…I would ask you whether this earthly spectacle suffices. Have you never felt the urge to make your exit, if only for a change of scenery? I have very serious reasons for pitying the person who is not in love with Death…
— Baudelaire, draft of an unsent letter

In the summer of 1845, a young, wayward, and disaffected Charles Baudelaire made a suicide attempt, writing letters that were to constitute his last will and testament. It was to be one of several suicidal crises which would punctuate Baudelaire’s life over the next twenty years, acutely documented in his correspondence, where the themes of depression, debt, and death come together to delineate a life that was lived, in almost every way, against life.

Horror of Life: The Suicide Letters of Charles Baudelaire brings together a selection of Baudelaire’s letters that spans his life as a writer, from the scandal and notoriety of The Flowers of Evil, to the images of urban decay depicted in Paris Spleen, to his dossier on the ‘artificial paradises’ of hallucinogens, to the essays on the mal du siècle of 19th century modernity, to his late fragments of misanthropic autofiction, and his final days as a convalescent, disease slowly eroding both body and mind.

A delirious mixture of confession, indictment, and abdication, these letters document Baudelaire’s own dark night of the soul, a spiritual itinerary saturated with the hues of catatonic depression, a pervasive existential dysphoria, and the always-looming allure of death.​​

Artworks by Martin Bladh
Photographs by Karolina Urbaniak

Hardcover, 180 pages, 190 x 148mm
Order here: https://www.infinitylandpress.com/horroroflife-thesuicidelettersofcharlesbaudelaire

 

 

***

From the introduction by Eugene Thacker.

Melodramatic though it may seem, Baudelaire’s last years were in fact the culmination of a life lived at odds with life, at almost every level. This is evidenced not only in Baudelaire’s wide-ranging output – essays, criticism, theater, a novel, aphorisms, translations, and of course poetry – but it is particularly acute in Baudelaire’s letters. The letters Baudelaire wrote to friends, family, lovers, editors, and debtors form a sizeable correspondence that also spans the different phases of his life as a writer. It is here we find Baudelaire as a patient anatomist of ‘spleen’ and ennui, a diagnostician of structural breakdown, a wayward astrologer reading the atmosphere of negative affects that pervade both his fractured interiority as well as the somber exteriority of the nocturnal skies, rain-swept streets, and insomniac nights that form the terrain of works like Les Fleurs du mal.
—- What Baudelaire’s letters reveal is that his final years were in fact preceded by a series of crises, crises that correspond to either actual or planned suicide attempts. The first crisis takes place in the summer of 1845, when a twenty-four-year-old Baudelaire finds himself prey to circumstances beyond his control: ongoing disputes with his widowed mother concerning his bohemian lifestyle; mounting debts that necessitate his accounts be taken over by a Conseil Judiciaire (a kind of financial gate-keeper), resulting in a life-long sense of humiliation and resentment; Baudelaire also begins what would be a decade-long, turbulent affair with Jeanne Duval, a Haitian-born actress and dancer; and, in spite of his ambitions as an upstart writer, Baudelaire was perpetually beset by idleness, procrastination, and an inertial fear of failure. The crisis reaches its pitch sometime in June of 1845, where Baudelaire writes several letters – one to his mother, the other to Narcisse Ancelle, the Conseil Judiciaire – that serve as his last will and testament, indicating that a suicide attempt had taken place. It is in these letters that Baudelaire writes repeatedly of a pervasive sense of sorrow (douleur) and tedium (oisiveté) that that he can’t seem to shake. ‘I’m killing myself,’ he writes, ‘because the weariness of falling asleep and the weariness of waking up are unbearable to me.’ Desperate and helpless, death seems the only release.

 

***

A double life began to emerge, fractured from the inside. On the one hand, Baudelaire’s writing seemed to flourish. His editions of Poe translations continued to sell, he continued to write about modern art and aesthetics (including ‘The Salon of 1859’ and later, ‘The Painter of Modern Life’), and a few years after the publication of Les Fleurs du mal Baudelaire published his now-classic book on drugs and hallucination, Les Paradis artificiels (a book deeply informed by his reading of Thomas De Quincey). On the other hand, the scandal surrounding Les Fleurs du mal only made Baudelaire’s personal life worse, straining already conflicted relations with his mother, who was both his confidant but also his guilty conscience; debts continued to mount, made worse by advances paid on unwritten articles; and the first bout of seizures served as a worrying indicator to Baudelaire that the syphilis he had managed since his twenties was becoming worse. A letter from this period details the depressive cycle: ‘[W]hen my nerves are worn thin by a horde of worries and suffering, the Devil, despite all efforts to the contrary, slips into my brain each morning in the form of this thought: “Why not take the day off and forget about all your worries?”’ But then, he continues, ‘night arrives, and the mind is appalled at the multitude of things still left undone.’ Anxiety, defeatism, futility all follow, and ‘a crushing sense of sorrow renders you helpless, and the next day the whole drama begins again.’
—- The polarities of this double life peak sometime in the fall of 1860, when another suicide attempt had possibly taken place. In letters to his mother Baudelaire confesses that ‘for several months I’ve fallen into a frightful despair that has interrupted everything.’ A sense of inertial heaviness sets in: ‘I pass the time reflecting on the brevity of life; nothing more; and my will power continues to wither away.’ A diagnosis emerges from the depths: ‘Every minute reveals to me that I’ve lost the taste for living.’ Baudelaire glimpses a moment of clarity, like an omen: ‘I have the acute sense that some fine morning a crisis could engulf me…’

 

***

In the winter of 1861, he writes to his mother: ‘The perpetual conflict within me is exhausting; my melancholy drains all my faculties; and added to that, the sense that everything is arbitrary, and that all effort is wasted.’ In another letter: ‘I’ve again fallen into a lethargic sickness, a sickness of horror and fear. – I was physically ill two or three times; but one of the things that’s particularly unbearable is when I fall asleep, and even while asleep, I hear voices…’ In 1862, Baudelaire provides a prognosis: ‘…none of my infirmities are gone; neither the rheumatism, nor the nightmares, nor the anxiety, nor this unbearable capacity to feel every loud noise strike me in the stomach; – and fear, above all; the fear of suddenly dying – the fear of living too long…’ Again, a solution whispers itself to him: ‘And before me, I see suicide as the singular and the easiest solution to all these horrible complications with which I’ve been condemned to live year after year…’
—- The bouts of depressive catatonia and inertial resignation take their toll, now inseparable from the slowly deteriorating physical condition, and the old sense of a curse hovering over him now returns to Baudelaire with an almost hallucinatory fervor. The letters are longer, more rambling, more disoriented. There are earnest appeals to make amends with his mother, their letters wavering in and out of mutual understanding and performative subterfuge. At some point, between February and April of 1861, there is possibly another suicide attempt. And this, too, fails.

