The blog of author Dennis Cooper

Spotlight on … Roland Barthes A Lover’s Discourse: Fragments (1977) *

* (restored)

 

‘Roland Barthes envied the novel. And he approached his work through what he calls the novelistic, which is writing essays as if they were novels. And I see in his work an incredible over- intellectualizing. This is kind of obvious. It’s his temperament and it’s his mandate. He makes a list of things … he calls them anamneses, moments of narrative or visual interest that he says have no meaning. He just lists them, three pages of them, and they have incredible meaning. Each of them is luminous and speaks volumes. And his immediate dismissal of their possible meaning is like a denial that there’s an unconscious, a denial that he has an unconscious or that he might be able to wander with one of them in an unscripted direction.’ — Wayne Koestenbaum

‘The text which the lover weaves in Barthes’s A Lover’s Discourse does not have narrative or purpose but becomes a ‘brazier of meaning’ as the ambiguous signs of the loved one’s behaviour are interpreted. Such behaviour is ‘scriptible’ — is rewritten by the lover as he reads them, just as we rewrite a text in reading it.’ — textetc.com

‘What Barthes has been writing since The Pleasure of the Text (1973) is in part a kind of rearguard defence against those of his more earnest disciples (the Nouvelle Critique) who erected his brilliant but wayward ideas into full-blown “structuralist” theory. Texts are no longer to be mulled over, pegged out and analyzed according to some abstract (or “meta-linguistic”) scheme of approach. Rather, they offer themselves to the reader as a site of intimate, teasing rapportswhich he can only respond to by bringing his entire sensibility-erotic as well as intellectual-into play. A Lover’s Discourse can be read in a great variety of ways, depending on whether one looks in it for oblique signs and remnants of Barthes’s theoretical interests (still present, though muted), or for the style of offbeat self-communing which has lately come to occupy more of his thought. About one thing the text is clear enough. It represents the choice of a consciously self-dramatising method, the drift of which “renounces examples and rests on the single action of a primary language (no meta-language)”. In other words, the text is an utterance-a piece of first-person love talk-subtly interwoven with themes from Barthes’ reading, his intellectual friendships and passages of thought, but in the end coming down to that encounter with his own desires and image-repertoire.’ — PN Review

 

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Gallery

 

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Further

‘Essaying Two Lovers’ Discourses’
‘Significant Loss: Roland Barthes’s final books’
‘Notes on A Lover’s Discourse’
A Lover’s Discourse @ tumblr
‘Foucault: A Lover’s Discourse About Madness and the Media’
‘Absence, Desire, and Love in John Donne and Roland Barthes’
‘another lover’s discourse’
‘An Unexpected Return: Barthes’s Lectures at the Collège de France’
‘The Indirect Language of Love: Creole Fragments of a Lover’s Discourse

 

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Expo Roland Barthes @ Centre Pompidou 2002

 

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Book

Roland Barthes A Lover’s Discourse: Fragments
Hill and Wang

‘Roland Barthes’s most popular and unusual performance as a writer is A Lover’s Discourse, a writing out of the discourse of love. This language—primarily the complaints and reflections of the lover when alone, not exchanges of a lover with his or her partner—is unfashionable. Thought it is spoken by millions of people, diffused in our popular romances and television programs as well as in serious literature, there is no institution that explores, maintains, modifies, judges, repeats, and otherwise assumes responsibility for this discourse . . . Writing out the figures of a neglected discourse, Barthes surprises us in A Lover’s Discourse by making love, in its most absurd and sentimental forms, an object of interest.’ — Jonathan Culler

 

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Excerpts

To try to write love is to confront the muck of language; that region of hysteria where language is both too much and too little, excessive (by the limitless expansion of the ego, by emotive submersion) and impoverished (by the codes on which love diminishes and levels it).

I am therefore alarmed by the other’s fatigue: it is the cruelest of all rival objects. How to combat exhaustion? I can see that the other, exhausted, tears of a fragment of this fatigue in order to give it to me. But what am I to do with this bundle of fatigue set down before me? What does this gift mean? Leave me alone? Take care of me? No one answers, for what is given is precisely what does not answer.

Besides intercourse (when the Image-repertoire goes to the devil), there is that other embrace, which is a motionless cradling: we are enchanted, bewitched: we are in the realm of sleep, without sleeping; we are within the voluptous infantilism of sleepiness: this is the moment for telling stories, the moment of the voice which takes me, siderates me, this is the return to the mother (“in the loving calm of your arms,” says a poem set to music by Duparc). In this companionable incest, everything is suspended: time, law, prohibition: nothing is exhausted, nothing is wanted: all desires are abolished, for they seem definitively fulfilled.

Yet, within this infantile embrace, the genital unfailingly appears; it cuts off the diffuse sensuality of the incestuous embrace; the logic of desire begins to function, the will-to-possess returns, the adult is superimposed upon the child. I am then two subjects at once: I want maternity and genitality. (The lover might be defined as a child getting an erection: such was the young Eros.)

