* (Halloween countdown post #17)

______________
Quentin Dupieux Rubber (2010)

‘Rubber tells the simple and often humorously demented tale of an ordinary car tire that magically comes to life in a junkyard, only to roll its way into a nearby populated desert town and kill various people who confront it through what seems to be a kind of telekinetic power.

‘This very simple yet fascinating and funny concept is played out in a fairly realistic, deadpan way but with a heightened sense of theatricality for its most violent moments. The tire kills several policeman in a similar way that Rutger Hauer’s nameless character in The Hitcher manages to rampage through the landscape with no remorse.

‘But while Hauer is clearly a human being who acts like a soul-less killing machine, the tire, on the other hand, is obviously not human, yet strangely enough when it uses its telekinetic powers to kill the viewer’s impulse is to somehow project an idea of human emotion onto it. Is it angry? Does it seek revenge for being dumped in a junkyard? No real explanation is given.’ — Michael Okum

Trailer

Opening scene

Watch ‘Rubber’ VOD here

 

________________
James Quinn Flesh of the Void (2017)

‘Flesh of the Void is a terribly disturbing experimental horror film about what it could feel like if the act of dying truly were the most horrible thing one could ever experience, instead of the peaceful fading many think of. It is intended as a trip through the deepest fears of human beings, exploring its subject in a highly grotesque, violent and extreme manner. Shot entirely on 16mm and Super 8, including an entire segment (Act I) that was shot on Kodachrome. Written and directed by James Quinn.’ — Sodom & Chimera Productions

Trailer 1

Trailer 2

Watch ‘Flesh of the Void’ VOD here

 

________________
John Parker Dementia (1955)

‘Dementia is the only film of obscure director John Parker. The shooting ended in 1953 but the premiere did not take place until 1955. In order to skip censorship they made four different versions of the film.

‘For several reasons, this little jewel has become a cult film. There is not need to take present day indie cinema seriouly, Dementia was produced with the director’s mum’s savings and most of the cast were amateur actors or just non-actors, as is the case of protagonist Adrienne Barrett who allegedly was the director’s secretary and did not perform in any further films. The film is fascinating and upsetting with a photography that takes us to Edgar G. Ulmer’s low cost noir cinema, German expressionism and Buñuel and Dali’s surrealism.

‘Bruno VeSota seemed Ordon Welles’s doppelganger and was the most experienced member of the cast. Allegedly, he even had a deep influence in the final result of the film. In 1955 he directed a noir, Female Jungle, with Lawrence Tierney, Jayne Mansfield and John Carradine. Later on, he used to work for Roger Corman and directed The Brain Eaters (1958) and Invasion of the Star Creatures (1962), two essential works for psychotronics film lovers.’ — Molins Film Festival

Trailer

The full film

 

________________
Jon Rafman Mainsqueeze (2014)

‘Honestly, I could not recommend that you watch Mainsqueeze, a short film made out of collaged YouTube-Instagram-et-cetera videos and screenshots by the hip and genuinely talented Jon Rafman. I can say that it remains one of the purest and most visceral expressions of a very modern —standing in for Reddit-savvy — kind of horror that I’ve ever seen. I should admit, too: there are parts of it I’ve never seen, due to the fact that Rafman cuts in clips from online fetish videos for “crush” fans, in which crayfish are unkindly and unethically destroyed by high heels. That you can’t “unsee” is, for a horror fan, an occupational hazard. Faked-up pseudo-violence, I can take; real violence — even on crustaceans fated to be eaten — I refuse to.

‘Otherwise, this is a cruel and clever sewer-slew of web memes, ugly images, and deep web junk. It makes a broken washer-dryer into something out of hell. It adds a drone to passed-out sharpie pranks, and makes the prankees look like casualties of war. A fat man in a frog suit, hogtied in Shibari style, is seen to writhe against a sound-scape of dogs barking, ticking clocks, and car alarms, which would be funny if it were not so unsettling and I-should-not-be-seeing-this surreal. “Do you ever wonder,” asks a dreamy, electronic voice, “if rocks are actually soft, and tense up when we touch them?” This sounds existential — actually, it comes from Tumblr. Maybe both things are not, per this artist, mutually exclusive.’ — Horror Bakers Dozen

The full film

 

________________
Graham Reznick I Can See You (2008)

‘While I Can See You is a challenging experience due to its lack of a clearly defined narrative or any palpable sense of clear motivation for many of the characters’ actions, there is still a healthy measure of mischievous fun and playfulness to what little story it does engage the viewer in.