 

***

There is a sense that each crisis is not the first, nor will it be the last. Its periodicity follows the ebb and flow of an existential dysphoria that is both personal and impersonal, revealing a rift within the core of oneself that ambivalently arcs towards death, and the promise of oblivion. What remains are, in fact, remains: remnants, fragments, and the desiderata of living, enduring a chronic withering at once physical and metaphysical. Drafts for unrealized projects, notebooks scrawled in futility, stray utterances in hurried letters, bewildered confessions turned into embers in an all-consuming indictment – a hatred of humanity, an abdication of life.

 

***

Baudelaire’s letters reveal a task specific to the poet: the struggle to discover a language of melancholy and depression that would not simply be reducible to medicine, but that would also depart from the legacy of Romanticism, imagining as it often did a beatific and harmonious union of self and world. Not so for the poet who wrote repeatedly of the gulf separating the human self from the nonhuman world around it; or who described in such dense language the withering and decline of all things. This is encapsulated in the idiosyncratic vocabulary of Baudelaire’s letters, which displays a remarkable consistency from his earliest angst-ridden days as an upstart writer to his final days in the sickroom: ennui, douleur, désespoir, langueur, oisiveté, spleen, tristesse, as well as the always-looming abyss (gouffre) that seems to inhabit even his most detached art criticism. In a draft manuscript of Les Fleurs du mal, Baudelaire would even describe his writing as a ‘miserable dictionary of melancholy,’ and his letters are a part of this lexicon. For Baudelaire, the letter becomes more than a convenience of communication. Even the practical urgency of appeals for loans or requests for medication are folded back into the larger project of documenting the tenebrous moods that seem to periodically invade his psyche.

 

***

‘Something terrifying says to me: never, and yet something else says to me: keep trying.’ It is no accident that Baudelaire chose Limbes (‘Limbo’) as an early title for Les Fleurs du mal, as it aptly describes the sense of a dual repudiation: no longer being alive, and yet unable to die. What remains is the futile appeal towards an impersonal cosmos (a sentiment echoed in his late poem ‘Le Gouffre,’ or ‘The Abyss’). Reading through his letters, a singular portrait emerges of Baudelaire as a writer deeply engaged with the affective dimensions of systemic breakdown and a poetics of entropy – be it in the body, the mind, the natural world, or even existence itself. As a deepening sense of futility begins to preoccupy his last years, Baudelaire seems aware that the genre of the letter provides a unique space for expressing a range of negative affects that transport him from the highest to the lowest of states.

 

***

These and other formulas are so many attempts to arrive at a vocabulary for describing the irrevocable limbo in which Baudelaire so often found himself. Baudelaire is drawn into the marble-like impassivity of depressive states, engulfed in the chthonic-like ‘black bile’ of negative affects – ennui, désespoir, douleur, spleen. Then – as now – the precise relationship between suicide and depression remains diffuse and opaque. The allure of death, the impassivity of life, and between them, an abyss. When all is told, Baudelaire’s suicide letters reveal something much less melodramatic than suicide (a gesture that requires decisiveness, assertion, and a generally proactive disposition). For the suicide has something definitive about it, a euphoric sense of solution, even as it remains a deeply-felt enigma for those left behind. But Baudelaire’s almost miasmatic ennui eclipses even the will to suicide. It’s as if his depression strangely mitigates against his suicide. It is the sense of being too tired for suicide. The convention of thinking about suicide as a sudden event gives way to a different notion, of suicide as drawn out over the course of an entire life, where resignation, futility, and dead time spread themselves out like the slow diffusion of night. The short suicide gives way to the long suicide; the quickening of the act receding behind something as diffuse yet palpable as depressive states themselves: the slow suicide.
—- For Baudelaire, ‘depression’ names neither a subjective disposition nor a clinical condition, but the diffuse non-existence where the personal and the impersonal bleed into each other, resulting in an affective collapse in which the aesthetic is also anesthetic, affect turned inside out – catatonia, oblivion, a zero-degree of being. In an entry from his late notebooks, Baudelaire notes: ‘Physically as well as morally, I’ve always felt a sense of an abyss, not only the abyss of sleep, but the abyss of action, of dreams, of memory, of desire, of regret, of remorse, of beauty and number, and so on…’ Perhaps this is why Baudelaire so often described ‘beauty’ in such oblique terms – the impassivity of death, the impersonal process of decay, the gravity of rain, the indifference of the stars.
—- If Baudelaire is still with us today, it is not just because he challenges religious morality, nor is it because he is an acute observer of urban modernity, nor because he is a chronicler of existential alienation – it is because he delineates the contours of the ‘slow suicide’ of living, a ‘negative aesthetics’ that gives voice to both the catatonia and the loquaciousness of depressive states, resulting in a poetics that is inseparable from the dysphoria that it fails to comprehend.

Extracts from the letters by Charles Baudelaire.

To Narcisse Ancelle
30 June 1845

I am killing myself – without any sorrow. – I feel none of the perturbations people call sorrow. – My debts have never been a cause of sorrow. It’s easy to get over things like that. I’m killing myself because I can no longer go on living, because the weariness of falling asleep and the weariness of waking up are unbearable to me. I’m killing myself because I’m useless to others – and a danger to myself. – I’m killing myself because I believe I’m immortal, and because I hope. – At the time of writing these lines I’ve been blessed with such lucidity that I’m still writing out a few editorial notes for Mr Théodore de Banville and have all the strength necessary to busy myself with my manuscripts.

 

***

To Madame Aupick
Saturday 4 December 1847 [Paris]

I’ve never dared to complain so melodramatically before. I hope you’ll attribute my excited state to the suffering I’m experiencing of which you know nothing. The pervasive listlessness of my outward life, contrasted with the relentless activity of my mind, throws me into devastating fits of rage. I blame myself for my faults, and I blame you for not believing in the sincerity of my intentions. The fact is that for several months I’ve been living in a supernatural state. Now – to return to the evidence I’d like to present to you, my absurd existence can be generally explained thus: careless spending of money that was supposed to be devoted to work. Time flies, but the necessities of life persist.

