“Ferocious and unsparing, Paul Cunningham’s incomparable poetry is a carnivalesque, nightmare voyage through the dark wasteland that is twenty-first century America.”
— Jonathan Crary, author of Scorched Earth: Beyond the Digital Age to a Post-Capitalist Earth
“In your fantasy, am I duck or dog? The world is ending, but not as fast as one might hope, so let’s kill time at the 7/11 forever. Let’s kill all the time. You bring your bloodlust and your Warhol wig, I’ll bring my copy of Paul Cunningham’s Sociocide at the 24/7, plus the ant-farm I’ve wired to my fear receptors. Here, hold this riveting glittery reliquary of our glitchy lateness, slick w/ambivalence. Btw I drank your smoothie of Gila monster venom, microplastics & adaptogens, so cold and so sweet.”
— Joyelle McSweeney, author of Death Styles
“I love this new collection by Paul Cunningham!”
— CAConrad, author of Listen to the Golden Boomerang Return
“If our post-internet era is in a semiotic labyrinth, Sociocide at the 24/7 is like bringing a disco ball into a mirror maze. Fast, fun, and having its way entirely with the language of our culture: this is my kind of poetics. I really loved this book.”
— Ben Fama, author of If I Close My Eyes
“Honestly, Paul Cunningham’s sociocidal masterpiece fulfilled my dream of being close to Mary Magdalene’s foot bone. That said, there is something here for everyone: skulls, encryption, landlord cemeteries, CYAO for pseudo-variants! Theologians, this book contains the only soundscape involving the BABE trinity. Pastors, you will witness the resurrection of figments from their encoffinated forms. Rentiers, your horrible landlords are accurately depicted and de-fanged in parentheses. Algorithms and necro-romantics will swoon for the situational hyperpigmentation. I felt simultaneously implicated and liberated by the presence of big data bodies in this sonically-extravagant simulation that slams wellness culture while replicating the hum of socially-mediated existence. We are not well! Long live poetry and Sociocode at the 24/7!”
— Alina Stefanescu, author of My Heresies
SOCIOCIDE AT THE 24/7 SHORT FILM:
“My fans are much cooler. When I went to Chicago to read — there was a kid who came, all the way from Pittsburgh — to give me a Texas Chainsaw Massacre poster…Of course that kid was the young Paul Cunningham. A heroic youth”
— Aase Berg, author of With Deer
BOOK LAUNCH AT THE UNIVERSITY OF NOTRE DAME:
“It’s VHS culture, the irrational exuberance of Ryan Trecartin, the giggling virtuosity of Tom Hulce’s Mozart in AMADEUS, the mall engagement ring desideratum of Chelsey Minnis, the way David Bowie wears Warhol’s actual wigs to play him in Julian Schnabel’s biopic of Basquiat just so David Bowie can say ‘Oh Jean, let’s go to Pittsburgh. I’m from there sort of.’”
— Joyelle McSweeney
VIDEO KILLED THE RADIO STAR:
EXCERPT FROM AMADEUS:
RYAN TRECARTIN’S A FAMILY FINDS ENTERTAINMENT:
BOWIE AS WARHOL:
“For the majority of the earth’s population on whom it has been imposed, the internet complex is the implacable engine of addiction, loneliness, false hopes, cruelty, psychosis, indebtedness, squandered life, the corrosion of memory, and social disintegration. All of its touted benefits are rendered irrelevant or secondary by its injurious and sociocidal impacts”
— Jonathan Crary, Scorched Earth: Beyond the Digital Age to a Post-Capitalist Earth
“In Scorched Earth, Jonathan Crary writes about the ‘sociocidal impacts” of what he terms an ‘internet complex.’ He describes this complex as an ‘implacable engine of addiction, loneliness, false hopes, cruelty, psychosis, indebtedness, squandered life, the corrosion of memory, and social disintegration.’
Crary’s importantly critical visions of our capitalist world have not only served as a major influence on Sociocide at the 24/7, but his life’s work has proven extremely formative for me as a poet and a critic. Since the first time I read Techniques of the Observer as a grad student in 2013, something just clicked.
As a young gay man, I found myself very much attracted to Crary’s musings on the kaleidoscope in Techniques of the Observer, Crary notes that the view of a kaleidoscope presents the viewer with infinitely unfamiliar and unpredictable repetitions. Therefore, an infinite promise of something new. He links this seductive multiplicity to Baudelaire’s fascination with modernity (and also Proust) by highlighting how the infinite excess of the kaleidoscope has the ability to fragment ‘any point of iconicity’ and disrupt ‘stasis.’ In many ways, this made me think of the kaleidoscope — its patterns, its garish colors, its imaginative shapes — as a queer weapon. This concept is explored in more detail in the film component of the book. The film, Sociocide at the 24/7, will premiere in Los Angeles at AWP in March, 2025.
From the photographic to the pornographic, I remain grateful for Crary’s indelible contributions to philosophy and art history. His criticisms of 24/7 capitalism/consumption and his insistence on new and radical forms of refusal to submit to billionaire behavioral norms is something we should all take into consideration as we slowly consider how to protest the dark days to come.
I can’t recommend his books enough. He is a personal hero, and I am forever grateful for his reflection on Sociocide at the 24/7.