Any episode of language which stages the absence of the loved object — whatever its cause and its duration — and which tends to transform this absence into an ordeal of abandonment. Then, too, on the telephone the other is always in a situation of departure; the other departs twice over, by voice and by silence: whose turn is it to speak? We fall silent in unison: the crowding of two voids. “I’m going to leave you”, the voice on the telephone says each second.

The amorous gift is sought out, selected, and purchased in the greatest excitement—the kind of excitement which seems to be of the order of orgasm. Strenuously I calculate whether this object will give pleasure, whether it will disappoint, or whether, on the contrary, seeming too “important,” it will in and of itself betray the delirium—or the snare in which I am caught. The amorous gift is a solemn one; swept away by the devouring metonymy which governs the life of the imagination, I transfer myself inside it altogether. By this object, I give you my All, I touch you with my phallus; it is for this reason that I am mad with excitement, that I rush from shop to shop, stubbornly tracking down the “right” fetish, the brilliant, successful fetish which will perfectly suit your desire.

The amorous subject, according to one contingency or another, feels swept away by the fear of a danger, an injury, an abandonment, a revulsion — a sentiment he expresses under the name of anxiety

Absence can exist only as a consequence of the other: it is the other who leaves, it is I who remain. The other is in a state of perpetual departure, of journeying; the other is by vocation, migrant, fugitive. I — I who love, by converse vocation, am sedentary, motionless, at hand, in expectation, nailed to the spot, in suspense — like a package in some forgotten corner of a railway station. Amorous absence functions in a single direction, expressed by the one who stays, never by the one who leaves: an always present I is constituted only by confrontation with an always absent you: to speak this absence is from the start to propose that the subject’s place and the other’s place cannot permute. It is to say: “I am loved less than I love.” Historically, the discourse of absence is carried on by the woman: Woman is sedentary, Man hunts, journeys; woman is faithful (she waits), man is fickle (he sails away, he cruises).

A deliberative figure: the amorous subject wonders, not whether he should declare his love to the loved being (this is not a figure of avowal), but to what degree he should conceal the turbulences of his passion: his desires, his distresses; in short, his excesses (in Racinian langauges: his fureur).

As a jealous man, I suffer four times over: because I am jealous, because I blame myself for being so, because I fear that my jealousy will wound the other, because I allow myself to be subject to a banality: I suffer from being excluded, from being aggressive, from being crazy, and from being common.

‘Am I in love? –Yes, since I’m waiting.’ The other never waits. Sometimes I want to play the part of the one who doesn’t wait; I try to busy myself elsewhere, to arrive late; but I always lose at this game: whatever I do, I find myself there, with nothing to do, punctual, even ahead of time. The lover’s fatal identity is precisely: I am the one who waits.

Despite the difficulties of my story, despite discomforts, doubts, despairs, despite impulses to be done with it, I unceasingly affirm love, within myself, as a value. Though I listen to all the arguments which the most divergent systems employ to demystify, to limit, to erase, in short to depreciate love, I persist: “I know, I know, but all the same…” I refer the devaluations of a lover to a kind of obscurantist ethic, to a let’s-pretend realism, against which I erect the realism of value: I counter whatever “doesn’t work” in love with the affirmation of what is worthwhile.

To reduce his wretchedness, the subject pins his hope on a method of control which permits him to circumscribe the pleasures afforded by the amorous relation: on the one hand, to keep these pleasures, to take full advantage of them, and on the other hand, to place within a parenthesis of the unthinkable those broad depressive zones which separate such pleasures: “to forget” the loved being outside of the pleasures that being bestows.

Language is a skin: I rub my language against the other. It is as if I had words instead of fingers, or fingers at the tip of my words. My language trembles with desire. The emotion derives from a double contact: on the one hand, a whole activity of discourse discreetly, indirectly focuses upon a single signified, which is “I desire you,” and releases, nourishes, ramifies it to the point of explosion (language experiences orgasm upon touching itself); on the other hand, I enwrap the other in my words, I caress, brush against, talk up this contact, I extend myself to make the commentary to which I submit the relation endure.

My anxieties as to behavior are futile, ever more so, to infinity. If the other, incidentally or negligently, gives the telephone number of a place where he or she can be reached at certain times, I immediately grow baffled: should I telephone or shouldn’t I? (It would do no good to tell me that I can telephone – that is the objective, reasonable meaning of the message – for it is precisely this permission I don’t know how to handle.) What is futile is what apparently has and will have no consequence. But for me, an amorous subject, everything which is new, everything which disturbs, is received not as a fact but in the aspect of a sign which must be interpreted. From the lover’s point of view, the fact becomes consequential because it is immediately transformed into a sign: it is the sign, not the fact, which is consequential (by its aura). If the other has given me this new telephone number, what was that the sign of? Was it an invitation to telephone right away, for the pleasure of the call, or only should the occasion arise, out of necessity? My answer itself will be a sign, which the other will inevitably interpret, thereby releasing, between us, a tumultuous maneuvering of images. Everything signifies: by this proposition, I entrap myself, I bind myself in calculations, I keep myself from enjoyment.

