* (restored/expanded)

 

‘George Kuchar (1942–2011) was one of the most creative, original, and influential filmmakers of our time, straddling two generations of North American iconoclasts, from Stan Brakhage, Ken Jacobs, Rudy Burckhardt, Kenneth Anger, and Michael Snow to Warren Sonbert, Ernie Gehr, Abigail Child, and Henry Hills. Often collaborating with his twin brother, Mike, George Kuchar started making films as a Bronx teenager, and the brothers’ early films already show the ingenuity, exuberance, and do-it-yourself charm that would pervade scores of their subsequent films.

‘Every year Kuchar made a large-scale scripted film with his students at the San Francisco Art Institute, where he taught for nearly 40 years. His students were deliriously incorporated into his queerly epic visions, shaped by his uncanny approach to lighting and color filtering, scripts, costumes, overlaying of images and effects, and soundtrack, which are comparable to the greatest Hollywood films, but all done on shoe-string budgets. Rather than being constraining, Kuchar’s production budget enriched the aesthetic power of his films. It helped that he was a genius when it came to lighting, editing, make-up, cinematography, directing, musical soundtrack, and script writing; but his commitment to film as something that can be done idiosyncratically and without huge expense has been an inspiration to generations of independent filmmakers after him. Indeed, Kuchar’s films anticipate the work of younger video artists for whom cheap digital cameras and the Web are the tools at hand.

‘In his films, Kuchar is always poking fun and always having a good time, in an apparently sweet and charmingly self-deprecating way. Yet this court jester of avant-garde cinema had a sardonic edge that was as sharp as an editor’s blade. His vision bubbled out of the cauldron of his gay, Catholic, working-class childhood. This led to his lifelong tango with the high, and often dry, seriousness of the art world.

‘Kuchar stayed true to his American vernacular instincts throughout his life. The body of work he produced, now archived at Harvard, is a testimony to the power, and importance, of film done without the hindrance of large-scale production.

‘As a writer, Kuchar combined his genre-obsessed irony and self-reflective bathos into scripts of scintillating wit. The opening monologue in Thundercrack! (he wrote the screenplay for Curt McDowell) rivals and extends the best of Tennessee Williams’s plays.  Kuchar’s soundtracks, collages from his extensive LP collection, are exemplary for using already existing music in new contexts so seamlessly that you would have thought the music was composed especially for each scene. Kuchar’s films offer object lessons in how a splash of sound totally colors a scene; his quick sound segues contribute to the dynamism of his work and give it that wonderful, much sought-after, B-movie aura. But make no mistake: his editing is as diacritically perspicacious as any sound/image juxtaposition in Godard (even if his ingratiating style would not usually give rise to such terminology).

‘Kuchar made the switch from film to digital relatively early, fully embracing the dominant technology, and as he had done with film, making it completely his own. Much of his later work consists of an ongoing diary—a sprawling, picaresque series in which he documents, in addition to the weather, his meals, his friends, his trips. These funny, endearing works, in which he is the principal character and which he shot entirely by himself, are films that revel in the sublimity of the ordinary.

‘Kuchar created a small but notable body of work outside of his films: drawings and paintings in oil, watercolor, and tempera. George Kuchar: Pagan Rhapsodies, organized by Peter Eleey, including films, videos, and works on paper, is currently on display at MoMA PS1 (through January 15, 2012). He was trained as a commercial artist and after graduating from the School of Industrial Art he drew weather maps for a local news show. Speaking of his paintings, he told Eileen Myles, “I make ’em cause I like painting and I don’t like to paint my apartment. These cover the walls, they cover a lot.” Kuchar researched his paintings, looking for stories that he wanted to paint. Indeed, his paintings look a lot like his movies. “I pick characters, and I’m used to working in a box.” They are studies in light and color and are chock-full of Kuchar’s personality. He became involved in comix through his neighbor in San Francisco in the 1980s, Art Spiegelman; he went on to do many comix storyboards as well as underground comix.

‘Weirdos, kooks, outcasts: these are not the people in Kuchar’s films but the ones on national TV, paraded as normal. In Thundercrack!, Kuchar plays a circus truck driver who has fallen in love with the female gorilla in his charge. In the final, touching scene, we see the driver in bed with someone in a very campy gorilla costume.

‘From Baudelaire’s “À une Mendiante rousse” onward, artists have tried to find a way to portray society’s “others” without voyeurism, pity, condescension, or romanticizing. Kuchar in bed with an actor in gorilla suit is the perfect realization of the possibility of the pataque(e)rical as a quest for “otherworldly humanity” (to borrow a term Kuchar uses in one of his last class films, Lingo of the Lost).

‘A man with a movie camera: nobody’s done it better.’ — Charles Bernstein and Susan Bee, The Brooklyn Rail

 

__
Stills

 

____
Further

George Kuchar @ IMDb
George Kuchar @ Video Data Bank
Book: ‘The George Kuchar Reader’
The George Kuchar Collection @ Harvard Film Archive
George Kuchar obituary @ The Guardian
‘George Kuchar, Filmmaker and Provocateur Who Inspired John Waters, Dead’
Ed Halter on George Kuchar
‘Storm Squatting at El Reno’
‘George Kuchar’s Voice’
George and Mike Kuchar Appreciation Page
‘George Kuchar 1942–2011’ @ Frieze
George Kuchar @ Underground Film Journal
‘The Day the Bronx Invaded Earth: The Life and Cinema of the Brothers Kuchar’
‘Hold Me While I’m Naked: Notes on a Camp Classic’
‘Reflections on George Kuchar’
‘Color Him Lurid: Deceased Artiste George Kuchar’

 

_________
It Came from Kuchar
‘It Came from Kuchar is the definitive, feature documentary about the legendary, underground filmmaking twins, the Kuchar brothers. George and Mike Kuchar have inspired two generations of filmmakers, actors, musicians, and artists with their zany, “no budget” films and with their uniquely enchanting spirits. George and Mike Kuchar grew up in the Bronx in the 1950’s making “no-budget” films, compulsively copying Hollywood melodramas with their aunt’s 8mm, home-movie camera. In the 1960’s the New York underground film scene embraced them as the “8mm Mozarts”. Their early films deeply inspired many filmmakers, including John Waters, Buck Henry, Atom Egoyan, Todd Haynes, Cory McAbee and Wayne Wang. IT CAME FROM KUCHAR includes numerous clips from the Kuchar brother’s early films including HOLD ME WHILE I’M NAKED, SINS OF THE FLESHAPOIDS, and many others. IT CAME FROM KUCHAR features interviews of many of the filmmakers, artists and writers who’ve been inspired by the Kuchars.’ –– Jennifer Smoot

