‘There it is.
In front of you.
Open it.
It’s only a book, after all. It can’t hurt you.
Go on. Open it.
Do as I say.
Do you like that?

‘What are we going to read about today?
Part I: “Sensation,” and especially “Myra,” and of course long ramblings on one of Sotos’ favorite subjects, King Ian and Queen Myra. “Damien Hirst defended the work and threatened to pull his pieces from the show if the Hindley portrait wasn’t allowed in. Hirst is seen by most as the cornerstone of the ‘Young British Artist’ movement that the show trumpeted: SENSATION: YOUNG BRITISH ARTISTS FROM THE SAATCHI COLLECTION. And while many saw that the show was either an attempt for the Royal Academy to change its stodgy reputation or a chance for advertising ‘guru’ Charles Saatchi to increase the value and reputation of his collection, most of the paying punters saw an exhibition heavily
steeped in sexual violence or, at least, sexual vagaries.” (88-90)
Careful, Peter, you’re starting to sound like a mainstream art critic.

‘Part II: a logical leap into child molestation. Child murder. The murder of crack whores. All the lovely things that happen on the south side of Chicago while no one else is looking.

‘You’ve heard of the projects, right?
Do you know what they are?
Would you like me to take you there?
Do you know what a crack whore is? I can show you.
We also get to look into the mind of Peter Sotos, somewhat. Not much.
Just a little.
You like that, don’t you?

‘Part III: Another favorite topic. Would you like to go downtown? There are bookstores there. I think you might find them interesting. Especially the back rooms, where the peepshow booths are. And the Mexican hustlers who give it away for $5 a pop. And the transvestites. And the AIDS-infected young men who want nothing more than to keep having sex.
It’s all about risk.
It’s all about self-hatred.
And we get to see it.
Can you see?
Can you see this?
This is what you’ve been waiting for.
Sotos is going over the edge, slowly, and revealing more of himself as he does. He’s almost got to the point where he admits he does it because he wants to.

‘“I spend most of my time enjoying things I don’t like.” (295)
“I find men less ugly than women except when they act like them. Homosexual sex is often the quickest way there. And this is soon lapping up vagina and working on some ridiculous clit numb mistake. This turned into christmas and thanksgiving and his birthday and all the lipstick I could afford for one little suburban bar tit grope and sister blow job. I do want to see AIDS ejaculate. I want to be sure.” (313)

‘Don’t you like story time?
I know you do.
Don’t justify. You don’t need to justify to me. Just admit.
You always knew there was a seedy side to life. That’s why you love watching detective shows on TV. But they can’t show you the heavy stuff on TV. They don’t show it to you in the movies. You never knew where to see it before. And you want to see it. You know you do. In order to appreciate what you have more fully. You have to see how the other half lives. Incest. Rape. Murder. Brutality. Serial killers. Casual, anonymous, high-risk sex. Pornography. Pedophilia. Home invasion. Abduction. Assault, battery, molestation, homosexuality, HIV, the media, hatred, hatred, hatred.

‘Don’t justify.
Admit.- — Robert Beveridge

 

Further

Peter Sotos @ Wikipedia
Peter Sotos @ goodreads
Joel Kopplin on ‘Tool’ by Peter Sotos
INTERVIEW WITH PETER SOTOS
“HOME”: MICHAEL SALERNO & PETER SOTOS
The Putrid Voyeurisms of Peter Sotos
Show No Mercy
Download a pdf of ‘Lazy’ here

 

Extras

Peter Sotos speaking at the Pompidou Centre (2012)

Excerpt from “Heartbreak” by Andrea Dworkin – read by Peter Sotos

Peter Sotos ‎– Buyer’s Market (AWB Recording, 1992)

 

The Putrid Voyeurisms of Peter Sotos
by Blake Butler

 

It’s not exactly easy to get your hands on the work of Peter Sotos. Most people probably wouldn’t even want to. His work traffics in a range of subjects that most average readers—even those who fancy themselves to have transgressive tastes—would find viscerally repellent: a meeting-ground of violence and pornography so limitless it becomes difficult to tell what we’re actually reading. The narrative voice takes on the personas of serial murderers, rapists, child molesters, hate mongers, and others who inhabit space far outside the range of what even the most edgy thinkers would consider tractable terrain, mostly rendered in a first person that strands the reader in a mindset that he probably doesn’t want to be in. That Sotos also frequently takes for his subject real-life criminals and victims—exploring, for instance, the violent murders of Lesley Ann Downey in his nonfiction work, Selfish, Little—there exists a line between the most grotesque extensions of fantasy and reality that challenges the presumptions of free speech and exploration of horror in such a way that makes it difficult, if not impossible, to name for sure the sort of ground on which Sotos forces us to walk.

