p.s. Hey. I have to be quick today. My LA trip is turning out to be predictably crammed, so I'm having less blog time than I do back in Paris. Plus, I have a splitting headache this morning for some reason. Ugh. Thanks to those who've sent in spooky pictures so far. Keep them coming, please? Allright, I'll do the best I can now, but please forgive me for my hurrying. ** Frankie p, No, you don't have to write anything to go with your spooky image. I wasn't thinking people would, but you can if you want. ** C., Gorgeous and interesting explanation. Don't worry, I know how you are about these things, at least to some degree. ** Michael karo, 'Pizza Face' is a terrific novel, a kind of lost contemporary classic. Somebody should get that fucker back in print. And base a movie on it. ** 5stringaphasia, Ginger beer, huh? I'll try a sip, even though I hate carbonated drinks. Except for champagne, of course. ** Sypha_69, Yeah, I mean if you can get out of the folks' house smoothly, I say do it. I'm really glad my parents were and are a-religious very soft core Christians. That sounds like hell. ** David ehrenstein, Yeah, that Randy Newman song for Dusty Springfield is a beaut. I'm sure you know his cover of 'Underneath the Harlem Moon' on the '12 Songs' album. One of the most chilling things I've ever heard. He's also a great and really underrated singer, and that song is proof. ** Morgan, I'm finishing our own joe mills' first novel and atheist's mss. Those are my trip reading. Oh, and Bruce Hainley's brand new poetry collection 'Foul Mouth,' which I'm going to excerpt on the blog shortly. You? ** Rigby101, I need to read Dawkins, don't I? ** Robert-nyc, Thnks a whole lot for making that list for morgan. I think others here will be helped by it too. Read sweet of you. ** Winter-rates, On 'Magnificent Ambersons:' Gosh, I don't know. It just totally knocks me out. Insanely great filmmaking. Plus it has two of what I think are the very greatest scenes in all of cinema -- when the elder Amberson looks into the camera and has his profound relevation about the nature of life and Welles slowly fades and blacks him out, and when Agnes Moorehead is sitting with her back to the cold furnace. And others too. That movie just kills me, except for the last scene which Welles was forced to include. I'd be very nervous about watching a corrective to that film that Welles didn't helm, though I suppose I'd be very curious to see what he'd intended, if that's what it is. ** Vomitingghosts, Your posts were particularly lovely yesterday, thanks man. ** D., Hey, welcome back. I've never met Jamie Stewart. He and I have been hoping and thinking of meeting up for a while, though our schedules haven't crossed. But I think they will soonish because Xiu Xiu's playing Paris next month. Yeah, he's really something. I really want to see 'Jesus Camp,' but, at the same time, I don't know if my blood can take more boiling right now. ** Paul curran, I mess up lyrics when I hear them all the time. The only one that comes to my headache at the moment is a classic one from my youth, seemingly shared by many: In Creedence Clearwater Revival's 'Bad Moon Rising,' I was one of the many who thought for years that when he sang, 'There's a bad moon on the rise,' he was singing, 'There's a bathroom on the right.' ** Alice in chains, Where do you go to school? That poetry comment was pretty bad and telling. 70s conceptual art: it doesn't get much better, does it? ** Perspects, I agree with every syllable you wrote. ** Hedi, That Bersani essay is a must, yeah. Gide was really important to me when I was younger, especially 'The Counterfeiters,' which was huge to me when I read it. I'd be interested to hear how he seems when reading him as an adult for the first time. I've always wondered if he's one of the writers whom it's best to find when young. Anyway, I'd love to hear your thoughts if you ending reading him. Ariel Pink is in Holy Shit? Interesting. Okay, yeah, I'm there. ** Again, please forgive my woefully inadequate and very neglectful p.s. of today. I'll get this headache under wraps and do better tomorrow. Take care, all.
posted by Dennis Cooper at 5:40 PM
54 Comments:
wow, lovely Dennis. the stand-in boy is beautiful, too.
__hey gang, i decided to start handing out awards, it's raining like hell in Brooklyn, and i'm finishing a 30+hour workday before venturing out into the wet looking for pizza.
xox, math+
Breath taking Dennis...
Hmm... Halloween has me in such a tizzy, so far I've watched three nightmare on elm streets, Scary pix are on their way.
oh and I just answered someone's add on craigslist, the keywords were "Battlestar Galactica", "amateur street magician" and "Brown belt in Karate" this is the closest I've come to courting in like three months, so wish me luck!
Math - 30+ hour workday, ouch! you've definately earned a slice.
Hey Dennis, these beloved remniscences are invariably really, really touching, beautiful. I'm always left in a state of zen-like ponderance after reading them.
Hey, I spent last night with Orrin of Horse Hospital and was discussing Userlands etc, he says, if you were thinking of staging an event at HH, to contact him directly; if this is still a viable idea, I have his email if you need it. Also, I'm gonna be on Horse Hospital Radio next monday... yay. Incidentally, my Userlands proof turned up today (woo!!) - now, I'm new to the world of publishing, so tell me, do we need to return the proof to Mr Temple even if we're totally happy with the accuracy of the manuscript?
I bought my pumpkin today; looking forward to spending long hours whittling a detailed visage into it's putrid, ochre flesh...
And how are you, man? Looking forward to chatting once you're back Paris-side...
Take care,
Nick.xxx
(Jose, hey man, I'll mail you real soon, hope things're good with you.)
Your romance with Julien sounds like an out-take from Those Who Love Me Can Take the Train, Dennis -- as I'm sure you know. In fact he looks quite a lot like Sylvain Jacques.
There's a considerable amount of writing about Ambersons. Welels adored the novel and made radio adaptations of it long before the movie. What ciefly happened was it previewed badly and cuts were requested. Welles was in South America shooting It's All True. He sent his instructions on how to cut it but they were largely ignored and anew ending was shot. Bernard Herrman was so upset he had his name taken off the music credits.