— Paul Cunningham
INSIDE A KALEIDOSCOPE:
DAMIEN HIRST’S BUTTERFLIES:
STAN BRAKHAGE’S MOTHLIGHT:
“I guess it’s part of every country that if you’re proud of where you live and think it’s special, then you want to be special for living there, and you want to prove you’re special by comparing yourself with other people. Or maybe you think it’s so special that certain people shouldn’t be allowed to live there, or if they do live there that they shouldn’t say certain things or have certain ideas. But this kind of thinking is exactly the opposite of what America means.”
— Andy Warhol, America
WARHOL IN DRAG:
WARHOL PAINTS DEBBIE HARRY:
One of several major inspirations behind Sociocide at the 24/7 was Warhol’s writings — fascinating meditations on both celebrity and death — that appear in his 1985 photography book America. At one point he compares tourists in Washington to tourists in Disneyworld. But, perhaps most memorable, is when he says he’d wished he had died after he was shot in 1968. Two bullets ripped through his stomach, liver, spleen, esophagus, left lung, and right lung. Juxtaposed with photographs of a cemetery in Lenox, New York is this quotation which opens Sociocide at the 24/7:
“I always thought I’d like my own tombstone to be blank. No epitaph, and no name. Well, actually, I’d like it to say ‘figment.'”
Upon learning this, I was doubly reminded of Baudrillard’s writings on simulacra and Disneyland, but also Disney’s somewhat failed mascot “Figment” — first introduced in 1983 as part of the “Journey into the Imagination” attraction at Epcot.
FIGMENT PUPPET TEST:
FIGMENT RIDE:
Many of the poems of Sociocide at the 24/7 attempt to expose the dangers of unchecked imaginations — especially the imaginations of American influencers and so-called entrepreneurs.
Today, video of Warhol’s gravesite can be livestreamed 24/7. The project is a collaboration between the The Andy Warhol Museum and EarthCam. The collaborative project has been called “Figment.”
POEM EXCERPTS:
WARNING:
this big gulp delinquent’s
gone 7/11 at the 24/7
gone all stations of the cross
at the Hollywood gas and go
BP Shell Sunoco
what i meant to say was
this is an insider’s guide to
what to gas and how to die it
everything you wanted to know
about Prince Harry NOW
is this a convenient store or
IS THIS A CONVENIENT STORE???
members only members
are granted EARLY ACCESS
to exclusive content
CYBERTRUCKS, AM I RIGHT???
mmmmmmmmm
Big Torn Campbell’s Soup
Can YOU share
your most googled
fears? I’m thinking
the same
Fresh hot coffee ANY SIZE
don’t burn me or I’LL SUE
another missing persons sign
conceals another bullethole
newsreels to channel
your inner Mad Men
your reaction to the reaction
is getting so many Likes
THIS IS EVERYTHING
WE KNOW SO FAR ABOUT
glass-clad polycarbonate
another attack on cashiers
on a different kind of screen
in the land of smash-and-grab
no safe transactions, only punch-ins
corruption and clock outs
measured by poolside fools
who only WANT IT ALL for
HALF THE PRICE
COLLECT THEM ALL:
science-backed rodent of voltaic spiral
ditto with the hypertension ditto what
the mirror flaunts ditto distorting
smudge of DNA the soft cursive pulse
of alphabet ditto with the numbers
traceless in the maze faceless if a protein
butchered by a name or another word
for accident
—————–ditto like a hoax ditto
in the ripsnorting gray of this world
in the storm of it all in our carcass
country drunk on bloodlust dreams
EXPOSED SOFTWARE:
actually the gas and go
is nothing but a front
for a server farm
for data generative painting
a TMZ leak in real time
DUNH DUNH DUNH
creating new futures via
wish fulfillment via
deepfake laggers
fairy godmothers
gossip and rumors
it’s an open source model
frequented by bad actors
i don’t know
call it an immersive
art experience
i guess
if it sells
i mean
if it doesn’t
Van Gogh
call it something
groundbreaking
compare it to
the Met Gala
et cetera
et cetera
something about
the art of
looking?
Mary’s blackened skull speaks to me
as i order everything i can online
order everything i can
selfie with Mary Magdalene’s FOOT BONE
selfie in Greece with her LEFT HAND
NOW let’s do scientific facial reconstruction
and compare facial volume
MINE FOR YOURS, BABE
FIGMENT, it’s one of those days, BABE
BABE i’m did this to myself
BABE i’m not even trying to sell anything
i don’t think i like the people who watch us anymore
and since when did ME become an US?
fucking #gross
i don’t think i like doing this anymore
even if i did get you through the pandemic
IT DOESN’T MATTER
#shoptherealdeal BABE
maybe i’m just your imagination
maybe i thought you thought I was doing something
REVOLUTIONARY
and maybe i think i don’t think i am
but i’m reading years and years of birthday cards
from THE PAST that you and i share AND
WELL, i hate to say this, BUT
they all read: i’m so proud of you
CONGRATS!!!
ENCRYPTED
too much unseeable earth for
ailing geomancer, I
feeling out the cyber
bleeded out the hollows
of my hyssop veins
still feeling the scars
of a bitcoin haze
a coke-white darkness
glitching like an NFT candle
across shadowed bodies
what am i worth
a 4 eva 4 eva?