 

_______
Underground comix
‘Although mainly into making movies, George Kuchar has also done some notable underground comix work. Kuchar was trained as a commercial artist and upon graduation drew weather maps for a local news show. He became involved in underground comix through his neighbor, Art Spiegelman. He drew for the comics revue Arcade in the 1970s, for which he created among others his comics biography of HP Lovecraft.’ — Lambiek

 

___
Stuff

George Kuchar Interview 2010

Portraits of George Kuchar at Work

George Kuchar & Guy Maddin in Conversation

George Kuchar on The Counter Culture Hour

George Kuchar’s Parting Message to the People of the Future

 

______
Interview
by Steve Lafreniere @ VICE

 

Were there a lot of big movie palaces in the Bronx when you were teenagers in the 50s?
George Kuchar: There were a lot of theaters, and a lot of people in the Bronx went to the movies. The big one was the Paradise. It was on the Grand Concourse near Fordham Road, and that was quite a spectacular theater. It looked Roman. They had stars twinkling on the ceiling and clouds moving by. There was another theater around Southern Boulevard that played foreign pictures, Antonioni movies. I remember going there and the place was packed to see L’Avventura. And they always had a sign that said “Air-Conditioned.” You’d walk by in the summer and, man, the blast of cold air that came out of that place.

How often did you go?
Three times a week. Sometimes we’d see the same movie three times.

Do you remember the ones that made you want to make movies?
I went to see a lot of Douglas Sirk. That was like going to see work by adults. You felt like it was grown-ups making those pictures, and they really looked good. But then there were the Roger Corman pictures. They were done cheap and we thought, “Gee, it could be fun making those.” They would be double bills. Sometimes there would be pictures about Indians with Marla English, and then one of the low-budget horror movies. I used to love seeing those.

Marla English is criminally forgotten. Did you follow certain stars?
Yeah. And it didn’t have to be the big ones, sometimes it was the stars of the B movies. Or a lot of times I went to a movie because they had listed who did the music. If Bernard Herrmann’s name was on the ad, I went to the movie. I loved the sound of the score in the movie theater.

You and Mike started making movies when you got a camera for your 12th birthday. Was it expensive to process the film?
The film was $2.65, and the developing couldn’t have been more than that. You’d bring it into a drugstore, and they would process it at a place locally. But it wasn’t very good. After a few years it would crack, the emulsion would come out, and it would look like a fresco. So we would send it to Kodak. They did a much better job. A projector didn’t cost that much money in those days. They were kind of tin-looking things, with little plastic reels. If you got a better projector it could take bigger reels, so you could make longer movies.

How did two teenagers from the Bronx connect with the underground-film crowd in Manhattan?
We had friends, like bohemians or whatever they were called. A friend of mine, Donna Kerness, she was very pretty. We went to high school together, and then I started putting her in pictures. She made friends with this man, Bob Cowan, who was about ten years older, an artist. He came down from Canada with two other Canadian artists, Mike Snow and Joyce Wieland, to get into the culture scene. He was infatuated with Donna, and she introduced me to them, and they introduced my brother and me to that whole art world in New York that was going on.

Ken Jacobs helped you guys out, right?
We went to Ken Jacobs’s loft because Bob Cowan, I think, was acting in his 8-mm movies. At that time it was like a little theater there, and every Friday or Saturday night he would play underground movies. So my brother and I came with our pictures, people liked them, and we were asked to come back. Ken Jacobs told Jonas Mekas about us, and that’s how the whole ball started rolling.

Even though you were teenagers and didn’t have an art background like those other people, you were accepted?
Yeah! That place used to be full of painters and other artists making movies. We sort of became part of that crowd and began showing at the same venues, and an audience developed. But we had never known anyone like this. These were crazy people. They didn’t behave like the people we were working with at our jobs. A lot of them had never grown up. They were sort of fun, wild, and free.

Where was Warhol in all of this?
I would see him on the street with his entourage, and then he would come to our shows. I remember him coming once with a whole group of people five minutes into the screening. At that time I was also friends with Red Grooms, who was making some 8-mm movies. He asked me if wanted to go to a luncheon that Harry Abrams was holding for pop artists. Since I’d just finished Hold Me While I’m Naked in 16 mm, he asked me if I’d like to bring a projector. Warhol was there, and Rauschenberg, and Oldenburg. We showed the movie, and afterward Warhol said, “It’s good, George. It’s too good. Go back to your old style with the 8 mm.”

He got a lot of his ideas from you and Jack Smith.
Actually, at that time there was a big crosscurrent of people looking at Jack’s work. But he was an odd character, Jack Smith. He was way off in left field or something. He was very talented and all, but he had no stability. The rug was pulled. I put him into a movie because he was living next door to the guy that I was using as the star. Jack was going to the Factory one afternoon and he took me along. Warhol was doing a silk screen when we got there. Jack Smith had acted in a Warhol picture and he was mad because he had been off-camera during his biggest scenes and Warhol never told him, “You’re out of the frame.” Warhol didn’t seem to get too disturbed. He just kept silk-screening.

It’s funny that right after the macho Beat era, here come all these queeny guys like Smith and Warhol.
It was just what was happening. Around the Beat time they all wore ties and shirts and jackets. They’re kind of dressed up, you know what I mean? But then this other thing, this strange exotica, came in. It just happened.

Do you prefer editing to shooting?
I like it all. I like shooting because it’s like one big party. You get a chance to do compositions, lighting, and your wardrobe and makeup. It’s excitement. But it can be hell too, especially if you’re doing a scene and the question arises, “What do we do?” I don’t know what the hell to do.

You improvise that much?
Yeah. So you have to say, “Excuse me, I have to go to the bathroom,” and then you can get your thoughts together. When the cameras were bigger and I didn’t know what to do to progress a scene, I’d just hide behind the camera. It was big enough to hide your face and you’d make believe you were adjusting the framing.

Maybe it’s because the plots are so much about your own, uh…
Probably obsessions. They always peek out. Sometimes there’s a seam of something that’s on your mind or bothering you. Or else you find somebody interesting and you wind up putting them in a plot, and somehow the plot unravels in the picture. But it’s other people playing them, so it’s all sort of dressed up. And 15 years later you realize what this picture was about, or that it was a pre-shadow of something. Pictures are kind of spooky. Especially when you handle the film yourself, and you got yourself in there. I compare them to little voodoo dolls.

Kenneth Anger believes that film collects more than just light and shadow. He said it made it hard to tell when they were finished.
Sometimes I finish a picture I’m working on and I think, “What a monstrosity.” Then I play it for a group of people and they sit there like, what just happened? And I think, “Uh-oh, what have I unleashed?” But if there’s something wrong with the picture, I fix it. The thing never gets finished unless it gets my complete seal of approval. Otherwise I’m haunted by it.