World War II had broken out and the country was in no mood for a story like this. That's the long and the short of it. Decades later Welles saw the released version for the first time on TV and broke down sobbing.
It's STILL one of the greatest of all American films.
Dennis,
Hey baby, hope you're having fun rushing about LA. On the ginger-beer, there was this one Carribean restaurant out front of the premier youth music scene joint here, back in the 90's. The chef had a buffet and made the best jerk-chicken going, and made this thing called a sea-moss bomb, the ginger-beer was homemade, authentic, way out there for real delicious. Not carbonated. I like ginger-ale and 7-Up, that kind of stuff, otherwise soda's ok, but not clean food, dig. Your boys make me so jealous, I've had more than my fair share of really fucking hot boys, but you never fail to set me to fire for that sweet love. Been reading King before bed, I forgot about that style of fiction. It's great. Much love, see ya around =)
that was a really great portrait of an old friend.
there is this guy who was like my age now (33) when i was 17 or so working at a record store in NJ...at the time he was the first(openly) gay man i met, and as i went to an all boys catholic h.s. i normally dwelled in atmosphere of megahomophobia...anyway he was totally my mentor in life pointing me to all that i still love in music and lit. etc...but of course he was also really self destructive and even in the age of the internet i haven't been able to track him down, his name is a little too common..i just want to let him know what a profound influence he had on my lifer because i'm sure he's clueless that he meant so much..a mutual friend said the last time he saw him was like 7 years ago getting thrown out of a cramps show for being too loaded...i hope i find him
__5strings, oh, ginger beer is so good. in NYC, i like Reed's in bottles.
actually my favorite restaurant, Mao's Kitchen which is in Venice Beach L.A., makes a killer soda out of fresh ginger root and basically 7-Up. it's not proper ginger beer but it's incredible.
__wow, i just realized my workday isn't even going to end [i am line-editing a huge amount of text], but yeah i think i will duck down Court or Smith St for some pizza and an Italian beer before i think about 'the rest of the day'. have fun everybody!
luv, math+
No pictures from me concerning Halloween as Halloween isn't very big in Denmark. It's only in recent years that some people started SORT OF celebrating it but I suspect more because they've seen it in American movies and therefore think it's cool than because it actually means anything. Still, it keeps the retailers and advertising people happy.
But we do have our own 'version' of Halloween, called Fastelavn, which is celebrated every February and is sort of similar with kids dressing up and asking for treats. Furthermore they have to hit a barrel (which is hung up in the ceiling) with a bat until it breaks and all the sweets inside it fall out. So I suppose Fastelavn and Halloween are kind of related (only in one they have scary-faced-pumpkins and in the other they hit barrels with clubs/bats) but the main difference is the weather. At least it's normally reasonably good weather for Halloween right? But the weather always sucks for Fastelavn, so therefore it's not as much fun as maybe it otherwise could have been.
Anyway, happy Halloween all. I'll make sure to have some nice pumpkin soup or something. Oh yeah, and Halloween always make me think a little of River Phoenix :( Bless him.
oh, and Math - enjoy work. i don't know if you're working/writing right now, but after this post I'm going to sit and write for a few hours into the Danish night. It's nice to think that there are other people out there in the world sitting at their computers/typewriters/whatever and type away all at the same time. It's kind of crazy when you think about it - all those words floating about at all times. Imagine if all the words being thought around the world could be seen hanging in the air (like in comic books) over the characters thinking them - the air would be so thick with words that we'd all probably suffocate. Glad thoughts are not made of a material matter. Oh well, just a silly little late-evening thought.
I love these Beloveds days - I've had some promiscuous periods and some BFs but Dennis you make me feel like a Trappist Monk!
How many are there!
I love the fact that me and atheist are your holiday reading - like you'll associate the books with this time - the good parts anyway, meeting up with David E/Tosh etc.
Of course I hope things are working out with your mother.
I think you're into coincidences - here's a mini one.A few days ago I mentioned that you shared a birthdate with Ray Bolger (Oz Scarecrow) then I read in Wrong:
"Dear Dennis I think I miss you most of all. What's-her-name said that to Ray Bolger, right ?" Just the fact you used your own name there with his. Maybe that's not much of a coincidence...
I'm eeking out Wrong - (Can't wait to get to My Mark - the one based on the photos) - because it occurs to me there will soon be no more DC stuff left to read - and I've got so used to getting a new book every week or so now.
Must get Horror Hospital to see if the artist's rendition matches my imagination.
Loved Wrong the story;
"He blended into the afternoon."
So glad you weren't in "Anti-Gay"...
so amazing to know more of the back story about julian from frisk...and sad that you've been out of contact for so long. dennis i love your beloved days so much!
winter rates your story is very touching too. there's no-one in the my past that i'm wistful enough to want to track down, but no-one has really disappeared either.
i did call up my flamboyant high school english teacher when i was in university and took him out for dinner to say thanks for helping me deal with the whole gay thing. as it turned out, he kept making racist comments about the vietnamese restaurant we were eating in, so i didn't maintain contact...
oh and i feel cool for trainspotting the source material for your name! it's a great song...
joe mills i know what you mean feeling like you're running out of dc books. i've read all the novels, but not wrong, all ears, horror hospital, jerk or any poetry books so there's still a lot for me to work through...which is great!
do you have any sense, dennis, of when you will have another novel written?
