p.s. Hey. I almost said welcome back before I realized it's my own self I should be welcoming back, I guess. For me, today marks the beginning of what will be two weeks of rehearsals for 'This is How You Will Disappear', but, as they will occupy my afternoons and some evenings, I don't think they'll impinge on my blog duties too much other than causing me to do more scampering vis a vis the p.s. than is ideal. If we end up having to work in the mornings on occasion, and if I consequently can't do the p.s. on some particular day, I'll try to alert you in advance. And with that, I'd better get going. ** Misanthrope, Hey. No, it didn't occur to me that the DL profile, whether fake or otherwise, might be angled at my blog. I seriously doubt it, but anything is possible and all that. It felt more like an act of payback to him by a rival/ex and/or like the poor little guy has become one hell of a seriously strung out crystal meth addict. You remember when I noted to you with great surprise that all of the escort reviews re: him have been very negative? That might be the answer. Your recent headaches make my recent little headache sing 'Zippedy Doo Dah'. That's not good, man. You've had plenty of doctor input on them, right? ** Kiddiepunk, Awesome how you took to Jesse's post. I hope you take to today's too since it's all your fault, ha ha. ** David Ehrenstein, Oh, yeah, c'est la vie on the Salinger loggerhead situation. Let's just agree on the sublimity of Gaddis and on the meta-premise of me and Huck finding common meta-territorial ground. I can't say the thought hasn't occurred to me, especially after watching the Brad Renfro film version, ha ha. And thanks for big upping my new book, man. Oh, and speaking of meta, 'A Stinking Mess!' was very meta and impressive. ** Sypha, Interesting Sotos-related comments. You ex-Sotos fans are worse than ex-smokers, ha ha. I won't suggest you revisit his more recent work, but I do consider 'Comfort & Critique' one of his best. Your blog's gone already? You are just full of hair-pin surprises, young man! I've said this before, I think, but I believe you're making a big leap to think Sotos is writing from his life experiences. The impression of realness and rawness is at the heart of his style and approach, and that speaks to the courageousness of his imagination as well as to the very fine line he draws between real events and the fantasies they spawn, but there's no reason to conclude that his work is diaristic any more than there's a reason to conclude my work is logistically confessional, and I don't just say that because I'm a real world acquaintance of Peter who knows him at least better than those who only read him. ** Bill, I'll give your email a full work day to reach Chrystel, and then I'll pop into the office tomorrow. I'm behind on my West Coast trip planning. I'm going to try to nail the dates and tickets and stuff down this week. ** Bacteriaburger, Wow, on that dream. It's safe to say I'm a lot closer to the baseball playing Abe Lincoln wannabe than the book signing letch, for better or worse. Even if I would probably swing a baseball bat the way Richard Simmons swats a fly. Well, a happy ending for us both. Trippiness, man. How's stuff with you? Any news, progress, or anything else on the book front, for instance? ** Wolf, Oh, Odd Nerdrum, sure, right, that makes total sense. Nerdrum's swell, yeah. No, we were picked by the regular director of the Avignon festival, but I'm sure it didn't hurt that Cadiot likely gave us a thumbs up. I think/hear it's going to a pretty lively line-up this year. As soon as I get the menu, I'll give you the good word. ** JW Veldhoen, Well, non-breakability and cuffs are the veritable soup and sandwich combo of evil, I think. Sounds like you'll figure it out. I saw three of the 'Saw' movies. First one was god awful, the other two were mediocre with okay bits. ** Chris (British), Interesting about 'Teenage Timberwolves'. Hadn't heard of it. At first glance re: the samples, I wish the art/illustrations didn't look so standard and overly familiar, though. Oh, ha ha, you'd be amazed at all the things I take the time to read. Kiddiepunk refers to this blog as the beast that needs to be fed 24/7, and feeding time can't happen without a hunt. But those fascinating 'apparently insane' guys and texts are yours, and my gun is lowered. ** Jose, Trepidation regarding Sotos' work? No. I'm not afraid of texts or what they will do to my imagination. With documentary footage sometimes, yes. A couple of people here mentioned the found/collage sound recordings Sotos made. I managed to listen to a minute or so of one of them before I couldn't take it and turned it off. ** L@rstonovich, Feel funny, definitely. I find it instructive, but the common turf in Sotos' and my work is pretty obvious, despite our very different approaches. ** Alan, I think