 

________________
19 of George Kuchar’s 217 films & videos

________________
Corruption of the Damned (1965)
‘The film is a cross between The Silence, L’Aventura, and Terrytoons… In it there can be found beauty, glamour, sophistication and smut. An enormous amount of people were rounded up to participate in cameo-roles. For some it was the first time in front of a movie camera but that did not stop them from behaving just as wantonly as they would under normal circumstances. One thing of interest is that Donna Kerness meets Gina Zuckerman at the climax of the film. The motion picture screen’s greatest sexpots are together for the first time in the same scene! If you don’t know what the word sexpot means, wait until you see Donna Kerness’s frying pans! And, if you think they’re great, stay awake and you’ll get a peek at Gina Zuckerman’s noodle-strainer!’ — George Kuchar

the entire film

 

_______________
Sins of the Fleshapoids (1965)
‘An amateur effort starring the filmmaker’s friends and shot, without a script, mainly on weekday nights in various Bronx and Brooklyn apartments. Like Kenneth Anger’s Scorpio Rising (1964), Fleshapoids has the look of a home movie, having been shot on the amateur reversal stock Kodachrome II and all the more richly saturated for having been printed on Kodachrome as well; no less than Antonioni’s in Red Desert, Kuchar’s “specific aim,” the filmmaker maintained, was “to bombard and engulf the screen with vivid and voluptuous colors.”

‘Set “a million years in the future” and chronicling the conflict between indolent humans and their robot “fleshapoid” slaves, Kuchar’s epic is in essence a silent movie with a tremulous voice-over narration (supplied by Bob Cowan) and a more or less continuous montage of movie music (also compiled by Cowan and including, among many other things, snippets from Bernard Herrmann’s score for The 7th Voyage of Sinbad [1958]). The action is punctuated with strategic sound effects and occasional superimposed speech balloons, the movie directed as a silent movie would have been. “Intensive rehearsing was not necessary,” Kuchar recalled in an early interview. “In fact, sometimes what I did was to yell out directions of what the actors should do while the camera was on and the film was rolling.” Decor is all. Fleshapoids’ true ancestor is The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari.’ — J. Hoberman

Trailer

Excerpt

 

________________
Hold Me While I’m Naked (1966)
‘In a time long before YouTube, the Kuchar Brothers borrowed their aunt’s Super-8mm camera at the age of 12 and began making their films: poorly-acted, cheapo productions as much parodies as homages to the Technicolor movies they grew up watching in the 1950’s. The sweetly oddball Kuchar sensibility was also informed by the SF underground comix scene (via friends Art Spiegelman and Zippy the Pinhead creator Bill Griffith) when George ended up teaching at the San Francisco Art Institute. George, the more prolific of the twins, has made over 200 films, mostly with the help of his SFAI students, with memorable titles such as I Was A Teenage Rumpot, Pussy On A Hot Tin Roof, Corruption Of The Damned, Hold Me While I’m Naked, Color Me Shameless and House Of The White People. His best known film is probably the short, Hold Me While I’m Naked.’ — Dangerous Minds

the entire film

 

______________
Eclipse of the Sun Virgin (1967)
‘Eclipse of the Sun Virgin is a 1967, 16mm, 17minute film; directed by George Kuchar. The film is based on dealing with a poignant self-identity and the feeling of void between pornography. The short film was filmed in the late 1960’s, in this era a lot was going on with politics, social surroundings and economics. The short film is set in a small apartment. There is little speaking between the characters and a variety of music and sound in the background of the film. There are a lot of visual aspects of the characters mainly focusing on George Kuchar. Observing the way the film was shot there are a lot of shots and cuts in all the scenes. I think this film is based around maturity physically and emotionally in some ways, for example in the beginning of the film the camera is focused on a slightly attractive guy and then the camera cuts to George who is not so much attractive looking.’ — gwenn k johnson

the entire film

 

____________
Color Me Shameless (1967)
‘A tale of impotence. The hero is an artist who suffers from a creative block and who cannot bring himself to sexually perform. He has a variety of encounters with women and at times steals articles of clothing from them as sexual fetishes. His frustrations culminate at an art party where he observes others behaving freely, while he can only get drunk. After visiting someone and seeing a “sculpture” in their apartment, he becomes inspired and rushes home to paint. He writes letters to his women friends, telling them to come at once for he has painted a masterpiece. Upon receiving his letter, the women prepare to leave to visit him, but are distracted by their lovers. The man waits in vain; in frustration he destroys the canvas. The fetishes he had been collecting jump out from the drawer where he had been hiding them as if to haunt or taunt him, showing him what he is.’ — George Kuchar

Excerpt

 

______________
Pagan Rhapsody (1970)
‘Since this was Jane and Lloyd’s first big acting roles, I made the music very loud so it would sweep them to stardom. She once hurt Bob Cowan’s back by sitting on it so this time I had her laying on his stomach. Donna Kerness was pregnant during her scenes but her stomach was kept pretty much in shadow and it’s not noticeable. My stomach was the same as always except it contained more mocha cake than usual since that type of cake was usually around when I filmed in Brooklyn Heights. Being that the picture was made in the winter, there are no outdoor scenes because it’s too cold and when the characters have to suddenly flee a tense situation, it’s too time consuming to have them put on a coat and gloves. Originally not scheduled as a tragedy, things swiftly changed as the months made me more and more sour as I plummet down that incinerator shaft I call my life.’ — George Kuchar

Excerpt

 

_________________
The Devil’s Cleavage (1975)
‘Restless nurses! Lovesick sheriffs! Sexed-up Girl Scout leaders! Lonely motel managers! And other degenerates populate George Kuchar‘s early ’70s mock-Hollywood soap opera, The Devil’s Cleavage. Ainslie Pryor stars as Nurse Ginger, who is stuck married to a total slob, so she takes to cheating on her hubby with anybody she cans. Eventually, she leaves home and becomes the object of obsession of a seedy Oklahoma motel manager played by Kuchar compatriot Curt McDowell. The Devil’s Cleavage is one of Kuchar’s rare feature-length outings. The film is credited by its distributor, Canyon Cinema, as having been completed in 1973. While the film may have had screenings in that year and in 1974, it gained a wider release in 1975, perhaps to capitalize on the success of Thundercrack! the semi-pornographic cult comedy directed by McDowell and written and starring Kuchar.’ — Underground Film Journal

Excerpt

 