‘It seems that many indie filmmakers see the vague plot template of “bad things happen in the woods” laid down by so many slasher films from the 80s as a blank canvas for them to unleash their unbridled creativity and I Can See You is no exception. Little explanation is given for the spiral into hallucinatory madness that the viewer is privy to here, but Reznick and his game cast and crew certainly are willing to boldly experiment with the horror genre.

‘Wild psychedelic visuals, creative lighting, sound design and editing choices as well as a generous bit of theft from David Lynch’s bag of strange cinematic tricks set this film apart from your average “no frills” indie horror exercise which makes I Can See You even more of an exceptional viewing experience to be had.’ — Taste of Cinema

Trailer

Excerpt

Watch ‘I Can See You’ VOD here

 

_________________
Peter Tscherkassky Outer Space (1999)

‘Using scenes from Sidney J. Furie’s infamously nasty 1982 film The Entity as a starting off point, Tcherkassky uses film as a screen, re-projecting the fragment over itself in stark overlays. The Entity (based on the factual Doris Bither case that is every bit as disturbing as the film) presents the story of a sexually abusive apparition in a woman’s home in 1980s America in the mode of other slick phantasmagorical thrillers of the time and, perhaps unsurprisingly, plays out like Poltergeist manifested at a back street porn cinema: grimily smutty, arguably exploitative, and genuinely nasty in its presentation of violence (sexual and other) — a point that’s only exaggerated in the polish of its relatively high production values.

‘Passing through into Tscherkassky’s non-space of obsessive reflection, actress Barbara Hershey re-enters a house that’s been turned into a weapon against her — supposedly a familiar and safe space that is benign in its domesticity — only to find it expand around her, casting off an infinite mirror-world of generational decay. Through his process, Tscherkassy doubles-down on the feelings of everyday isolation and fear, and frees the film from any diegetic sense of meaning, insisting the viewer confronts both its dissolution and ultimately its integral parts with a stunning force, and moving the source material into the purism of the avant-garde.’ — Thogdin Ripley and Philippa Snow

Trailer

The full film

 

_________________
Bill Gunn Ganja & Hess (1973)

‘The opening scenes of most films intended for commercial distribution tend to ease viewers into their fictional worlds, introducing protagonists, defining the context in which these protagonists exist, hinting at experiences they will subsequently undergo. Bill Gunn’s Ganja and Hess (1973) does precisely the opposite. By the time its opening credits finish playing, we will already have read a series of onscreen texts referring in the past tense to events which have not yet occurred, heard a voiceover narration from a minor character (which also evokes future situations retrospectively), listened to a ballad which outlines the film’s supernatural mythology, encountered novelistic chapter headings, seen close-ups of paintings, watched documentary-style footage of a church service, and been subjected to a barrage of disjointed editing techniques which obscure rather than clarify – at least, that is, if we believe the clear exposition of narrative to be a sine qua non for works ostensibly outside the experimental or avant-garde traditions.’ — BFI

Trailer

The full film

 

_________________
Adam Wingard Pop Skull (2007)

‘Pop Skull takes the general shape of a revenge thriller but filters it through the drug-distorted point of view of its main protagonist Daniel. Inevitably we’re given an up close and personal view of Daniel’s descent into madness while he pops all manner of that help to distort his already crumbling reality. Along the way he also seems to be influenced by ghostly visions of prior violence and murder that happened near his home.