Yeah, I have to add my praise of these beloved days. They’re something else... I got the KTL album in the mail today and it’s very beautiful looking. Dennis, you must get some extreme satisfaction knowing your work has spiraled out so far and created such amazing art. Anyway. I’m going to listen to the record as I fall asleep tonight and I’m psyched. I’ve been listening to music every night lately and it’s completely disorienting in all the usual ways, especially waking up from a spell in the middle of a song, or some silence and immediately there’s the song like an explosion in dark the cathedral of my skull.
hey dennis, i think each beloved section gets better and better and with each one all your novels transform. now i'm reimagining the letter in Frisk to julian and calling up pierre. god i just love the shifting nature of your work and how as you open up sections from your past and influences that it constantly morphs into something more powerful. i hope everything with your mum is fine and as i've said before she's still got her wits about her and fire within. i've also added some more stuff to my blog for anyone who's interested *bows head in shame of self-promotion* and about yarets, yeah he was banned on getting a license to travel across russia becos he was deaf/mute. he's blog is fascinating and he seemed very fascinating to talk in charades with.
vg, i meant to write this yesterday but i agree with what you said about the cathartic element of naively played music and the struggle with the rationality of writing. i recently bought a harmonica. i can't play it well but it helps me regulate breathing and can be a release of pure nervous and anxious energy. so yeah naive music is great emotional therapy.
I’m having one of those moments where I’m looking for something on this blog and I can’t find it for the life of me… this place is gigantic and swallows up everything. At least I’m not looking for something I read in a comment sometime in the last ten months. Dennis, do you remember this one website you put up a link to an animator who made short videos? And one of them was about these talking cockroaches and a strange dream… some girl was cut open and her insides were full of keys? And there was something involving a grandmother and mind control… I’ve been thinking of things that have creeped me out lately for the Halloween day and I haven’t found any seriously creepy photographs or pictures yet. But this video really made my skin crawl in the best possible way. It was the creepiest thing but I can’t find it anywhere. I’ll keep looking but if anyone knows what I’m talking about and you know where it is, let me know, okay?
Never mind. I found it. Of course. So if anyone's interested in this creepy treasure, go here:
http://www.fat-pie.com/spoilsminus2.html
Hey, yo Dennis, you said that you would read the book if I sent it to you... you said something about doing it in an email. Well uh, I would like that email adress now. LOL. Thanks man. My boyfriend, Dare, says to tell you hi. BTW, have you ever heard of the band Brand New? -Mattt
mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
dennis i love you i love you i love you i love youu
i hope you get to see jamie in paris soon because mm that would be sexy
like julian or something else i forgot.
man julian
with his ass all covered in handprints
how did you describe it dennis? flowering or something?
dennis, are you a solid pile of hate? still pretty? like a cake?
jose- MAN HALLOWEEN! i want to do everything and there simply is NO TIME to do it all!! ohmygod im so excited! about the haunted forests and mazes.. i want to be lost in EVERY MAZE. and walk through EVERY HOUSE. and get candy from EVERY house. and see ALL THE COSTUMES!! my favorite halloween was a couple years ago when i was trick or treating in bham and these girls loved my costume (some ballgown with some other crazy shit taped to me) SO MUCH! they invited me into their poshy halloween party and liquored me up and then drove me all over their rich neighborhood and introduced me to all their rich friends who were having parties and gave me more booze and candy!! at the end of the night i NOT ONLY had TONS of CANDY!! but ALSO a confederate coin and $50 FROM SOME OLD DUDE i slept with!!!!! ive never found out how much the coin is worth tho.. he said its worth something.. maybe i should take it on the ANTIQUES ROADSHOW.. mmm or uh.. throw it all some old bitch in the street..
i plan to have a thoroughly FUCKED UP AND INSANE halloween this year.. although the temperature has been so up and down as of late (yesterday it was a high of 60, tomorrow the high is 87! wtf!?!)
so hopefully by halloween it will be sufficiently beautiful and freezing as halloween-valentines day should be. hmm
IM SO MOTHERFUCKING EXCITED ABOUT HAAALAOAOWOWWEEEN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
dennis is you could see me! i would be SCREAMING and clinging to your arm and screaming "HAAALLLOWWWEEEN!!!"
anyways i love everyone here as always because i dont have to read you all to know how smart and amazing and cool everyone is here.
i want to smell like roses, tomorrow i think i will.
fine bitches to ALL of you dudes!!
Oh man, Dennis. For Halloween I'm goin to be a trashbag. I thought I would share, I'm gonna go out whoring wearin a trashbag. This should be fun!
dennis i dunno if halloween in alleybama is crazy or not?!!? umm halloween in NYC was cool and all.. alot of expensive haunted houses and stuff and of course the parade..
but ALLEYBAMA halloween is INSANE!! because none of the channels play halloween movies because EVERYONE IS RELIGIOUS so HALLOWEEN-o-PHILES must make their own halloween movie plans..
and umm there ARE haunted houses... but their invariably HALF ASSED (JUST THE WAY i like EM!)
there are alot of religious affilitated halloween things.. best done by the few big catholic churches and lutheran churches.. the BAPTIST churches have HELL HOUSES.. which are great because they've become LESS AND LESS about sin since HELL HOUSES were born.. now theyre really about GRUESOME DEATH/HELL/and ending it all with a pretty christmas-hyping HEAVEN setting!! its AWESOME!!! its like "OHMYGODFUCUCKING GOD ITS HEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEELLLLLLLLLLLLLL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! on a $10 budget!!! and then suddenly its like HEEEEEEAVEN!!! and CHRISTMAS TIME IS COMING BITCHES!!!
so hell houses are pretty cool..
and since there is no money or anything to to anything big (except the Sloss Furnace Haunted House which SUX!) we like to TP everyone.. its AWESOME!! yeah.. alleybama halloween is RIGHT UP MY ALLEY.. especially in my little town (montevallo) which BASICALLY is a model on some new england college town.. so we have TERRIFIC brick roads and LOTS of red trees and stuff... VERY VERY SALEM MASS. circa 1668 and stuff...
um anyways.. MAN DENNIS YOU HAVE ME SO HYPED UP OVER HAAALAOWOWEFUCKINGWEEEN!!