Some more direct context about Sotos: He was a member of the seminal noise band, Whitehouse. He is 62 years old and lives in Chicago, where he has been arrested for possession of child porn, after publishing on the cover of his zine, Pure, a picture from a photocopy of an underage boy involved in sex. His books are printed mostly in severely limited runs, making obtaining them rather pricey. Sotos makes no bones about his infatuation with objects that push him beyond the limits of experience. He is open about his interest in snuff film and bestiality porn, and talks about them freely in a way that glorifies their ability to depict “how you look when ugly.” He is not heartless, although he does get pleasure pleasure from viewing these things, and he isn’t afraid to make himself complicit in the acts that he describes. All of this makes reading him, or even just thinking about reading him, one of those experiences that allow a window into a place much of our culture seems interested in playing footsie with—think of Dexter, or films like Seven and Silence of the Lambs but that when considered more directly take obscenity to a level of actually feeling—as a reader, you feel somehow ashamed, complicit just for holding the book. …

I feel sure that a majority of you are now asking, “Why would anybody want to hear about this stuff? How could anyone but child pornographers be interested in or even open to reading the work of someone who is OK with child porn?” I’m not the sort who rubbernecks at the scenes of accidents, but I can say that reading Peter Sotos stills my body. There are very many other people in the world. I have a mother and a father and friends and loved ones, and they exist in the same world as these things. There is something about the feeling of opening a window into a space that you would never touch with your own hands that can make you feel like you are being pressed down on by something very heavy and very black. I believe that thinking about these ideas makes one not less human, but more: careful and considered in a way that ignites awareness of something that is, if not in us all, certainly around us.

 

Interview
by Brandon Stosuy

FANZINE: Perhaps an odd place to begin, but how do you support yourself?

Peter Sotos: I work. Not that I think it’s such a good idea, but I always have. I don’t have a career. I do think it’s important that the books have no great commercial requirements and that my work isn’t split between lesser and greater degrees of seriousness — especially in regards as to who releases the material.

FANZINE: Any writing rituals?

PS: People sometimes ask if I write when I’m drunk. I do, sometimes, but it tends to get thrown out pretty quickly when I read it back sober.

FANZINE: Do you ever catch yourself writing for your audience?

Peter Sotos: I’ve heard how wrong I am for as long as I’ve been alive, it seems. So I have to weigh a possible audience’s possible arguments against mine all the time. But I don’t pander.

FANZINE: Where do you see yourself fitting in terms of literary tradition?

PS: I know where others say they see me fitting in. But, honestly, I don’t think in those terms at all. I don’t see anyone else doing what I do. Which sounds terrible, I know. But I don’t feel much kinship with contemporary writers, especially those who create fiction. My interest is in completely the other direction. There are writers whose work I love, of course, and it’s nice when some people make certain smallish comparisons. Sade, Dworkin… But nothing in terms of an ongoing tradition.

FANZINE: You mention Andrea Dworkin often. People might find the two of you an odd pairing, but on some level I guess you seem to share a notion of the humanity of victims.

PS: I disagree. I think Andrea Dworkin cared very deeply about her words being more than that – just words. I’m certain that I do, as well. But we don’t see the frustrating impossibilities of that action in the same context or towards the same result.

FANZINE: Have you read (Samuel Delaney’s) Hogg?

PS: I’ve read Hogg, of course. I think it’s supposed to be like a Tom Of Finland cartoon and it doesn’t do all that much for me. I like Times Square Red, Times Square Blue and The Madman much more but I’m uneasy about so fucking many of the community conclusions and connective politics. I honestly don’t think they exist. I go to the same kind of places Mr. Delany does, or did, I don’t know, and I have very different experiences.

FANZINE: When I think of contemporaries, I also pause at William Vollmann. But you’ve been critical of him and his work.