‘Pop Skull is a film that again demands a certain amount of open-mindedness from the viewer. But anyone willing to let its dark brooding mood seep in will be rewarded with an experience that really does get under the skin and feel like an authentic downward spiral into insanity. Plus the film boasts some impressive camera work and psychedelic visual distortions while Daniel trips out on drugs. And there’s also some really great music tracks from the experimental noise-punk group “The Liars” filling out the background.’ — Parasite

Trailer

The full film

 

________________
Shin’ya Tsukamoto Tetsuo: The Iron Man (1989)

‘Before addressing Shinya Tsukamoto’s fierce cyberpunk horror Tetsuo: The Iron Man (1989) in detail, a warning. Despite its family-friendly title, parents should take great care not to confuse this modern Japanese classic with the similarly titled Marvel superhero film. Almost every scene of Tsukamoto’s 67-minute lunacy involves graphic depravity completely unsuitable for children. And more power to it for that.

‘Tsukamoto wastes few seconds of his greyhound-lean runtime before showing us the ‘metal fetishist’ (played by Tsukamoto himself) inserting lengthy iron rods of substantial girth into his body. When maggots congregate around the noxious wounds, he goes insane and sprints from his grim industrial hovel along a desolate road, where he’s run over by the ‘salaryman’ (Tomoro Taguchi) out driving with his girlfriend (Kei Fujiwara). The pair hide the corpse, but the salaryman is soon tormented by demented dreams and, far more seriously, a gradual metamorphosis into a living heap of scrap metal.’ — Lou Thomas

Trailer

The full film

 

_______________
Ronny Carlsson Regissören (2011)

‘Shot mostly as a first person shooter film, we come into the story as the director is trying desperately to get his low budget film made. Actors keep flaking and dropping out, and he gets more angry and frustrated as time goes on. The director so wants to finish what he feels will be his last project.

‘This is Mr. Carlsson’s first feature length film and is described by the director as an experimental film. That it is, to be certain. It’s hard to grasp at first. To be honest, I was halfway through it before I finally realized what I was watching.

‘It took me a while to figure it out, but there are actually three stories going on here. Each vignette relates to something in the previous vignette, creating a connected story. Then of course, there are the in-betweeners following the director’s story in trying to get this thing made. Then there is an overall story being told by both the vignettes and the video diaries together that follows the themes of the prequel short films. It’s really genius, and amazingly clever.

‘I don’t see this as a horror film as much as it might be a phsychological exploration of some sort. Yes, there are horror elements in it. But viewers should be prepared for some really uncomfortable and disturbing scenes. I don’t think this film is for everybody.’ — HNN

The full film

 

_______________
Jordan Harris, Andrew Schrader Fever Night aka Band of Satanic Outsiders (2009)

‘I have not seen Band of Outsiders, the Godard film from which Fever Night obviously derives its subtitle, and thus it would be very difficult for me to compare and contrast the two. And yet what I know of Godard films definitely strikes a chord when I watch Fever Night; there’s the same general plotlessness, the same overacting, the same feeling of discontinuity from scene to scene. And I have to say that I like it better here than I do in Godard, but not much.

‘I think there’s a plot, kind of, and I think it goes like this: three Satanists, Elliot (Peter Tullio in his first screen appearance), Warren (Doilie’s Diner’s Philip Marlatt), and Terry (Poker Run’s Melanie Wilson, also debuting), head out into the woods to conduct some sort of ritual. (The director’s synopsis on IMDB says they actually go through with it; if so, it’s a very subtle ritual, because I didn’t even notice.) Then Terry disappears. While Elliot and Warren are trying to figure that out, they see a dim light through the trees and pursue it, hoping to find some help (or Terry, maybe).

‘…and the majority of the movie is Elliot and Warren following this light and arguing with one another. If that’s not Godardian, I don’t know what is. Horrid memories of forcing myself to sit through Pierrot le Fou, but if both of the main actors were male. And not in a car. Wilson is cute, though for obvious reasons she doesn’t get a great deal of screen time, and there are some mildly amusing bits (which is better than I can say for Godard), but overall, this one will confuse you while boring you senseless at the same time.’ — Robert Beveridge

Trailer

Excerpt

Watch ‘Fever Night’ VOD here

 

_________________
Karim Hussain Subconscious Cruelty (2000)

‘A couple of days ago, the censorship did not allow the exhibition of “A Serbian Film” in Rio Fan Festival 2011 in Rio de Janeiro. A friend of mine mentioned that “Subconscious Cruelty” was another polemic film and I decided to watch it.

