p.s. Hey. It was sixteen years ago today that Derek Jarman died, and, with this memorial post, our brilliant and dear pal Put The Lotion In The Basket has managed to both permanent-mark the tragic occasion and astonish in his own inimitable style. PTLITB has been away in Spain for a bit, but he's back in London now and presumably blog friendly again, so please share your comments with him, and hopefully he'll appear here to interact with you. Thanks, everyone, and tremendous thanks to PTLITB. Things are fine with me. 'Jerk' is currently playing in Montreal, and it got fantastic reviews yesterday, and that's happy making, of course. Otherwise, some fun and a lot of work. ** Reynaud Cerqueux, Hey. It's good to see you again, and, yes, it's true, and wow, that Gauchos doing Iron Maiden clip on your blog is a wonder, and thanks for the kind words on your blog also. You good? What's new? ** Ben Brooks, Hey. Wait ... the Ben Brooks? That's wild because I just ordered your novel 'Fences' last night. I love what I've seen of your work, and I'm really looking forward to reading the novel. So, yeah, it's real nice to have you here, and do come back sometime. ** Steven Trull, What's ATA? Who's David H? How spaced out am I this morning? At least kind of, for sure. ** Heliotrope, Hey, pal. Oh, shit, the long lost migraines have returned to your Capistrano? Wtf?! All the recent stress? Man, I hope they find you inhospitable immediately. Lots of love to you, if loving helps at all. ** Slatted Light, Ah, so these were the comments you were talking about. Lovely speaking with you, sir, and I look forward to Tuesday's continuance. ** Wolf, Yeah, about, oh, a month ago or something, blogger suddenly added the avatars to the inner sanctum/page where I visit with you guys, so no more secrets. Oh, I see, your image is far more magnificent and ethereal than my lowly guess had it. Those houses yesterday were hot, no? Bubble butts as far as the eye could see. ** Scunnard, Hey, man. I did kind of know you're into that kind of stuff. It's one of our many bonding issues, right up there with snow globes. When you next get to the internet, give me an update on the hopefully budding romance between you and the UK. Also, fellow UKer Empty Frame was most excited in the comments to confer with you about utopias and communes and such if there's an opportunity. ** David Ehrenstein, How was the birthday, all in all? Love your meaningfully coincidence-filled birthday FaBlog entry. I'm sure I've mentioned before that my father was one of the people who helped Nixon craft the Checkers speech. Very good to hear that about the Polanski. Everything I've read about it over here has been very positive. Exciting prospect! That line about who the amateurs think they are was fucking great and truer than true. ** David, I do remember those flying saucer houses. There are still a number of them extant in the Southern California area, one in the Hollywood Hills not too, too far from my LA apartment. And of course for years the Disneyland park featured a house of the future that was designed in a more streamlined manner along the same principle. ** Paul Curran, Hey. Does my blog turn five this year? I think you're absolutely right. In May, I think? Hm, I should do some kind of birthday thing to mark that occasion. Maybe I/we can think up some group input post that would form a good form of celebration. Five years, yikes. My novel's moving along. I suspect we might be in the same kind of steady patch. ** Tosh, Thanks, Tosh. Yeah, from my perspective, I totally agree with you about publishing. I have Akashic to take care of most of the production stuff/ distribution/ press-seeking for LHotB, luckily, but it's pretty synced up, and I was in a far more primitive version of your situation with Tam Tam back in the Little Caesar days. Man, did the advent of the internet make a huge difference. What you said about Kindle and iPad makes total sense, yeah. Maybe I'm wrong about this, but it seems like those devices are kind of too far removed from writers/artists at this point to seem like an actual new medium? I'd guess that in a year or so, we'll start seeing more than just crude books transfers, but I don't know. The only people I know who have those devices are agents or editors at publishing houses, and they basically just use them to read submitted manuscripts on the subway or train or whatever. ** JW Veldhoen, I suppose a reticence re: talking on my blog about my 'pops' might be perverse in a way. So be it. I only met Vanessa Place once, I think. Uh, I don't remember all that well. I think she's blonde? She's on Facebook. Your Facebook posts squash is serene. Everyone, I hand you over to JW Veldhoen: 'I made something you can look at on my blog. It is every post made on my Facebook as text (originally 400 pgs+) gone through a standard gaussian boil (ϕ(x)), random layering, downsampling.' Got that? Now I hand you over to me: Go here. ** Stan_cz, Well, my experiences with the pre-paid phone thing happened here in France, but, no, I didn't get a new phone or anything. I just went into the SFR office, and they set something up and gave me some kind of number to call, and I did, and then my phone magically had credit for calls on it. I guess just go into one of the phone stores and ask how it works? Ah, your op-ed sounds amusing. Hope it pleases the powers that be. Cheap sunglasses? How cheap? Really cheap: any drugstore. Otherwise, hm, some mall or other should have a decent choice? ** Empty Frame, I'm a total abandoned building fanatic, yeah, and the failed utopia thing is super interesting. In a sideswiping way, I think that's why abandoned amusement parks make me kind of crazy with excitement. I know of the 'Bubble House' thing a bit, but I don't think I know of it through Tacita Dean's work. Is that possible? In any case, I'll check out her piece if I can. Oh, choosing daffodil was more of a spontaneous eruption thing. Cacti is good. My LA apartment has a strong cactus presence. I haven't read