_____________
I, An Actress (1977)
‘One of the most enduring factors of Kuchar’s films is just how endearing his passion and peculiar personality was, especially when he was yelling things like “I’m on my knees, Harold, haven’t you seen women on their knees before or is it only on their backs?” He said that one while on his back during the screen test, kicking up at a dummy wearing a coat and a curly wig. The whole ordeal was supposed to be Barbara’s gateway into Hollywood, but George made it his own, tagging a title on the film when it was done. He called it I, an Actress, a George Kuchar picture © 1977. The clip blends his styles together great, maintaining both the exaggerated script reads and camp, while documenting an event in real time and showing the artifice from behind the camera. Watching I, an Actress makes me realize I had boring fucking teachers.’ — Vice

the entire film

 

_____________
Wild Night in El Reno (1977)
‘While the 1977 film Wild Night in El Reno is not the first of Kuchar’s films to have been shot in Oklahoma (A Reason to Live [1976] prefigures it with scenes filmed there as well as in California), it is the earliest in which weather is the principal character. The only human beings seen in the six-minute piece are a woman briefly shown trying to use a payphone during a downpour, and the filmmaker himself, posed enigmatically beside graffiti proclaiming that “Jimmy Rush is a Pussy”. The majority of the film’s frames draw the viewer’s attention to the wind, clouds, rain and lightning strikes that accompany an El Reno storm. Many of the initial shots especially recall an Eric Sloane painting in composition and subject; his renderings of cloud formations in pastoral settings were an influence on the young Kuchar and it’s no surprise that a film bringing out the nature observer in the director would resemble one of Sloane’s landscapes put into motion by the camera shutter and the churning winds.’ — Senses of Cinema

the entire film

 

_____________
The Mongreloid (1978)
‘The Mongreloid runs for about nine minutes. It opens with images of a city. Then, with Kuchar having a heartwarmingly one sided conversation with his dog, Bocko. He recants stories of their travels and all the people they’ve met together. He asks Bocko if he remembers salami and pooping all over San Francisco, “America’s favorite city”. He remembers their trip to lakes and to see a horse, one who didn’t take kindly to Bocko. He relates between them what his dog likes, like curling up with Kuchar as he has dinner, and how his dog’s aged since taking some of those trips.’ — smfafilm

the entire film

 

____________
The Asphalt Ribbon (1978)
‘Adapted from a pamphlet of “sentimental essays”. This film uses original text from the book, cuts it with sex, violence, rock n’ roll, an actor driving a fake truck, and footage of actual trucks. The story is an ode to American truck drivers.’ — KB

Watch an excerpt here

 

________________
The Nocturnal Immaculation (1980)
‘Two men, two women, one God and many devils. Add a pinch of vengeance and a dash of mental illness, let simmer with high ideals, then take a mouthful and hang over the railing.’ — zen xiu

Watch the film here

 

________________
Ascension of the Demonoids (1985)
‘One of the most insanely confusing longer creations by George Kuchar during the 80s, just before he switched to video. This was made after a collection of movies on UFOs and George was looking to “make a spectacle” and “wanted to get off the subject”. So the film wanders between scenes of cheap effects, insanely colorful and pyschedelic montages, discussions between UFO nuts and a woman who shares her recipes, angelic visitors from outer space, religious hallucinations, bigfoot and a couple playing a flute, an Arab massaging a woman, a woman beating up a walking blonde doll in her bathroom, and scenery of Hawaii. I’m lost.’ — The Last Exit

the entire film

 

______________
Andy’s House of Gary (1993)
‘A youth and a geezer or two chew the fat about cosmic mysteries beyond the realm of scientific digestion.’ — George Kuchar


the entire film

 

_____________
Society Slut (1995)
‘The story of a matron and a midget in the heat of an unbridled passion. The colors run thick and heavy for paint and prurient pleasures as the electronic canvas unscrolls to reveal a bevy of beasties and beauties of nature and the unnatural. A non-stop melodrama of a patron of the arts shot by real art students in a real art school! A collaborative project I worked on with my class at the San Francisco Art Institute.’ — George Kuchar

the entire film

 

_______________
Secrets of the Shadow World (1989 – 1999)
‘With a new millennium almost upon us, images of space aliens invading the marketplace and sleeping habits of consumers worldwide, this miniseries abducts the viewers into the universe of John A. Keel (via a video time-warp supplied by me with Rockefeller Foundation funding). It’s a leisurely expedition through a maze of kitchens and cerebral convolutions in search of the mysteries behind the mundane (or vice versa!). Mr. Keel, an author and stage magician, has made a profound impact on the pop-culture we swim in. His research and books on the UFO enigma have ignited an explosive wild-fire of imaginative invocations such as the X-FILES TV show and the Men in Black blockbuster movie. Yet you never hear about him and he never hears from the movie and television companies. In this video you see and hear him. You also see and hear a whole lot of other people and some animals. The whole show runs almost 2 hours and 20 minutes, but be sure to stay for part 3 as the UFO/Horror author, Whitley Streiber, teams up with my old star, Donna Kerness to reveal exclusive revelations on the ‘visitor’ experience. See this video… then read their books — and pray it’s not true!”‘ — George Kuchar

George Kuchar talks about Secrets of the Shadow World

 

_______________
Butter Balls (2003)
‘To counteract the talkie I had done with graduate student the day before, this undergrad project has no dialogue but just a steady stream of images we dreamed up on the spot. A psychodrama that’s heavy on the beefcake, our picture deals with the sexual dementia of a sex addict undergoing hypnotherapy. It’s a mixture of fantasy and desire with some animals thrown in and lots of strange angles of the leading actor’s attributes.’ — George Kuchar

the entire film

 

______________
Dynasty of Depravity (2005)
‘This European flavored melodrama depicts a fictional country of refined manners and debased desires that explode into chaos, sending its prodigal son into the pit of 20th Century technology. That technology externalizes his hidden beauty just as he tries to hide the heritage of horror which was the curse of his lineage. That curse now threatens the already damned.’ — George Kuchar

the entire film

 

_____________
Water Sports (2007)
‘A trip to the Marin headlands at the Golden Gate of San Francisco Bay headlines this video diary. The viewer gets to eves and eye drop on various verbal and real time activities that are of a wet nature now and then. There’re boats and bodies and some spoken unspeakables amid the splendor of natural and unnatural expressions befitting the rim of a pacific paradise at low tide.’ — andyrod0077

the entire film

 

 