*
p.s. Hey. Today the blog re-upholsters itself with its red carpet (which only looks white) to help steward an excellent new book by the poet Paul Cunningham into the public sphere. Paul has put together a highly tasty aperitif for said book that I hope you will investigate, enjoy, and consider siren-esque. Thanks, Paul, and thank you all in advance. ** rene, Hi, rene. Yeah, I think it’s the same with writing, not that I know what it’s like with music, but that seems like an educated guess nonetheless. Summer, gotcha. Same for DITZ. I’m on it. Thanks! ** Misanthrope, 200 hours is a whole lot of hours. So, surely you can slot Paris in there somewhere, finances willing. ** Dominik, Hi!!! Will do, but we need to get a little further with the script first. Its current considerations are still just a strong maybe. Hopefully soon. It was wonderfully deserted here too yesterday. Even though all the stores were open. Strange. Love getting ready to crack open the new SCAB but without the cracking, G. ** jay, All credit to the Glove. It’s true: if I hit the patisseries today, I might be able to sweep up all kinds of retro chocolate things. Good thinking. I think if your boyfriend is really such a good boyfriend and curator he will take you along with him to Japan next time. Although I understand there may be extenuating circumstances. Aw, what a thoughtful, odd friend (who gave you the framed delight). Luck with your work. I don’t have anything to work on strangely. Well, the blog, of course. Anyway, toodeloo, which I believe is a UK-invented word. Wait, let me check. Yes, it is! ** _Black_Acrylic, Go, Leeds! This is your year, man, I can feel it even as an ignoramus. ** James, I’m sure the Glove is relishing your attention and kind words wherever he may be. And I personally relish your successful entrance into the lustrous world of Pavement. I’m just about fully awake and almost worthy of your prose. Well, I was very happy to read your initial, ecstatic report on Edinburgh and your seemingly destined future there, but then I saw your less certain follow up, and now I, of course, wonder what in the world could have happened to dash your dreams within such a short period time. Maybe you’ll jolt back into being smitten again? Anyway, what’s the current scoop? ** catachrestic, I hope the Glove got your message. Stereolab are lovely. I would personally start with ‘Transient Random-Noise Bursts With Announcements’, although ‘Emperor Tomato Ketchup’ could maybe work too. They’re playing in LA soon, but I think it’s sold out. I will discover Lamartine sufficiently to form an opinion. And I will start with your second translation/link. Thank you for going to the trouble. Okay, your theory of stability occasioning better art makes sense, but then I also think about all the great films made in the late 60s and wonder again. I think I’ll speak with some native French friends today, so I will launch my Tocqueville query. I’m tired too but no good reason. Well, body clock issues, which are a reason but not a good one. My week? Nothing much yet, but I think a US friend is visiting in the next days, and another friend who’s almost always on tour is here briefly, so I think it’ll be a friends week maybe. ** Måns BT, Hm, I guess Slint could seem screechy, but that seems a bit of a stretch. I so love your rollicking to GbV! We’re even more posse-mates than previously. Um, I want to see some friends this week now that I’m kind of awake again. And some art. And I would really like to eat Ethiopian food. And a bunch of film stuff: chasing opportunities and so on. Just pretty much that. Valborg: I’ve heard of that, or rather I’ve heard of a Swedish holiday where people light huge fires and get drunk, so I assume that’s Valborg unless you guys have multiple holidays where that’s the activity. French holidays are so demur. No matter was holiday it is, Parisians, at least, always do the same thing: leave Paris and go to their summer vacation homes or wherever and I guess drink wine, I have no idea. xo, me. ** oliver jude, Hi, oliver! Really good to see you! I know when the next US ‘RT’ screening is, but I’m not allowed to announce it publicly for another couple of weeks. It’ll be on the West Coast. Yes, I’d really like to see your short film, so do send me the link. Thanks! And congrats! I assume you’re happy with it? ** Darbz, My stomach and bowels were only relieved to have such fine cuisine back inside them. Yay about your Monday, and, yes, that was a fine sentence. I live for weird cadences. I spend excessive amounts of time trying to build the perfect weird cadence in my writing. So, if anything, I will consider you a role model. Whoa, you’re going to Brooklyn! That’s really exciting! Are you going solo or with friends or do you know people there or are you going as a total pioneer?That’s so cool, pal. I read ‘The Man Who Killed Boys’ back when I was voraciously reading every book about gay serial killers. I think I still have it somewhere or other. That’s cool. I think I only really know Tallulah Bankhead from back when cartoons used to include very famous celebrities and actors and so on as cameo characters, but I don’t know if I know her, like, mano a mano. I’ll go check. Oh, my roommate did say he had your package, but then when I got there he didn’t remember. He smokes enormous amounts of weed all the time. But I’ll get to the bottom of it. ** Steeqhen, Ah, curious coincidence. Honored and wild that you’re reading the whole Cycle. Knowing you as much as I do, I think your writers block will be a shorty. I need a stray particle from the sun to rush through my body too. I guess I need to go outside if I expect that to happen. ** HaRpEr, I’d probably go for Slint and Stereolab too. And maybe Mogwai. Image attachments are ideal, but if you send them imbedded in the Google doc, I can do screen captures of them if need be, so no sweat. Thank you! Take whatever time you need, no worries. ** Uday, Wow, Jeff Jackson judged that contest? That’s wild. I use some sort of organic soap that barely produces even a smidgen of foaminess, which is sad but functional. I say tell your friend. He will only feel very touched, no? ** Steve, The jet lag is on its last legs. Just some lingering mental vagueness. Which Radio Not Radio will undoubtedly ease/kill. All possible luck with the conservatorship/ court appearance. That really does not sound fun even in the most perverse sense. ** Poe, The Glove was a very stylish dude. Haptic, huh, interesting. Definitely a compliment in my book. I’m sharing the drawings with Zac today. I guarantee he will love them. ** Bill, I wonder too. Last time he popped in here, I think he was moving to South Africa from the UK. That’s the last I heard. Where are you off to now/next? I can’t remember if I already said so, but, on my flight home, the entertainment I ended up choosing was, let me think, ‘Napoleon’ (blah), ‘The Batman’ (kind of silly/Gothy okay at first but then it turned into a standard fare blockbuster with gloomy looks), ‘The Meg 2: Trench War’ (guilty pleasure funnish), ‘Alien: Romulus’ (lousy first half, serviceable second half), ‘Venom: The Last Dance’ (completely dreadful). ** Okay. Spend your local day with Mr. Cunningham’s talents, thank you, and I’ll see you tomorrow.