 

***

 

To Madame Aupick
30 Dec[ember] 1857 [Paris]

Certainly, when it comes to myself I have plenty to complain about, and I’m both alarmed and stunned by this fact. Do I need new surroundings? I don’t know. Is it physical illness that diminishes my spirit and will, or is it spiritual cowardice that wears away the body? I don’t know. But what I feel is immense discouragement, an intolerable sense of isolation, the perpetual fear of a vague misfortune, the utter depletion of all my strength, a total absence of desires, the impossibility of finding any meaningful distraction whatsoever. The bizarre success of my book and the hatred it stirred up was intriguing for a while, but after that I relapsed. You see, my dear mother, here is a situation of the spirit serious for someone whose profession it is to produce fictions and dress the part. – I ask myself incessantly: What good is this? What good is that? That is essence of spleen. – To be sure, in remembering that I’ve been subjected to similar states before and have recovered, I’m inclined not to be too alarmed; but I also can’t recall having sunk so low and having dragged myself for so long in such despair. Add to that the ongoing anxiety of my poverty, the struggles and interruptions of my work caused by old debts (keep calm, this isn’t an appeal to your weakness. It isn’t yet time, FOR VARIOUS REASONS, though the source of this weakness and laziness I freely admit myself), the offensive, repugnant contrast between my spiritual reverence and this precarious and miserable life, and finally, with these strange bouts of suffocation and these intestinal and stomach troubles that have been going on for over a month. Everything I eat chokes me or gives me ulcers. If morality could cure the body, then continuous hard work would cure me, but one must want it, and with a weakened will – a vicious circle.

 

***

To Madame Aupick
Friday 19 February 1858 [Paris]

Next, think of the horrible life I lead, which leaves me such little time for writing; of the multitude of issues I’d have to resolve before I leave (for instance, at the beginning of the month, I lost six days of work because I had to go into hiding for fear of being arrested. And I’d left my books and manuscripts at home. This is only one of a thousand details of my daily life.)
—- To have happiness so close, almost within reach, and then to have it snatched away! And to know that I will not only be happy, but that I’ll be bringing happiness to someone who so deserves it!
—- Add to this suffering something you’ll perhaps not understand: when one’s nerves are worn thin by a horde of worries and suffering, the Devil, despite all efforts to the contrary, slips into the brain each morning in the form of this thought: ‘Why not take the day off and forget about all your worries? Tonight, in a single burst of activity, I’ll do everything that needs to be done.’ – And then night arrives, and the mind is appalled at the multitude of things still left undone; a crushing sense of sorrow renders you helpless, and the next day the whole drama begins again, as if it was the first time, with the same false assurances, the same conscientiousness.

 

***

 

To Madame Aupick
11 October 1860 [Paris]

Now I’m going to speak seriously, without exaggeration, of some truly somber thoughts. I may die before you, despite this diabolical fortitude that so often maintains my state of mind. What has held me back for the past eighteen months is Jeanne. (How will she live after my death, given that you’d have to pay all my debts from whatever money remains?) There are other reasons too: leaving you alone! and leaving you in the horrible predicament of having to manage a chaos that only I can understand!
—- The mere thought of all the work I’d have to do to facilitate an understanding of my affairs is enough to make me definitively renounce carrying out an act that I consider to be the most reasonable thing in life. To be honest, it’s my pride that sustains me, that and a savage hatred of all human beings. I’m constantly striving to dominate my circumstances, to take my vengeance, to persist with defiance and impunity – and other such juvenile fantasies. – Finally, though I neither want to scare you, nor sadden you, nor make you feel remorse, I do have the acute sense that some fine morning a crisis could engulf me – me, who is truly weary, and who’s never known joy or stability. After your death, one thing is for sure; while you’re still alive, my fear of hurting you would prevent me from carrying out the act; but with your passing, nothing would stop me; to be honest, and to state what’s really important, in the end there are two devastating thoughts that hold me back: the idea of hurting you and hurting Jeanne. At least you wouldn’t be able to say that I lived a completely selfish life. I’m getting to my point. Whatever be the destiny in store for me, if, after having assembled a list of my debts, I was to suddenly disappear, if you are still alive it’s important to do something to support that aged beauty who has now become an invalid.

 

***

To Madame Aupick
[February or March 1861, Paris]

I think back on the years that have passed, horrible years, and I pass the time reflecting on the brevity of life; nothing more; and my will to live continues to wither away. If ever anyone has known, since their youth, spleen and melancholia, that person is me. And yet, I do want to live, and I’d like to know, however briefly, some degree of stability, respectability, and contentment within myself. Something terrifying says to me: never, and yet something else says to me: keep trying.

 

1 April 1861

The preceding page was written a month ago, six weeks, two months, I no longer know when. I’ve fallen into a sort of perpetual nervous terror; sleeping is dreadful, waking up is dreadful; all action impossible. My author’s copies sat on my desk for a month before I summoned the courage to put them in packages. I haven’t written to Jeanne and haven’t seen her for close to three months; and since it was impossible to do so, I haven’t sent her a penny. (She came to see me yesterday; she’s left the clinic, and her brother, who I think is supporting her, sold some of her furniture while she was away. She sold the rest to pay off her debts.) In this horrible state of mind, this helplessness and depression, the thought of suicide returned; I can now say that it’s passed; but at every hour of the day this thought consumed me. I saw in it absolute deliverance, deliverance from everything. At the same time, over a period of three months, and by an extraordinary contradiction, I prayed! every hour (to whom? to what kind of being? I have absolutely no idea) to obtain two things: for me, the strength to live; and for you, a long, long life. I should say in passing that your desire to die is quite absurd and uncharitable, since for me your death would be the final blow, and signal the absolute impossibility of finding any contentment whatsoever.