Sometimes, by dint of deliberating about “nothing” (as the world sees it), I exhaust myself; then I try, in reaction, to return — like a drowning man who stamps on the floor of the sea — to a spontaneous decision (spontaneity: the great dream: paradise, power, delight): go on, telephone, since you want to! But such recourse is futile: amorous time does not permit the subject to align impulse and action, to make them coincide: I am not the man of mere “acting out” — my madness is tempered, it is not seen; it is right away that I fear consequences, any consequence: it is my fear — my deliberation — which is “spontaneous.

It occasionally seems to the amorous subject that he is possessed by a demon of language which impels himto injure himself and to expel himself — according to Goethe’s expression — from the paradise which at other moments the amorous relation constitutes for him.

Tonight I came back to the hotel alone; the other has decided to return later on. The anxieties are already here, like the poison already prepared (jealousy, abandonment, restlessness); they merely wait for a little time to pass in order to be able to declare themselves with some propriety. I pick up a book and take a sleeping pill, “calmly.” The silence of this huge hotel is echoing, indifferent, idiotic (faint murmur of draining bathtubs); the furniture and the lamps are stupid; nothing friendly that might warm (“I’m cold, let’s go back to Paris). Anxiety mounts; I observe its progress, like Socrates chatting (as I am reading) and feeling the cold of the hemlock rising in his body; I hear it identify itself moving up, like an inexorable figure, against the background of the things that are here.
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*