PS: I’m not convinced. He sounds untouched. A bad liar with quaint reasoning. We’re looking for different things, though. I don’t feel I have anything in common with such traditional concern.

FANZINE: People have referred to your books as formless, though there are obviously internal structures and connective patterns. How do you map the texts?

PS: I write what I like and connect the underlying themes and strains later. See what comes through, basically. Tick had a very clear numbering system running through it. Selfish, Little had a fairly rigid template. I suppose Comfort & Critique, though, has the most structure in that the news clips were very carefully selected and then placed in a very specific order. The book itself then came from that order and the general assumption that created it.

FANZINE: Proxy makes your self-sampling more explicit. Do you have an overall climax in sight?

PS: No. But Proxy was designed, in large part, to draw out specific degenerative repetitions. That’s exactly why the books aren’t in chronological order. The last three books are presented as going backwards and the first two books are, sort-of, the index. The introduction is made of excerpts from newer unpublished material constantly concerned with how most of the sex joints and expectations are gone or dying fucking badly. But it’s not a narrative, you know?

FANZINE: Was its two-column newspaper-style layout intentional?

PS: Probably not. It might be something that both Jim Goad––when he published Total Abuse––and James Williamson from Creation had in mind, though. I’m far more interested in the text being like a book than a newspaper. I’m responsible for the layouts of Pure and Parasite, but not the books. The images are mine, though. I don’t try to comment on newspaper and media hypocrisy, I’m just largely unable to get away from it.

FANZINE: In Comfort & Critique you write, “I’m absolutely sick of the differences between intention and interpretation. I want to create an art that is ideally shored. One that can’t be misunderstood any longer. Not by the powers that want to see me jailed or by the fucking mice that pretend I’m doing something socially significant.” How do you intend to make this happen?

PS: The work can only be done as writing. Where one sentence explains the one before it. Full length books. I’ve seen the questions I bark out used out of context and sold as something else, something less. I want to make sure the answers are rigorously considered and that can only be done by writing books, not creating advertising. I don’t have a blog or a e-commerce website.

FANZINE: What is it about the question and answer format and interrogation that lends itself to your project? And often, there’s often a noticeable disjunction between the question and the response.

PS: There’s some disjoint in the careful wording of the questions themselves. The way the questioner tells the answerer how to think isn’t subtle but still, almost always, almost naturally, accepted. Of course, there is my own internal dialogue at work, often enough, that finds focus and excitement in the way others pose and answer highly personal, as well as grossly impersonal, questions. That search for so-called brutal truth that is vain and badly done. The way cops and artists come off exactly like street corner faggots asking toothless hustlers if they’re cold without coats. The way that it can keep getting worse. The idea that others may know what’s best for you. May want to protect you and need to explain that to you. There’s quite a few reasons.

FANZINE: When did you meet Jamie Gillis?

PS: I met him in SF about six years ago, I guess. David Aaron Clark suggested it, originally. Jamie, as I see him, is exactly the rare sort-of person who understands the Q & A dynamic. He looks to me as if he genuinely wants to understand why these people, himself especially, do these things, these acts. Or want to see them. He asks legitimate questions and can’t be blamed for the bad answers of the participants. Or the low expectations of his audience. I do absolutely think he’d like to get more than type.

FANZINE: In Comfort & Critique, you write about the press defining victims, but the narrator also makes it known that he is not “blaming the parents or the other particulars or suggesting something about the nature of the press.” Still, there seems to be a hazy area where such a critique pops up.

PS: Such a critique of the press or the general media just seems obvious to me. You don’t get news reports that are devoid of spin and you don’t get news reporters who don’t wink at you because of that. So critiquing the nature of the press seems redundant and unimportant. There’s a huge market for such examinations, especially in music and film, but it doesn’t mean all that much to me. I’m far more interested in how that thinking creates the bodies and personalities it reports on. To be precise, and use the quotes you pull, Sara Payne gradually became the product that the news wanted. Or, at least, the side I’m sold. But not as a concentrated and conscious marketing ploy. Rather as someone, emotionally reduced or not, might respond to comfort and attention, sympathy and flattery, incredible existential and physical loss. It’s similar to what most people might say they want in a relationship. I’m not just saying that the press is lying.

