p.s. I'm a little sleepy again today. I was interviewed about 'Dieux Jr.' on a late night French radio program, and my body clock hasn't kept up. But it was a cool show. They had video game experts and an indie music aficionado there to talk about the music and game references in the novel, so it was unusually a blast. Oh, I need to apologize for a misstep yesterday. When I said Akashic Press had contacted the writers in 'Userlands,' I was wrong. I misunderstood something they said to me. They're just now beginning to contact the authors, so no worries. I'm sorry for the stress, etc. ** Tender prey, A hooray from me about your positive viewing of 'The Devil, Probably.' 'Say Hello Wave Goodbye' almost always tears me up. The 'off the rails' part. I'm tearing up just thinking about it. I have big love for it too. I wonder what Marc Almond is like. I wonder if he'd be interesting and fun to hang out with. I guess yes. You know him at all? ** Paradigm, Nice song. Well, nice lyrics, I mean. What's the music like? Yeah, your job must really bring the aging thing home. I think I said this before, but I greatly admire you for your willingness/interest to help people in such a grim if natural situation. ** Atheist, Speaking as an anarchist, your losing control here is A-okay. Thanks for the kind thoughts about my dad. It's definitely a weird, hard time for me between exile, parents facing the end, fiction writing blockage, etc. But being here provides a nice little antidote. ** Akechikogorou, Bad phrasing on my part. I don't know the Cleaners. I was just curious what they are, but it sounds up my alley, Pollard being my god and all. ** T.pkendall, Rage? Why? Well, I'll go check your updated blog and maybe find out. Very good to see you, btw. ** Statictick, Cool, re. impending loop. Maybe white chocolate bones would work, no? Oh, I'm sure there'll be trekkers to Detroit for the 'Userlands' event. We'll make it unavoidable somehow. ** Jax, Thanks much for posting the Berlinale info. It does sound snazzy. I may hit you up for advice once we get into the 'Jerk' radio play construction phase, if you don't mind. ** David ehrenstein, Yeah 'The Grass Harp' is really lovely. I've got it on vinyl. Kenward took me to see Barbara Cook do her cabaret show ages ago, my one and only cabaret experience, and we hung with her afterwards. She was a crack up, very sweet. You know her? I love that O'Hara poem. That line 'But is the earth ...' is so genius. So do Broadway plays have taped orchestras these days, or some guy with a laptop, or ...? ** Bernard welt, No, Kenward never had me up to his Calais place, although he was always hinting at an invitation. Gosh, I really miss those early 80s NYC days before everyone died. Sweet John Bernd. Not to mention so many others. I was trying to explain to Yury just yesterday what it was like to be young and have all your friends dying around you all the time. And I was telling him how I had this tight gang of NYC pals who I saw or talked to every day: Brad Gooch, Howard Brookner, Chris Cox, Tim Dlugos, Donald Britton, and how the only one still alive is Brad. It's weird how one goes into denial about the horrors of going through the early days of the AIDS crisis. It's like I forcibly make myself forget until the topic arises, and I start doing the math, and the dead start outnumbering the living -- Larry Stanton, Bo Huston, Arnold Fern, Joe Brainard, most of Tim Dlugos' boyfriends, etc. -- and it's hard to imagine we found ways to get through that, but a few of us did. Anyway, sorry for the sadness. Seeing Tim's and John's and Arthur's and Joe's names ... you know. ** Sypha_69, Oh, on the Current 93 thing: I'd really need to reinvestigate the music to condemn it. The reason I said that was because I was somewhere recently, in a record store or something, and the store was playing music I didn't immediately recognize, and the songs' 'oh, glorious, red death, my only friend'-style lyrics struck me as so absurd that I asked them, 'What the fuck is this shit?' and it was C93, so I had a kneejerk 'this stuff doesn't hold up at all' reaction when I probably should have thought, Remember never to buy whatever C93 album they were playing. You've only been to three concerts? Wow, you have so much pleasure ahead of you, all the moreso because the concert experience itself will possess a good percentage of magic. ** Tosh, Lewis Furey was an odd presence at the 'Death of Glam' concert because, visually, he was clearly trying to get in the Glam spirit, but the music itself was very un-Glam, so he bewildered the crowd. But that concert, which was full of glories -- the NY Dolls, Iggy, Silverhead, Kim Fowley hosting, etc. -- was an odd one, i.e. one of the bands playing