p.s. Hey. ** Sebastian 🦠, Hey! I’m so pleased you snuck inside. Or maybe even not snuck. My festive season was very lowkey and not especially festive other than the decorated outdoors, but that was fine with me. Theoretically, that volunteering thing sounds quite nice. A good bookstore is better than a spa. No, I don’t know St Bride’s School or Aristasia, but of course I’m very interested. I’ll proceed to their realm, thanks! Let me pass along your tip. Everyone, Seb has found a possible way to circumvent the Cloudflare obnoxiousness. Here he is: ‘OKAY. if anyone else is having the “blog thinks you’re a robot” issue, i think i figured out how to beat it. i changed the name i wrote down in my comment, switched to mobile data & used a proxy app called UPX. from the looks of things it’s worked.’ ** Steeqhen, Cool if the comments were like coffee without the liquid. I wonder if that class will have you read Roussel’s ‘Travels in Africa’, a great book where he traveled through Africa and wrote about it without ever leaving his seat on a train. Yeah, maybe your hand will relax a bit once bit gets used to being the platform for a pen? Those projects you have going on sound really exciting to a one. Very fiery, very cool. ** Charalampos, The main book on Corll I read was ‘The Man with the Candy’, but there’ve been others since then are probably more researched. I think ‘ Emilia Perez’ is supposed to be a little ways off the mainstream, but it doesn’t sound it’s all that far off. ** James Bennett, Hi, James. I do try to give people the benefit of the doubt, for sure, and try to rely on my instincts, but I’ve certainly been bamboozled. I don’t know if you know about the whole JT Leroy thing, but there’s a big example of me trusting a voice on the phone who turned to be a fraud and sadist. So I try to be more careful now. But, yeah, I’m not a suspicious person, for better or worse. Yet another reason to steer extremely clear of ‘Nosferatu’, thank you. ** Misanthrope, Cool re: Your Welch liking. The first two thirds or so of ‘A Voice Through a Cloud’ are incredible, but then he was dying while writing the latter parts of the book, and it kind of vagues out. But it’s a great novel anyway. It’s, what, 3 degrees centigrade here, so standard wintery. ** jay, I would be curious to see a video of a macro/micro couple having whatever they think is sex because I can not imagine how they pull that fantasy off in 3D/real life without it just seeming like a ridiculous comedy, but I assume they must have curiously attuned powers of perception. Yeah, there are def. very interesting indie and sub-indie games being made. I haven’t seen anything quite as psychedelic as those 90s ones though. The ones I’ve seen are very cool but also very narrative centric. Nice. Share a set report once you get into the filming or even rehearsals if you feel like it. I’m curious, and I also miss being in the midst of shooting a film. ** _Black_Acrylic, I thought so too, and I don’t even know the UK very well. I’ll see if I can find any Herefordshire escorts. It’s a rare town in the UK that doesn’t seem to have at least one or alternately one slave. ** James, Wow, I should reboot the escorts post and insert your commentary. I should, but it’s too much grunt work, and the blog has no reverse mode. Anyway, that was enlightening and fun to pore over. Thank you for spilling. Yeah, people hear the word Oxford and they think it’s a pinnacle that all aspiring students must have as their Mount Olympus. But I have friends who go to Oxford, and they do almost nothing but complain about it and how overhyped it is. I say your rejection is tantamount to freeing you. No, I can’t say I’m particularly into the Bard. I mean, dude was the genius everyone says. I remember when I was in writing workshops in college, and there were always these aspiring writers who would read Shakespeare and then give up because they thought they’d never be as great as him. Fuck that shit. ** Steve, No, my interest in sigils was ‘Guide’-specific only. ‘Memphis rap sigil’: no, never heard of that, but I think I need to investigate. Nice. Yes, I’m about to be on the Aristasia hunt myself. ** Dominik, Hi!!! Yes, it’s really good to have taken that big step. I know when and where ‘Room Temperature’ will premiere, but I’m not allowed to say anything yet until it’s officially announced. Early spring. Given all the demands on love, no wonder he’s that tense. Slapping a piece of duct tape over [love’s] tiny, juicy, braying lips is something I will never forget, G. ** Lucas, Happy Escort Day to you! Yes, rest up today. We need you blasting your way forward. I’m fine, just pretty stressed because I have to gather a whole bunch of things for the visa application today, and … ugh. The story sounds exciting. Yours, I mean. It’s awesome to start working in a new voice. The epistolary is actually a very interesting to place to play hide and seek with the reader. You can work with and inside the whole ‘trustworthy’ aspect. Yeah, go for it. That’s my cheerleader’s advice for the day. And feel much better! ** Cletus, I’ve been wanting to read Nick Zedd’s autobiography. I knew him a little. I interviewed him once, and, boy, was he an unforthcoming kind of guy. With Nick, there was the actual backlash and then there was the backlash he only imagined was occurring. He had a pretty string paranoid streak. ** HaRpEr, That’s always a question for me: are they cathartic sincerely, or is the heavy revealing a strategy. Obviously, it depends, I guess. ‘Tril-ogy Comp’ is great. ‘I-Be AREA’ might be my favorite of his. Among his earlier stuff, ‘A Family Finds Entertainment’ is amazing. Oh, haha, that interview. It was total fiction. Stewart Home, the interviewer and an excellent writer, did interview me, but I think he must’ve found me not interesting enough, so he just made that all up. I didn’t know until it was published, and people do still ask me about my ‘wild period’ epitomised by that interview, but, no, not a true word there. ‘Three Poems’, so great! Probably my favorite Ashbery, and that’s saying something. ** Justin D, Yeah, ‘Myst’ was, like, 95% atmosphere. So nice. The sequel, ‘Riven’, is maybe even better, I think. But the ones after that aren’t. That ‘two adjacent marshmallows’ is so good right? I actually wrote that down thinking maybe I’ll steal it for something. ** Dan Carroll, Hi, Dan! Oh, shit, I hope the possible job wasn’t thwarted, assuming that you want it. I’m thinking the puppet thematic will survive in the new film, although Zac has to agree, but it’s pretty good, I have to say. As I’ve said before, my grandma was a taxidermist, and there were taxidermy animals everywhere in my house. If we were friends back then, you would have avoided my house like the plague. Big up! ** PL, Hi! HNY to you! Well, you got inside so hopefully the curse is lifted. Sorry about the email. I’m really, really behind. The short you’re doing sounds really interesting. I’m more than happy to talk with you about it. How would we do that? Capote: He’s certainly a beautiful writer. I never got totally swept in by his work, but I don’t remember why. I remember really liking a short story by him called ‘Hand Carved Coffins’. I haven’t seen ‘Red Rooms’, but it’s on my to-watch list. The others I know, and, yes, like. Nice viewing. I’m happy to get to talk with you again! ** Joe, Hi! Thanks. There are lots of obstacles remaining, but we’re starting to tick them off or at least making an effort to. ‘Infinite Jest’: It’s been years since I read it, but I think David was one of the most genius sentence writers in the English language, so there was that thrill. I remember really admiring how it was structured and how it went in so many directions and used so many different tempos while always proceeding forward. So there are two things. As far as finishing it … I’m a person who often doesn’t finish reading novels even when I think they’re great. I’ll read far enough to understand what the novel is doing and learn what I think I can learn from the technique of how it’s written and feel like I’ve gotten all the excitement I’m going to get from it, and then I’ll stop reading because I don’t care very much about the narrative aspect or how the writer chooses to conclude the narrative (or I’ll just skip forward and read the ending if I am curious as to how the narrative pans out), basically. I have no interest in seeing ‘Queer’. I haven’t liked Luca Guadagnino’s films at all. I think they’re very bourgeois, and I feel like I can imagine how he has fancified and stylised and prettified that novel without having to sit through it. But I hated Cronenberg’s ‘Naked Lunch’. I don’t know, I think Burroughs isn’t a writer who can survive the transition from prose to visuals very well, or based on the attempts so far. I don’t know. I could very easily be wrong. ** Tyler Ookami, I know of that Hideshi Hino series, but I’ve never watched them. Huh, interesting, I’ll see if I can find them on youtube. Thanks a lot! ** Right. I have restored the spotlight that once fell on this great Roland Barthes book so you can see it (again?) in a spotlight’s light if that prospect interests you. See you tomorrow.