‘”Subconscious Cruelty” is indeed gruesome, gory, sick and disturbing, and one of the nastiest and pointless films I have ever seen. The film is divided is segments and it seems that the only intention of the director is to shock the audiences with a confused narrative and disconcerting impressive images. Paradoxically, the music score is very tender and beautiful.

‘Ovarian Eyeball – In the first segment, a naked woman is sliced by a sharp blade and an eyeball is removed from her belly. This surrealistic short is absolutely senseless. Human Larvae – in this second segment, a deranged man that hates his sister that is pregnant kills her newborn offspring and she during the delivery. This short is one of the sickliest films I have ever seen. Rebirth – in this third segment, a group of naked people rolls around mud and blood in another pointless segment. Right Brain/Martyrdom – in this last incomprehensible segment, there are the visible intention to offend the Christians with religious symbolism associated with gore and sex.’ — claudio_carvalho

Trailer

The full film

 

_______________
Ivan Zulueta Frank Stein (1972)

‘Zulueta’s peculiar singularity of vision points ultimately toward the digital dream of instant access to all components, as he doubly reconfigures James Whale’s 1931 classic Frankenstein by playing it at speed — reducing the runtime to under 4 minutes — and crossing the boundary between the televised and the filmed. In demolishing both form and narrative in such a well-known film, Zulueta transforms it, transposing the lumbering creature feature into an exploration of time and the authenticity of the camera’s gaze.’ — The Quietus

The full film

 

_______________
Calvin Lee Reeder The Oregonian (2011)

‘This is an unheralded masterpiece that came and went sadly enough and is as anonymous as any other surreal experimental film. But I imagine the director Calvin Reeder not expecting to get rave reviews anytime soon. Sure, like many reviewers point out here on Letterboxd you can make reasonable comparisons between “The Oregonian” and the works of Brakhage and Lynch but Reeder still manages to chisel out a movie that is perhaps better described as a surreal essay with its own artistic merits.

‘”The Oregonian” is decidedly unconventional, impressionistic (I’m using the more apt literary term here) and drenched with unpleasant, buzzing and squeaking sounds and unsettling, hypnotic visuals. In other words: elements that are perhaps not uncommon in art-films but rarely utilized in horror movies. “The Oregonian” doesn’t shy away from being inaccessible and bewildering. I must admit though that the lo-fi soundtrack greatly explains my affection for this weird little movie. I just love the music.

‘It’s hard to summarize this movie plot-wise but a woman is introduced early on that presumably has been the victim of a horrible car accident. (I’m recounting this from memory) The woman that I suppose is the titular Oregonian staggers out of her demolished car with a large wound on her forehead. She sees two bodies lying on the ground, in front of the wrecked car giving indication that she might be responsible for the accident. Moving further into the isolated landscape she finds herself in she encounters a bizarre old lady, all sorts of menacing individuals and a man dressed in a furry green monster costume. Yes I know, this all sounds ridiculous but it works.’ — Nicolas @ letterboxd

Trailer

Watch ‘The Oregonian’ VOD here

 

 