Well, Dennis, my parents really aren't that religious. My father, for example, barely ever talks about it, and I think he just goes to church every Sunday to please my mother. My mother is much more religious, but it seems like she gets more and more into it the older she gets, which I find discouraging. It just annoys me how two very intelligent people (both Democrats with fairly liberal views) can fall for all that bullshit. I don't know. I mean, I've investigated the origins of the religion I was raised under so I can see all the fradulence. And I've made it one of my missions in life to investigate as many belief systems as I can, partly to inspire my work, partly for knowledge, which I value almost over anything else. I could never just settle on one belief, as the world is just too complicated, and there is falseness in everything. I probably won't move out just yet, but definetly next year... I don't want them to move out suddenly and have them think it's because I'm mad at them. I'm not as angry now as I was last night. I guess religion, like my sexual orientation, is just something that will not be discussed with them. Probably for the better, really.
Hope your headache gets beter... I hate those! Oh, by the way, if there are no problems with the Userland proofs, do we need to e-mail Akashic to tell them that or what?
Halloween in New England sounds a lot like Halloween in Alabama, Antonio, except for the whole Hell House thing (by the way, have you seen that documentary "Hell House" that was made in 2001 about a Hell House in Cedar Mills, Texas. It wasn’t exactly what I expected though (I mean, yeah there were abortion rooms and suicide plays but there were also raves and shit). It was more a moral crusade and actually pretty tame instead of a horror show. But from what you’re saying about the whole focus on gore and death makes me very happy. But yeah, there was some Satan shit and a weirdo heaven, too, I think, which was pretty great. I remember liking the movie a lot though because it’s real. But ooh some rave kid is giving you ecstasy! Don’t forget to stay hydrated! Scary! I’ve been living in Massachusetts for the past seven years and Halloween here is really not so great. Worcester’s a huge college city even though it’s pretty poor, so there’s the dumb parties and half-assed costumes and kids getting arrested trying to sneak into the old abandoned and supposedly haunted sanitarium or making out in some private cemetery. Though it’s pretty great for the kids here. Lots of really funny and imaginative costumes. I don’t know what I’m doing for Halloween yet. I’m usually pretty low key. I’ll probably dress up as something and hand out some candy and tell all my kids to visit my house.
I grew up in Maine and yeah, I love those haunted corn mazes and hayrides. That’s one thing I miss a lot about living in a city: the whole insane rural world of Halloween. And yeah, it’s been unseasonably warm during the afternoons here, too, but cool in the evenings, and the leaves are falling off the trees and rustling in the streets. It’s beautiful. There are great haunted houses in Maine, too, huge, labyrinthine ones with basements and three stories… and they’re not so elaborate but more handmade shit. The first time I ever went inside a haunted house was when I was super young. It was at Funtown in Saco (a sort of amusement park with roller coasters and everything). I convinced my mother to let me go in on the condition that she and my sister went, too. It’s a monumental memory and has left an indelible impression on my psyche. I remember the ticket office was this huge cavernous castle, whose entrance was shaped out of stone like the gaping maw of some demon (and that was just the ticket office). Behind the ticket office, nestled among some trees, was the haunted house. It fucked me up just looking at it. And so we went in.
We never got past the first few turns though because my sister and I were immediately so scared we started crying. I remember there was a wooden bridge over a basement chamber of a witch, stirring her broiling pot of whatever, and there was green fog. And it looked so far down from the ladder bridge. We never crossed the bridge though. I still have a huge desire to cross that bridge and find out what horrors are on the other side but I guess I’ll never know. What really scared us though was this inmate looking creature inside a mock-jail cell. We were crying and screaming like crazy when he jumped out, that he ended up apologizing profusely and showing our mother where the exit was. Suffice to say, we never went back in the haunted house, though I still longed for it every summer we visited Funtown. There’s no haunted house there anymore sadly for some reason. Maybe because it was too frightening or probably more likely there wasn’t much interest. But I’ve been too some excellent places ever since then in Maine and here, too. You have to check out the smaller towns to find the best ones, don’t you think? I guess it’s all small towns in Alabama though except for a few large cities. Here at one of the colleges they play a midnight horror movie fest, which I love. I’ll probably check that out actually. Speaking of horror movies, tonight I watched Takashi Miike’s entry into the “Masters of Horror” television series called "Imprint". Except for an excruciatingly flinch-inducing torture scene, it was pretty silly. Yeah, two weeks until Halloween... Good night.
GHOST
yeah totally! i actttually think my mom TOTALLY lured me back home
VIA my HALLOWEEN obsession! MY reasoning BUT in NYC i am FREE to be whoever i want to be!!
my MOTHERS reasoning TRICK OR TREATING THIS YEAR IS GOING TO BE SO FUCKING FUN WITHOUT YOU!!
she TOTALLY WON the argument.. mainly because im not SO outrageous that i desperately need a city to make me feel excepted or something
haha!! YEAH!! i when i was really desperate for love i was TRYING TO CHOOSE BETWEEN YOU GHOSTS!!:: MAINE or home.. montyvallow alleybama
but then i decided that basically here IS MAINE.. so i came back.. sucked.. but its cool now..
MOVE HERE GHOSTS!!
and YEAH.. handmade halloweens REALLY ROCK MY nostalgia HARDCORE..
the big halloween party is being held at my art professor, Kelly's house she and her girlfriend and going to make us all get drunk
and run around town GOING CRAZY AND tearing up flowerbeds..
inevitably we will end up at WAFFLE house and has SHITS all day the day after.
IM SO EXCITED!!!
