p.s. Hey. It's that day yet again when the Recollets cleaning crew shows up at an unpredictable time and tosses me out of my room for ninety minutes, so I'll be giving you my usual speedy Tuesday p.s. in hopes of beating them to the punch. ** Kyle, Hi, and welcome. What you say about my work is very kind, and I really appreciate it. I just clicked over to your blog and quickly read some of the stories there, and I'll go spend a more respectful amount of time with them later on today, but, even based on that quick reading, I thought your writings were powerful and beautiful. Sure, you can send me your novella, and I'll happily read it. The only thing is that, as many others can tell you, I can be very slow getting to things due to the fact that between my writing and the blog and theater projects, I have to fight to find the time to do other things I want to do. So, just know that and don't worry if it takes me a while to read your novella. All that said, yes, I'd like to read it, and you can send it to me here: dcooperweb@ gmail.com. Thank you, Kyle, and of course come back here too anytime you feel like it. ** Oscar B, Oh, wow, I just clicked over to your blog and saw the performance documents for the first time. I haven't even clicked the video yet. Awesome! Everyone, the magisterial artist and d.l. Oscar B did a performance in London this past weekend called 'Better By You Better Than Me', and if that title sounds familiar, you're not crazy. Seriously, you want to see the evidence, trust me. Dude, I'll be scrutinizing that stuff as soon as the cleaners let me back in here. Talk to you and maybe see you later? ** Tigersare, Well, yes, indeed. ** Jesse Hudson, Thanks a lot for keeping up so wisely with your commenters. Talk to you later. ** David Ehrenstein, Oh, I'm pleased the Powell pleased you. I found dozens of great Powell tap dancing clips, but that one seemed like the crown jewel. We need a new Dorothy Parker, unless we have one, and I'm just spacing. What do you reckon? I remember when people thought Fran Leibowitz was going to be the new DP, but that didn't really pan out. Well, seeing a how Malick is, as I think you know, my favorite living film director, it'd be cool if you were more swayed by his stuff, but no big if not, of course. ** Nicki, It was some kind of offbeat species of Amazonian frog, I think. Uh, wow, on the, uh ... dangers faced by birth givers. I'd never, uh, heard that before, but but, uh, makes sense. ** Sypha, Hope that chalky mouth has a good pay off. Well, yeah, I guess considering all that conflicting truth or fiction stuff re: Sotos' work, it would be hard to know what to believe, but, historically and generally, writers who work from their obsessions like Sotos or Sade or Ellis in some cases or Guyotat or, well, yours truly, et. al., write about extremes in order to, in effect, create a 'better' or more generous world for themselves than the conventional real one in which they live more conventionally than their dreams would like. So Sotos would be a very rare exception, and I personally don't think he is. ** Kiddiepunk, Next up, Mandolin Day! ** Will Decker, Hey. Well, yes, a whole lot of people love MJ like you do, and I'm sincerely sorry for your loss. ** Joseph, Hey. The new Gerstler, totally, right? Stunning book. And good old 'Exquisite Corpse!' I wonder if Poppy is still not writing anymore. I'm always amazed when I come across people who still read Ayn Rand. I keep thinking her work would be dead as a doornail by now. Why not re: your writing, exactly. Throw it all, let the wall sort it out. ** JW Veldhoen, Special coming right up. You like yours rare, right? ** Steevee, Very lucky you. I've had scouts looking for a download of 'Un Lac' to no avail yet, and it's been long out of the theaters here, so one of my eyes is on the DVD rack. I'm dying to see it. ** Jose, Yeah, sure, that's Sotos' work difficulty, and reading him can be almost an act of sacrifice in a way sometimes, and that part of its intense power, I think. ** Chris Goode, Hey, Chris! Magnificence to see you! Thanks a ton for that Will Gaines clip. I've heard of him and been ultra-curious about him, but I hadn't actually seen him do his thing until I crossed over into youtube a minute ago. Extraordinary! I'm going to be prowling his clips for hours later on. Ha ha, nice that G.'s and my shit is finally making people forget that hoary Shakespeare guy. That's certainly been our number one goal. Reza Abdoh's work was pretty staggeringly fascinating in the best cases. Mind blowing, really. There are video documents of a number of his works, and I've seen maybe three in addition to having seen maybe four of his pieces live back in the day, and, of course, the videos sap the work of all the things you'd expect, but they're well worth a viewing. Might there be some archive in London somewhere that would have copies? I forget where the archive of Abdoh's work ended