*

p.s. Hey. Today a silent reader of this blog who chooses to tag himself as TheNeanderthalSkull has put together a super swell and excitingly akilter Halloween movie marathon for you guys. Every selection is either available to watch right here via an embed or can be viewed via a provided link. So don’t feel like you have to settle for the usual Romero/ Carpenter/ Hooper/ etc or giallo suspects, you’ve got a great pile up of far afield Halloween-worthy viewables right here at your fingertips, thanks to our thoughtful guest-host. Enjoy the show, pass wordage along to TheNeanderthalSkull if you don’t mind, and thank you, and thank you, kind curating sir! ** David Ehrenstein, Yes, yesterday’s post was like an XRay of a QAnon nutball’s wet dream. Everyone, Mr. E’s big sale including that framed, signed Scorcese poster, is still yours to raid. Hit him up. ** Misanthrope, Hi, G. Makes sense, not surprised about Kayla’s confusion on the eyes. I’ve never understood that belief or obsession or whatever with earning one’s parents love and respect above all others. The urge is a mystery to me. ‘Different’ by some means or other should always be the by-word, so … cool. I don’t think you can fuck up a zombie look. The only failure would lie in being too discrete and polite. ** Tosh Berman, Hi, Tosh. Yes, I agree, obviously. I do know Rampo’s work. I might have a done a post ages ago, I can’t remember. The vast majority of the guro shown here yesterday was made by Japanese folks. Sad about Diane Di Prima, and I should have figured your parents knew her. I almost had her read at Beyond Baroque during my tenure, but she cancelled for for forgotten reasons. That is a remarkable and extremely intense image: that funeral you attended. Wow. I had no idea that was a practice. Wow. ** Bill, Ha ha, well, I suspect some edibles were consumed before those artists laid those images down. Yes, re: the lockdown, we got the worst possible outcome. Starting at 8 pm tonight, we reenter total confinement like in March until at least the beginning of December. Everything closes excerpt supermarkets and pharmacies, and we need a signed govt. permission slip to leave our apartments. I’m in shock. I never thought we would have to go back to that. People here are very angry. This is by far the most extreme anti-COVID measures in Europe if not worldwide. I think it’s completely excessive and destructive. I feel totally unprepared for this and really psychologically crushed. I think everyone does. It’s truly shocking. ** _Black_Acrylic, Hi, Ben. Ha ha, yes. New Actress, right. I need to get that too. Gotta be good. ** Quinn R, Hi, Quinn. That’s very interesting and cool about your dad’s entrepreneurial necktie venture. Hey, no one thought vinyl records would return to having any currency, so you never know. I read your review. It’s very thoughtful and delving and intelligent and everything it needs to be, I think. Andrew is actually a good pal of mine. I just hung out with him four days ago. So reading the review was emotionally complicated in a very interesting way. I haven’t read ‘Skyland’ yet, and I don’t know what Andrew thinks, but I think any writer should or even would be honoured to have their work so carefully and deeply studied and discussed. I know I would, if my book were that review’s subject. Anyway, try not to sweat what blow back you’ve gotten. I’ve been there with reviews I’ve written. Once I wrote a very negative review of Brion Gysin’s collected writings, and his fan base went nuts, wrote vicious letters to the editor of the venue I wrote it for trashing me and urging them to never let me review for them again, berated me in person, etc. It was unpleasant, but then it passed. One last curious thing: Andrew is actually a huge fan/player of Roller Coaster Tycoon, so that was funny. I liked the latest Yves Tumor a lot. He’s one of the extremely few artists who made really experimental work, which I love, and then began working with more familiar elements at a certain point without disempowering his work thereby at all. Yeah, I like his stuff a lot. Have a terrific day, man. ** Steve Erickson, Hi. Yes, see my comment to Bill. As I said, the measures couldn’t be more restrictive, and everyone is shocked and pissed off, and it’s very depressing. Enjoy what freedoms you have right now as much as you can. Well, throat-wise, I guess that’s the best case scenario, so good. The best guro has whimsy in it, and I’m never exactly sure whether the artists intend that. Well, some obviously do, but … ** Brian O’Connell, Hi, Brian. Happy it interested you. I’m always very interested in how extreme things are portrayed, how artists attempt to circumvent the inherent shock factor, how they choose to render something so volatile, what approach has what effect, etc. Thanks for checking out Gisele’s and my work. ‘Kindertotenlieder’ is my personal favorite among the pieces we’ve made. I hope you’ll get to see something live at some point. I think once the current hell on earth has finally ascended, there will ideally be an occasion. I hope your Thursday is a million times better than mine is destined to be, which won’t be too hard, ha ha. ** Okay. Enjoy the movies. See you tomorrow.

* (Halloween countdown post #16)

 

‘Guro, also sometimes called Ero guro (エログロ), is an artistic genre that puts its focus on eroticism, sexual corruption, and decadence. As a term, it is used to denote something that is both erotic and grotesque. The term itself is an example of wasei-eigo, a Japanese combination of English words or abbreviated words: ero from “ero(tic)”, guro from “gro(tesque)”, and nansensu from “nonsense”. In actuality the “grotesqueness” implied in the term refers to things that are malformed, unnatural, or horrific. While items that are pornographic and bloody are not necessarily ero guro, and vice versa, the term is often used to mean “gore”—depictions of horror, blood, and guts.