GHOSTGHSOTTTSSS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
YEAH!!! HELL HOUSE is a great documentary!! hahaha.. yeah.. i sorta vaguely remember my FIRST hell house
being really scary like that and REALLY moral and insane.. with like gay dudes who died and stuff and went to hell
but then the next year my school (which was a baptist school) was like WE HAVE GOT TO MAKE THIS
MORE ACCESSIBLE! WE NEED MONEY!
so morals basically went out the window and we bought like MONSTER NOISE TAPES
and built the SHITTIEST fake heaven in the basement of the gym!! which actually turned out to be THE BEST heaven EVER!!
like TOTALLY glittery and silvery and stuff!!
i remember that years hell house synopsis A GROUP of SINFULL teenagers (the audience) dies in a MASSIVE buscrash! (they entered onto the schoolbus
which was littered with US acting like dead students)... they descend into HELL!!!! (the audience exist the bus which was connected via GIANT BLACK PLASTIC GARBAGE BAG TUBE
to the gym door) HELL IS INSANE (we come alive and travel into hell and experience eternal damnation and all the GREAT stuff!! with monsters and for SOME REASON FREDDY is there too!!?!?WTF!?!?
hell is CRAVEN! or other people
and then they recieve the word of the lord (as spouted over the gym intercom by Brother Donald)
and then they enter the girls bathroom in the basement of the gym
which is heaven.. and has a christmas tree
ohmygod GHOSTSSS youre making me MAKE MORE AND MORE INSANE PLANS FOR HALLOWEEN!!!
apparently my school is built over SUPER SECRET HAUNTED catacombs that are accessible through the basement of the girls dormitory!
WE MUST HAVE A SUPER SECRET HAUNTED MUSHROOM TOUR OF IT!!!!!
im SO FUCKING excited!!!!!!
GHOSTS!!! that haunted house SOUNDS CRAZY!!!!
the first haunted house i ever went to was this one at INDIANA BEACH (any chicago or indiana kids SPEAK UP NOW!)
anyways this place was SO SHITTY and awesome i recommend everyone GOOGLE: INDIANA BEACH HAUNTED HOUSE
i think the place is called Dr. Frankensteins Haunted House at Indiana Beach resort..
anyways this place is an ACTUAL CASTLE building!! like a REAL ONE!! completely gutted out and made into a haunted house..
its SO shitty.. but i reemember they had little moving feathers on the floors and in the narrow hallways that really SCARED ME FOR SOME REASON!
surreal.. anyways yeah..
crazy huh?
DENNIS:
Oh, I do like that Julian stand-in... hehe.
As for THE QUEEN... hands down, the BEST movie I have seen so far this year (though I haven't seen a good amount of others that have just been released). I was fascinated by it, and I have no idea why yet. I plan on writing a review for it soon and post it on my blog. I just need it to stew in my head for a bit first. Let's just say that Helen Mirren has put forth her greatest effort (and boy does it show). Big, big wow.
regards,
garrison
PS - Hey Dennis, I just received my proof pages from Akashic for USERLANDS. As far as I can tell, there are no corrections that I need (although I need to give it one more scan before I am positive). If it does end up that this is the case, do I still need to send it back to them, or does my lack of response signal to them that everything is OK. If you do happen to know the answer to this questions, just let me know. Thanks!
so i thought i'd weigh in on the religious discussion of the last few days, since well halloween is practically a non-event here in melbourne and those who hold halloween parties end up just emulating crappy halloween movies and is just people acting out their hollywood fantasies which is interesting and all but not my cup o tea really.
i have a strange idea and attraction to religions. i was bought up and raised by two agnostic. my dad's mum and dad are born again christians (made a million selling cigarette ad space on billboards throughout then lost it in a business endeavour in the eighties my grandma turned to religion, they got more money and now they're staunch born agains, well grandma is.) and quite staunch. she used to write us letters how santa is satan (re-arrange the letters and it works out) and after 9-11 wrote a lengthy letter how email is god's countries and we should get in touch with community church groups to bring us closer to god.
that said i still find the rituals and the concepts around religion intellectually interesting and find churches to be some of the most amazing architecture and designs to see.
the church in kunta hora with the bone chandlier is one of the creepiest and most beautiful things i've ever seen. as are the neo-gothic churches here in melbourne. actually dennis i just thought of a crazy idea for a day. best cherished piece of architecture. or maybe even best church. i don't know whether architecture is a passion of yours but abandoned buildings and architecture is a fascination of mine. the way the outside can look completely different to the inside and they way in which they fit. it's like the whole quote about the section in guide where you mention how you decorate your insides rather than the outside. buildings are like that for me. abandoned old weather worn buildings are so much better than the cleanliness of skyscrapers and the sterile offices (although it's interesting how people make offices there own little home with photo and notes and artworks and little trinkets like trolls or monopoly pieces etc etc etc.) ok i'm going off on a tangent but whatever it's fun and exciting, at least for me anyway.
so back to religion. i'm always interested in listening and learning what it was like for people growing up religious. generally i find that people who have been bought up religious have a strength in their own convictions which i, being bought up without, lack. i think it has something to do with the fact that as a teenager you can have something solid to rebel against whereas being born into a very rational, non-belief (sititng on fence as all agnostics are) family like mine means that there's nothing really to rebel against. you can extentuate and take on society as a whole and rebel within that but considering that there's no fear of the rapture and no freeing from that. well i guess there's the internalisation of language and social constructs and all that but am talking about being a kid here and having those moments where you realise that god is bullshit and that everything just becomes so freeing from that.
okay i've waffled on way too much here and should learn to truncate but whatever. i hope i make sense in these paragraphs somehow.
corrections for above post (damn writing and typing so meesily):
1) throughout oz. grandpa made millions throughout oz lost a lot in lend and lease company in recession of late 80's early 90's.