what seems at first to be a demonization of pedophilia is one of Peter's strategic moves, a premise that's in service of the particular kind of confrontation he's interested in exploring, and the true relationship of his work to almost all of the material it addresses and stances it tries on is quite complex. Personally, I'd say start with the Void Books era work -- 'Selfish, Little' or 'Comfort and Critique' -- because in them he works with 'the literary' most overtly, and that might provide the best entrance. ** Put The Lotion In The Basket, Beautiful thinking and commenting re: Sotos, my friend. Oscar just got back from your neck of civilization yesterday, and she said there was snow while she was in town, but it was just acting flirty. We've got snowfall in the local forecast here today, but no flakes as of yet unless ... Oh, wait, let me get closer to the window. It's snowing. I'll pray for you. ** Thomas Moronic, Personally, I think you can start reading Sotos with any of his books that you like. 'S,L' and 'Index' are both keys works of his and very different, so, between them, you should get a good initial sense of his work. No, I'm not letting music influence this novel, or not consciously. The idea is that my taste in -- and the lessons I've learned from -- French literature will be the novel's sole starting point and parent, and I think that's pretty much been accomplished, for better or worse. No problem about the few days delay on the Ellis Day, and thanks again so much for making it. ** Creative Massacre, Yikes, your weekend truly did suck. You'll get no sweetened spin regarding it from me. That's both really scary about your needing a trip to the ER and comforting to know that they've isolated a problem and that it's repairable even if getting operated on is, well, ugh. Man oh man, I guess I'm mostly relieved that the thing that's been giving you physical problems has been found and is hopefully on its way out. Yeah, please, let me know how it's going after you've met with the surgeon today. A boatload of love and best wishes to you today, pal. ** Jesse Hudson, Hey, J! Thank you again profoundly for the Sotos Day, and I think it worked like a charm. And your responses to the comments were so smart and generous. I owe you big time. Just name it. Hm, let me guess ... ha ha. Major love to you, Jesse. ** _Black_Acrylic, Happy Monday to you, man. ** Paul Curran, Howdy, Paul. ** Chilly Jay Chill, Hey. Well, that 'Catcher'/Malick story is one I read in a few places, seemingly trustworthy, but who knows? Listen, my expectations re: 'Tree of Life' are completely out of this world already, and, with Malick to date, that hope seems as safe a bet as exists. Oh, sorry about my email slowness. I'll write you before I go to rehearsals, if I have time, or just after. ** Slatted Light, Yeah, I think taking your and Catachrestic's and Hyperbolic, Plain's -- I wonder what's become of him/her? You don't know, do you? -- comments out of the larger, original context -- which was my idea, not Jesse's -- caused their points a bit of harm, I realize, and I apologize for that. What you added yesterday was brilliant. For instance: 'That idea of a world in which the omission of a taboo requires more work than its maintenance says much about the ethical intelligence of Sotos's work and - also - if you wanted to read it outward, how its eye is soberly trained on the paradoxes of late capital.' Totally, and ... ' ... for rather than some idea of hyper-consumption, the sedate masses, etc, the image-registration of bodily wants becomes a kind of labour in Sotos: this endless laborious tedious work. You come away from Sotos truly turned off and not wanting to fuck. Today, an author who can achieve that is truly genius.' Intuit my act of bowing to you, sir. Oh, shit, the site's up! And it's already a complete beauty. Everyone, the great Slatted Light has just started a new site/blog called 'Transductions', and it's going to be a major, seriously major place, and its contributors' list includes some very familiar and staggering names: Tomkendall, Catachrestic, Thomas Moronic, Alec Niedenthal, Alyssa Nolan, Kier, Kiddiepunk, JW Veldhoen, and Wolf. Here it is with the first two entries in place -- one by NB, and one SL himself -- and I think you definitely want to bookmark the place and add the vision of beholding it to your daily life. Killer, David! Yeah, once it begins filling, I'll do a post here to help herd this joint's readers over there. I've only had a quick look at and skim of the Amazon/ Macmillan HTMLG post and the comments it's accrued so far. (I guess you probably read that Amazon has now relented). Briefly, yeah, I think the issues around Amazon are complex. If I was living in LA, I'd avoid ordering books from there whenever I could. Living here where buying English language books online is usually the only