 

Book

Peter Sotos Lazy
Creation Books

‘Peter Sotos, the writer who ‘rapes a blank page’, whose pen is the verbal knife of a sadist’, unleashes his latest controversial dispatch from the cutting edge of pornography, sexual abuse and degradation:

‘Drawing from his own experiences, insights and investigations, Sotos slices open the dark underbelly of the sex industry and reveals the harsh, gritty and brutal extremes that lurk within. From prostitution, pornography and drug abuse to the most notorious sex crimes, Soto’s obsession with the darkest side of humanity is relentless and uncompromising.

‘Intersected throughout with newspaper extracts reporting on and responding to sex crimes and related subjects (such as Myra, Marcus Harvey’s controversial portrait at the recent ‘Sensation’ exhibition in London), Lazy not only presents an unsanitised account of pornographic excess and extreme sex, but through its frank delivery, it questions society’s own, often hypocritical, fascination with these taboo subjects.’ — Creation Books

Excerpt

 

 

*

p.s. Hey. ** _Black_Acrylic, If I wore scents, Griff Raff’s review would have totally sold me, no surprise. Your bro’s Dubai report conforms to all of my presuppositions about the place, but yikes. ** jay, Hi, yeah, food has been happening here of late, I wonder why but shall not wonder too hard. Thanks! My apartment in Paris is logistically identical to the ones on three floors below and two above, although I think my ceilings might be a wee bit taller. My LA apartment, on the other hand, is quite eccentric, designed and built by hand by an old Sicilian man who was ‘famous’ for being the first person to bring olive oil to Los Angeles. By the time I moved there in the early 90s he was just a pile of ancient, murmuring flesh perpetually propped in a deck chair on his porch. I hope you’re enjoying your current, presumably less meaningful home. ** Dominik, Hi!!! I’m just really quiet and polite with check-out people, hand over the cash, pack my carry bag, decline the receipt and scurry away. I think my favorite thing in my apartment is this antique desk lamp in the shape of a very fem looking cavalier guy holding a fountain pen that I stole from my previous apartment, and, yes, he would taste good. Hopefully hot apple pie with a massive scoop of vanilla ice cream. Love beating around the bush whatever that old American homily even means, G. ** Dev, No shame and even kind of fun sometimes. The lost novel really was probably terrible. I was still a mere aspiring novelist at the time. Interesting about the ugh re: food based art. Hm, I can see that. ** l@rst, Another person revolted by the artistic use of food. How interesting. Your status quo makes other people’s status quo seem like naps. Oh, yeah, when I swore off drugs and basically swore off alcohol, which I never liked anyway, back when and realised my unaltered brain, unless coffee counts, was the trippiest drug ever, it was so nice! Take care, you too. ** DonW, Whoa, you made it inside! I think, or hope, that the captcha problem might finally be dead. It took ages, if so. I did see ‘Pavements’. I had some issues with it, but I love Pavement so much that I was just thrilled to have the access. Nothing like them. Top tier forever band. So, dude, how have you been and how are you? ** julian, As a vegetarian, I must say that is quite the transgressive performance. I know Peter, although I haven’t talked to him in a while, but your sense of him is very true. He’s very aware that broader fame, especially in this time of the hair trigger offendables, would only lead to personal hell for him. And there he is (look up). ** Good Old Gee, Well, hi there, pal! I’ve been good, very busy. Three books! Never mind, I haven’t been that busy. I’m sorry about your partner separation, but you sound pretty okay with that. This month might be hard. I’ll be in the US and Canada for the second half showing the film. Love you back! ** Jeff J, Hi, Jeff. Yeah, great getting to talk with you and look at you on Monday. Yes, we’d love to show the film where you are if there’s any interest. Thank you! And thanks for the JC links. I was going to go hunt them. Everyone, The superb author Jeff Jackson additionally has a fine band called Julien Calendar, if you don’t already know that. And … well, I’ll let him guide you. Jeff: ‘Here are links to recent short Julian Calendar EPs we released: SOFTER THAN BOMBS (minimalist electronic tunes w/ cover of “Pump Up the Jam”): link #1, and MORE SONGS ABOUT ABOUT CLASS RESENTMENT AND SURVEILLANCE CAPITALISM (New Wave + No Wave samples): link #2. I look forward to digging in. xo. ** Carsten, Hey. Thanks about the French release. Yeah, we’re very psyched. I can feel that ‘finally’. I’ve never really ‘gotten’ Germany, as an immediate surrounding, I mean. Thanks for the invite. I would definitely wait until you guys have as close to a normal fall or winter or maybe spring as your country can geographically provide. ** HaRpEr //, Substack is clearly the happening locale. People often ask me why I don’t do the blog there. And I guess the answer is because I hate moving homes? I only follow maybe 4 or 5 things there so far. Speaking for myself, I suspect that less of a mess is probably the best you can hope for when you’re an artist with ambitions who gives a shit. ** Steeqhen, Congrats on the bag reunification. Okay, yeah, your food thing would definitely complicate having a particularised diet on top of that. Having a routine can be peacemaking, for sure, says the guy who does a blog six days a week. Yes, write it and the dedication plus your interest level will determine where it goes. ** Darby🐋, Have so much fun in LV. There’s that Area 51 place that newly has that year-round Halloween Horror Nights haunted house-based theme park place, but it might be expensive, I don’t know. Sure, I’d like to see the photo, and looking at you is the opposite of a drawback. I would say yes, further befriend that person of whom you spoke. You were def a good person to help that girl. Def. Yeah, I’ll be going to Chicago and then Toronto to show the film in about a week and a half or something like that. ‘Pops’ cereals .. you mean like Coco Pops and that short of thing? I’m all for them. Probably the less pre-sweetened ones the most. You? Tell me how everything was. Have a blast. Accept my envy. ** Uday, Thanks, pal. Yeah, my boxes are essentially furniture. I guess having a lot of blood in your body is very important, or so they say. But wooziness can be ok. I might write more poems, never say never. No, I don’t think poetry is too easy. If anything it seems too hard or I mean whatever talent I have doesn’t seem capable of conquering that form to my satisfaction. That’s more the problem. ** Bill, Your tastes are understandable. I just saw something about that Karl Lemieux/Daniel Menche performance, I can’t remember what. Oh, to have Crossroads in my hood, even if it were hot. We’re still slowly rising out of the annual August Paris dead zone over here. ** Right. Today you have Peter Sotos to think about and read. See you tomorrow.

