummies and porn goddesses, sitcoms and celestial discos, martyred saints and Moby Dick, financial meltdowns and “the singularity,” Neolithic cave paintings, late-stage capitalism and – of course – global pandemics. There’s an entire section titled “Artificial Heart” that probes the rituals of sex and romance. The “Disneyland” chapter includes a list poem itemizing actual deaths at Disneyland, and a series of Disneyland dreams.

The epigraph is from visionary poet William Blake: “If a thing loves, it is infinite.” How does this cosmic line reflect Interstellar Theme Park?

The book orbits the insights of Blake and other epic poets who see cosmology – including mythology and its devolution into religion – as essentially a literary act of creation. The title satirically posits the amusement park, and all it contains, as a metaphor for this act. I nearly included a second epigraph: Paul Valery’s belief that “the universe is built on a plan, the profound symmetry of which is somehow present in the inner structure of our intellect.”

That symmetrical plan manifests as a Jungian mandala map of Disneyland. In this context, much of my stuff references the universe as an ultimate historical narrative – a Divina Commedia… accent on comedy.

For example, there is longer poem, “The Gospel of Elon.” Writer and editor Tony Trigilio described it as “a mock epic mocking Elon Musk.” It has fun warping sexually oriented creation myths and Gnostic heresies into the language of corporate bureaucracy and venture capitalism.

So, is humor or entertainment another theme in your Theme Park?

Technically, it’s more of a mode than a theme… the tones and tropes of pop culture, rendered with an edge of high-brow bemusement. That’s the overarching motif: a perverse celebration of pop iconography. As I write in my Author’s Intro, “It manifests in love/hate liaisons with commodity culture, or elevates to symbology the preposterous yet tenacious expression of the mythic in the personal – the poly-verse of sexual personae that holds and molds our identities.”

Besides the good-old epic poets, I draw inspiration from contemporary scholars such as Camille Paglia, “new narrative” novelists such as Kathy Acker (and many others influenced by her writing today), and literary thinkers such as Julia Kristeva.

Of course, the surrounding culture – from movies and music to advertising and television – can be an endless source of material. As one of those deceptively simple Andy Warhol quotes goes, “I guess I’ve been influenced by everybody. But that’s good. That’s pop.”

What project are you working on next?

I’m collaborating with Semiotext(e) editors Chris Kraus and Hedi El Kholti on publishing Fear of Kathy Acker, my years-in-the-making novel. It’s a humbling honor to work with the founders of this press who have been so influential in bringing new forms of narrative to the literary world, and who have done more than anyone else to bring French theory to English readers. This was especially true of Semiotext(e)’s third founder, Sylvère Lotringer, who passed away in November 2021.

Of course, that’s only a slice of the range of this amazing press. In some ways, Fear of Kathy Acker is an outlier compared to the rest of its catalog. But in other ways it fits in nicely.

Can you tell us what to expect in Fear of Kathy Acker?

Sure. Here’s some of the catalog copy: “FOKA depicts Los Angeles through the eyes of a self-mocking narrator. Shifting styles and personae as he moves between Venice and Hollywood, punk clubs and shopping malls, Disneyland and Dodger Stadium, Jack Skelley pushes the limits of language and identity while pursuing – like Kathy Acker – a quixotic literary mix of discipline and anarchy. In this adrenalized, cosmic and comic chronicle of Los Angeles, Skelley’s ‘real-life’ friends make cameo appearances alongside pop archetypes from Madonna to Billy Idol.”

This is the first-ever complete edition of the book, which has appeared piecemeal in chapbooks and magazines. It will include new essays, playlists, and even a map of 1980s Los Angeles.

And can you tell us how you got your start as a writer?

I owe a tremendous amount to the inspiration and support of Dennis Cooper. I met Dennis in the early 1980s when I worked at Beyond Baroque, the literary/arts center in Venice, California. Dennis put Beyond Baroque on the national map by presenting high-level authors and gathering a “gang” of writers and artists. He published many of them in his now-legendary Little Caesar press and magazine. They included Amy Gerstler, David Trinidad and Benjamin Weissman, who are publishing brilliant books today and who remain dear friends, as does Dennis. This group also included two astonishing writers no longer with us – Bob Flanagan and Ed Smith – and the late, great artist Mike Kelley.

This Beyond Baroque gang is enjoying a renaissance of attention, and more projects surrounding us are coming soon. So stay tuned!