Huxley's 'Island'. Never got all that into Huxley. Everyone, has anyone out there read Huxley's 'Island' and, if so, do you have any thoughts you could share with our friend Empty Frame, who's giving a serious reading of it consideration? Thanks! ** Bill, Oh, do you mean this building? If so, definitely, yeah, I love it. The UCLA graduate art student studios are right next to it, so I saw it go up. A SF blog dinner is a swell idea. I hadn't thought about that. Yeah, I'l try to wrangle that together, and I hope there's time for an excursion and more hanging out. ** Patrick deWitt, Hey. I wrote to you this morning. I'm so, so sorry to have taken so long. ** Steevee, That 'ugly' is so weirdly beautiful to me. Such a strange composite feeling. ** L@rstonovich, Hope you feel better incredibly soon aka now. No, I didn't know Thurston has a blog. Yeah, it's totally swell! Thanks for that. I'll be all over that thing, of course. Everyone, you might already know this, but Mr. L@rstonovich woke me up yesterday to the existence of a blog by none other than Thurston Moore. It's very cool, and it's very here. ** Statictick, Is there is a seven year limit? That would be nice. It does seem like my LA phone machine gets a lot fewer hang-ups and robo-threat messages than it used to. Nail those unsuspecting open mic denizens to the fucking wall, man. ** Bollo, I see Hard Rock Cafe as a particular kind of adventure. It might be different for someone who's not American 'cos I would guess going there and being swamped with an American to the max aesthetic might not charm without the guilt pleasure aspect that comes with being an American in the mood to kind of slum around in one's bad side. But the food isn't horrible. Cool about the new video piece. Where's it going to be seen, do you know? That censorship of the Chinese artist's work is totally weird! I'm pretty surprised. I've never really heard of that kind of censorship from on high happening in Paris before. And the piece is so not that confrontational at all. I hope there's some lusty protesting, and I bet there will be. Wow, that's fucked up. The Socialist Party needs to jump all over that. ** Creative Massacre, I guess The Undertaker must be pretty old for a major wrestling star. He's kind of the last standing top level guy from his generation of wrestlers, isn't he? I mean who hasn't retired and tried to make a comeback? I listened to a minute or two of The Issues, and they do sound pretty good. I'll go back later and check them out more thoroughly and respectfully. I kind of believe in karma, yeah. Or I at least haven't up hope on the idea that it could be a real thing. In any case, it's not a bad thing to think about when thinking about how to live your life, I guess. I would definitely have enjoyed what you made yesterday. You bet, slurp. Glad you're feeling so much better, pal! ** Chris, Oh, you went to that Yoko BAM birthday show? Eric Clapton?! Oh, right, he was sort of in Plastic Ono band, I forgot. But Paul Simon? What in the world is the historical excuse for that torture? Thanks for the link. I remember him. I think I saw him perform a few times a long time ago at PS or The Pyramid, but I didn't know you were with him at one time. That's very sad, bad news. ** Justin, There's a bridge that dogs throw themselves off?! Wowzer. I didn't know about that. I must investigate. I saw the news that the McQueen company will carry on. There didn't seem to be any news or speculation about who would take over. I suppose hoping that it's Gareth Pugh would be asking too much. Maybe McQueen had some close, creative assistant who'll get promoted? ** NB, Hey, N. Winter will do that. The winter here is easing away finally. I was just starting to get that seasonal gloom myself. SxSw should help, no? Sounds pretty nice to me. You still planning the Paris visit? Just give a shout if/when you need help on the lodging and stuff. ** Misanthrope, Strangest pick-up line? Hm. I don't know if I actually ever get pick-up lines. I guess I must have gotten them back when I sort of passed for a young, do-able thing. Honestly, all I can think of are really normal things like 'What are you doing later?' or 'You can crash here tonight if you don't mind sharing a bed'. Why, what's your strangest pick up line? Homophobia at the Olympics ice skating competition? Did you see the guy who won? He's like the most flagrant queen I've seen in my life? You just want 'most fuckable' to be part of the judging process, no? ** Blendin, I think the party at your place is a total keeper of an idea. Where lightbulbs appear and switch on over normally inspired heads, it was a chandelier materializing over yours, man. We'll suss it. Definitely. Newsstand Day would be most, most welcome, yes, if your redoubling plans take root. ** Thomas Moronic, Thanks a lot, buddy. ** Uli, Hey. Oh, yeah, 'No Wave Cinema', sure. That's a better, larger term, right. That film sounds like such a must. I interviewed Nick Zedd once back in the 80s for Richard Hell's old magazine Cuz. That Zedd guy is a trip and a half. The Ela Troyano film/performance sounds super interesting, of course, and the walk-outs are, well ... that happens. It honestly doesn't bother me at all when people walk out of 'Jerk' or any of Gisele's and my other pieces. There are some walk-outs at our shows more often than not. I see it as just a very clear and serious response in a way, a sign that the work had an impact, and it's more troubling to me when people seem to be liking the work too much in a pleasant, warm way. I've had very mixed, polarized responses to my books forever, so when it happens with the theater pieces, it feels like home or a success, I guess. I suppose in some way both Gisele and I think the work we do shouldn't be a fit for everyone. Comfortable is the enemy or something. So, yeah, I think Zorn has the right idea about the walkouts. Take care, man. ** Please explore PTLITB's great post today, speak up, keep Derek Jarman in your thoughts, and stay gold until tomorrow.