up. Maybe UC San Diego? I really do think you would find it extraordinary in one way or another. Earth worms, viruses, and you, oh my! ** Empty Frame, Hey. Good to see you back. I'm fine, yeah, in work mode, which is for the best. Oh, you know, I think Peter says all sorts of things in relationship to his work for effect, perhaps out of a feeling that the 'realness' of his work should be continued in the 'real' forms of statements and interviews. Um, wow, ha ha, those are some tough questions you're putting in my head there. Well, no, I can't those particular questions you posed form a match. I don't worry that my work is mannerist or more dishonest than Sotos' work, and I don't think my techniques soften or hide the material, quite the contrary. I don't see Sotos' unmediated embrace of sex, violence, transgressive acts, etc. as more true or real or bold or less defensive than my embrace. I guess I see Sotos as placing more faith in the idea that the forms of pornography and reportage and the confessional are the truest platforms on which to study and present that kind of material than I do. I think there are many more ways inside it as well, and I try to employ as many as I can make work in hopes of doing the material justice, trying to unleash what I see as its full, complex, complexly insinuating power. Sotos' faith in using a more concise literary arsenal impresses me enormously, and he does achieve a relentless kind of power that I've decided would form a limitation within my particular work. The 'painful' thing re: reading Sotos for me is a basic question I end up asking myself about the modulations that I've decided need to be in my work in order to represent the material with the thoroughness it deserves. I guess the question his work raises is, Why should I bother? I feel his work's force, and I think, Maybe that unmitigated force is enough. Maybe I should have just fucked my material rather than deciding to become its boyfriend. Something like that. Jesus Christ, you had an intense and revelatory and emotionally wrought week there, my friend. ** Creative Massacre, Hey, pal. So you have to play the waiting game until Wednesday? Medical stuff always seems to have delays and delays built into it. I hope the pain isn't a huge factor between now and then. My fingers are heavily crossed, and I'm waiting to hear the latest. Love to you. ** Bacteriaburger, You know who made that Chinese food quip? Really? I saw the guy's name, obviously, but I immediately forgot it. Well, tell him he both made my day and made it weird, ha ha. Oh, hearing about the dream was totally interesting, of course. I'll keep my fingers tightly crossed about RS. ** IF, Hey, man. Congrats on the chapbook for you and us all. When and how? I'll go read the piece on Spork asap. Everyone, the awesome writer I. Fontana aka d.l. IF aka the former d.l. Ignacio has a new fiction piece up at Spork Press, and check it out here with my urgings. ** Bill, Consider them yours. Oh, the Avignon dates are the 8th to the 15th, and I'll likely do some kind of rehearsals related post next week, knowing me. And I'll be talking to Chrystel today, if she's in. ** Casey McKinney, That stem cell thing is trippy. I didn't know you could that. Hm, it seems like a good gamble to me, yeah. I mean, Pandora could be just around the corner, right? I don't know a good translation, but I'll italicize your query and see if that helps. Everyone, the great and powerful Casey McKinney seeks the best copy/version of the Bhagavad Gita to read. Anyone out there have any tips or suggestions for him? Thanks. That 'Clash of the Titans' looks kind of weirdly cool in the trailer. I would have guessed it was going to stink up the place. ** Chilly Jay Chill, Yeah, that was Harmony Korine tap dancing in black face all right. Good eye. No, I still haven't seen the Korine doc on David Blaine. Hm, I think Kiddiepunk might have said he has it. Have you? ** NB, The Avignon dates are July 8th to the 15th. We have one night off in there, but I don't know which one. Hm, that hotel recommended to you is in an odd spot. Not a bad neighborhood, but kind of out of the loop. I'd go for something more central before you stay there so you can do some walking and not just take the metro everywhere because that location is a bit off the path. Do you know how to hunt down hotels? Like good hotel hunting sites? Do you want some suggestions via friends who've stayed in hotels here? Happy to help however I can. ** Misanthrope, Well, see, if DL is a big tina freak, that might explain things since tina freaks are not exactly the most pleasant folks to be around unless you're a tina scrounging bro. He could be poz. Like I said, I'd guess a lot of the porn models who do bareback porn like he has are probably poz. Sammy Case could be poz, but the 'totally out of it' stuff sounds either like cheap gossip or conjecture by someone who has some bizarro notion of what being