was Flo and Eddie. ?!? But anyway ... You know, I think I'll do a Day on musical artists whom I think deserve a Day to themselves but whose lack of related online material prevents such a thing from happening. Lewis Furey being one. And there are several other such people that spring to mind. Yeah, that's a good idea. Let me see if I can make it work. Thanks for inspiring that. ** Joe mills, Oh, I really quite like the two fiction pieces on your blog. They both in different ways have this really great quality of being highly chiseled and discursive at the same time. A taut rambling quality, a sculpted yet casual/colloquial quality. And with no show-boating and trickery, no theatrical Scottish-isms. Very nice. I want to read your books. Yeah, you can hand them to me in Glasgow or whatever, as long as I get to pore over them at some point. ** Goo-goo, That is a truly frightening case, as is any case where the unimaginative try to police the imagination, and such a fucking typical show-boating diversionary tactic. God fucking help us, etc. ** Nikolas, Pere Lachaise, easy as pie. Exhibitions: surely. I'll check what's up. ** Morgan, Hey. Really good to see you. I've been wondering how you're doing. The writing slumps always pass. Don't worry about it at all. You're just in a rebuilding period, writing-wise. I hope the move goes smoothly. Come back soon. ** Porcelain skull, BW propped me? I'll have a look. There've been a hundred Friezes? Weird. Where does the time go? Are you good? I'm ... okay. Let's just leave it that. But you? ** Maximum etc., Excellent news about the anthology. You have me super curious about this 'experimental' Joyce Carol Oates thing. I mean ... what in the world? Well, nice lure. I'll go look at your short-short. ** Antonio, Of course you aced the psych exam. I mean, come on, duh, etc. But I congratulate you nonetheless. 'Death on the Installment Plan' is a good one. I'm glad the murder mystery is gathering fog. Do you know this fashion magazine on DVD called FLY? I've been getting all these hypey emails about it. Moody indie-style movie-ettes in place of fashion shoots. Lagerfeld talking about his love of literature. !?! Big party here for it during fashion week. What do you know? Thumbs up, down, sideways? ** Garrison, Oh, see above about the Akashic thing. Rohmer did this really cool -- as I recall -- film about, err, maybe Lancelot, all shot on soundstages. Can't remember the name. Very odd movie, kind of special odd, like Louis Malles's 'Black Moon' (starring Joe Dallesandro). ** Math tinder, Crescenta-Canada Valley: Did we already talk/commiserate about your being there and my having gone to school there -- Flintridge Prep? I forget. In any case, that school/area played no small part in my drug adventuring. So I dig. Jobriath concert: Actually, I talked a bit about the show for a thing on the Jobriath website, so it might still be there somewhere. ** Adjoun, What are you doing in Cologne? Something to do with your art? The books you saw were surely the George Miles books since those are the only ones of mine to have been published in German so far. ** Young and stupid, Hey, dude-ette. No, you'll hear from Akashic, no sweat. everybody will. Nobody's getting left out. ** 5stringaphasia, Wowzer. ** Rigby101, Hey. This is like the Morrissey chat room lately. Interesting. That 'kegs' line is real good, yeah. ** C., Nice song fragment. I feel quiet too. You'd never know, would you? ** Tigersare, The long haired kid is strange looking, no? He's also kind of fat, and on the site where those pictures are coming from, everybody fucks him all the time, so there's this kind of 'I'm bored. Me too. Let's fuck the fat boy. Yeah, why not,' subtext, which adds to his endearment. ** Ignacio, Devastating film, yeah, i.e. 'Body without Soul.' The HIV-positive pimply blond kid on the rooftop ... heartbreaking. ** You, Howdy. Okay, that's helpful and very interesting and second thought-provoking on the David Tibet issue. Much appreciated. We seem to speak the same language. Have a good road trip. Where you going? ** Hedi, Hi. You're always going to Mexico. For kicks? Where do you go? I'm guessing it's a drive-to location? Now ... Nurse with Wound, I like him/them. That's good stuff. What's Devandra like? He's cool on CD and in theory. ** Jheorgge, Gracias. How did you come up with your screenname? Is that a rude question? I like it. I wish I'd thought of it when I was writing 'Period.' Anyway, what's new? ** Okay, have a very good weekend. Keep sending in those Self-Portrait Day entries. I hope the semi-unreadability of the Burroughs script above doesn't ruin this Day for you. Better than nothing, I figured. Yeah, just enjoy the everything. See you on Monday.