21 Comments

  1. Dominik

    Hi!!

    Early spring it is – and it isn’t all that far! So exciting!

    Love is good at making lasting impressions, isn’t he? Love’s being radiates a special energy that is visible in both his preternatural shagability and his life story, Od.

  2. _Black_Acrylic

    Back in the 90s on our 1st day of the Fine Art course at Leeds Art College, all students were each given a copy of Barthes’ Mythologies as a way of teaching us about semiotics. That was the 1st bit of art theory I ever read, and his essay about wrestling has stayed with me over all those years since. This intro to A Lover’s Discourse is most welcome so thank you!

    This morning I was out for a coffee wearing my new CDG Mickey Mouse hat and received a compliment from a member of staff there. “I love your hat and I want 1 of my own” he said, making me feel well and truly validated. Would be nice to have attractive females throwing themselves at me, but this will have to do for now.

  3. Steeqhen

    Haha they were a bit like coffee, but maybe with a bit of milk; awakening and tasty.

    I don’t think we’ll be studying that, from what I know it’s split into 3 sections: Italy, Germany/Ireland from a German viewpoint, and Spain. Though the syllabus does mention North Africa and the Middle East so who knows?

    I think I’ve been caught with the travel sniffles, I woke up feeling like my nose was twice it’s size which ended up being a great excuse to forgo my early gym plans and instead wander around Cork for the first time in a while. Met with my friend Cian and he gave me a Robert Glück book, About Ed.

    I’m basically finished this short Rimbaud biography, which has made me completely obsessed with him. In a bit of fever delusions I started to imagine myself as a reincarnation of him, except Irish and with a good mother and mental healthcare! Though I am nowhere near the level of writing that he accomplished by age 20. I think I just got fixated on how people described his eyes; even today my friend stopped mid-conversation to say that my eyes were so blue that they were distracting. I’m gonna try and pick up that Rimbaud bio you mentioned, I think it was Goffin? Anyway, Verlaine and his writing has been deeply influential to me, as I’m sure it was to you. I’ve been noting some lines from this book, from poetry and letters, and certain life details as influences for a longer novel idea I have.

    Have two interviews lined up over the weekend, plus will have to organize one with my friend’s band. I was going to be on the radio tomorrow too, but I pulled out this week due to my aforementioned sniffles. My voice is congested and I know my nasal clearing (whether sniffling or sneezing) would be a bit too distracting.
    Back on the college grind! Hoping I won’t be overwhelmed by all these commitments.

    I got the photos developed from Paris today. Need to collect them at some point but they also sent me digital copies. Thankfully our selfie worked out well, I can send it to you if you’d like. Gonna nap now, and later write a bit before I head back to my family for the night to watch the season finale of Real Housewives of Salt Lake City!

  4. Lucas

    Did you see David Lynch died? It’s so sad. I can’t believe it, even though he himself talked about how sick he was just a few months ago. And I’m usually not that affected by ‘celebrity’ deaths. I’m still feeling pretty sick today, but I did rest up for the entire day. I’m pretty sure I have the flu by now and not just a cold. Btw, great post—been meaning to check this book out for ages. Hope your day was good, annoying visa stuff aside.

  5. James

    Yawn, tired. Koestenbaum’s comment on Barthes writing essays like novels makes me think of a novel written like an essay, which I think would be really coo. As with most of this French ‘intellectual’ stuff, reading this I don’t think I actually understood what old Roland was on about, but I did think that it was written or translated well. Barthes is well-known by the males in my family, perhaps excluding my brother and distant cousin which I might have. I got a copy of Mythologies as a birthday present from my uncle when I was rather young for it. I remember I read the essay on striptease as I was sitting on the edge of a bath I was running.
    I have a copy of Image Music Text, too. I’ve read Sarrasine just so I could read S/Z, but I still haven’t.
    Barthes is fun for his finding a way to slip sex into ‘academic’ writing. When I’m reading essays I often think ‘I wish literary analysis were sexier,’ and when I stumble upon, say, Kolins’ Barthesian reading of Streetcar, I think ‘this is interesting to read.’
    I love that photo of Barthes, smug-looking bastard. I was not expecting the breasts being groped, rather incongruously kinky, which is of course welcome.