 

 

***

Above all, what saved me from suicide was two ideas that will seem juvenile to you. The first is that it’s my duty to provide detailed notes for you concerning the payment of all my debts, and that meant first going to Honfleur, where all my documents are stored, legible only to me. The second, shall I confess it? is that it would be hard for me to go through with it before having published at least all my critical works, even if I leave aside the plays (there is another project in the works), the novels, and lastly a big book that I’ve been working on over the past two years: My Heart Laid Bare, in which I’ve stockpiled all my wrath. Ah! if that ever sees the light of day, the Confessions of J-J will pale in comparison. You see I’m dreaming once again.
—- Unfortunately, for the cultivation of this exceptional work, it would’ve been necessary to keep masses of letters from everyone, letters which, over the past twenty years, I’ve given away or burned.
—-– Finally, as I already mentioned, a feverish task tore me out of my lethargy and sickness for three twenty-four hour stretches. But the sickness will return.

 

***

To Auguste Poulet-Malassis
[around 20 March 1861, Paris]

I also want to say a few words, words that I dare not say to anyone but you. For a long time I’ve been on the brink of suicide, and what’s held me back is a reasoning that has nothing to do with cowardice or even regret. It’s the pride of not wanting to leave my affairs in a bewildered mess. I would leave enough to pay off everything; but I still need to make detailed notes so the executor can manage it all. I’m not, as you know, a whiner or a liar. During the past two months, I had fallen into an alarming state of depressive catatonia and despair. I felt myself invaded by a sickness akin to that of Gérard, and I understood the fear of no longer being able to think or write a single line. It’s only in the last four or five days I’ve been able to verify that I wasn’t already dead. That’s a breakthrough.

 

***

 

To Madame Aupick
Saturday 23 [December 1865]

As for the curse that I complain about (and against which I’ll have my revenge, if I can), I cannot, my dear little mother, share your opinion, despite the deference I feel towards you. I know my vices, I know my errors, my weaknesses, just as well as you do; I could exaggerate all my mistakes, and even then I maintain that Paris has never been just towards me – that I’ve never been paid, in esteem or in money, WHAT IS DUE TO ME. And the proof that there is a kind of curse hanging over me, is that my own mother has, in many instances, turned against me. – In three and a half months, I’ll be forty-five years old. It’s too late for me to make even a small fortune, especially given my unpleasant and irritable disposition. Is it perhaps too late for me even to pay my debts, to salvage enough to live with decency into old age? If I can ever recapture the freshness and vitality I once knew, I’d vent all my hostility in books that would inspire appalling terror. I’d like to pit the entire human race against me. In that, there would be an ecstasy that would compensate for everything.
—- Meanwhile, my books lie dormant, lost income for the time being. And then, I will be forgotten.

***

Facsimile

19 February 1858 (BNP NAF19797)

11 October 1860 (BNP NAF19797)

***

Bios

Charles Baudelaire was a French poet, critic, and translator. Born in 1821, he was a lifelong inhabitant of bohemian Paris, where he came into contact with a number of artists and writers of his day. His 1857 poetry collection The Flowers of Evil caused a sensation when it was tried for obscenity by the French government. He wrote numerous essays on modern art, literature, urbanism, drug use, and the culture of modernity, in addition to translating the works of Edgar Allan Poe. He died in 1867, having suffered from aphasia and partial paralysis.

Eugene Thacker is an author, editor, and translator. His books include Infinite Resignation and In the Dust of This Planet. He teaches at The New School in New York City.

 

 

*

p.s. Hey. This weekend the blog is acquiescing re: its occasional fetish of backpedaling itself into a red carpet (without the red) to help facilitate the birth of a new book of note, in this case the latest tome from Infinity Land Press, in its case housing previously untranslated writings from the unimpeachable poet/dude/god Mr. Charles Baudelaire. I have this book in my very apartment, and, as is always the case with ILP products, it is a banquet for the brain and eyeballs. So please welcome it accordingly and consider transporting it into your reality. Thank you, ILP crew! ** Misanthrope, Seriously, all the luck imaginable. We have the temperature for snow and even the thick gray skies for snow, but not even a flake. ** Dominik, Hi!!! Thanks, pal. Yes, all it takes to be a daring film these days is a color grader with a heavy hand and a sound track by a post-inspired Industrial rock star, it would seem. Any weekend excitement or bits and pieces of inordinate pleasure? Ever fallen in love with someone ever fallen in love in love with someone ever fallen in love in love with someone you shouldn’t have fallen in love with, G. ** _Black_Acrylic, Haha, nice. The opposite of fingernails on a chalkboard. Happy weekend, Ben. ** Steeqhen, Hi. Oh, I accidentally pulled Real Housewives into the blog. I had no idea. RIP. Email, cool, I’ll go find it. Thanks! ** jay, Thank you kindly, sir. Wow, you and your catheters. I imagine there’s an interesting story there, but I daren’t ask. Point is, cool. No, it’s true, what you say about ‘Suicide’, which makes the whole thing even more mysterious if one insists on going the personal -> literary route. Sadly, and I guess interestingly in a grim way, Edouard’s books were very little known and written about until he died, and then he became a critic’s darling and cult figure. Before then he was only really known for his photographs. It’s very strange. I knew him somewhat well, and I had never read his written work as it hadn’t been translated into English, so I didn’t fully take advantage of the honor of being his acquaintance until it was too late. I just thought he was an intense guy who took fetish-y photos. A show you love? As in … ? I hope to have freed Princess Peach, returned her to a non-origami form, and be switching off the end credits by weekend’s end, assuming the big boss isn’t a total ballbreaker. ** Darbz.⛄️, Good morning to you. Yes, you in the morning, that’s a rare treat. I’m drinking a cup of coffee with my left hand as I type this with my right hand. I never learned how to type so I only type with one finger, but I’m pretty fast. Two hours of writing is excellent! Kudos! It’s true being tall and sneaky is very tough. Your cats are so great! Please do work on the Wain post if it suits your time and mood. I don’t really know the turf between and Philadelphia. I don’t even know what’s there because my geography skills are minimal. Mutter is a fine destination. Helmet too, obvs. ** Corey, And me, I never have enough plastic wrap in my house. Use your teeth. That makes it exciting. No, memory tells me that isn’t Mr. Robinson, but I don’t know, honestly. I have absolutely no talent for flirting. I’ve never been able to do it, and I gave up even thinking about trying to flirt years ago. You’re on your own, but you sound pretty canny in theory. ** Steve, Grr indeed. I don’t think I’ve heard of ‘Woods are Wet’, which is very strange considering your description. Well, gosh, I think I have to watch that, don’t I? Thanks, pal. ** James, I think that corpse in a body bag was Laura Palmer, but don’t quote me. Just wait: when you get older your nose and ears start erupting with fast growing hairs. It’s a hassle. I couldn’t tell that about your father until you mentioned it, but I can pick up on the signage now that you have. Yes, re: experimentation in youth, and the sad thing is that most of the young experimenters not only stop experimenting in adulthood but get crabby about other adults who don’t stop experimenting. Sort of like your un-edgy friends, perhaps, although I’m guessing they’re still young and have already stopped self-challenging. Sad. But whatever works, I guess. Escorts charge money for it, and slaves don’t. No, I never need quotas. I’m pretty obsessive. When I’m writing, I write all the time, and, when I’m not writing, I figure there’s a good reason. Inspiration is a moody, schizo master. ** Tyler Ookami, Nice. I’ll go watch and hear how Carcass tackle the theme of plasticity once I’m finished up here. Thank you. Agreed with you about being more pulled into that crossover space than into the realm of traditionalist crunch merchants. I’m close friends with Stephen O’Malley of Sunn0))), and he says the hate mail they get from metalheads — ‘my 3 year old brother could do what you talentless morons are doing’, etc. — is voluminous. That’s kind of a superb read on ‘Nosferatu’, admittedly not having seen it, but it speaks to the wherewithal of a popular brand of current daringly posed films in general as well. There’s so much bet-hedging going on. And so much ‘better than nothing’ defending going on. I don’t know. Excellent and exciting thoughts, and thank you. ** Bill, What do you want to bet that biodegradable bubble wrap has a shitty sounding pop. Cool, glad you got the hoot of ‘Sex Goblin’. Awesome. ** HaRpEr, Well, so he says. It’s more fun to believe him than not. Wow, I was very fetish-y about those plastic lemons with lemon juice inside. Do they still make them? I used to collect them. Wow. You were an admirably discerning thief. I don’t have a problem with plastic surgery either, but there is something very uncomfortable about the people who think they’ve convincingly de-aged and beautified themselves when everyone around them barring the Donald Trump set sees them as a bunch of people who look like siblings from some scary family. There’s a delusion there, a kind of inadvertent conformity, that freaks me out. If that makes any sense. I’m really happy you like ‘Disquiet Drive’. I think it’s really special. There’s a beautiful kind of essay in there about Hesse’s relating to Acker and Chris Kraus that’s pretty brilliant, I think. ** Arla, That sounds super interesting. Maybe the chore aspect is well worth it? From over here, at least. But it’s easier to be hungry than to feed the hungry, I guess. Hungry mentally, I mean. Have a swell weekend? Any giddy-making plans, realised or not? ** Justin D, Phew, so it is a word. My Spellcheck is very annoying. For some reasons it assumes I’m British, and it keeps correcting my Americanisms — color into colour, favor into favour, etc. — and I refuse to be Anglicised by a bot, so it’s a hassle. That’s interesting: I would have thought trying to solve puzzles at bedtime would just adrenalise you and make sleep harder to come by. Shaye Saint John … aw, much missed. I should restore my old SSJ post, come to think of it. Thank you for ‘Nothing is punk anymore …’. I’m there, or will be. Weekend of utter excellence to you! ** Right. Make your way around Baudelaire’s suicidal tendencies and Infinity Land Press’s life affirming packaging if you so choose. See you on Monday.

