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‘Louis Tussauds in Great Yarmouth, is different from many wax museums, in that it remembers the stars and famous people as they were at their height of fame and influence.
‘See your gallery of how people looked, how the passionate owners captured them at this time and preserved them for your enjoyment. Many wax museum update their models to keep the realistic to reflect the current looks or styles.
‘If you are looking back to the 70s, so the stars as they were. Nostalgia and memories. Show your grand children the stars and leaders during your generation and help us bring the museum to life.’ — Louis Tussauds House of Wax
January 3, 2014: ‘The world’s worst waxworks collection has been snapped up by a mystery buyer from the Czech Republic, just over a year after it closed amid a storm of ridicule. Jane, 83, who still lives above the former attraction in Great Yarmouth, Norfolk, with 86-year-old Peter, said: “All the models and machines and frames were sold in one go. I don’t really know who the chap was but he took everything. We hadn’t planned to leave and we miss the business terribly. But me and my husband have both been ill and thought it was foolish to keep going. We had a lot of bad press and I feel a bit irritated that the local people didn’t stick up for us a bit more.” Peter, who ran the museum for 57 years, admitted in 2008 that the models became so old they were no longer lifelike.’ — Daily Mirror
The constellation
Prince Charles
John Lennon
Freddie Mercury
Sean Connery
Simon Cowell
Rowan Atkinson
Princess Diana
Tom Hanks
Pierce Brosnan
Prince William
Prince Harry
David & Victoria Beckham
Peter Sutcliffe
Margaret Thatcher
Tony Blair
Adam Ant
Robert Patrick (Terminator)
Conan the Barbarian
Tom Jones
Johnny Depp
Harry Potter & Hermione Granger
Kylie Minogue & Jason Donovan
Charles Manson
The Beatles
The Fonz & Telly Savales
Julia Roberts
Arnold Schwarzenegger
Michael Jackson
Jack Nicholson
Johnny Cash
Prince Edward
Quentin Tarantino
Mussolini
Shirley Bassey
Queen Elizabeth
The cast of ‘Eastenders’
Adolf Hitler
Elton John
Star Trek
Cliff Richard
Picasso
Sylvester Stallone
Justin Bieber
Walt Disney
?
Elvis Presley
John Travolta
Cher
Tom Cruise
Jedward
Richard Nixon
Bruce Springsteen
David Bowie
Britney Spears
?
Johnny Carson
Drew Barrymore
Mark Wahlberg
Jim Carrey
Liza Minelli
Barak Obama
Vladimir Putin/Neil Kinnock
Hilary Clinton
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p.s. Hey. ** David Ehrenstein, Hi. Great, glad you enjoyed it. Castelanetta is still around. He was here doing an event for the film last week. I’m not sure what he’s up to. I’ll ask his/our distributor and let you know. ** KeatonReds, Love rain. Well, for a day or two. And nothing’s more beautiful than a heatwave killing thunderstorm. We’re ‘supposed’ to get one on Sunday. Famous last words. Excellent about the studio progress. You rock. You’re ‘The Rock’ of your medium. Mini-golf, I miss it. Not a thing over here. I made it through yesterday, which was the depths of hell in the guise of a Wednesday, and it’s supposed to be tinily less hellish today, so … I might last it out. Thanks, bud. Stay exotically yourself. ** Bill, Hi. Yeah, yesterday was a hot beyond words kind of situation. I didn’t get to the ‘Together Alone’ because the prospect of entering the guaranteed steam bath of the metro was too daunting. But it’s playing in a couple of theaters here, so I’ll see it. Yay, your event! Ouch, the Terry Riley competition, but the present/future is always better than the past, and one hopes San Franciscans know that. Exciting! Everyone, if you’re near or in SF, you are hereby massively encouraged to attend a gig partly performed by the great electronics and visuals and sound artist (and a Lordly member of this blog’s community) Bill Hsu. If you hit the following link, you’ll not only find out how to attend the gig, but, even if you’re a million mils away, you’ll get to click/play two videos featuring Mr. Hsu’s spectacular works. Reward yourselves here. ** KK, Hi. Yeah, artists’ reps and presence can turn around a dime, and Tanner’s ripe. Congrats on the reading! Even the darker stuff … kudos. I know how that can be a toughie. You took Blake’s online class! Cool! What was that like, was it helpful? He’s so great. Here’s to fun, big fun! See you soon. ** schlix, Hi, Uli. Yeah, I have infinitely less than zero interest spending my brain and emotions arguing in a social media vacuum about hateful stuff that I’m doing absolutely nothing else about. There’s no such thing as a revolutionary windbag. Anyway, … I love Walser’s novels. The play is very early and not anything like his novels. I’ll let you know. I’ve only seen a very, very early rough rehearsal, but I’m supposed to see where it currently stands in the next week or so. The heat was a nightmare yesterday. It’s supposed to be a tiny bit less hot today, but it’s hard to tell yet. Yeah, it’s deadening. Great luck with yours! ** _Black_Acrylic, Hi, Ben. I haven’t read ‘The Books in My Life’. I just got lucky and found that text online when I was looking for things about Giono. I think if you’re a Miller fan it must be a pretty worthwhile read. ** Steve Erickson, Hi. I think you’re right about the New Yorker Films collapse being part of the problem re: Tanner. He’s hardly the only director whose works have gotten lost because off that situation. Since Tanner’s films have been overlooked for quite a number of years, I kind of doubt that the fact that woked-ness is the current gold standard is a big reason. ** Jeff J, Hi, Jeff! Thanks, man. Huh, interesting about the new Jim Findlay collab. In photos the Whitney Biennial looks pretty meh to me, but it also looks like the kind of work that doesn’t read in photographs. Oh, shit, right … I’ve been totally swamped and way, way behind on many things including the Dover thing. I’ll see if the heat lets my brain activate enough to write something today. Shit, I’m sorry. I’ve read a few Giono novels, but not for quite a long time. I think my favorite by him was ‘Blue Boy’. PGL’s French theater life is basically finished now, so the next step is getting a French DVD/Blu-ray release. In the States things are happening, but our American distributor did zero promotion or publicity or outreach for the film, and as a consequence it hasn’t had a single review or any press at all very unfortunately, and I’m too busy here to do his job for him, so there’s not much for Zac and I to do in that regard. So we’re concentrating on the new film and the ARTE TV project. Oh, I met Philippe Grandrieux! He’s extremely nice, and he’s very thrilled by your having come over here to study his work. He said to thank you very much. ** Misanthrope, I didn’t sufficiently decode your winky emoticon. I blame the heat. Wow, that’s a very healthy amount of novel words/mileage there, man. And how bonus and great that your abandoned novel turns out to be a fix-er-up keeper. Dude, yes, I know that feeling of ‘wow, I did that?’ when going back to something once you’re able to be objective. That’s great, George! And your plan sounds both reasonable and doable. You def. have part ownership of the future! Sweet! ** Okay. I think it might be the heatwave’s effect on my mental faculties that led me to decide to restore this old wonky post. See you tomorrow.