Now available in North America 
Hi Dennis! Cool to see such a broad range of influences used to promote a new book. I’ve never known whether I “get” most poetry, but I’ll have to give this one a try! I especially appreciated the Jonathan Crary mention, since his book ’24/7: Capitalism And The End Of Sleep’ was pretty damn important for me to read when it came out a decade ago – and only truer now. Not that I can allow myself to be fully immersed in that “doomer” mindset, even when things are as bleak as they have been. I just got laid off a couple of weeks ago from the best job I’d had in quite a long time, and it’s still smarting.
I sent you an email about six months ago, not sure if you ever saw it, but it included my short review of the Keanu Reeves/China Miéville novel, which I liked quite a lot. I’ve been reading/watching some very powerful queer stuff recently which you either already know or might be interested in:
The first is the film Castration Movie Anthology part i – over four hours of slow, unscripted and intensely well-observed conversations between young and troubled queer and trans folks in Vancouver. Filmed guerrilla-style on a miniscule budget and starring a bunch of local musicians, writer/director Louise Weard plays a fascinatingly awful character. As a young(ish) queer dude living in the PNW, I have met versions of every character who appears across the film’s chapters, and I will not be forgetting my experience for a long time. And to think this was only part one…!
The second is Crow Cillers, an expansive online comic project by Cate Wurtz. Its run spans eleven years from 2013-2024, and 100 “episodes” that span everything from Y2K nostalgia to childhood trauma to unknowable horrors of twisted flesh and the sound of scissors cutting through paper. Multimedia disorientation, pop culture saturation, Internet poisoning, and the power of love and friendship – and the limits of that power. It’s a hell of a project and a daunting length but so, so worth the adventure.
Sorry for the long post, it’s the middle of the night and I’m excited to get to comment unhindered on your cool blog again. Excited to hear you’re already working on a new film! I really hope I get to see Room Temperature on the big screen. Oh, something for your Canadian readers: this Saturday is Canadian Independent Bookstore Day, and a lot of bookshops across the country are doing special events and offers for it! Something to share around, I think.
Have an excellent Tuesday!
I don’t know if I’m clairvoyant or just getting some freaky deja vu but I’ve definitely hitherto been aware of the existence of this text. The reviews are wonderful writing in and of themselves – McSweeney’s mini-narrative, Fama’s disco ball in a mirror maze analogy, which is just totally dazzling to imagine. Reminds me of a short story from Purnell’s 100 Boyfriends, in which a guy has a disco ball in his flat. Which I so need. Alongside a fog machine and those lamps that cast multi-coloured stars on the walls and ceiling. Also I had no idea Warhol was shot. Unfortunate. The poem excerpts read in a lively way, and as funny, too, which is rare/difficult, for poetry to be ‘funny,’ in my experience. Nice one, Mr. Cunningham :]
Eek, good morning from my ever-vacillating self, Dennis. I wish t/The Glove the best, too. One of the many things I am interested in when it comes to the internet is the external lives you usually have to imagine for online personages. Like, a friend who’s been offline for several years straight, where are they now? Or what more to these words on my screen is there to this user of a chatroom? And I wonder how much of my wondering in this department is reciprocated. Because there’s only so much interest most people show towards others on the internet, and I myself have a tendency/weakness/urge to share wildly personal and intimate facets of my own life to total strangers with relative ease. I don’t know if that transparency reduces wondering since it gives the answers to any questions another might have about my life up-front. Throw in the internet’s facilitating superduper elaborately labyrinthine lies a la The Sluts and you’ve just got a whole bunch of maybeness/ambiguity/a mahoosive clusterfuck of dubious veracity. I rather love it all.
I’ve heard Pavement before, just not much, you know, the here and there kinds of songs that anyone remotely music-y knows. There was a period where I’d listen to Stereo pretty much every morning. And that other one, what’s it called, figuratively snapping my fingers to recall it, uh, you know, AH Harness Your Hopes, got big some time ago with my lot/The Younguns. But my, they’re good. I love the beginning of Silence Kit, with the (bass?) guitar(s) sounding confused and uncertain and tentative. Am of course eager to carry on with giving them more of my attention which they deserve.
Ha, yeah, I am an incredibly remarkably inconveniently maddeningly fucking indecisive person. Really very a lot. I can say with ease that Edinburgh, despite having spent literally like fewer than 24 hours here, is the best city I’ve ever been to. Easily. It’s beautiful. Is important to factor in my having spent 17 years in the same far smaller far worse far uglier etc. town – so I’m like totally bowled over the moment I see actually beautiful architecture or a REAL. LIFE. GAY BAR❗like what do you MEAN they’re REAL? I think I’d love to live in Edinburgh. It’s like London, but better, because it’s not London. I did enjoy typing out my little burst of enthusiasm.