*

p.s. Hey. ** jay, Hi. I guess if nature or whoever built those spiders specifically to eat hummingbirds, they’re not evil. But, by the same logic, mosquitos wouldn’t be evil, but they are! Oh, right, I did like ‘Dogtooth’. I forgot he did that. I’ve only kind of read the headlines of the violently negative reviews of ‘Kindness’, but they seem to be saying it’s overly cynical and too deliberately provocative in the sense of giving away the game in a condescending way or something? So I guess they’re heady, I guess, sort of. It’s on my favorite illegal streaming site so I’m going to kick back with it with my mental cache emptied. ** Dominik, Hi!!! I know, it’s like the plot of one of those 60s’ American TV series. Thank you googling that. I honestly was very curious. It seems the head jerk would blur the vision, but I’m not a pigeon. I’m not even a stool pigeon. I’ll use love’s superpower, thanks. I’m actually really into writing the new film script right now, and that superpower won’t have any problem finding a receptive vehicle in me. Love remixing a song’s remix until it sounds like the original, G. ** _Black_Acrylic, The mural is kind of nice. Oh, gosh, did France win? Really, everyone’s so consumed with the election tomorrow that it’s like normal things are hardly even happening. ** Jack Skelley, We are born! And so are our covers! And … I got my copy of ‘Myth Lab’ yesterday. It’s so wee. It’s an adorable thing. I can’t stop cuddling it. Wow, cool about the instagram Flunkermania. I don’t know if I’m glad I’m not witnessing that or not. Sad not to see you tonight, but what’s a week in the world shaking lives of us? Does it mean something different when you put the ‘o’ before the ‘x’? I’m going to find out. ox, Dennis (Oh, it spells ox!) ** Lucas, Hi, Lucas. And that is precisely what I will do. I always seem to wait too long to buy concert tickets, so I should probably grab the Xiu Xius now. I hope this weekend fully kills off your flu. Seems likely, no? It’s good to think/know you’re getting better, for sure, but sometimes there’s something ineffable in the primitivism of things you made when you were less skilled that’s beautiful and that you can’t really see because your concentration is on getting better, all of which is to say at least keep the older stuff in a file and don’t delete it because you might come around to seeing its charms one day. ‘Blue of Noon’ is my second favorite Bataille fiction. There’s that beautiful green again. It really almost makes me want to eat it. The weather remains bizarrely nice. It’s strange. Okay, I’m going to move ‘Barbarian’ down my future watch list then, but not eliminate it entirely. That’s better. Have a productive and heavily bouncing back-oriented weekend! xoxo, me. ** James Bennett, Hi, James. It wasn’t a tough choice for me. Just the ceiling of Hell alone was a clincher. Oh, gosh, I like everything about ‘Lancelot du Lac’. It was the first Bresson film I saw, and it changed my life permanently, or my writing permanently at the very least. If I started saying what I love about it, I wouldn’t know how to stop. Okay, I do think the jousting scene, along with the Mr.-Amberson-assesses-his-life scene in ‘Magnificent Ambersons’, are my picks for the greatest scenes in the history of cinema. I’m very happy it pulled you in. And you have a splendid weekend too! ** Sypha, Well, of course I think you should slot it into your novel. Just describing those clubs’ interiors alone seem up your talent’s alley. ** Daniel, Aw, thank you so, so much for saying that, Daniel. That means really a lot. You know I hold your mind and being in the highest regard. xo, Dennis. ** nat, Most things are better imagined, it seems to me. Pretty tempting and open category. Nice verbiage too. My copies of ‘Flunker’ are now somewhere in France itself, according to tracking, so I might just beat you to it. You know Kier’s stuff. Kier did the cover of my novel ‘I Wished’. The photographs of Norway we took did not nail its particular magnificence. I think scale is a big part of it? I hope you make it to Monday happily. ** Steve, my deep condolences on the heat/humidity, need I even say. Disney would fuck/cute-sify l’Enfer, but a rogue Disney Imagineer … that’s a whole other thing. That could totally work. Where to install it though. In the original location, duh. The supermarket interloper on the property would be no loss. I’m into the new film script, so I’ll probably work on that a lot this weekend. Re: the election, the Far right is going to win the most Parliamentary seats pretty much for certain. The giant hope is that the temporary alliance between the Left and the Center Right, and the consequent strategising, will be enough to keep them from gaining a majority big enough that a Far Right person would have to be installed as Prime Minister, because that would be a huge disaster. At the moment, it looks like the alliance strategy will work, and that outcome is the best everyone’s hoping for, and that would be a happy result. ** Harper, Oh, yeah, for sure, writers, and, well, artists in general, go in and out of fashion unpredictably, and if Apollinaire is on the rise, that’s good and a good sign. Hope so. I mean, when Kathy Acker died, there were some years there when she was quite forgotten. I co-edited her Selected Works book soonish after her death, and there was no interest in it at all. But then she gradually became the big deal she is now. It’s interesting, those currents. ‘Superliminal’ sounds great, and it’s on my list for my imminent reengagement with my Switch. Thank you! All seemingly very true: your thoughts on l’Enfer and nostalgia and movements. Online revolutions are certainly easier, but they’re a little dry, but dry can work. ** Justin D, Hi. Thank you so much, Justin. I’m super touched. Really, thank you, that means a lot. I hope you have/had a really fruitful weekend. Anything out of the ordinary cross your path or even anything pleasingly ordinary? xo. ** Oscar 🌀, I’ve never played Worldle, so you’re one up on me. I like seeing the little mysteriously organised colored boxes in my social media feed. Ha ha. As for you, …. Hi! I don’t know what the later ‘Animal Crossings’ are like, but, in the first one, when you stop playing for a few days and return, the townsfolk are all freaked out and kind of pissed off that you left, and they guilt trip you and tell you everything is horrible because of you and stuff. I think I’m too sensitive to objectify that appropriately. I’ve not played either ‘Dark Souls’ or ‘Firewatch’. Heavily noted. Did you ever play the Gamecube game ‘Eternal Darkness’? That was incredible. The player kept going insane and hallucinating, like walking through walls and getting trapped in the game’s behind-the-scenes internal structure, and the game would fuck with you and suddenly say your controller was unplugged and you had 10 seconds to plug it back in or lose your game, and lots of things like that. Amazing. I remain shocked that they never made sequels. No, we’re still good, weatherise. Not as good as you. 16-19 degrees … my mind is doing the cerebral equivalent of drooling. Max that out for me. ** Right. Two separate people have recently asked me to restore the blog’s old George Kuchar Day because the original had become totally decimated by dead imbeds and other internet time-based tomfoolery, so I have done that and even expanded it a little. I hope I have made the right decision. See you on Monday.

i09.com: Paris of the 1890s had several supernatural nightlife options, each of them with marvelously outlandish gimmicks. In the 1899 book Bohemian Paris of To-Day by William Chambers Morrow and Édouard Cucuel, the authors visit several of the City of Lights darker drinking destinations, such as Cabaret de l’Enfer (“The Cabaret of the Inferno”), a Satanically themed nightclub in Montmartre that abutted another cabaret called Cabaret du Ciel (“The Cabaret of the Sky”), a divinely themed bar where Dante and Father Time greeted visitors and comely ladies dressed as angels pranced around teasing patrons.