2)israel is god's country not email (although makes for an innerestin thought)
3) no freeing from the fear of the rapture and freeing from the constraints of society
Dennis & CO:
So you've talked to Jamie Stewart before? I'm green with envy! If you two meet you'll have to tell me everything. He's officially my number one obsession at the moment. What's your favorite Xiu Xiu song, Dennis? I've been listening to their cover of Fast Car on repeat - god, it's so depressing.
You should see Jesus Camp, though maybe not if you have high blood pressure - it certainly will get you boiling. I love docs like this (did you see Hell House?), but they get me really worked up, especially one like this that focuses on children.
It's scary seeing these kids indoctrinated into something they don't understand or really even care about and turned into these little zombies going around handing out pamphlets and trying to convert people. I really think that what these parents do to their kids amounts to mental abuse.
Anyone else?
xoxo
d
The whole Jesus Camp thing is very disturbing, but it begs the question what is not, yeah?
I got no problem with Ivy League, Mercedes, Pan-progeniation, and all that, whatever floats your boat.
Children are abused. What is a child? What are these things? People are mind-fucked all their lives. I don't think much a nobody got a grip on shit is the gig. So, freedom, shit, get yers, you know.
I think Christian sickness is kinda sexy actually. Repression is a very beautiful thing. Freud is good reading on the subject, no? "You gonna have to serve somebody." Not to say fuck the whole culture industry, humanism, PHD circles lala, cos I love the brothers and all, but 15 for life, no doubt. Punk stink finger sunshine, cos it's real like that or whatever. Long live the dying god man shit
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hey dennis. i just picked up a few of kawabata's books from the library. i think i am going to start with the palm of the hand stories. i haven't read fiction for a while, so i was searching for something that was more like poetry, so i can get back into prose again. it seems like every time i've tried my hand at writing fiction, it's been a kind of failure. however, my love of reading started with fiction, not poetry, so i have a real interest in trying it out when i'm ready. other than that, i've been reading donald justice, ashbery, and ariel by sylvia plath before i go to bed. plath is really my hero. what do you think of her? i try not to be analytical about anything i write, but every time i read ariel, i feel like what i do is derived in some coagulated way directly from sylvia plath, maybe because she was the first poet i held on a pedestal.
anyway, beautiful post today.
hats off,
morgan
hey, i never thought i'd do this but i feel the need to step in and defend my nemesis Religion! you know, maybe it's because i'm from a pretty secular country (most people in the UK aren't religious), but most of the religious people i know are pretty laid-back about it. the way they talk about it it's something that is part of their cultural heritage (e.g. my Polish friend) or their family tradition or whatever, so it's something that they feel really fond of and that sometimes gives them comfort or whatever. having been brought up as an 'atheist' (or, should i say, not being brought up with 'God'), i used to think that religious people were 'wrong' in an intellectual sense ... now i feel differently, for me it's just that notions of 'God' just don't have any resonance with me (because i wasn't brought with them), but the ideas and theories i believe in (such as Darwinism) are themselves discursive constructions that bring a whole host of cultural, political (and economic) baggage (e.g. you couldn’t have had neo-liberalism without Darwinism) ... they're all metanarratives that seek to explain 'everything' but also different languages through which we as individuals try to make sense of the world. none of us can have a complete knowledge of the world, all of us frame the world in some sort of way, and (just like religion) 'scientific' claims are themselves discursive constructions (also claiming to represent truth). even postmodernists use truth claims (and also claim not to be making truth claims) ... so for me the issue is not the idea per se but what we do with that idea. to quote john cleese(!), do we have a flexible mindmap or not? can we allow new information to be filtered through when it challenges our own perceptions? and can we make a mental leap to see through the eyes of people who don't share our own personal mindmap? for me that's the problem with some people who hold religious views, but i guess you don't have to be religious to have a rigid mindmap. rambling? moi? surely not!
atheist- i am glad you were the one to step in on this matter.
What was that line of Max Von Sydow's in "Hannah and Her Sisters"?--
"If Jesus came back, and saw what was going on in his name, he'd never stop throwing up."
The hope is that some of those kids in "Jesus Camp" are going to sense, as they grow up, that something ain't right there. Children are horribly vulnerable to emotional damage. Teenagers, well, they're vulnerable in different ways, but I think that rebellion is generally what saves them.
You're right though, d., what this film shows is an awful thing.
I've seen the trailer, and found myself thinking back to my own upbringing, when my mom insisted on dragging me to a hardcore Baptist church where the guy in charge was a preacher from Oklahoma. Yeah, it was the days before anyone there would even think to make the comparison about the children of Jihad, but it was even then pretty militant and indoctrinating.
Finally got a reprieve when I was 13 and I refused to be baptized. There was no way I was going to have my head held under water by some freak twice my size while people were bawling and screaming around us. And I was fortunate that not long after, the preacher got caught with his pants down with someone else's wife and my mother was too disillusioned to continue on there.
Haha, and now look at me... religiously reading Dennis Cooper's blog every day.
Oh, hey: math+, cool. I looked at your site. That magazine looks really intriguing. Thanks for the info.
Quick question for anyone with knowledge - really intersting discussion on relgion, btw! - am I right in thinking 'the rapture' is a purely modern invention / interpretation? I mena, I went to Sunday School for years (mainly for the free orange juice and sadnwiches) and I never heard anyone mention this rapture-rubbish.
We did do really fun stuff like memorise all the books of the Old Testiment whihc, when ya recounted 'em really quietly and fast became a sort of weird incantation - if I'd been more tuned-in at 8, maybe I could have induced a trance-like, Suffi-esque state.