    Why, thank you, I curtsy in response to the lauding of my blog response. If only people knew the care with which I look at pics of male sex workers and consider them and word said considerations in a comment on the internet! Maybe I’d be respected a bit more. Or have the shit kicked out of me.
    That the blog has no reverse mode is analogous to a great many things. The escorts and reviewers speak for themselves, rather, I just figure I might as well give my brain the work, for, whatever reason. You’re most welcome :]

    Mhm, academia is a winding Borgesian labyrinth with many ways into and out of it – I’ll find a way to get stuck in a life of books, no matter where I go.
    A lot of things in life are overhyped, it’s always a little bumming-out to expect good and get bad. On the other hand, life is also capable of underhyping things – giving you good when you expect bad. And those are great moments.
    Freedom from something before it even got to trap me – get me, being so ahead of the game! x) It helps to hear other people’s views on it, more perspectives on anything usually makes matters more interesting.

    Old Bill was a genius, but there’s a lot to him which can be criticised which isn’t shit-talked fiercely enough, for my liking. I’ve read all his plays, and definitely not all of them were worth my time.
    People can and should be exposed to genius without being discouraged from their own efforts by it, duh. I read stuff wayyyy better than whatever I could make, but I’m not paralysed by a sense of inferiority. Just notably weighed down by it, sometimes x)
    Fuck that shit, verily!

    Okiedokie, supper time. By the way, the blog was being buggy for me earlier today, only showing a page that said to stay tuned. That just my wifi being screwy?
    See you tomorrow. Friday!

  6. Misanthrope

    Dennis, I’ve never read Barthes. :'( I did just get Stoner by John Williams and Beckett’s Watt. They should be fun.

    It’d be warmer in this house if David didn’t leave his window wide open all night and day. 🙁

  7. jay

    Hey Dennis. I’m with everyone else here, really hit by Lynch’s passing. One of my friends offhandedly mentioned it in passing and I almost started crying out of nowhere, which would’ve made me look a little crazy. It’s still hard to believe, it hasn’t quite sunk in yet. What an amazing body of work he’s left behind.

    Outside of that, my day was great. I had a sort of rough term last year, and didn’t attend any lectures for one module – but I managed to sort of scrape together something to present in the last week before the deadline, and somehow my lecturer was really impressed, so that’s a bit of a miracle. I’ve been getting so avoidant and depressive about that particular issue that it’s nice for it to be done, especially with how well it went. I really do feel like a huge cloud has lifted off me so, phew.

    Most of the macro-micro stuff is just erotica, I think. Most of it revolves around the large partner causing extreme bodily harm (loss of limbs, mutilation, etc) to the small partner, either by accident, or with great ease – at least from what I’ve heard, the “sex” isn’t really a big part of it. I will be in touch about the film, I’m really looking forward to it. Lots of love from here, see you.

    PS., hey James! Yeah, I know what you mean by “un-visceral”. You did write it in a way that felt a little closer to mechanical repair than mutilation. I’m the same about being bad at writing individuals, I mostly just write myself over and over. Yeah, I’ve seen that a lot on 4chan, it’s just such a tarpit that I’ve had to block it on my wifi – I think the gay guys don’t really bug me, they’re just sort of unpleasant to oneanother, but the women on that site are just so, I don’t know, unreachably unhappy and self-absorbed (in a self-hating way). Anyway, haha, I’ll assume you’re the real James… until further notice. See ya!

  8. SEB BUT IN ALL CAPS BE NICE CLOUDFLARE PLEASE 🦠

    hi dennis!!!!
    how are you? good, i hope. as promised, here is my rundown on aristasia (from the top of my head)

    aristasia was a sort of lesbian separatist sort of historical re-enactment subculture (sometimes described as a cult) that grew out of a “victorian boarding school” for adult women with links to 80s british fascism. they were very very into bdsm early on, only it was a sort of ageplay-adjacent pseudo bdsm “discipline” which they were VERY insistent was anything but.

    they originated as the rhennish community, which was a new age-y sect, complete with dubious celtic origins and a questionable language. They worshipped a female deity, which over time morphed into the main spiritual beliefs of aristasians, as well as some splinter practices.

    this then developed into st bride’s school, run by one marianne martindale (who also led the rhennish community. almost EVERYONE involved uses an assortment of aliases but i’m not going to speak on that unless it’s important) and potentially her associate, priscilla langridge. they are no longer rhennes, but romantics.

    they offered these LARP holidays, for lack of a better word, where women could pay a fee to spend time at st. brides as a schoolgirl. during this time, they created a series of very early text adventures, including a colossal cave adventure parody, an adaptation of the snow queen, something to do with a prohibition-era rabbit gangster and Jack the Ripper, the first game to be rated 18 in the UK.

    then, marianne martindale was convicted for beating a woman who they’d employed as a maid. st bride’s fell apart not long after, though that might have been due to troubles with rent? the people they rented the place from are an entire other can of worms, but once they left the premises bdsm magazines and fascist pamphlets were found.

    flashing forward a good while, even though there are a lot of strange little things that go on in the interim. the romantics are now the aristasians, and they’re online. they believe that men are “schizomorphic”, and that women are split into two sexes; the chelana and the melini that is, blondes and brunettes. gradually, they abandon the discipline angle, honing in on the idea that aristasia is a real place, but they are all stuck in telluria (their word for earth).