 

__________________

FSK: Are the French crazy or what? They are crazy, alright! The truth is, they are crazy like a fox. I will tell you the story of two side-by-side cabarets created by two Frenchmen who hated each other. The one who owned the Cabaret of Hell was an ex-clergyman. The other guy who called his establishment Cabaret of Heaven was an ex-convict and known in the neighborhood as “the morally bankrupt.” The drinks at the Cabaret of Hell were more expensive than the cheap drinks served at the Cabaret of Heaven, but the food was bloody awful. The owner explained: “Mes chers amis, my drinks are expensive because all those who are going to hell dead or alive come here. They come here, because it is more fun than the other place. There are no rules here, like in hell. In heaven, MON DIEU! there is nothing but rules! So where you would rather prefer to go? To Hell or to Heaven?”

 

________________

William Chambers Morrow: Presently we reached the gilded gates of Le Cabaret du Ciel. They were bathed in a cold blue light from above. Angels, gold-lined clouds, saints, sacred palms and plants, and other paraphernalia suggestive of the approach to St. Peter’s domain, filled all the available space about the entree. A bold white placard, “Bock, I Franc,” was displayed in the midst of it all. Dolorous church music sounded within, and the heavens were unrolled as a scroll in all their tinsel splendor as we entered to the bidding of an angel.

Flitting about the room were many more angels, all in white robes and with sandals on their feet, and all wearing gauzy wings swaying from their shoulder-blades and brass halos above their yellow wigs. These were the waiters, the garcons of heaven, ready to take orders for drinks. One of these, with the face of a heavy villain in a melodrama and a beard a week old, roared unmelodiously, “The greetings of heaven to thee, brothers! Eternal bliss and happiness are for thee. Mayst thou never swerve from its golden paths! Breathe thou its sacred purity and renovating exaltation. Prepare to meet thy great Creator and don’t forget the garcon!”

A very long table covered with white extended the whole length of the chilly room, and seated at it, drinking, were scores of candidates for angelship, mortals like ourselves. Men and women were they, and though noisy and vivacious, they indulged in nothing like the abandon of the Boul’ Mich’ cafes. Gilded vases and candelabra, together with foamy bocks, somewhat relieved the dead whiteness of the table. The ceiling was an impressionistic rendering of blue sky, fleecy clouds, and golden stars, and the walls were made to represent the noble enclosure and golden gates of paradise.

“Brothers, your orders! Command me, thy servant!” growled a ferocious angel at our elbows, with his accent de la Villette, and his brass halo a trifle askew. Mr. Thompkins had been very quiet, for he was Wonder in the flesh, and perhaps there was some distress in his face, but there was courage also. The suddenness of the angel’s assault visibly disconcerted him, he did not know what to order. Finally he decided on a verre de Chartreuse, green. Bishop and I ordered bocks.

“Two sparkling draughts of heaven’s own brew and one star-dazzler!” yelled our angel. “Thy will be done,” came the response from a hidden bar. Obscured by great masses of clouds, through whose intervals shone golden stars, an organ continually rumbled sacred music, which had a depressing rather than a solemn effect, and even the draughts of heaven’s own brew and the star-dazzler failed to dissipate the gloom.

Suddenly, without the slightest warning, the head of St. Peter, whiskers and all, appeared in a hole in the sky, and presently all of him emerged, even to his ponderous keys clanging at his girdle. He gazed solemnly down upon the crowd at the tables and thoughtfully scratched his left wing. From behind a dark cloud he brought forth a vessel of white crockery (which was not a wash-bowl) containing (ostensibly) holy water. After several mysterious signs and passes with his bony hands he generously sprinkled the sinners below with a brush dipped in the water; and then, with a parting blessing, he slowly faded into mist.

 

________________

National Geographic: A hot spot called Hell’s Café lured 19th-century Parisians to the city’s Montmartre neighborhood—like the Marais—on the Right Bank of the Seine. With plaster lost souls writhing on its walls and a bug-eyed devil’s head for a front door, le Café de l’Enfer may have been one of the world’s first theme restaurants.

 

_______________

Manning Leonard Krull: Le Café de L’Enfer was a Hell-themed café in Paris’ red light district (aka Pigalle, the neighborhood of the Moulin Rouge), created in the late 19th century and operating up ’til sometime around the middle of the 20th. I first heard of this place years ago, before I ever lived in Paris. I had no idea that I’d one day end up living right down the street from where L’Enfer, which was located right on the Boulevard de Clichy, which was about fifty paces from the front door of my second apartment in Paris. Unfortunately, there’s very, very little solid information to be found regarding Le Café de L’Enfer. In all my searching, I’ve only been able to nail down the fact that it was definitely on the Boulevard de Clichy, somewhere near Place Blanche. I also haven’t had any luck trying to track down L’Enfer’s specific dates of operation, information about its design and construction, etc.

 

_________________

The Long Forgotten Blog: The pub originally opened in Brussels in 1892 as the Cabaret de la Mort (i.e. the Cabaret of Death), but it soon moved to the Montmartre district of Paris, where it was renamed the Cabaret de l’Enfer. The Montmartre district was THE place to be if you were an artiste in the second half of the 19th c. It seems like all of the important Impressionist painters lived there or hung out there. In the 1890’s, it was bursting at the seams with cabarets and theaters, including fully-themed nightclubs. The Cabaret of Heaven and the Cabaret of Hell sat side by side. The waiters dressed as angels in the former and devils in the latter.

 

_______________

i09.com: Once inside Cabaret de l’Enfer, the revelers witnessed a snake transform into a devil, were heckled by Satan, and were warned repeatedly of the scalding temperature. (To quote Morrow, “In spite of the half-molten condition of the rock-walls, the room was disagreeably chilly.”)

 

_______________

William Chambers Morrow: We passed through a large, hideous, fanged, open mouth in an enormous face from which shone eyes of blazing crimson. Curiously enough, it adjoined heaven, whose cool blue lights contrasted strikingly with the fierce ruddiness of hell. Red-hot bars and gratings through which flaming coals gleamed appeared in the walls within the red mouth. A placard announced that should the temperature of this inferno make one thirsty, innumerable bocks might be had at sixty-five centimes each. A little red imp guarded the throat of the monster into whose mouth we had walked; he was cutting extraordinary capers, and made a great show of stirring the fires. The red imp opened the imitation heavy metal door for our passage to the interior, crying, “Ah, ah, ah! still they come! Oh, how they will roast!” Then he looked keenly at Mr. Thompkins. It was interesting to note how that gentleman was always singled out by these shrewd students of humanity. This particular one added with great gusto, as he narrowly studied Mr Thompkins, “Hist! ye infernal whelps; stir well the coals and heat red the prods, for this is where we take our revenge on earthly saintliness!”