Then of course, there's Juliana of Norwich!:)
That's a good question, Jax. I can only tell you that in an American-religious context, the born-agains (Baptists, etc.) have used the idea of a rapture for the last hundred years or so. There was a period of nationwide revival in the late 1800's, early 20th century-- that's based on history as it was taught to me by the Baptists. And when I was a kid, it was definitely a scare tactic to force you into a confession, i.e., "Do you want to be separated from your loved ones and God for all of eternity? When the Rapture comes, it'll be too late for you to decide... you have to decide NOW." And then, if you made the confession and were "born again", then it was, "Well, you can't really lose your salvation, but you certainly won't be able to fully enjoy Heaven if you don't get out there and convert people and tell them about the end of the world and how the believers are going to avoid the horrible plagues and wars that are coming."
Wrr. Makes me shiver just remembering it. Gotta stop now....
Imagine my surprise when I saw a reference to THIS VERY BLOG in the new issue of BUTT MAGAZINE in the Bruce La Bruce interview of Gus Van Zant.
It's decent issue, regardless. More cock than I've ever seen in a Butt Mag.
Hey Paradigm.
I liked what you said about religion and identify with the part about growing up with agnostic parents and 'sitting on the fence' and therefore in many ways not have anything to rebel against.
I mean, I couldn't even rebel with the music I listened to. I remember listening to Sex Pistols one day as a teenager (well, Sid Vicious singing My Way) and my mother coming into my room asking what I was listening to and after I'd answered her response was a genuine, 'that sounds interesting'.
And growing up with parents that are so laissez-faire almost, there's another kind of potential problem - the one you mentioned: lack of conviction.
The Danish film-director Lars von Trier (Dancer In The Dark, Breaking The Waves, etc) famously (in Denmark at least) became a Catholic because, as he said himself, he had such a free upbringing that he actually LONGED for some boundaries and restrictions because in some way restrictions force you to focus more and to have some sort of belief, and as we all know, we usually feel better when we believe in SOMETHING and achieve more when we are able to focus. So you can say while a lot of people's rebellion is to go against the religion they grew up with, in von Trier's case, the only way he could rebel was to become religious (in his adult years). Different stokes for different folks indeed.
hey. i've been gone for awhile. but dennis you've really been in my thoughts. was carrying around 'period' with me as a source of stregnth in this pretty hard time. then i lost it.
but it appeared again.
i really love when you do the beloveds. it's such a privelege, really, to be able to see into these private things in your life and see how they shaped your writing, influenced it.
i'm just, right now so obsessed with these BOYS. everywhere...the stories and the pictures and well...i can't go on, its too painful...
I know, I really know that things will get better. they do, they always do...
just thanks for keeping this blog going. this place means a lot to me.
*will we see pics of Yury soon?
*also i would be interesting in hosting a saa viccenzo day. saa? you wanna?
The Stuff That Dreams Are Made Of
Various Artists (Artist)
Yazoo constantly puts out good stuff ... the kind of stuff they don't make anymore (with the exception of people like Don Haupt, whom I got to see last year and was blown away by). Take this trip into the past. Turn off the lights. Open a window. Let the night in. Listen to that piano sparkle. Hear those lyrics full of jubilant desperation.
Well-recorded with minimal surface noise on most tracks (with a few notable exceptions,) the music is also handsomely packaged. As the liner notes detail, some people diligently collect wishbones and some collect hair from elephant tails. We are fortunate that there are still a few madmen combing estate sales and antique shops, looking for "the stuff that dreams are made of." No surprise that the annotation is non-existent but this is an elegant package filled with music that still sparkles and entertains.
46 super rarities - classic performances of early blues and old country music from the 1920s and 30s, including 2 never heard before selections by Son House. Large 20 page illustrated booklet included inside! 2-CD Set.
http://www.yazoorecords.com/2202.htm
DC,
These are your best posts. They're saddening sometimes, but they make me happy because I've pretty much never had any such experiences but am glad someone has. Losing that picture sucks. I had two boys who I had awesome crushes on in high school whose pictures I had, but I think I my first boyfriend stole them or threw them away. I don't know which I miss more, the actual boys or the pictures of them.
Best.
Saw Running with Scissors and quite disliked it. Very"busy" on the surface with nothing underneath. It's as if a b-movie hack wer given the assigment of doing the book in the style of Wes Anderson with more than a touch of Grey Gardens fo spice. The result is probably the least gay movie ever made a gay man (director Ryan Murphy.) Annette Benning is a teriffic actress but she's been asked to play one note for two hours.
Dennis:
here http://www.clubesther.biz/full/full.htm
a beloved for you....
beloved full moon....
Brian Curtin
you friend writed a great article
about bands and artist with bands.
It was very interesting for me to place that in contrast of what Martin Herbert said on his rewiew of my show in 2000.
Specially because then the big tendency was still to come, only few artist had bands .
I gues the normal sort of ammount one could talk on any generation...
Herbert, not only slags of my work
for what it is or is not.
he sais Artist Bands are rubish..
and this is no exception!
also he adds Esther Planas band , (sorry performance project) like taking the piss out of the whole shit)
So taking the piss of the concept of having a band and trying to
challenge the format in to sculpture or performance art.
Does, the band eclipses the performance?
It eclipses any other discurs but the main issue been a band?
Does the fact of been the contens of my work a band, necessarily meaning self promotion?
and then is art in any manifestation self promotion as well? and if that, is that wrong?
I could go on and on
and today is not anymore the art critical day..
yeah dandysweets it's definitely differenyy strokes for different folks. converting to religion inadult seems common for some full on artist like von trier or david foster wallace (infinite jest) and i think if memory serves me correctly william vollman.
i know that with dfw he converted to religion as it gave him something to believe in outside of himself. like a 12 step program helping addicts. as someone bought up in a very secular family and being heavily into math (dfw has a degree in the philosophy of mathemeatics and has written excessively about the concept of infinity both in his novel infinite jest and in his bio on a. canto the guy who tried to define infinity) he found that religion gave him a crux not to get stuck in the infinity of rationalism.
the most logical form of religious belief if you ask me.