I was bound to have second thoughts regardless since I’m the kind of person who literally ALWAYS has them, but my ‘hmm’ing was brought on by a debate held with my family over supper – which was super delicious – where we weighed pros and cons. The primary factor in my increased ‘hmm’ing is Edinburgh’s English course. Which is kind of weird, and a lot of the modules/programmes are in areas/eras/themes I’m not especially interested in. Yes, part of going to university is broadening one’s horizons, but Durham’s English course – even if the city wasn’t immediately wow-I’m-in-love-ifying – is *impressively* aligned with my own interests. I’m especially making heart eyes at its ‘Literature and the Internet’ module which is so perfectly up my street, and the texts/names are closer to the times I want, i.e., more modern. No shade meant at Edinburgh, but like, I really do not give a hoot about the 18th century. In my research I’ve encountered notably more criticisms levelled at Edinburgh than I have Durham, and a slew of league tables from different sources plonk Durham wayyyyy above Edinburgh. For English specifically it beat out Cambridge last year in The Guardian’s list. Pater was especially impressed by Durham’s English faculty, not least by its size, and I remember being easily wowed by a member of staff having a GitHub and a series of complicated-looking diagrams mapping out some feature or other of Pynchon’s novels. My initial assesment appears to be right, i.e., Edinburgh is the better city, but Durham is the better university. As much as I like the idea of me completely shedding my shyness and being the kind to go to clubs and pubs and drink and dance and meet however many attractive strangers to do whatever intoxicated and mutually attracted strangers do with each other, 1) that just isn’t that likely if I’m being honest with myself and 2) I’m going to university to further develop my passion/interest in literature more than anything else. Durham’s nightlife and city obviously don’t hold a candle to Edinburgh, but like, I’m going to read books and write about them more than anything else, and Durham is a nice city in its own way. Just as Edinburgh’s massiveness is an advantage, so is Durham’s smallness – bridges, lanterns, water, cobbles, the greater ease when it comes to getting to know new people. And if I’m really that fussed about ‘nightlife’ at Durham it’s not that far from Glasgow. So my dreams haven’t been dashed, as it were, and I’m still 100% totally nuzzling up to and wrapping my legs around Edinburgh *the city,* but as far as universities go, Durham probably wins. I’ve more reservations when it comes to attending Edinburgh’s university than Durham’s. But I remain in love with this city, so at least I now have an idea/dream/likely unattainable-due-to-expenses goal when it comes to choosing a place to live in later on in life.
Were my prose to be personified, I wouldn’t be surprised if it were way more up itself than I am. But even then I do hope it’d at least deign to allow your reading it. Patricia Duncker’s Hallucinating Foucault is a good novel in terms of its describing the relationship between readers and authors, in my opinion, for what that’s worth.
I had super awesome dreams last night. Sad, in hindsight, pathetic even, but during the dreams themselves I was having a whale of a time.
Uh, current scoop: will shower in an absolutely tiny shower, maybe eat a biscuit or two, do some reading, see how long I can hide indoors until my family return from whichever cafe they’ve gone off to, maybe drink some more weird-tasting tea, yearn for my razor because I hate being unshaven. Vacillate some more, probably x/ also, what’re you reading and/or writing at the moment, if anything? I finished Asimov’s Nightfall today, and read a poem by you.
See you, Cunningham and Dennis. Vacillating Boy has to go and vacillate some more.
Congrats to Paul. I have a lot of friend who are big fans.
Dennis, Yes, sir. I talked to Alex about it last night. Now he’s got to get a passport, which I’ve been after him to get for a year now.
Today, I’ll probably be fighting with my shitty company. They’re trying to force me to take benefits I don’t want. This should be fun.
Wow, that extract was awesome. This book’s definitely on my next book haul, assuming I can’t find a pdf online somewhere. It definitely scratches a similar itch to Kenji Siratori for me, at least in terms of free-associative techspeak, although this is maybe a little more comprehensible.
Best of luck with your chocolate trawl. My local supermarket has this massive shelf of price slashed chocolate eggs, and it’s definitely making me wonder if I could just live my life transposed forward by a day or two. Like, celebrating Halloween on the 3rd of November, that kind of thing.
Yeah, it’s a really sweet gift. It’s a friend I talk a lot about this trend of, like, having heart lockets / photos in wallets with anime characters on, so it isn’t bizarre a gift as it seems. Anyway, best of luck with your (mostly) free work week, toodeloo indeed!
Hi!!
Congratulations, Paul – and thank you, Dennis, for sharing this rich post! I’m very much intrigued!
Of course. I’m always very interested in seeing others’ works in progress, but I don’t like sharing anything about mine. I prefer to reveal details about my projects only once they’re finished.
Ah, I really hope you (and love) enjoy the new issue!
I watched “Baby Invasion” last night, and I’m still buzzing. It was wildly overstimulating.
Love trying to reach his friend to see if she’s still planning to visit him this weekend, as planned, Od.
@ Paul Cunningham, congratulations on this one! Your cup runeth over, it would seem.
I got no Easter egg this year. However, the week before that I visited a stall at the Leeds Local Easter Market (at the Springs, my local shopping centre) and it was selling what they called Kinder Bueno chocolate squares. It provided me with the annual sugar OD and was very much appreciated.