 

 

Playlist – all songs/artists referenced in Interstellar Theme Park
Spotify link: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3E9ZumaffxCvPVyXIB4SGu?si=9ddcdf3b5fcc4d2a

Pink Floyd Interstellar Overdrive
Miley Cyrus and her Dead Petz The Floyd Song
Beatles Lady Madonna
Lady Gaga Just Dance
György Ligeti Lux Aeterna
Tame Impala Apocalypse Dreams
Roky Erickson I Have Always Been Here Before
Allman Brothers Band In Memory of Elizabeth Reed
Ramones Bad Brain
Spinal Tap Tonight I’m Gonna Rock You Tonight
Richard Wagner Lohengrin: Prelude to Act III
Angry Samoans Lights Out
Miles Davis On Green Dolphin Street
Joni Mitchell Hejira
Meat Puppets Up on the Sun
The Troggs Wild Thing
Zapp Dance Floor
The Whispers Emergency
Tom Tom Club Genius of Love
Patrice Rushen Forget Me Nots
Buzzcocks Hollow Inside
The Standells Dirty Water
Frank Zappa/Mothers of Invention Mother People
Mark Ronson Find U Again
Donny & Marie Osmond I’m Leaving it All up to You
Lana Del Rey West Coast
Nicki Minaj Do We Have a Problem
Ariana Grande Bloodline
Grimes Shinigami Eyes
X I Must Not Think Bad Thoughts
Prince 1999
XTC Super Tuff
Soundgarden Black Hole Sun
Brian Wilson Surf’s Up
Rolling Stones Not Fade Away
Led Zeppelin Dazed and Confused
The Beatles Sexy Sadie
Fleetwood Mac Dreams

 

 

 

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p.s. Hey. ** The blog is as happy as a platform can be to quick-change itself into a red carpet for the express purpose of helping to usher the great writer Jack Skelley’s immensely long awaited collection of selected writings into this vast world. If you haven’t had the opportunity to explore Jack’s work in depth — and that’s a pretty safe bet since the great majority of his books have o.o.p. for decades — this book contains much of his best writings in one gulp, from his earliest things as read long ago in a book (‘Monsters’) that I published through my Little Caesar imprint in the early 80s, to this brandest newest works. Scour this ‘welcome’ post, score the book, and you will be completely set, folks. No joke, no sweat. ** Dominik, Hi!!! Any cooler there? We got rain drenched yesterday to the point where my electricity was knocked out for hours and, upon taking a short walk from a metro station to a Chinese restaurant last night, I got so waterlogged they could have laid me down on the floor and mopped the entire Palace of Versailles. I know right? Fun and easy (relatively) money just to pleasurably fiddle with mediocrity. Damn. Oh, re: the film, we’re re-budgeting to see what we can eliminate and not. We’re on a heated search for the main house location because we can’t really re-budget until we know where it is, how much it costs, and how it will cost to house and feed the cast and crew in whatever location it is. And we’re looking at video audition tapes of performers. I think we found the ‘mother’ yesterday if she’ll agree to do it. So, this and that. And then Zac and I will go to LA in early September, and that’s when things will get cemented. Thank you for asking. Happy to share! Yeah, I cant really say that I thought that giant leaf blower metaphor through very well because it would be the end of everything, I guess. Wow, a bit shocking if unsurprising, I suppose, how extremely little John Amplas currently looks like he did. Love taking me back in a time machine to one night in the early ’70s and convincing me to change my mind and cheat on my boyfriend of the period when a porn star I was obsessed with (‘Rick Jule‘) threw himself at me drunkenly at a party, G. ** David Ehrenstein, My favorites are ‘Dawn of the Dead’ and ‘Martin’. ** Billy, Hi. No, when I’m making the movie posts I just do searches for animated gifs for each title in the post and then upload them into stacks in alphabetical order, so any exciting combos are just luck. I hope you like ‘Death Sentence’ course. Let me know. ** _Black_Acrylic, Absolutely in total agreement on both fronts. I admire your bravery re: dedicating such a large and time consuming portion of your brain to Eliot, and I suspect it’s probably worth it. ** T. J., I know, I totally agree. It’s really strange. It’s hard to imagine that the b&w cut won’t get out here at least online if not in some kind of super limited theater release, right? Seems like a no brainer. How’s stuff. You good? ** Right. Y’all please dedicate yourself to the brain and wordage of Mr. Skelley until I see you next aka tomorrow.