“Enter and be damned, the Evil One awaits you!” growled a chorus of rough voices as we hesitated before the scene confronting us. Near us was suspended a caldron over a fire, and hopping within it were half a dozen devil musicians, male and female, playing a selection from “Faust” on stringed instruments, while red imps stood by, prodding with red-hot irons those who lagged in their performance.

Crevices in the walls of this room ran with streams of molten gold and silver, and here and there were caverns lit up by smouldering fires from which thick smoke issued, and vapors emitting the odors of a volcano. Flames would suddenly burst from clefts in the rocks, and thunder rolled through the caverns. Red imps were everywhere, darting about noiselessly, some carrying beverages for the thirsty lost souls, others stirring the fires or turning somersaults. Everything was in a high state of motion.

Numerous red tables stood against the fiery walls; at these sat the visitors. Mr. Thompkins seated himself at one of them. Instantly it became aglow with a mysterious light, which kept flaring up and disappearing in an erratic fashion; flames darted from the walls, fires crackled and roared. One of the imps came to take our order; it was for three coffees, black, with cognac; and this is how he shrieked the order: “Three seething bumpers of molten sins, with a dash of brimstone intensifier!” Then, when he had brought it, “This will season your intestines, and render them invulnerable, for a time at least, to the tortures of the melted iron that will be soon poured down your throats.” The glasses glowed with a phosphorescent light. “Three francs seventy-five, please, not counting me. Make it four francs. Thank you well. Remember that though hell is hot, there are cold drinks if you want them.”

Presently Satan himself strode into the cavern, gorgeous in his imperial robe of red, decked with blazing jewels, and brandishing a sword from which fire flashed. His black moustaches were waxed into sharp points, and turned rakishly upward above lips upon which a sneering grin appeared. Thus he leered at the new arrivals in his domain. His appearance lent new zest to the activity of the imps and musicians, and all cowered under his glance. Suddenly he burst into a shrieking laugh that gave one a creepy feeling. It rattled through the cavern with a startling effect as he strode up and down. It was a triumphant, cruel, merciless laugh. All at once he paused in front of a demure young Parisienne seated at a table with her escort, and, eying her keenly, broke into this speech: “Ah, you! Why do you tremble? How many men have you sent hither to damnation with those beautiful eyes, those rosy, tempting lips? Ah, for all that, you have found a sufficient hell on earth. But you,” he added, turning fiercely upon her escort, “you will have the finest, the most exquisite tortures that await the damned. For what? For being a fool. It is folly more than crime that hell punishes, for crime is a disease and folly a sin. You fool! For thus hanging upon the witching glance and oily words of a woman you have filled all hell with fuel for your roasting. You will suffer such tortures as only the fool invites, such tortures only as are adequate to punish folly. Prepare for the inconceivable, the unimaginable, the things that even the king of hell dare not mention lest the whole structure of damnation totter and crumble to dust.”

The man winced, and queer wrinkles came into the corners of his mouth. Then Satan happened to discover Mr. Thompkins, who shrank visibly under the scorching gaze. Satan made a low, mocking bow. “You do me great honor, sir,” he declared, unctuously. “You may have been expecting to avoid me, but reflect upon that you would have missed! We have many notables here, and you will have charming society. They do not include pickpockets and thieves, nor any others of the weak, stunted, crippled, and halting. You will find that most of your companions are distinguished gentlemen of learning and ability, who, knowing their duty, failed to perform it. You will be in excellent company, sir,” he concluded, with another low bow. Then, suddenly turning and sweeping the room with a gesture, he commanded, “To the hot room, all of you!” while he swung his sword, from which flashes of lightning trailed and thunder rumbled.

 

________________

i09.com: Even though Cabaret de l’Enfer isn’t open today, it stuck around a while — the photo above depicts a police man standing outside the cabaret in 1952.

 

______________

Paris Monster Kid Cabaret: This is the front and back cover of possibly a ticket booklet, postcard bocklet or program. It appears to be plaster work from the interior — note the serpents that spell out L’ENFER:

And the interior:

This is the flipside of a card I have (the obverse looks like the right-hand side (front cover) of the booklet above):

 

______________

Darren Nemeth: I have that postcard booklet. I think there are only 4 or 6 cards in it. Le Enfer specialized in fantasmagoria and ghost shows. Here is what the
old postcard booklet says inside:

“HELL” Montartre, Paris. The most unique cabaret in the world open every evening at 8:30.

Part I (ground floor): Visitiors purify their souls in Purgatory. Their suffering is greatly mitigated by up to date music, dancing and 1st class Refreshments. Discours by Lucifer and Satanas. No Extra charge is made for the entertaiment on the floor above.

Part II (1st floor): Satan introduces his diabolic spouse. Titania casts her into hell flames and her body is completely consumed in full view of all spectators. Any lady from the audience may make the experiment. Illustrations of the sufferings of the eternal damned and tableaux vivants of the deadly sins.

 

______________

Douban.com: Interestingly, a duplicate of the Cabaret de L’Enfer opened in New York in 1896, located near Broadway and 39th St., and it was popular when new, but I can find little information about this American version. Above is a surviving image of the American location’s facade.

 

______________

Tod Michel: Both L’Enfer and Cabaret du Ciel were demolished well before the Sixties. I was very often in this quarter of Paris, even in the mid-Fifties, and never saw these cafés. I only heard of them by my mother, who lived in Paris since the mid-Twenties. So I made some research and both were demolished in 1954. I missed them only by some months – alas – as in 1954/55 I started to go regularly in Paris (I was living in the suburb) to watch movies. The place where both L’Enfer et Cabaret du Ciel once existed is now a Monoprix supermarket.

On the opposite sidewalk, facing the place where L’Enfer and Le Ciel once existed, there was a movie theater called Le Colorado, and from the mid-1960s until recent years it specialized in horror movies only, with painted monsters and zombies on its façade – so in a sense it continued the tradition. Hundreds of horror movies played at this theater, from all periods and countries, like the 1931 Frankenstein, the Hammer movies, the Italian movies starring Barbara Steele, Mexican masked wrestlers, 1950s SF flicks, etc. From memory Le Colorado opened in 1964, but, before that date, it was a “normal” movie theater playing any kind of movies.