I love your thougths about religion
Paradigm
I come from a very religious backgroung.
I am a sinful been
a sinful teenage for ever..
a bad bad ....teeneey.
I am a rebel with a cause!
I love your prose and poems..
too..
Well, I don't think I agree with this rebellion thing... I think of it more along the lines of transending something (I don't see my own break from the religion I was brought up with as a sort of rebellion, rather as more of an evolution of my intelligence). I do think that fundamentalist religion is something that humanity needs to cast aside if we ever want to evolve to a higher level (and evolution is probably one of the most important things we can do as a species). Of course, I'm something of a believer in the idea of transhumanism, so it is perhaps not surprising I feel this way. I've really been inspired by the new Whitehouse album, especially the last track on the CD, "Dumping the Fucking Rubbish", which has given me a sort of philosophy to utilize in real life: That is, casting away anything holding you back from achieving your true will, be it religion, the occult, restrictive beliefs you were brought up with, or whatnot.
But I can't see eye to eye with that director mentioned above who longed for restrictions and boundaries... That is a philosophy that doesn't make much sense to me (to quote Aleister Crowley, the "greatest sin is restriction", heh heh).
this was perhaps my favourite Beloveds day so far. Something to do with there being no picture of Julian, the description of your meeting being so vivid and the notion of a chance encounter in which you don't recognise each other...
I liked the quote from Barthes for the art criticism day - I'm currently acting as reader for a friend who's phd centres on Camera Lucida. It's a long time since I looked at it but it's such a personal and pointed little book - the even greater proliferation of photographic imagery since digitisation sometimes seems to have completely obscured what a strange thing a photograph really is / can be.
It was really interesting too hearing your thoughts on Frieze and everything - it's such a balancing act I think for artists to deal with commercial pressure, and the market is more and more powerful nowadays... but then again I'm also uncomfortable with the kind of public funding culture where a few people in positions of institutional power get to decide which artists get the support. The increasing prominence of the art fair has definitely changed the dynamic though as you say... but it sometimes feels like a polarised situation is emerging where installation, conceptual and video art etc are supported by the museums, bienalles and through public commissions while the fairs are filled with paintings, drawings, objects... though I work in painting I've always been more interested contextually in really discursive / investigative situations where different media and disciplines rub up against each other in an interesting way.
wow, I was hoping to say something more focussed about this but I have to run now...
ps
lost - that's a tough one but my favorite Yikes! character is / has to be l'il Bloody
*struggles to contain self*
please, please forgive me for temporarily reverting into Hair Dorkus on these pages but i've just found out that my book's been nominated for a national prize!!! *runs around wildly*
*retreats to Hair Dorkus blog swiftly*
Hi Dennis, I really enjoyed today’s blog, I’m a sucker for this sort of confessional stuff, exquisite but tinged with sadness. I’ve lost touch with so many people over the years so it’s kind of pertinent to me since I’m currently trying to track down a friend but even with the internet it’s hard, it’s just my luck that all the people that I’ve tracked down on myspace are people I’d rather forget about. Even if I do find her I owe her a 3 year old apology, long story which will probably appear on my blog when I get the chance.
Is it weird that reading your post kind of, made me wish I got to hang out with hustlers?
Oh yeah and you asked where I was at school. I’m at Curtin University in Perth Australia. Well yesterday was sort of a bad day, apart from being generally disenchanted with art if I was really hating it, I’d quit, luckily there are one or two tutors who can see the problems at the uni and are trying their best to counter it. We’ve dubbed this boring art movement as neo-conservatism and I just hope it doesn’t last too long. Maybe if it gets bad enough there will be some kind of massive backlash and art will get interesting and daring again, apathy is hard to combat though. If I was more proactive and less of a slacker I’d like to start my own version of Andy Warhol’s factory there’s just something wonderful about bringing together lots of creative people together in such a way. Actually maybe this blog is like the Warhol factory of the new millennium?
Camera Lucida should be read in tandem with Roland Barthes by Roland Barthes, as the latter fully illuminates the former.
oooeee! so many delicious conversations on the blog while i was working/asleep. scuse such a long comment from yrs truly:
__sypha_69, my parents are more religious than yours from the sound of it [presbyterian], and i used to get incredibly angry about, basically, the idea of organized religion, just running up against it so much in my own household. when i moved out [at a pretty young age], it was an anger that absolutely vanished without me even thinking about it. so, for what it's worth. once you live on your own, you barely even have to think about people going to church.
__dandysweets, oh thank you for the note last night, i didn't get back on the blog, but i went and cleared my head with olive pizza and Moretti beer and the sight of Smith St, super, then came back and worked til what was midnight in New York, so yeah, i think we were writing at the same time.
__laissez-faire parents: most of my best friends had them when i was younger. maybe this is why we were friends? i liked hanging out at houses that felt free. when i moved out and made friends at college, i realized i was naturally attracted/inclined toward people who'd had really free upbringings. [i've never had a lover like that, though- i've always had lovers w/insane upbringings.] anyway, not that said kids had/have absolutely no problems, and obviously exceptions exist, but they have always struck me as being more chill, less shockable, more grounded, in general. they form an oversized portion of my group of friends.
__5strings, i find Christian sickness theoretically _incredibly_ sexy, but i've never been attracted to an ailing Christian in real life. hmm. yeah, repression and liberation are hot. always fun to do.
__mizu, anytime- that magazine is a scanning party. have drugs and a laptop at the ready and go nuts, if you're into that sort of thing...
__atheist, wow, congratulations!
love, math+
oh, yeah, also, i just reread the Julian part of Frisk a little under a week ago. super timing. Always Great.
xox, math+
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Hi everybody. I've been kind of preoccupied lately. How has everyone been?
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