‘Ero guro nansensu, characterized as a “prewar, bourgeois cultural phenomenon that devoted itself to explorations of the deviant, the bizarre, and the ridiculous,” manifested in the popular culture of Taishō Tokyo during the 1920s. Writer Ian Buruma describes the social atmosphere of the time as “a skittish, sometimes nihilistic hedonism that brings Weimar Berlin to mind.” Its roots go back to artists such as Tsukioka Yoshitoshi, who, besides erotic shunga, also produced woodblock prints showing decapitations and acts of violence from Japanese history. Ukiyo-e artists such as Utagawa Kuniyoshi presented similar themes with bondage, rape and erotic crucifixion.

‘Ero guro nansensu’s first distinct appearance began in 1920s and 1930s Japanese literature. The Sada Abe Incident of 1936, where a woman strangled her lover to death and castrated his corpse, struck a chord with the ero guro movement and came to represent that genre for years to come. Other like activities and movements were generally suppressed in Japan during World War II, but re-emerged in the postwar period, especially in manga and music.

‘There are modern guro artists, some of whom cite Erotic Grotesque Nonsense as an influence on their work. These artists explore the macabre intermingled with sexual overtones. Often the erotic element, even when not explicit, is merged with grotesque themes and features similar to the works of H. R. Giger. Others produce ero guro as a genre of Japanese pornography and hentai involving blood, gore, disfiguration, violence, mutilation, urine, enemas, or feces.’ — collaged

 

Find/search Guro art

Gurochan (currently defunct)
Twitter
reddit
Pixiv
Pinterest
Deviant Art
Instagram
Premium Hentai

 

Q & A

Posted byu/albert_ara
I do not understand how people can be into gore/guro Pornography.

If you do not know what that is, please don’t google it.

Guro is a category of porn (I hope always drawn, usually in an anime style) where for example someone is having sex with another person they just cut open their stomach and their intestines are gushing out while that person is in agonising pain. Just explaining this makes my stomach turn.

I just want to understand why someone would like that without being completely crazy (I knew a girl that was alright but liked guro, she wasn’t willing to explain why). I just want to understand why.

Posted by Crayshack
Most porn contains an idealized exaggeration of something that the consumer is attracted to in real life. For most people, this is only slightly exaggerated, but for others it is exaggerated past the point of the fantasy being something that is realistically attainable. For example, someone who is attracted to fit women might look at porn like this. At the same time, some people might look at a version exaggerated past the point they are likely to ever encounter such as this. It is the same concept, but taken to the extreme. When you enter the realm of drawn images rather than simple porn photos, you can take the extreme even further past the point of what is even physically possible such as this.

Unrelated to that, sadomasochism exists. It is completely understandable why some people might have difficulty grasping why someone might be a sadist or a masochist, but for me the reason is quite simple. When you experience pain, your body releases adrenaline. The purpose of this is so that you can feel the pain and know something might be damaged, but then have the pain dulled enough to continue whatever task you are doing. However, under the right conditions for some people they can trigger an adrenal release that is more powerful than the pain they experience. For these situations, it turns experiencing pain into a literal high. Once you have enough experiencing pain as way of accessing an adrenaline high, you build a Pavlovian relationship in your mind and start to enjoy the pain itself. Sadism is simply being the one on the outside.

When you combine the concepts, there is a very clear pattern. There is porn of realistic depictions of pain play that do closely resemble how most people do it in real life. Then there are depictions that go beyond what most might try in real life but are still physically doable such as this. Then you have the ones that are physically impossible (at least without killing your partner) such as this.

For both examples of the gradient, some people will realize that they are getting into weirder and weirder shit as they make their way down it. However, sometimes they won’t notice until they are pretty far along because there will not be many sudden jumps. Instead, they are one day asking themselves “What the fuck did I just fap to?” and find that even once they acknowledge it is fucked up it still turns them on because sexual attraction is not something decided by the conscious part of the brain.