_____________
‘Though “happening” is a common and recognizable term in contemporary art discourse, it is lesser known that it was coined by American artist Allan Kaprow—another artist associated with Fluxus—in the 1950s. Of the numerous happenings Kaprow staged throughout his career, which nearly always involved audience participation, Household (1964) has become one of the most iconic of his oeuvre. A multi-part happening, the work involved covering a wrecked car with fruit jam, and some participants wiped up the jam with bread and ate it, while others licked the jam up directly from the car.’

 

_____________
Argentinian artist Eduardo Navarro’s latest series of drawings, inspired by quantum physics, is entirely edible. They are displayed under red heat lamps, like chicken eggs about to hatch. He’ll be cooking three nights during the exhibition, serving up three artworks each time. Each of the images illustrates the “holographic principle,” a concept in physics postulating that “information in the universe can only be scrambled but never destroyed”.

 

_____________
September Split Edible Ephemera (Year of the Horse Snack) (2014)
Dry-salted horse meat, bitter rowan jelly (rowan berries, water, sugar), Norwegian birch, silkscreen print, CNC engraving, vacuum sealed storage bag, jar with lid, felt garment.

 

_______________
Artist Dimitri Tsykalov produces raw meat representations of guns, some of which come with vegetable or fungi bullets.

 

_______________
Researchers at MIT and Brigham and Women’s Hospital have designed and demonstrated a small, ingestible voltaic cell that is sustained by the acidic fluids in the stomach. The system can generate enough power to run small sensors or drug delivery devices that can reside in the gastrointestinal tract for extended periods of time.

 

______________
‘Multidisciplinary artist Alison Knowles was an active participant of Fluxus—an international art movement defined largely by its emphasis on process over object—and of the vibrant and experimental New York art scene of the 1960s. In 1962, she performed one of her most notable works, Make a Salad, at the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London. In the piece, Knowles chopped vegetables to live music, dramatically tossed them in the air, and, once mixed into a salad, served it to the audience in equal portions. The work was revolutionary in its time, as it brought fresh, green food and the quotidian act of eating into the gallery space.’

