p.s. (1) Yeah, 'The Sluts' won the Lambda Literary Award. I'm shocked. I really am. Like I said a while back, the last time I was nominated for a 'Lammy' was in 1991, and it's just seemed since then that their definition of gay/lesbian literature excluded my work or something, so it's disorienting to go from being an outsider to best chosen as the best gay fiction book. It's great, and I'm truly thrilled and grateful. I'm blown away, in fact. It's just so weird. And, yeah, it's not just me. Two people who've posted on this blog won awards too. The amazing poet Richard Siken won for Best Gay Men's Poetry for 'Crush,' and D. Travers Scott won for Best Gay Men's Mystery with the terrific 'One of These Things is Not Like the Other.' And my comrades at Suspect Thoughts Press won too. Congrats all around, and thanks a lot for all your sweet congrats. (2) Don't forget to send self-portraits, real or imagined/representative, okay? I've gotten some, but I need more to make it a full-fledged Blog Day. Don't make me hunt down jpegs of you. You know I'd do it. (3) I realized the other day that I need a day off, and tomorrow being Sunday, it seems like the right day. So no post tomorrow, but I'll see you on Monday as usual. (4) This ongoing Horror Movie discussion is great. One thing it's made me realize is that horror movies almost never scare me, and I don't even watch them hoping to be scared. And yet I love them. Hm. Anyway, your discussion has made me realize that the movies/TV/books/etc. that really traumatized me when I was younger weren't horror films at all. In fact, I think I'll do a 'top ten things that traumatized me' list in the next few days, so start pondering yours, but save them for Trauma Day. ** Larkspur, Hey, welcome to my blog. I've seen 'Princess Raccoon' listed and wondered about it. Cool, I'll hunt it down. Hope to see you here more. ** Jim Hollands, Hey. I wish I could have heard your radio show, obviously. So is 'Horse Hospital' the place gone now? Did any of the Londoners on here ever go to an event at 'HH?' What a great place, series. I'll email you. I'm glad you're doing well. ** Tosh, Yeah, Vija Celimins is a god. One of the truly, truly great living artists. She gave me a piece as a birthday present in the early 90s, and it's my prize possession. Breton's 'Nadja' is so great a novel, I agree. That was a favorite of mine when I was a lad. To me, it's so much richer and more pleasureable than his poetry. I tried to reread Breton's poems not long ago, and had a surprisingly hard time with their dryness and stinginess. You or any Breton readers/fans have a thought? ** Brian curtin, I didn't know Sherrie Levine that well personaly. I found her dry but very pleasant and funny. Maybe others here know her better. She's an interesting artist. ** Mizu, ronnie, Mary Woronov is great, of course in movies but also as a person. She's been an invaluable part of the LA art and writing scene for a long time. And I agree her novel 'Snake' is very good. ** Antonio, I used to say that Colin De Land was the coolest person I ever knew, cool in the sense of classic 'cool,' Steve McQueen cool. He died of cancer a few years ago, as did his equally fantastic wife and partner in art crimes Pat Hearn, and they are both very, very missed. I haven't even seen David Sedaris since the early 90s, but back when he and I hung out, he was and probably still is an awesome guy, very strange and obsessive and sporting an eternal evil grin. Otherwise, your posts yesterday were spectacular, as always, but even more so in such quantity. ** Adjoun, xkoetz, Us four going to de efteling together is a fantastic idea. If Yury and I can swing our Holland trip before xkoesj splits for Sydney, and I'll get on that, it's a date, as it were, okay? ** Lost child, Oh yeah, Jean Rhys is up there among the very best writers by my count. 'Saragasso' is actually my least favorite of her novels, not that it's bad, of course. But her others are even more wicked and brilliant. ** David ehrenstein, You'd have to ask Bill Jones who we approached at the Getty because he had the connections. Now LACMA has done a Bresson retrospective, so that's probably out. The sad thing is that Bresson was still alive when we proposed it, and there was a chance he would have come to LA for it. Interesting question about Bresson's visual art. The story I've heard is that he asked that all of his paintings be destroyed when he died, but I don't know if that's a legend thing or not. I will say I haven't seen hide nor hair of his paintings since I've been living here. ** Dave, Indeed. ** Jose, Hey, there. You're still with us. It's true what one of the other commenters -- antonio, I think -- said: That (found) poem is really, really nice. It might be a nice series, if more come to you. ** Joe mills, Ideally my work is more the occasion or excuse for the splendors happening on this blog than the given topic, though I certainly don't mind when people ask me about my fiction. ** Nick, That Chan Wook Park vengeance trilogy is really something, I agree. I only met Clive Barker that one time when I hung out at his house and interviewed him. I liked him a lot. One of the weird, LA-like things about LA is that while its literary/fiction writing community is pretty small, you can go for years and years without ever meeting one of your fellow writers, like with Clive Barker and myself, or whoever. I've only met Mark Danielewski once, and he's an LA guy. Haven't seen David Foster Wallace once since he moved to the LA outskirts. In New York, you meet everybody in the lit crowd very quickly, which is why all that awful mutual ass kissing crap goes on leading to generation after generation of overpraised literary 'gods' that get huge press and awards and grants while being hardly read or cared about outside NYC. But I digress. ** Hedi, Derrida's writings on film are actually my favorite texts of his, which I guess is a little heretical to say. But they are very good. 'Fade to Grey' is your Ziggy Stardust? Wow. (That's not a critical or disapproving wow, more a surprised, possibly admiring wow.) I suppose it might be asking too much for an explication? ** Garrison, 'The Mudge Boy' is a totally new one on me. Anybody else seen it? It goes on my list, thanks, man. ** Dave, No problem. Well, there's no question that a lot of JT's early appeal was the sense that he defied the conventions and extended the Rimbaud idea in a less erudite and talented way, and the inexplicable nature of him and his writing pulled me way into the project, as it did every other writer I knew who knew JT back then. But JT's story was that he actually had read a lot, even though he'd never attended school. The story was that his mom would drop him off at the library of whatever town she was doing her traveling prostitution work in that day, and he would sit there and read books endlessly. So it wasn't that he'd come to writing without reading that was the hook, more that he'd come to the literary without having been taught to appreciate literature that was curious. ** Michael karo, Well, I'm pretty sure I'll be character in the movie. You know, people have asked me who I'd want to play me in that movie a lot, and I just can't think of anyone. What do you or you other guys out there think? Actually, that's kind of a boring question, so ignore. ** Good Saturday/Sunday to you all. If it doesn't rain, Yury and I and possibly Gisele are going to Versailles tomorrow on a lark. If anything non-touristic happens there, I'll let you know. Take care.