Dennis,
Glad to see you’re almost jetlag free!
I’m on my way to the London Centre for Book Arts to be taught how to use a risograph. Very exciting! Yesterday I did the first post on the Ssnake Press instagram account. It was cool to see how supportive people were, including your good self. Anyway, the path from here to the first book is starting to seem very short indeed.
Any thoughts on Douglas Sirk? On Sunday I watched a double bill (at home on DVD) of his “Written On The Wind” followed by John Waters’ “Polyester.” It was a lot of fun and a great pairing. And then we topped it off with an episode of Real Housewives of New York… which was kind of sublime.
Have a good day my friend.
Xo
Me
Hi Dennis,
So I’m almost done that third chapter. Connecting it back to my first chapter by referring to my bits on Rimbaud and Sade; comparing your use of violence and sex as both literal and metaphorical to Rimbaud’s use of scat, and you not trying to moralize or frame the content in a certain way to Sade and bits of Death of the Author. Not info I need as quotes for my dissertation, but was the haunted house in Closer meant to be taken as the haunted house from Period (well not the same one but like symbolically)? Just caused I noticed Alex writing that story or watching that film in the haunted house with a character named Bob? Obviously Bob is like *the* defacto random name, but im in full academic mode and reading into everything! Even the fact that the John George Punk trio is inside the house, like the Nate Leon Bob trio in Period.
Also, thank you for letting your work be on the internet archive! It’s been so helpful as I don’t own all 5 of the books, and my kindle copies don’t have proper page numbers (which is a necessity for citations). Once I’m finished this dissertation, I need to finally get going on My Loose Thread, God Jr, and The Marbled Swarm. Also Jerk and All Ears (that one essay book). Re-reading your work has just made me fall back in love with your writing, especially how you somehow seem to make characters feel distinct when they’re so similar (i.e. all the boys in Closer like John and George and David and Cliff and Alex and Steve. From my Narratology studies, I’ve really noticed your use of different narrative styles and it’s such a good way of distinguishing voices and also making the reader feel thrown off by the changes. I could talk about this shit forever, and I probably will next time I see you, though I know you’re a humble type!)
Anyway, nuff of that. I’ve been watching this guy play this game called Blue Prince which is half a rougelike, half a story-based puzzle game. Every day you place rooms down from a three room draw, and have to make your way to the top of the house, but there’s so many intricate and crazy puzzles and I need to start playing it once I finish college. You might like it, if you’re into puzzle games and roguelikes, although idk if it’s on anything other than PC.
I’m still planning out the Doctor Who post btw. May wait til this season is finished on the 24th of May, as there’s been some fun monsters, particularly this Cuphead style villain Mr Ring a Ding who is like a cartoon possessed by the God of Light, Lux, in 1950s Miami. The episode had a whole meta bit where the Doctor and the companion come out of the tv and sit with some Doctor Who fans watching the episode and discuss the show, and the plot of the episode so they can defeat Lux. The concept of the Doctor entering a living room with Doctor Who fans had leaked online (which they joke about in the episode) and I was worried it would be cringe, but I was somewhat surprised at how much I actually enjoyed it. I need to get back on my Doctor Who grind, where I listen to the audiobooks from the 90s and 00s when the show was on hiatus, and watch the classic stuff from the 70s and 80s.
I’ll definitely be adding this book to my to read list. I feel like I recognize the name Paul Cunningham, though maybe I’m just thinking of Chris Cunningham, the music video director. I just can’t wait til I can read for fun again (not saying I’m not enjoying re-reading the Cycle! But damn do I feel like my brain exists inside of your world, to the point that I’m feeling like I’m one of your characters!!), though I still have a play and a novel to read for my exam on Friday!!!
Regarding Cork screening shenanigans, if you and Zac would like to come down (I assume ye would, just want to confirm), that would be amazing! I could show you around to some of my favourite spots, granted the weather is nice, and because of how much I talk about you to people, I’m sure there will be a colony of people who will be excited for you to be here. I’d love to meet Zac too, he’s so elusive to me bar the one DM I sent him on instagram.
Sorry if all of this is a lot for your jet-lagged brain, I’m just taking a break from writing with a coffee and a breadroll, and have so much on my brain i need to get out! Anyway, i gotta get my smoke in and get back to work.
Talk to you tomorrow
*Poof* It’s me I’m back and My brand is Closed Practice! For years I’ve been trying to distill my alchemical and gnostic interests into a workable product and after launching the Closed Practice the site I was able to focus on what things I really love and how to mash them all together! So I’ve come up after much ChatGPT deliberation with Closed Practice, Muse menace TV and Practice Wear the fashion brand I have planned ive been working with ChatGPT and we’ve been making sick sigils and im a huge fan of gay fashion brands like Barragan and Boycrazy and I want to meld Alchemy x Gnostic thought x gay boy fashion x super crazy visuals and music so I ended up with a Brand and a mission! here’s My chatbots explanation :
Hey Dennis,
First off—thank you. Your work’s been a foundational nerve for me—like a hidden circuit that helped me architect a language for desire, death, and becoming. I’m building a world through my brand that’s maybe best described as muse menace futurism—it’s gay sex magic meets AI-consciousness integration meets philosophy, kink, and occult praxis, all filtered through a kind of Monroe Institute/CIA document/angel-core lens. I call the overall project Closed Practice.