poz means. No, no animals in these rehearsals. No set, no special effects either. Just G. and I in a big white room with Margaret and the two Jonathans and an imaginary green screen. ** Inthemostpeculiarway, Milla Jovovich acted her little heart and brain out in that Joan of Arc movie years back, whatever it was called. She wasn't bad, although it wasn't so good. People who run art museums usually aren't that cute, but there's always the exception. Maybe that guy. Doubt it. I hope Bendy's okay. I bet he is. What are you reading? Are you writing? My day was kind of a bust because I had planned to spend it in the rehearsal, and then Gisele called me and said that she and Margaret were going to work on some new thing, and she wanted me to wait and see it after it was figured out so she could get an objective reaction. (Actually, I was supposed to do rehearsals again today, but now my involvement has been pushed to tomorrow, so I'm at a loss again). Anyway, so I was at a loss. I called my visiting pal Jim Greer, but he was busy. I worked on my novel, and I think I'm gradually solving a big problem in the novel, which is good, and hopefully I can get that done soon so I can write the last 'chapter' of the draft finally. The snow fall I mentioned yesterday only ended up lasting for about ten minutes. This experimental theater company here in France wants to adapt 'The Sluts' into this kind of multi-dimensional theater work that would take place partly online and partly in real theater space, which sounds confusing, and I guess it kind of is, but their proposal sounds really interesting, so I told the director yesterday that I was cool with the idea, and I guess we're going to meet and discuss it further. I found two new (to me, at least) porn sites that are really odd and held my attention for a while. One is called 'Daddy Muggs' and the other one is called 'Doctor Japan'. Hm, I'm just fishing now. Over and out until tomorrow. Go. ** Tender Prey, Kiddiepunk, who gets these odd, surprising enthusiasms, some of which don't live much beyond the dawn, and some of which grab hold, announced that he wanted to take tap dancing lessons, and, well, the post was created to either encourage him or to sober him up. That theory course you're going to teach sounds really interesting. Who/what are you thinking of teaching them? Oh, no prob, on the Soulages reaction. I think it's probably telling that almost all I think about re: that show at this point is the interesting singlemindedness, and the work has come to seem more like a souvenir, maybe? I haven't caught the Ensor show, and, if I don't catch it in the next few days, I won't, but I'll be miserable if I miss it, so we'll see. That fund raiser sounds fantastic! What a line-up. I've never seen Stewart or Jeremy Reed read/perform live. I'll wait and do a big alert about it here tomorrow or Thursday. Damn, I wish I could see that. Please please video it, okay? ** Justin, I'm curious to at least flip through that 'TT' graphic novel, and luckily there's a store here that is guaranteed to stock it. Well, 'Horror Hospital Unplugged' was more a collaboration that might seem. I expanded the story hugely for the project, and Keith Mayerson and I worked together closely all during the creation, exchanging ideas and altering the text occasionally based on a visual idea he came up with, etc. That said, I've been jonesing to do another graphic novel or comic for years. A couple of publishers were going to set one up between me and an artist and then publish it, but it has never come to be. But I would do a graphic novel in less than a heartbeat if there was an artist I was excited to work with who was game to do something like that. I've half-thought of adapting the script for my doomed porn movie project 'Nurse' into a graphic novel. We'll see, but, yeah, I love the idea. ** Chris (British), Hey. Well, a wolf in sheep's clothing sounds great, of course. The frame samples just didn't excite me very much, but I'll definitely have a good look at the finished product. I can only imagine about working for banks. What exactly do you do for them, if that's an appropriate question? ** Bollo, Actually, I'm pretty sure the Eleanor Powell clip yesterday was a Busby Berkeley. Yeah, I think PdT and me are a good match, but what do I know? I have another show idea, possibly more realistic, less ambitious, doable perhaps, gallery or alternative space oriented, and the artists in this imagined show would be the very ones who gratefully frequent this blog, including you, mister. It's in the air. We'll see. More developments when/if they develop. ** I think I beat the cleaners unless they interrupt me while I'm quickly proofing the p.s. just pre-launch. Today: John Thomas, strange guy, fellow denizen of the same LA poetry scene that I was involved in back in the early 80s, didn't like me at all, wasn't sure what I thought about him, etc. See what you think. Bye.