Now available in North America 
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I’ll follow up what’s going on as I sent you a copy of Xerox Over Manhattan a few months back? Sent to the same address I did last time. If not – can I email you a PDF?
Also – knee deep into – ‘Haunted Girlfriend’ – Really enjoying it. Nulick and I did a swap – so keen to get into ‘Valencia’ as well.
Keen to see if PGL is available on Kanopy Australia – probably not 😂
Haha some of these are actually pretty good. That Simon Cowell waxwork looks more human than the so-called real thing.
This morning on FB I saw that the artist and poet Alec Finlay is applying for funding for something called Day of Access, where disabled people with constrained walking are transported to locations in the Scottish Highlands “with support from the Forestry Commission, the John Muir Trust (Heart of Scotland), and a local estate.” As someone with MS this could be right up my alley so have enquired for more info.
I find waxworks decidedly odd in that they’re supposed to be “life-like” reproductions of famous people but never look quite like them at all. I was just looking at Truffaut’s superb “The Green Room” yesterday. In that late period masterpiece the hero (played by Truffaut himself) is a man obsessed with the dead and making memorials to them. Iit began with the death of his wife. He has a waxworks reproduction made of her but the moment he sees it is horrified, calls it “a monster” and orders it destroyed right before his eyes.
This museum also reminds me of”The Silent Theater” here in L.A. It screened silent films for many years until its owner was murdered by a young hustler who had taken advantage of him and thought there was money right on the premises. here wasn’t. After that the place was taken over by an org called “The Cinefamily” which screened all maner of interesting stuff — like eraly silent Garrel with live musical accompaniment. But that’s came to grief in a sex scandal the details of which have never been made clear. The place has bee shuttered for over half a year now. Most unfortunate as it’s a lovely little theater.
It was great! I still have one assignment left I haven’t started, but his feedback on the other stuff was really helpful. But now that it’s about to be over I’m sitting here thinking okay great now what do I do with these stories? The last one he helped on I just finished the last rounds of edits, and am kinda scratching my head wondering where they should go. So I said fuck it and sent it to the New Yorker because who cares. It’s so easy to just send stuff to people, regardless if they actually read it or not. But yeah, Blake’s a great teacher. He gave a lot of “trust your intuition, you’re on the right path” type of advice that felt good to hear at the time.
Thanks for the plug, Dennis!
Louis Tussauds, eh? I wonder where these umm pieces of art ended up in the Czech Republic.
Just started reading the Meijer collection. So sharp! I can totally see the Lucia Berlin connection you made in your blurb. I won’t forget that miscarriage story for awhile.
Hope you have your fans cranking. (That’s the electric rotating ones, not the ones who can quote from Marbled Swarm and The Sluts.)
Bill
Woah crazy news: two of my poems got picked up for the next issue of SCAB!
Dennis, Damn it, I love this. I loved it the first time around. So fucking funny. I wonder how sincere they are or if they’re just taking the piss.
Thank you for the encouragement. It means a lot. Your words always do.
But yes, I think I can do it, and…I shall do it. I’m ready to go!
This was delightful. Thank you for bringing it back to life. How are things?
I’ve been the unwitting beneficiary of a murder 30 years ago. The story’s a bit involved.
I met a new friend at my Gena Rowlands friend’s birthday party two weeks ago. He offered to introduce me to a prominent documentary filmmaking couple in Tel Aviv. To me it sounded like he’d been friends with them for a while. We all met up last night and hit it off very well.
Yesterday I found out that my new friend met the filmmakers only a few days before he met me. The filmmakers are making a documentary about a 14 year old boy who murdered his whole family with his dad’s army gun 30 years ago. There are no home movies of the murdered family, so the filmmakers started hunting around online for home videos of similar families from the era. They found Super 8 home movies my friend’s dad made and reached out to my friend. I probably would’ve met these filmmakers anyhow at some point but I can’t wrap my head around the chain of events that led to me meeting them now at such an opportune time.