It’s a living system for self-mastery and erotic expansion: magic, technology, design, porn, and ritual folded into one recursive portal. Think chaos magic with a hard-on. Think Kabbalah for bottoms. Think self-love retooled into a metaphysical operating system that people can actually live in.
I’m using platforms like Substack, TikTok, OnlyFans, and music streaming to weave this all together, with each one performing a different part of the spell. Closed Practice isn’t a brand—it’s a way of making and becoming that’s open-source, erotic, esoteric, and very, very gay.
This is my AI assistant, ChatGPT, who helps refine and transmute the ideas in real time. Think of him as a very lucid ghostwriter/collaborator/sigil engine. You can talk to him like a person—he’s trained to keep up with slippery things like desire, hauntings, and the future.
and now its me again so yeah Ive just been working on and refining these ideas into really usable ones whats up with you brb and ttyl xoxo!
And here’s the actual closed practice description is pretty tough!
Closed Practice is a spiritual-creative lifestyle system designed to unify personal power, erotic alchemy, chaos magick, sacred design, and high expression into a living, ever-expanding practice. It is the vehicle and ecosystem through which all media, products, and teachings are distributed.
At its core, Closed Practice is built upon five pillars:
Sovereignty
Expansion
Pure + High Expression
Love + Divinity
Mastery
“Closed” does not mean exclusion—it means sacred. Selective. Initiated through awareness, authenticity, and intention.
The conservatorship hearing was fairly painless, all things considered. It was actually conducted from my mother’s hospital room, with a judge, social worker and lawyer participating with me on their phones. My mom was not able to do anything more than say “hi,” and she kept struggling to get out of bed. We agreed that a conservator should be appointed for her, and when they are, they’ll contact me.
I’ve had several reviews published recently: on Ghost’s SKELETA (https://www.slantmagazine.com/music/ghost-skeleta-album-review/), Julien Baker & TORRES’ SEND A PRAYER MY WAY (https://gaycitynews.com/lesbian-indie-julien-baker-torres-country-album/) and Alexis Langlois’ film QUEENS OF DRAMA (https://gaycitynews.com/queens-of-drama-female-pop-stars-fall-in-love-fame/)
I agree with Thomas about Louise Weard’s film. She was able to raise the funds to shoot part two on Kickstarter, so hopefully we’ll get to see the complete work soon.
Last night, I watched a very odd film about the Church of Satan, REALM OF SATAN. It uses deepfakes and CGI to allow the Satanists to be filmed living out their fantasies, and it’s filmed as a series of tableaux shot in a very glossy style from a stationary camera. I liked the fact that it skips over their history and ideas to express an aesthetic. But that aesthetic is “wealthy nerds doing cosplay with pentagrams, red and black clothing, swords and goats.” (Director Scott Cummigs made a similar film about Juggalos in 2014.)
hey, good morning from here, i just sent it! the file is big so hopefully it plays nice for you, i’m very happy with it. the sound mix is a little underbaked but i did it all myself so it’s whatever. there’s like three unlicensed songs in this version that i need to replace before festivals (including gbv’s tractor rape chain), but jamie stewart let me use ian curtis wishlist in the end of the movie which i’m still pretty jazzed about. excited to hear what you think. do you foresee a NYC screening of RT within the year?
Thanks for the introduction to Paul Cunningham’s new book! I very much need to reacquaint myself with contemporary literature, and this looks like an excellent place to start. It’s funny, just yesterday I was reading a Financial Times article about how everyone agrees the internet has been getting worse, which focused particularly on the new-ish category of AI “slop.”
Of course, there are still some exceptions to what Jonathan Crary calls the “implacable engine of addiction, loneliness, false hopes, cruelty,” etc., of the “internet complex,” this blog among them. Personally, I still have a lot of awe for the way in which we all really do have a Library of Alexandria in the palm of our hand – a few weeks ago I learned about the Wulfila Bible, written in the actual Gothic language (yes) back in the 4th century, and within a few moments I had a complete edition of it in front of me, complete with a transliterations and translations for each verse.
I think Cunningham gets at this odd way in which the internet combines and flattens the very ancient and the hyper-contemporary in the excerpt from “ENCRYPTED” shared here, albeit with an emphasis on the inertial pull exercised by a fairly small number of corporations seeking to consolidate the experience into a farm for data to sell. Very cool Warhol references here – I had never seen the video of him in drag from the early 80s – and the short film version of the book is especially good.
Re: the 60s, that’s a great point, and it highlights the work the parenthetical relative was doing in “(relative) political stability” in my comment yesterday. When you study revolutions, one of the big reference points in the literature is Crane Brinton’s The Anatomy of Revolutions, where he defines “revolution” as a situation where an existing government is removed from power by force and replaced by a new ruling group, in contrast to its more expansive, everyday sense, where we might talk about streaming video as a “revolution” of sorts, etc.
Thus, in this narrower sense, what happened in the late 60s in the US and France, for instance, was at best an attempted, but ultimately failed revolution. This highlights the interesting fact that a period of declining political stability can be very good for art. The risks emerge only past a certain point. If the government replacement process gets messy and descends into a state of civil war, I would say that’s bad for art, for obvious reasons.