 

______________
Using individually wrapped pieces of candy and fish-shaped soy sauce packets, an anonymous trio of artists known simply as three have constructed a number of works that invite viewers to interact with them. Their installation titled Tokyo Electric displays a 3 meter-tall box designed in the scale of the Fukushima nuclear power plant. The structure deliberately includes 151,503 colorful fish-shaped soy sauce containers, which is the exact number of displaced citizens in the aftermath.

 

______________
ÉCAL student Erika Marthins has combined a series of different technologies with food to create an interactive dessert that moves, makes noise and refracts light. Aiming to offer interesting alternatives to the average sweet treat, Marthins used edible robotics, light-shaping technology, and digital data information in the making of the dish.

 

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Filioppo Ioco Untitled (2010)

 

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‘In Terreform One’s Edible Puffed Rice Clusters (2022), the work’s pixelated-looking panels are formed from puffed rice. They are intended as a low-cost building material that can be used as a building facade that small mammals, insects and birds can consume.’

 

_________________
Nora Silva Sourdough Jacket (2020)

 

_________________
Scottish artist Anya Gallaccio has created Stroke, which involves an entire room coated in chocolate which visitors are allowed to touch and taste. “The idea of a chocolate room is one thing and the reality of a chocolate room is very much something else,” says Gallaccio.

 

________________
‘For An Edible Family in a Mobile Home (1976), Bobby Baker transformed the Acme Housing Association prefab that she was living in into a week-long sculptural installation that housed an edible family of five: mother, father, teenage daughter, son, and baby. Assembled from cake and adorned with icing, biscuits and other baked goods, the family members could be encountered in rooms throughout the house: the baby asleep in her cot, the son in the bath, the teenage daughter listening to the radio in her parents’ bedroom, the father slumped in an armchair in front of the television. The mother was the only mobile member of the family who moved throughout the house but was more often found in the kitchen, where visitors could enjoy a cup of tea from her head, or other soft drinks, and have fresh snacks from compartments in her abdomen. Against a backdrop of walls and surfaces covered in newsprint and magazines, and decorated with icing sugar, Baker performed as hostess. She offered food and encouraged visitors to consume, and thereby dismantle, the family.’

 

_________________
‘Precipitazioni Sparse (Scattered Precipitations, 2005) is a work of art by the Italian artist Bruna Esposito (b. 1960) composed of white, golden, and red onion peels placed randomly on a marble slab. There is no additional material applied to secure the peels to the marble. The artist calls this work an “impermanent sculpture,” since the onion peels can shift with the slightest air movements, creating continuous changes in the work’s composition.’

 

_________________
Joseph Marr Vania Vs Vania (2013)
Medium: Strawberry Flavoured Sugar

 

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Artist Jennifer Rubell created a cell padded with edible cotton candy.

 

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Gameboy Mania & Jami Behrends Super Mario Cake (2014)

 

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Sarah Lucas’ ‘Nud Cycladic 14’ reimagined as a vegan lemon sponge cake.

 

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Natacha Lesueur Untitled (1995)

 

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It took 56 hours to complete, was made from 4,640 chocolate sticks and 10kg of Belgian chocolate, measures 120cm by 120cm and contains 143,840 calories – but this edible labyrinth will only take a few hours to eat. The maze is the brainchild of YouTube vlogger Doug Armstrong, from London, and food artist Prudence Staite, from Tewkesbury, Gloucestershire, who created their chocolate warren in homage to the Maze Runner film.

 

_________________
Was chosen to take part in an amazing art piece done by the artist Brandon McGill titled DUALITY. Was along with seven other young guys painted from head to toe very imaginatively with edible paint. This was followed by an art auction where invited guests bid on the artworks, meaning the edible painting not us. Those with the top bids could take us into private rooms and remove the artwork, which, yes, meant licking the painting off of our bodies. I was bought by a group of five men who had me back to a sticky version of my old self in what seemed like no time at all.

 

_________________
‘Song Dong’s participatory Eating the City (2017) after the audience began to consume (and apparently smash!) the biscuits layered to build the urban structures (leading to its collapse). The edible city is an amalgamation of a number cities, identified by a few iconic structures from Chinese cities, that the artist has created to represent the rapid growth, particularly in Asia, that has created urban areas, indistinguishable from one another, blending into sameness. The blandness and uniformity of the building blocks dangerously obscure their sweetness, and the artist warns against indulging in what the city has to offer. “If you eat too much then you could die.” In the end, the city is in ruins.’