option and where counting my pennies is crucial, I use it a lot. And, obviously, I link to it more often than not in the posts both for the reason that the blog's audience is an international one and because its prices are generally unbeatable. So, I don't know. I'll go dig into the HTMLG discussion more thoroughly and think more thoroughly asap. Thanks, D. ** Casey McKinney, Hey, Casey. Great thoughts on the Sotos post and situation. And Salinger's work had my back when I was figuring myself out as a writer, and I guess I've got his stuff's rear for as long as this post-death cathartic blow out thing remains in play. Yeah, absolutely on the interplay of Alec's piece and the DFW interview Blake posted and the aftermath. Totally. ** Oliver, Hi, Oliver. Nice to see you, and thanks very much. ** Inthemostpeculiarway, I know all sorts of perfectly intelligent people who think American football is the bee's knees. Perhaps they're right. It's like watching someone mow a lawn full of rocks with a broken mower to me. We didn't make it to Le Pagode this weekend, but I'm thinking it'll be under our belt by this coming weekend. Oh, '.45' has what's-her-name in it. I like her. Stephen Dorff has had a curious career. I never heard of 'New York, I Love You'. I think only about 1/8 of American film releases ever make it over here. That's eerie about your feeling that something would and then had happened. Any mystery solving on that? Did the Grammys show the promised Michael Jackson hologram thing? The news thingies I found about the show this morning are all Taylor Swift city. My weekend is going to be another blah fest due to my ongoing work-work-work mode. Let's see ... I did a studio visit with Scott Treleaven wherein he showed me some new work, and that was very interesting. I forgot to ask Yury to cut my overgrown hair, and now I'll probably have to wait and look shabby-headed for another week. Had the requisite pleasant coffee with Kiddiepunk and Oscar, this time at a cafe over on the canal. We talked about whether I would be willing to give a blow job to the director of the Palais de Tokyo if that would allow me to curate an art exhibition there, and my counterproposal was that one of them as younger and more desirable creatures should give out the blow job as a an act of kindness to me, but they would have none of it, and so I'll have to figure out another angle if I ever want to curate that art show. Not much else happened. Gisele and I had a pre-rehearsal-week planning session on the phone. I talked by phone to another pal or three. When I was briefly over on Facebook, one of my 2000+ unknown friends sent me a chat message saying he wanted to eat Chinese food off my ass. I didn't know how to take that, and I don't answer FB chat queries 98% of the time anyway because I hate online chatting. Let's put my weekend to bed on that note, and I'll pass the mic to you. ** NB, I like your thing over on Transductions a lot! Shit, the Avignon dates are, roughly, ... no, wait, let me ask Gisele the exact dates today, and I'll tell you tomorrow. It's during the first two weeks of July. More specifics next time. A place to stay in Paris, you mean? You mean a hotel or that sort of thing? Sure, I'll help on that. I don't know about the hotel situation in Avignon. It's a very small, medieval town. I'll check to see if there are festival related hotel tips online. I bet there are. ** Justin, Hm, I can't remember where I saw the pix of the Pugh presentation. I'll look again. ** Rigby, Rigster! Where you been? Where do you go when you don't come here? Tell me. ** Tigersare, No problem at all, man. Just give Deerhoof a hug from me. They don't know me, so you can just say the hug is a limited edition. Me, sweet and friendly? Pshaw. I loved the 40 years typo. And I did have a very brief moment where I thought, Has it really been 40 years? ** Oscar B, You're back? No, say it isn't true! I'm shocked! Ha ha, well, hm, yes. (I'm in the loopy, brain-dead phase of the p.s.). Yes, talk later. I'll be out at Centquatre probably 'til, oh, 6 or 7 pm maybe? ** Lord_s, Oh, you like Sotos. That's good. I wonder if I would have guessed that if I had taken a guess. Okay, getting down to the mss. is a solid reason to return to lurk mode, but, if you want that Black 2 scoop, better pop in and ask starting next week -- I won't see SOMA 'til the weekend -- because I'll probably forget to tell you otherwise. In any case, count on a swift metaphorical kick to the rear when needed. ** Bollo, Hey, man. Good weekend? Thanks about my 'Period'. ** Well, I was going to say I'm off to my rehearsal, but, not three seconds ago, Gisele called me to say the rehearsal today is cancelled, so instead I'm off to kill time until tomorrow's rehearsal. If you're wondering why you're dealing with so much tap dancing today, ask that wacky Kiddiepunk. See you tomorrow.