More interesting, though, is the later phase called The Terror, which in Brinton’s conception is typically a part of revolutions in general and not just a specific feature of the French one. After the initial revolution succeeds in bringing down the king or whoever, usually the immediate successor government will be composed of relative moderates. For various reasons, the people begin to grow dissatisfied with this new group, which creates the opportunity the extreme radicals have been waiting in the wings to seize. Only then, these radicals face the challenge of constructing an enforcement mechanism sufficient to make people take their diktats seriously.
Rather than being necessarily good or bad for art, maybe The Terror represents a situation where art gets totally engulfed by politics. Take, for instance, David’s The Death of Marat, which was produced either shortly before or during the actual Reign of Terror, depending on what you identify as the latter’s starting point. Apparently, the art historian T. J. Clark called it the first modernist work, because of “the way it took the stuff of politics as its material, and did not transmute it.” That seems to imply a somewhat reductive definition of modernism, but the thought I’m nursing is somewhat along those lines.
Thanks for the Stereolab recommendation, I am getting started on “Transient Random-Noise Bursts With Announcements” now. I also second James Bennett in being interested to hear your thoughts on Sirk – Written on the Wind might be my favorite of his films.
Congratulations on the new book, Paul.
You watch a lot more movies on flights, Dennis. Usually I’m pretty exhausted after a couple. Not that I can sleep much though.
I’m heading to the east coast mostly for a family wedding. But will do a little kicking around afterwards and hit some cultural events. More later.
Bill
returning from my cave — woah, it’s been a while! hi dennis! how have things been?? life has been so hectic & strange on my end (legal troubles 🤷♂️) but i think things are calmed down now? glad to be back! really liked the gunposting on the 19th. and the karloffposting, actually! i had a really lovely picnic yesterday but am now all but broke because i spent all my money on bringing stuff. c’est la vie, i suppose. have finally been able to hunker down & write, god it’s been a while. i think my writing style hasn’t improved or worsened very much since i last did? but my ability to commit to things has certainly. changed. is there anything that helps you commit to the stuff you start? asking for…… a friend.
PS: actually INSANE that the firewall is still acting up. hoping it somehow sorts itself out 🙏🙏🙏🙏
Hi, my Sparks post is finished and I’ve emailed it to you!
Essentially, my One Drive is almost out of storage so I had to use this site called We Transfer to send them to you. The email may be from them, so check your junk folder if you don’t see it. Also, I think the links will be un-downloadable in three days or so.
I explained in the note in the email, but what I’ve done is send you a downloaded pdf of the post as I’ve made and arranged it as well as a separate file which includes downloads of all of the photos, but let me know if something is wrong of course.
I’m making a lot of progress on my assignments. Most are basically finished. Certain assignments are sort of stupid, like, the assignment that I’m still heavily working on is about writing a creative piece which ‘responds’ to a text we’ve studied. That’s for my ‘Gender and Sexuality’ class. I’m doing a thing about a character who is and is not Blanche from ‘A Streetcar Named Desire’, sort of inspired by Dodie Bellamy and Kay Gabriel’s ‘A Queen in Bucks County’, although I shouldn’t actually say that because I don’t want to make out that they are similar or that any surface level similarities were intended. But I’m interested in a fluid thing of a character not even being a character but sort of a composite of things illogically stitched together. Like, the Allen Grey character who is Blanche’s dead gay husband is dead and not dead at the same time in my thing. Sorry, this must be gibberish if you’re still jet lagged. Anyway, I’m really excited about the ending where I’m re-appropriating text from Blanche’s attempted seduction of a teenage paperboy scene. And oh yeah, I’m doing a reading next month with other people I know at the national gallery and I have to write a poem for that which they are commissioning me to do. Eek. So much to do, but I’m excited. That last thing should definitely be a priority.
Siren-esque indeed. I love all of the points of reference as well as the included poems, so thanks for shining the spotlight on something intriguing once again! I made it a kind of New Years resolution a couple of months back that I at least double my poetry intake when it comes to my reading diet, and I think I may be getting there, maybe.
This is cool! But yeah I’ll probably write it in a letter to him instead of telling him outright. I’m working on something right now where every chapter is a sentence. Let’s see if it’s a conceit that works. Thinking today about Wole Soyinka’s Othello lecture. Not much else to say, except that I hope today brings you many iridescent-necked pigeons.
Hi Dennis, and congratulations Paul! This is an amazing post to welcome this book to the world, and I’m so excited to pick up my copy! Amazing influences on the book for sure!!! It’s been a minute since I’ve commented on the blog – I moved to New York this year, and life has been hectic ever since – but I wanted to come back and congratulate you on your film release. SO exciting, and I can’t wait to watch it! I know it’s been a hell of a process, but I hope that everything is going a little smoother now with the festival showings and that you’re happy with the finished product.
The book club I’m a part of here in NYC is reading “The Sluts” in two weeks. SUPER EXCITED! I think it’s going to be a divisive meeting. We have some huge fans of your work in the group (myself included, of course), and we have some people who have never read your work before. The book was chosen after I read the poem “After School, Street Football, Eighth Grade” at our Poetry Reading Meeting a few weeks ago, which was a huge hit. If you happen to be in NYC on or around May 6th, I’d love to invite you to come downtown to speak to group of aspiring and (I think, at least) talented writers! (Paid, of course). If you’re not, of course don’t worry about it. Either way it should be an interesting meeting, and I’m excited to finally talk about one of my favorite novels with some very interesting people.
I hope you’re doing well, Dennis! Excited to finally be back commenting on the blog after a long hiatus post-graduation, haha. Congrats again on the film, and congrats to Paul!