‘The modern lightweight shopping bag is the invention of Swedish engineer Sten Gustaf Thulin. In the early 1960s, Thulin developed a method of forming a simple one-piece bag by folding, welding and die-cutting a flat tube of plastic for the packaging company Celloplast of Norrköping, Sweden. Thulin’s design produced a simple, strong bag with a high load-carrying capacity, and was patented worldwide by Celloplast in 1965.

‘Celloplast was a well-established producer of cellulose film and a pioneer in plastics processing. The company’s patent position gave it a virtual monopoly on plastic shopping bag production, and the company set up manufacturing plants across Europe and in the US. However, other companies saw the attraction of the bag, too, and the US petrochemicals group Mobil overturned Celloplast’s US patent in 1977.

‘In 1959 after the deaths of 80 babies and toddlers, suffocated by plastic dry-cleaning bags, California introduces a law to ban plastic dry cleaning bags. A spokesperson from the plastics industry “blamed parental carelessness in the deaths” and contrary to previous comments regarding reuse, argued that polyethylene film was “made and costed to be disposable.” The Society of the Plastics Industry, along with bag producers, resin companies and plastics processors drafted a Model Bill that preserved the existence of plastic garment bags in California. The net result is simply a printing requirement, providing a warning message, not a ban of the product. By 1996, 80% of grocery bags used were plastic.’ — bag monster.com

 

‘The history of plastic tubing is basically rooted in the Hula Hoop craze of the 1950s. That’s when two men named Robert Banks and Paul Hogan made a crucial discovery: crystalline polypropylene. Polyethylene is an inexpensive type of plastic material that’s extremely durable and chemical-resistant. Hogan and Banks discovered that ethylene could help to produce a similar type of plastic. Ethylene is Earth’s most prolifically produced type of organic compound.

‘However, actually producing plastic tubing was more challenging than you might expect. Even after the Phillips Petroleum Company had spent a small fortune to develop the plastic product’s manufacturing process, there was initially little demand for the resin product. That changed towards the end of the 1950s. Polyethylene became a crucial material for various products, such as liquid detergent bottles and baby bottles. Interestingly, the huge success of the Hula Hoop resulted in several new applications for polyethylene-including a new and exciting type of plastic tubing.’ — jbplasticbags.com

 

‘Joseph B. Friedman was sitting at his brother’s fountain parlor, the Varsity Sweet Shop, in the 1930s, watching his little daughter Judith fuss over a milkshake. She was drinking out of a paper straw. Since the straw was designed to be straight, little Judith was struggling to drink it up. Friedman had an idea. He brought a straw to his home, where he liked to tinker with inventions like “lighted pencils” and other newfangled writing equipment. The straw would be a simple tinker. A screw and some string would do.

‘Friedman inserted a screw into the straw toward the top. Then he wrapped dental floss around the paper, tracing grooves made by the inserted screw. Finally, he removed the screw, leaving a accordion-like ridge in the middle of the once-straight straw. Voila! he had created a straw that could bend around its grooves to reach a child’s face over the edge of a glass.