 

_________________
A lumpy mound of a black rock-like substance dominated the space during He Xiangyu’s Cola Project. The substance was boiled down cola drink, a process developed by Xiangyu in 2008. With his team of factory workers, he “cooked” thousands of litres over a span of a year to create the crystal forms resembling coal. The work focuses on the materiality of Coca-Cola rather than the pervasiveness of the corporate identity of the product.

 

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The Real Cookbook from German design agency Korefe is a delicious creation made of 100% fresh pasta. Flip it open for some inspiration, and tear out the pages to use as sheets of lasagna. For both the seasoned chef and the novice cook, just bake the book and eat!

 

________________
Maurizio Savini is an Italian sculptor known for making art out of chewing gum.

 

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‘Swiss artist Daniel Spoerri, who died on November 6 at the age of 94, the chaotic mess of stained cloths, crumpled napkins, and food-smeared plates was rich material for art making. He began his “Snare Picture” assemblages in the 1960s, preserving the remains of meals consumed by friends, lovers, and strangers, before hanging them vertically on the wall.’

 

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1. Put 5 Peeps in a microwave-safe bowl and microwave on high for 30 seconds. 2. Using a spoon, stir in about 1 teaspoon neutral oil until the mixture is stringy and combined. 3. Slowly stir in confectioners’ sugar until you’ve reached your desired consistency (we used about ¼ to ⅓ cup sugar). 4. Transfer the slime to a work surface lightly dusted with more sugar. Cover your hands with sugar to prevent sticking. Knead gently until the slime is smooth.

 

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Highlights from the Texas State Fair 2011 Butter Sculpture Show

 

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Jasmine Rae Cake (2017)

 

________________
A London-based patisserie is selling edible tampon, soaked in blood. Luxury macron brand, OhLaLa, are selling this one-of-a-kind ‘bloody’ delicacy for a good cause. The boutique bakers created the “world’s first Bloody Good tampon macarons to highlight a real issue for women around the world,” as stated on their website. They joined hands with Bloody Good Period (BGP), a charity organisation that aims to create a sustainable flow of sanitary protection for those who can’t afford to buy them. Thus, people who end up buying these gory tampon boxes will be contributing for the noble cause. Ten pounds from every box will be donated to “help the fight against period poverty that affects 1 in 10 women in the UK alone, with proceeds raised going toward buying period packs for asylum seekers, refugees and women with low income,” the website added. The artists made the tampon as real-looking as possible and even added a blue string, which the makers say is also edible and are made of raspberry.

 

_________________
“The domestic landscape reflects our culture, our taste and our habits,” say the designers Lanzavecchia + Wai. “Ostensibly living intact through good times and also adverse ones, the domestic objects become invisible to us over time with their familiarity. How can furniture react to times of crisis? The decorative elements that were once appreciated, suddenly become superfluous and should evolve to reflect a new era of austerity; the objects become edible and offer themselves to be consumed when needed.”

 

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‘Bread is an on-going series by Anatoly Osmolovsky started in 2007 which comprises individual hand carved panels using rye bread. Works from this series have been widely exhibited both in Russia and abroad. First at Documenta XII in Kassel, and most recently in Venice at the Parallel Convergences at the Casa dei Tre Oci in Giudecca.’

 

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‘Plastic water bottles might soon be a thing of the past thanks to these edible water bubbles created by an innovative sustainable packaging start-up based in London, UK. The bubbles, called the Ooho!, are created by encasing a blob of drinking water within an edible membrane.’

 

 