    the aristasians believe that there was a great collapse in the world’s values during the 60s, and refer to the times before that point as the ‘real world’. within aristasia, there are no men, and it’s split into different nations based on time periods. both blondes and brunettes are hyper-feminine, but blondes slightly more so. brunettes fill a masculine role.

    eventually, they discover second life, which they refer to as virtualia. this is what i’d consider the height of aristasia, with them maintaining an active “embassy” where aristasians interact. priscilla langridge, under various aliases, is still involved. marianne martindale, on the other hand, is off getting married to the guy that directed the towering inferno.

    there’s a coup, of a sort. they call it operation bridgehead, and it results in a final renaming. aristasia is chelouranya now, and they’ve completely shed the discipline angle in favour of instilling ‘kawaii’ as one of their pillars. they like anime now, obviously, as well as nintendo games.

    it’s been twenty, maybe even thirty years since its founding, and aristasia has slowly dissolved. they had a publishing company for a while, and seemed very involved in early english language vtubers? but the only things that have properly survived are splinter groups.

    okay. think that’s a decent overview? there’s a *lot* of stuff i left out for time, but it’s definitely one of the most interesting groups i’ve ever seen. definitely something to look into, especially because i’ve probably gotten some stuff wrong.

    goodbye, good luck and godspeed!
    seb 🙂
    ps:
    i-be area is amazing. volunteering starts today (tomorrow?) wish me luck 🤞🏾🤞🏾🤞🏾

  9. HaRpEr

    Hi. Really sad about David Lynch. He was old and everything, but I feel like the iconic image is of him as an old man, smoking away with a cup of coffee, so I thought he was going to go on like that forever. I feel like Lynch is one of the few artists that a lot of people can come together to celebrate, because the way he was able to penetrate from the underground into the mainstream without sacrificing his integrity was so impressive.
    My dad made an insensitive joke when he texted me to say he died. I said ‘what! Was it the fires?’ And he replied, ‘the kind of fire that lights a cigarette, sure’. Not the time. He loves gloating when notable smokers die.

    I’m worrying about the funding for this pamphlet which may or may not be published. I’ll find out in about two weeks from the people who are organising it. I’m keeping my fingers crossed.
    I don’t know. I had a kind of depressing day after some encounters I don’t feel like going through. I guess it extends from my recent worries about people not taking me seriously as a writer, but I’ve realised that’s more about people not ‘getting me’ in general. I don’t know, I’m just having all of these mood swings at the moment. The good news is that I am writing a lot and not letting it get me down in terms of that.

    To add to the ‘Emilia Perez’ conversation, I didn’t particularly care for it although I liked a few scenes. The songs are mostly filler, there were only about two that I liked. They all served a narrative function and weren’t really made with the intent of just being good songs. I don’t know, otherwise, certain parts I really liked, but make no mistake, I thought it was a very conventional film so the fact that critics were calling it some avant-garde masterpiece was sort of bewildering to me. Anyway, I got bad vibes from certain parts, I don’t really know what that means but it felt dystopian and cultish, though nobody is going to know what I mean in regards to that. Also, people were making fun of the song about a vaginoplasty but I actually thought that was pretty funny.

    • seb 2 back in blue 🦠

      no way this is how i find out?? actually fucking heartbreaking.

      the thing about emilia perez is that it wants to be an opera SO bad, but it doesn’t quite realize people can still write operas? and I think it really suffers from that. it also just. has this thing where it thinks it’s the first musical ever to do any given one of its elements? which is something i find especially grating.

      • HaRpEr

        Definitely, totally agree about the opera comparison. If the whole think didn’t have any speaking then I might have liked it more. That said the Leos Carax ‘Annette’ movie with Sparks was so good in my opinion and incorporated operatic elements whilst also having speaking bits, and now I think about it, ‘Emilia Perez’ feels like it was trying really hard to be ‘Annette’, and like you said, thinks it’s the first to do what it’s doing.

  10. Darby𓃱

    Oh my you’ve heard the horrible news havent you? How awful and tragic. I was toldon the way to an art museum and I was just so surprised.
    Im assuming you know, but its just so hard to believe.
    Im also probably just being very sentimental.
    Im rereading the Dune books while listening to 70 ambient and its quit an enjoyable experience. I assume you are a throbbing gristle enjoyer?
    Today although diminished by migraines, vertigo as well as another missing fucking wallet was quiet entertaining.
    I saw the exhibit called “Four Walls” by this artist named Thomas Sayre. It was very moving, and quit captiviting. I was in a very dark head space going in and just looking at the ways he utilized carbon smoke and shotgun shells aswell as other very transient tools to represent the human spirit in all its forms of imperfection and triumph.
    https://www.blowingrockmuseum.org/athome/thomas-sayre
    If your semi interested in him^^
    I really love the use of chemicals, emulsions, natural reppresentation in art and seeing an exhibit like that in person was really great.
    Im very groggy by the way so this is a short comment
    have a good weekend ,D!