‘The modern bendy straw was born. The plastic would come later. The “crazy” straw — you know, the one that lets you watch the liquid ride a small roller coaster in plastic before reaching your mouth — would come later, too. But the the game-changing invention had been made. In 1939, Friedman founded Flex-Straw Company. By the 1940s, he was manufacturing flex-straws with his own custom-built machines. His first sale didn’t go to a restaurant, but rather to a hospital, where glass tubes still ruled. Nurses realized that bendy straws could help bed-ridden patients drink while lying down. Solving the “Judith problem” had created a multi-million dollar business.’ — The Atlantic

 

‘David S. Sheridan was the inventor of the modern disposable catheter in the 1940s. In his lifetime he started and sold four catheter companies and was dubbed the “Catheter King” by Forbes Magazine in 1988. He is also credited with the invention of the modern “disposable” plastic endotracheal tube now used routinely in surgery. Prior to his invention, red rubber tubes were used, sterilized, and then re-used, which had a high risk of infection and thus often led to the spread of disease. As a result Mr Sheridan is credited with saving thousands of lives.

‘In the early 1900s, a Dubliner named Walsh and a famous Scottish urinologist called Norman Gibbon teamed together to create the standard catheter used in hospitals today. Named after the two creators, it was called the Gibbon-Walsh catheter. The Gibbon and the Walsh catheters have been described and their advantages over other catheters shown. The Walsh catheter is particularly useful after prostatectomy for it drains the bladder without infection or clot retention. The Gibbon catheter has largely obviated the necessity of performing emergency prostatectomy. It is also very useful in cases of urethral fistula.’ — collaged

 

‘Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing (3M) was founded in Two Harbors in 1902. By 1920 the company had developed some of the best sandpapers in the world. When they put out a call for new engineers to join the company, Richard Drew wrote to ask for the job. Drew, then an engineering student, had been putting himself through school by playing the banjo in several Twin Cities dance bands. He was hired to take trial samples of 3M products to auto shops, which used the sandpaper to prepare cars for painting. While on a delivery in 1923, he noticed that the auto shops had a problem.

‘At the time, two-tone paint jobs were very popular. At the auto shops, Drew watched painters struggle to seal off areas for the two-color painting process. The tape that painters used either didn’t seal effectively or stuck so tightly that it peeled the paint. The tapes left gummy residue that ruined the car’s finish. After seeing the problem, Drew had the idea to create a new tape.

‘After presenting the idea to his supervisors, Drew was granted the use of a laboratory, where he experimented with different adhesives and backings. He eventually found an adhesive that sealed tightly while releasing cleanly. He applied it to a crepe paper backing, which gave the tape the ability to stretch and adapt to curves and contours. In 1925, 3M released Drew’s invention, the Scotch brand masking tape.’ — MNopedia

 

‘Plastics were used in clothing since its invention, particularly in raincoats. But PVC clothing became more noted in the 1960s and early 1970s fashion trend. The fashion designers of that era saw the PVC plastic as the ideal material to design futuristic clothes. During that era, boots, raincoats, dresses and other PVC garments were made in many colors and even transparent and worn in public areas to some degrees. At that time it was also common to see PVC clothes on films and TV series such as The Avengers, for example. And since then these shiny plastic clothes became a fetish object.

‘In mid 1990s, clothes made of PVC have been prevalent in young people’s fashions, particularly in jackets, skirts and trousers, also appearing in the media. During the mid-1990s it was common to see presenters, models, actresses, actors, singers and other celebrities wearing PVC clothes on TV and magazines. As fashions come round and round again, it would seem that PVC are appearing again in mainstream street fashions as well as continuing to be central to the fetish scene.’ — PVC.com

 

‘The Plastic car was a car build with agricultural plastic and was fueled with hemp combustible (oil or ethanol). Although the formula used to create the plasticized panels has been lost, it is conjectured that the first iteration of the body was made partially from soybeans and Hemp. The body was lighter and therefore more fuel efficient than a normal metal body. It was made by Henry Ford’s auto company in Dearborn, Michigan, and was introduced to public view on August 13, 1941.

‘Henry Ford gave the project to the Soybean Laboratory in Greenfield Village. The person in charge there was Lowell Overly, who had a background in tool and die design. The finished prototype was exhibited in 1941 at the Dearborn Days festival in Dearborn, Michigan. It was also shown at the Michigan State Fair Grounds the same year. Patent 2,269,452 for the chassis of the soybean car was issued January 13, 1942. Because of World War II all US automobile production was curtailed considerably, and the plastic car experiment basically came to a halt. By the end of the war the plastic car idea went into oblivion. According to Lowell Overly, the prototype car was destroyed by Bob Gregorie.

‘Others argue that Ford invested millions of dollars into research to develop the plastic car to no avail. He proclaimed he would “grow automobiles from the soil” — however it never happened, even though he had over 12,000 acres of soybeans for experimentation. Some sources even say the Soybean Car wasn’t made from soybeans at all — but of phenolic plastic, an extract of coal tar. One newspaper even reports that all of Ford’s research only provided whipped cream as a final product.’ – collaged

 

‘The moment the modern plastic beverage bottle changed the world’s drinking habits is difficult to pinpoint. The day New York supermodels began carrying tall bottles of Evian water as an accessory on fashion show catwalks in the late 1980s surely signaled the future ahead. Billions of bottles were sold on the promise that bottled water is good for hair and skin, healthier than soft drinks and safer than tap water. And it didn’t take consumers long to buy into the notion that they needed water within reach virtually everywhere they went.

‘What sets bottles apart from other plastic products born in the post-World War II rise of consumerism is the sheer speed with which the beverage bottle, now ubiquitous around the world, has shifted from convenience to curse. The transition played out in a single generation.

‘“The plastic bottle transformed the beverage industry and it changed our habits in many ways,” says Peter Gleick, author of Bottled and Sold: The Story Behind Our Obsession with Bottled Water. “We’ve become a society that seems to think if we don’t have water at hand, terrible things will happen. It’s kind of silly. It’s not as though anybody died from thirst in the old days,” he says.’ — Laura Parker

 

‘When I was 7 years old, I was Chewbacca for Halloween. The body of the costume was made out of a sheet of plastic, the kind that went “whoosh, whoosh” when you walked. It looked like a garbage bag. On it was a picture of Chewie’s head with “Star Wars” emblazoned above it, in case you didn’t recognize the Wookiee and what movie he was from. The mask—a thin, brittle piece of plastic—had two eyehole cutouts, two small nose-holes and a slight mouth slit for easy breathing. Only, it wasn’t easy to breathe when wearing that mask. And I had a hard time fitting it over my thick, plastic-framed glasses because the thin white elastic that held it in place would break every other time I put it on. And once I did, my glasses would steam up from the massive amount of sweat my body was producing from the costume.