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p.s. Hey. ** Dominik, Hi!!! Cool, my pleasure. I’m too much of a nervous klutz for automatic checkout. I always fuck it up. So I stick with the real people, which is weirdly calming to me, I guess because that interacting is so pre-organised or something. It must be interesting to get physical abuse without emotional consequences. Quite a trick. Love making your favorite thing in your apartment not only edible but very delicious, G. ** Steeqhen, Well, yeah, be careful then. I alway see food as fuel that coincidentally tastes good. Saving 500 a month is a lure, but I guess so is a job you like? Tough choice. That’s not a bad premise for an actual real world story. ** _Black_Acrylic, What does your bro say about Dubai? I see it as one of the least appealing to visit places on earth. Except, wait, it does have the world’s longest log ride, so maybe never mind. But I am curious what it’s actually like. ** Hugo, I won’t push myself. I let my self push me. Much luck with the internship. The rebirth of Dalkey Archive is one of the happiest occurrences of late. ** Darby🐈‍⬛🪱, Worm, right, duh. I think I need to change the prescription on my reading glasses. Sorry about the misgendering. Old patriarchal kneejerk habits die hard sometimes. Las Vegas! Wow, that’s something. What an insane and horrible and fascinating and kind of fun place. Are you staying in a theme hotel on the Strip? Take a look at the Sphere and tell me if it’s as trippy as it looks in photos. It does sound like your mom has a good soul. Obviously she makes mistakes like vis-a-vis you, but it is good that she seems to mean well? I don’t know. Complicated. Anyway Las Vegas! That’s wild! My eyes are constructing that banana split excitedly, and my stomach is so jealous. ‘Try’ is the emotional book in the Cycle. ‘Frisk’ is the libido one. ‘Guide’ is the brain one. Or so I planned at least. Have so much fun out west if I don’t speak with you before! ** julian, Watching more Bresson is an excellent idea in any case. I think I always read the slave posts as both real and fantasy simultaneously. Or I guess I try to approach them innocently and with belief and then realise they’re implausible and then wonder if they really want what they say and are just scared or whether they’re making their profiles cynically or … They’re very complicated to me. Amphetamine Sulphate occasionally publishes a new Peter Sotos book, but you have to jump on it when they do because they’re always limited editions. Peter’s choice, I assume. ** Charalampos, If I ever see ‘Weapons’ I’ll try to remember to let you know. A friend whose taste I totally trust said ‘Bring Her Back’ was bad and obnoxious, so I’ve put seeing it on the way back burner. ‘Le rebelle’ is a good one. ** jay, Hey, jay! ‘Les Amis’ seems to be the only film that people have seen of his. You were airborne. And, just as importantly, writing on your laptop. Like me! So technically we were even more in sync than usual even though I couldn’t see any difference in your comment’s build. Anyway, blabla. Very good, about your intended writing diligence. Yeah, it’s weird to get locked out of your childhood home. Sometimes when I’m in LA I drive by our old house, and it’s very weird and melancholy to know I can’t just go inside. Thanks, thanks about my writing’s help. That means so much, really. I watched a plane fly over Paris when I was smoking at the window yesterday, and maybe it was yours. ** Carsten, You’re home, man. Pretty sweet. Those first days in a new home are so lustrous. Enjoy the newness and mysteries because they don’t last long. No, they don’t let you name the festival until they announce their line-up. It should be pretty soon. ** HaRpEr //, Hi. I’ve never been particularly drawn into Chabrol’s films when I’ve seen them. I can’t remember why. They seemed kind of second tier or something? You’ve joined the substack world. Cool. Everyone, the mighty HaRpEr // has started a substack thing, and let’s all go over there and read the first entry and hit ‘bookmark’. What do you say? Here. Awesome, pal! ** Steve, I actually haven’t visited Solidarity Cinema in the past two weeks, but I’ll check today. The weather is dreamy here too. I don’t know that Sebastien Marnier film. How has it evaded me? I’ll investigate, thank you. ** Dev, Back when I was doing journalism for a living, it was pretty hard to turn assignments down, but sometimes I did. Like one time Spin Magazine wanted to me to fly from LA to London then immediately take a train to Manchester and interview Blur after some gig they were doing there and then train back to London and immediately fly back to LA, and I said no fucking way. Oh, no, that’s so stressful about losing your writing. One time before computers I lost a whole novel I was writing by hand. I accidentally left it at a bus stop. Oh my god, that was awful, and I just decided to assume it sucked. What I do now is email myself the current draft of whatever I’m working as soon as I’ve made significant changes to it. You might try that? ** Uday, Ah, Gregg, interesting. I still have unpacked boxes in my apartment even though I moved here eight years ago. I don’t think I have any feelings about Janet Jackson one way or another. I guess liked ‘Rhythm Nation’. Is she big for you? ** Mari, Hi, Mari! I will, I will check out ‘The Summer Hikaru Died.’ Thank you! My weekend was okay. Enjoy creating things you want to talk about, and, of course, things that aren’t worth talking about too. xo. ** Right. Food for thought today. See you tomorrow.