 

 

 

*

p.s. Hey. ** Dominik, Hi!!! Almost everything is wrong with people at the moment, wouldn’t you say? Mm, I think I’d want the Lit Cigarette Vending Machine. And it would look so nice and perfect stationed next to my Camel Blue vending machine, thank you, love! Love explaining why pigeons’ heads jerk forwards and backwards when they walk and why that doesn’t give them headaches, G. ** jay, There are spiders that eat hummingbirds? How particular. Hm, I’m not driven to see Lanthimos’s films, I must admit. I kind of really didn’t like ‘The Lobster’ and ‘Sacred Deer’, and I kind of bailed after that. That said, I am strangely curious about the new one given that it’s so violently hated by some. Hm. ** Bill, I know, all problems solved via one machine, right? I’ve found the later Kim films kind of disappointing. I think the last one I liked in toto was ‘Stop’ maybe? ** _Black_Acrylic, Hi. Wow, I’m sort of surprised that women still wear perfume, but why wouldn’t they? That Marc Jacobs is so on the money albeit 10 years late. But it works, I guess. ** Lucas, Hi! I still haven’t read it yet either. Today, I guess. I’ll get the album in any case. So what’s controversial about the video? Wait, I should find out myself, shouldn’t I? Oh, no, your creative fieriness left your head and snuck into the no-go land of your body? I hope it’s one of those quickie flus. You’re gonna make a zine? Ooh, that’s so promising! I’m okay, getting through, getting there. Feel tons better!!!! Oh, my favorite Bataille fiction is very predictably ‘Story of the Eye’. My favorite non-fiction Bataille is … hm, tough choice, I think either ‘Erotism’ or ‘Guilty’. What’s yours? ** Tosh Berman, Urgh. My favorite Meguro vending machine is one near the metro station where you can buy tickets to the Ghibli amusement park. ** Malik, Hi. I spent a weird amount of time thinking about that cemetery candle/lantern machine, I don’t know why. I guess ‘mourning’ is a very charismatic act. Your poem! I can’t wait to read it once I’m freed of the p.s. Everyone, Malick has a poem newly up and fully readable on the Expat site, and I’m excited to read it, and perhaps you are too? I would think so. Do so here. Big congrats to you and to them!!! ** Sypha, Mystery boxes are as good as vending machines. I should do a post about them. Man, thank you so much for reading and giving such a thoughtful response to ‘Flunker’. I’m really happy and honored. Thank you, James! Needless to say, your first comment arrived in perfect shape. I never understand why readers don’t get to see their comments sometimes. This is the strangest place. Great day to you! ** Steve, Disneyland is secretly full of undercover security/police. They’re everywhere. They dress and act like normal visitors, but, when you study the crowds, you see them. They all wear dark glasses, and they all have a little earpiece in their ears. So it’s easy to get caught. Yes, I went to Disneyland on acid a lot as a teen and then on Ecstasy later on. No, no drug-caused revelations that I can recall, but my imagination always goes wild there with or without chemical input. I … don’t know if it’s a front. Wouldn’t shock me. Survive the humidity as best you can. Ours is still on the horizon, probably about the time the Olympics start. ** James Bennett, Hey, James! Relatively speaking, given everywhere else including here, you guys definitely had a good day over there. So big congrats with obvious qualifiers. Great that you’re not only writing but invigorated! I’m cracking my Tinkerbell chem trail-like whip of encouragement over here. Clearly I hope you like ‘Lancelot du Lac’, obviously, but, if you don’t, that’s okay, I can take it. Review? ** Charalampos, Hi. Is there an Alphaville song in one of my books? Weird, I don’t remember that or why I would have referenced that, but I believe you. Gisele can easily see your book. I don’t see why not. Paris is bestowing its loveliness on Crete and you today. ** Harper, Hi. I think they still have voting booths in the US, but they’re awfully shallow and skinny, so mutual j.o. is probably as hot as it could get in them. Dave from Blur. Nice that he’s got something else going on. I … think I must have gone to a planetarium high at some point. But I don’t remember seeing anything that wasn’t just slides projected on a concave ceiling. I never took acid at school. My friends did, and all but one of them got expelled for doing that. I don’t know why I thought it was important too be sober at school. Seems odd. ** Berkstresser, Ontzettend bedankt! I don’t know German, but I know a little Dutch. Well, if Stan is running on a machine then I will cease worrying about him this second. Tot ziens, Berkstresser. ** Darby, The baguette one or the canned bread one? I like the canned bread one. My week is plenty weird too, so no worries, we’re simpatico. Right, okay, I’ll think about the poetry thing today. My brain is kind of cooked at the moment. I personally like poetry in books more than online. I think novels can make the book -> online transference okay, but I feel like poetry needs to be printed on pages and bound, I don’t know why. Good luck with your week’s weirdness. ** Uday, Welcome home. I was just thinking about ‘Alcools’ the other day and how it used to be such a cool, trendy book to read and how no one ever talks about it or him anymore, at least in my sphere of people. I’m a fan of it, of course. It is a luscious title. I’ll take a dog hug, but, really, as I think I’ve said here before, you almost never ever see dogs on the streets of Paris. Why, I don’t know. I’m going to hope for extreme de-humidification for you today. ** 🌀 HEY DENNIS 🌀, Ha ha! Sneaky, or the opposite of sneaky, rather. If you know people who play Wordle, tell them the secret word today is you-know-what, and that they now owe you big time. I liked ‘Crash Bandicoot’. I played the first ‘Animal Crossing’, and I got so addicted and co-dependent that I vowed never to play that game again, and I haven’t. My favorite games are ones that involve lots of wandering around and extremely minimal battling with characters and lots of puzzles of every kind and a general atmosphere of wittiness. Basically, your classic Nintendo type a la, to go way back, ‘Banjo Kazooie’ or ‘Conker Bad Fur Day’, or, to be more in the now, ‘Paper Mario’ or, you know, ‘Zelda’ or even ‘Epic Mickey’. But I do really like, you know, ‘Resident Evil’ and that sort of thing too. Make sense? What about you, gamer? Me too. I miss vending machines. The one I miss the most was this one where you could step inside and record a vinyl record of doing whatever you want, and then the vinyl record would slide out through a slot, and you could, in a limited way, design the picture sleeve. I think Friday might be okay, or so it’s looking. Our election is on Sunday, and everyone’s stressed out, but I think I can circumvent that maybe. It’s not going to rain, and it’s not going to be hot, so that’s pretty promising. I hope yours is similarly de-cloaked. ** Okay. I’m accessing the blog’s time machine function to give you a tour of these famous but utterly inaccessible Parisian venues of ages ago. That’s what I’ve done. You may proceed apace or not. See you tomorrow.