    • Darby𓃱

      Oh hey btw, you wouldnt be bothered if I asked for advice on having a crush? Particularly how to stop obsessing over one. Wish I didnt have a headache, i’d go into detail, but maybe next week?

  11. Steve

    testing

  12. Steve

    Weird – I was blocked from even viewing your blog most of the day. Glad that’s over. I’ve been advised that clearing my cache may end my issues with Cloudflare, and I’ll try it soon.

    RIP David Lynch. What a loss! He should’ve been able to make far more than 10 features. Some of his shorts, like RABBITS, are just as strong.

    Someone affiliated with the cult posted the 1996 Aristasia documentary A WEEKEND AT MISS MARTINDALE’S on YouTube. The first part (of three) is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_3hxVnKUrHU

  13. PL

    Hey Dennis! Happy to get in touch again. Well, I hope we can talk about the short through here. Actually, your work in ‘The Sluts’ and the escorts lists in the blog served as a great inspiration for a scene in the film. There’s a cruising scene, you see. I’d love to tell you all about it, but I guess I want to surprise you. Today I sketched some more stuff for the film. I have the feeling it will cause an impression. There’s some risqué scenes that I really like and that carry a meaning, I don’t expect everyone to understand it (and I’d hate to explain) but something that pisses me off is how easily people say that something exists only for “shock value”. It’s the kind of criticism that I hate, because it just runs over everything you know? And the people that say it feel so smart because they “know my intentions” and all. I’m afraid I’ll have to face a public like that at some point. I’m sure you dealt with this kind of criticism in your career, how do you take it? I also watched a fun movie called “Blonde Death” ever heard of it? It’s a bit tacky, but that’s the purpose, I guess. I finished the unfinished Capote book, it’s nice. I want to read ‘Confessions of a Mask’ (is that the English title) by Yukio Mishima next. You, Capote, Mishima. I see a pattern. Just kidding. But I also came across a Bataille book that seems interesting called ‘Eroticism’, what do you think of his work? Great to hear from you again!

  14. Justin D

    Hey, Dennis! RIP David Lynch, fuck. This evening, I started reading ‘My Loose Thread’. The lines about looking at the stars and imagining them as upside-down cities, and then echoing later as the boy’s scars and potential desire to have people look at them similarly and wonder what kind of person would live inside that body… so beautiful. ‘A Lover’s Discourse’ might just be the perfect follow-up read—thanks! How was your Thursday?

  15. Cletus

    Thanks for perspective regarding Zedd. That’s very cool you interviewed him even though he wasnt forthcoming. I met his family at an online reading once and they couldn’t have been more different than his persona in the bio book. His daughter was especially nice and a talented artist in her own right. I liked the excerpt today. “Absence can only exist as a consequence of the other” is brilliant. I finished Gravity’s Rainbow today. I also just read Danielle Chelosky’s Pregaming Grief which was good imo. Back to work tomorrow after a few days off. Hope you’re well as you’re reading this D.

    • Cletus

      Holy shit I just learned David Lynch died reading the posts here. God that sucks. God damn. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Will attempt to celebrate him tonight somehow. Thankful for the posts that mentioned it and some of the posts that mention his work. I love his movies and twin peaks, but am less familiar with his shorts.

  16. Joe

    Hi Dennis, well I wish you an extreme vastitude of good luck with these remaining obstacles, sincerely.
    Thanks for these observations on Wallace. I’m listening to an audio version of it, which does a book this big and complex no favours, and makes it much more difficult to apprehend the structure. Speaking of writers who write great sentences, the guy who wrote Bobby BlueJacket is not among their ranks. Did you finish that book? I am totally into the subject, but found the writing so poor that I just couldn’t go on with it past second chapter. I’ll try again after I’ve come to terms with the fact that’s it like that.
    Oh I completely agree with you about Burroughs’ writing not making transition to film well. Naked Lunch worked for me because its about the writing of Naked Lunch and the ‘Burroughs myth’, rather than a film of the book. When it came out I was a teenager heavily into Burroughs’ life (myth) as much as the writing, and read his letters with more pleasure than his novels. And the film is just stuck in my personal canon now. I didn’t get into Burroughs’ experimental writing until I was older.
    Great post today. Have a good weekend, J

  17. Tyler Ookami

    Yeah, those Hino films vary in quality but they’re a lot of fun and quick to watch.

    I watched Eraserhead and the Dumbland cartoons with a group of friends tonight. Dumbland makes me laugh harder than almost anything, it’s such a joy to me. Sad day for American art and culture, I suppose. It did seem like he had really ambitious things he didn’t quite get to realize, even. We’re going to see less and less directors around who aren’t really interested in playing the games of American middlebrow cinema, huh?

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