Most people if you ask them, would not be able to articulate this process of how they got into what they are into. At best, they can give you some of the details they fixate on and what little things turn a gore pic from general gore to porn for them. However, that does not mean that they have not gone through this sort of development. Everyone goes through a similar kind of association when it comes to sexual attraction. They start by being attracted to something simple and common, but then they start seeking something similar to that initial influence and start building associative relationships. However, most people simply find themselves spinning back around to something else that is common (for example, someone instinctively attracted to breasts might have known a large breasted redhead when they were younger and they are now also attracted to redheads). There are just a few fringe groups that have managed to developed a sexual association with something more bizarre. Guro is not the only strange fetish you can find on the internet, it just might be the one that is the most disturbing to anyone who has not found there way to it naturally.

 

Show *
Except where identified in the image the artists are unknown

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

*

p.s. Hey. ** Marcus Whale, Marcus! It’s so great to see you! It’s been ages and ages. How are you? What’s going on? Me too re: doing my annual Halloween in LA, except my plan was extremely tight. I’m still hoping for 2021. Take care, man, and Happy Halloween whatever Australia causes that to mean. xo. ** David Ehrenstein, Yes, indeed. Actually quite a number of the home haunts and haunted house attractions offer ‘lights on’ visits for nerds and people with small children. I love them. One of my big dreams is riding all the rides at Disneyland with the lights on. Minus one week and counting! ** Quinn R, Hi, Quinn. That’s definitely healthier, I think. It’s logical, and I’m kind of a very logical person. For me, the heavy or haunting effect of their deaths didn’t really hit me for while. I think this says more about me than about death, but one thing that really weirds me out is that, I mean, they were two people who, for better or worse, were really significant to me. I knew them thoroughly for most of my life, and they made me, obviously. They were pretty old when they died (mother in her 80s, dad in his 90s), and now basically all of their friends and colleagues are dead, and apart from their kids who had mixed feelings about them and some scattered younger people they interacted with casually, they’re gone, forgotten. They weren’t artists or inventors or anything who left something concrete in the world that has a chance of retaining value without them being present. There’s something about that erasure that really haunts me sometimes. I don’t know if that’s a weird thing to say or makes sense. I think almost every book and movie I really like is about death, ha ha. Strange. So it would be hard to know where to start. I think what with COVID and the election and so on, everyone I know, including me, is feeling a weird combination of slow and kind of frantic. What a strange, strange time. I’ll look for the review today. I think writers need to have challenging reviews. I think writers having to question their work via an objective opinion is kind of invaluable. I will do a Stephen Wright post. I’m on it. Thank you for your thoughtful comments too, sir. And please send my hello back to Ed. I hope one of these days I’ll get to see him again. ** _Black_Acrylic, Loveable is a very good word. Loveable is how I feel about them too. Cash their check! Or cheque in your country’s terms. Have you heard back from them? ** Bill, Hi, Bill. What is it, 6 days to go until the big day? It’s going to be a long, long week. Thanks for the link. That gig looks delicious. ** Steve Erickson, Hi. Even way over here, the stress is constant. I keep trying not to pay attention, but I just can’t seem to make an escape. Sounds like an antibiotics situation to me, yeah. They cancelled the Halloween parade in NYC, right? Understandably, rightfully. ** Brian O’Connell, Hi, Brian. Oh, thanks, I’m really happy they impressed you. Haunted house attractions are like cockroaches. They’ll survive the plague. Their makers are hardcore believers. The SCOTUS confirmation thing is so horrifying that I am blocking it out as much as possible to preserve what little peace of mind is currently available. I think if you direct your interest in films away from Ozon’s oeuvre, you’ll be just fine. Gisele’s work hasn’t been performed in the States very much. It’s weird/sucks because the work plays all over the world constantly, but the US is a toughie. A couple of pieces (‘Jerk’, ‘Kindertotenlieder’) made it to NYC and ‘Jerk’ played in LA, and I think one piece (‘The Ventriloquists Convention’) played in Chicago. Importing European theater is something few US venues have the dough to do. Our most recent piece, ‘Crowd’, will play in NYC and maybe do a small US tour sometime next year. ‘Hausu’, right? One of a kind. Yes, may our weeks be very pleasant bosom buddies at minimum. ** Right. I decided to use the happy occasion of Halloween to foist another galerie show of guro on you today. Sorry and/or you’re welcome. And bon appétit! And see you tomorrow.