‘Ben Cooper, the son of a restaurant owner who became a costume impresario, didn’t invent the Halloween costume. But he and his company awakened generations of kids to the potential of what Halloween could be. Ben Cooper wasn’t the first company to manufacture Halloween costumes, nor was it the first to license Hollywood creations for the costume-buying public. But Ben Cooper had an advantage: The company excelled at getting licenses to characters before they became popular and, in a lot of cases, before anyone else. Consider one of its first purchases, in 1937: Snow White, from a little company called Walt Disney.

‘It wasn’t until after World War II, however, that Halloween costume manufacturing became big business. With the rise of television in the 1950s and the popularity of TV shows such as The Adventures of Superman, Zorro, and Davy Crockett, Ben Cooper obtained the licenses to many of these live-action shows and began mass producing inexpensive representations of them in costume form for less than $3 each, which amounts to about 12 bucks these days. The company distinguished itself with speed: It would rapidly buy rights, produce costumes and get them onto store shelves, which opened a whole new world of costuming to children.

‘Ben Cooper’s heyday didn’t last forever. The company filed for bankruptcy twice due to lagging sales, relocation expenses, and the early 1990s recession. But it was new rivals that probably did the most damage to Ben Cooper ’s business, selling high-quality latex masks and more realistic costumes. One of those competitors was Rubie’s Costume Company, which eventually bought Ben Cooper and dissolved it.’ — Charles Moss, Slate

 

‘The first inflatable structure was designed in 1959 by John Scurlock in Shreveport, Louisiana who was experimenting with inflatable covers for tennis courts when he noticed his employees enjoyed jumping on the covers. He was a mechanical engineer and liked physics. Scurlock was a pioneer of inflatable domes, inflatable tents, inflatable signs and his greatest achievement was the invention of the safety air cushion that is used by fire and rescue departments to catch people jumping from buildings or heights.

‘The first space walk manufacturing company was in New Orleans in a leased warehouse that also sewed horse pads. His wife, Frances, started the first inflatable rental company in 1968 and in 1976 they built a custom facility for the production and rental of the products. They marketed the space walks to children’s events such as birthday parties, school fairs and company picnics. These original inflatables did not have the enclosure of today’s inflatables, creating a safety hazard.

‘Their son Frank Scurlock expanded their rental concept throughout the United States under the brand names “Space Walk” and “Inflatable Zoo”. Frank also founded the first all inflatable indoor play park called “Fun Factory” on Thanksgiving Day 1986 in Metairie, Louisiana. A second unit was opened in Memphis Tennessee called “Fun Plex” in 1987. Both locations closed after the value of the property became too great for the operations. The first inflatable was an open top mattress with no sides, called a “Space Pillow”. In 1967 a pressurized inflatable top was added, it required two fans and got hot in the summer like a greenhouse. That version was called “Space Walk” and was adopted as the company name.

‘In 1974, to solve the heat problem, a new product line called “Jupiter Jump” was created that has inflated columns that supported netting walls which allowed the air to pass through. Further enhancements of this style were developed until, in the early 1990s, the first entirely enclosed inflatable structure, built to resemble a fairytale castle, appeared on the market and proved immensely popular. Bouncy Castles, as they’re now popularly known, no longer need to physically resemble a castle to warrant the moniker.’ — collaged

 

‘Plastic surgery is a surgical specialty involving the restoration, reconstruction, or alteration of the human body. It can be divided into two main categories: reconstructive surgery and cosmetic surgery. Reconstructive surgery covers a wide range of specialties, including craniofacial surgery, hand surgery, microsurgery, and the treatment of burns. This category of surgery focuses on restoring a body part or improving its function. In contrast, cosmetic (or aesthetic) surgery focuses solely on improving the physical appearance of the body. A comprehensive definition of plastic surgery has never been established, because it has no distinct anatomical object and thus overlaps with practically all other surgical specialties. An essential feature of plastic surgery is that it involves the treatment of conditions that require or may require tissue relocation skills.

‘The word plastic in plastic surgery is in reference to the concept of “reshaping” and comes from the Greek πλαστική (τέχνη), plastikē (tekhnē), “the art of modelling” of malleable flesh. This meaning in English is seen as early as 1598. In the surgical context, the word “plastic” first appeared in 1816 and was established in 1838 by Eduard Zeis, preceding the modern technical usage of the word as “engineering material made from petroleum” by 70 years.

‘Treatments for the plastic repair of a broken nose are first mentioned in the c. 1600 BC Egyptian medical text called the Edwin Smith papyrus. The early trauma surgery textbook was named after the American Egyptologist, Edwin Smith.Reconstructive surgery techniques were being carried out in India by 800 BC. Sushruta was a physician who made contributions to the field of plastic and cataract surgery in the 6th century BC.

‘The Roman scholar Aulus Cornelius Celsus recorded surgical techniques, including plastic surgery, in the 1st century AD. The Romans also performed plastic cosmetic surgery, using simple techniques, such as repairing damaged ears, from around the 1st century BC. For religious reasons, they did not dissect either human beings or animals, thus, their knowledge was based in its entirety on the texts of their Greek predecessors. Notwithstanding, Aulus Cornelius Celsus left some accurate anatomical descriptions, some of which—for instance, his studies on the genitalia and the skeleton—are of special interest to plastic surgery.’ — American Society of Plastic Surgeons

 

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p.s. Hey. ** Steeqhen, It’s true, sometimes when I’m sick my dreams will hang around in my brain for a while. I guess the transition from sleep to awake is smoother in that case? The much hated (from me) ‘The Lighthouse’ was kind of like that too: a clunky play about masculinity wedged inside an overwrought gloom style fest. I vote for writing that piece. You seemed creatively fraught, which can work wonders. ** Misanthrope, So sorry, George. Let me know how it goes. ** jay, Hey, j. So happy her work insinuated itself. Yeah, it’s true, it’s interesting to be around the altered. You’re right. And excellent that you liked ‘Suicide’. You may know this, but Edouard finished the novel, delivered it to his publisher, then went home and killed himself. He shared my French publisher, Editions POL, and I knew him a little. Intense guy. Obviously. Huge island resort sounds nice. I’m in Peach’s castle, the last level of my game, preparing for and dreading my upcoming battle with the big boss, a giant stapler. ** Dominik, Hi!!! Yeah, her work isn’t very well known in recent times, for the reasons I kvetched about at the p.s.’s end. Films that aren’t angling to be viral sensations are orphaned in this current state of pro-popular anti-serious culture. In the US, I mean. Ah, you’re reading Damien’s novel. I wonder how he is. He still dips in here sometimes. Let’s be very thankful for our things. Ha. Love is a battlefield, G. ** _Black_Acrylic, Thank you so much for looking at her work. Mission accomplished. Promising, fingers crossed news there about your Leeds dudes. ** James, Hi. Well, most of the filmmakers I feature here made their films in a world where that kind of work was more prized, and most of them weren’t that prolific, it just seems so when you stack all their works up in retrospect. You’ll have plenty of time to get up to experimental things in the future when school is dust. Your metalhead friends are more mainstream-y types of metalheads, like Judas Priest and maybe Deftones when they’re feeling edgy and all that stuff? Ah, I quite like ‘Dauði Baldr’, I don’t think it’s shitty whatsoever. The UK has a pretty fair number of escorts. They seem to thrive there. But what the UK really has is an inordinately vast number of slaves. In my searching, I would say the UK has the largest slave population in the world, with Germany a semi-close second. Why? You tell me. My to-do list … work on/finish the script for Zac’s and my new film, try to get some fiction going,  go to Efteling, … etc. If you pay close attention to the blog, and I know you do, you know what my obsessions are, just not how obsessive I am about them because I’m a nice guy who spares you. So many lonely people out there. It’s sad. I never get lonely, I don’t think. It’s weird. So, were you up late? ** Steve, Thanks! Yeah, she’s a bit in the background these days. But with a catchy name like Chick Strand, that can’t last forever. Everyone, Steve christens the new year with his first 2025 review, on the film ALL WE IMAGINE AS LIGHT, and it’s on the arts fuse site aka here. ** Lucas, Sorry the cutting cigs thing didn’t work. But you’ll kick it. Definitely best to quit smoking as young as possible. The filthier your lungs, the more they fight back. Now that’s an intense dream, you are absolutely right. Makes me glad that mine vanish with the opening of my eyes. Quite colorful, though. That makes sense, yes, and I hope you’ll write that if the idea stays itchy. I’m actually not very good at non-fiction writing, so I don’t know. Start by kind of following the leads of, say, Meinhof and Indiana, not worrying about being imitative, and soon enough your own voice will eat the influences. I think that’s how it works? Have the best time making the last holiday days matter. Sounds like you will. ** Darby*ੈ🎡‧₊˚, Ooh, a consolidated Darby-adjacent Fete Foraine! Slobberhouse, nice name. Sounds fun even from the title’s outset. Uh, presumably I will be doing some travelling for screenings of our film, but all of that is yet to be determined. My fingers are extremely crossed regarding your strength and resilience. And your tofu too. Did they help? I don’t believe in God, no. Not even for a second. Not even when inexplicable things happen. I sometimes sort of believe in karma, but not very often. Vampa Museum, no. I’ll scope it out. There’s a vampire museum in Paris, but I hear it’s pretty tiny and unconvincing. I wish you immense luck with your writing. Immense. Did that help? You sounded like you were primed. Yes, yes indeed, I would truly love it if you want to make a Louis Wain post. Yes, please, and thank you ultra-much for wanting to. ** Måns BT, Jour béni, Måns. Oh, man, okay, it does sound like you should have taken my advice. Yikes. What in the world did you party with? Surely your parents won’t revise their general opinion of your upstanding personhood based on one evening of indulgence. I don’t know your parents though, obviously. But … you can still find a way to meet her, no? If she likse ‘The Sluts’, surely just telling her you were zonked that night won’t dissuade her. I am an optimist, but that also seems logical. My 2025 has been such a non-event so far that I’m not sure what it means. I wish you all the best too. I feel certain that 2025 will sweep you off your feet in the good way. ** HaRpEr, Ah. I was a shitty shoplifter. I only did it three times and got caught two times. The only time I didn’t get caught I was stealing a gay porn magazine, so I guess luck was on my side in some respect. I have a friend who shoplifts every single time he goes in any store. When I go in a store with him, I pretend I don’t know him. But he says he has never been caught, and he’s in his 20s and says he has been shoplifting multiple times a day since was a 7 years old. Nice: new year, visibly new you. That’s a way to freshen things up. Aw, I’m glad my little outburst had at least a single instance of persuasiveness and that it was you. ** Arla, Hi, Arla! Happiest first portion of 2025 to you! Wow, you wrote about her. That’s very, very cool. Uh, I’m just a really curious person, and, for whatever reason, I get very industrious when I’m curious. Just dumb luck, I guess. What’s the lengthy essay about? Or, you don’t have to tell me if vocalising it makes the bricking worse. Really good to see you! ** Justin D, Hi, Justin. Yes, GbV’s gigantic body of work unfortunately has a counteracting effect on those who don’t really know them and want to try. Great about ‘It’s Not Me’. Dizzying is a good characterisation. Especially in combo with inspiring. I do know re: time’s inconsequentiality (that’s not a word, says my Spellcheck?) circa now. But it’s already the 3rd, so time to battle. ** Tyler Ookami, Thank you, thank you, for the links. Really helpful. I’m getting a little mildly fixated. ‘Furloid’, wow, that’s really exciting. I’m so on it. Boy, thank you for confirming all my worst fears, or, well, not fears, more disinterested expectations, I guess, about ‘Nosferatu’. Blah. ‘Flow’? No, I don’t know it. Wow, it sounds really, really interesting. Criterion doesn’t work in France, grr, but I’ll find it somehow. Thank you, Tyler, that sounds like exactly what I would like to investigate right now. I hope all’s great on your side. ** Cletus, Cool, very happy that her work intrigued you. Her work needs all the new fans it can get these days. You interviewed rodeo parents? That’s fascinating. Both the actual opportunity and what it uncovered too. Wow, nice. Thank you for the chapbook. I definitely look forward to reading it ASAP. ** Okay. Today you can learn a little about the histories behind a handful of plastic enclosures if you so choose. See you tomorrow.