p.s. Hey. Let's see ... first, the response to my question about the LA blog gang get-together on March 14th was kind of inconclusive, and I'm not sure if that means the question didn't register or if people aren't interested or sure if they can make it or what exactly. So, let me try again: Dear LA blog locals and other readers/ commenters (David E, Tosh, Heliotrope, Stephen, and so on), If I were to organize an LA blog and friends gathering for late afternoon or early evening on the 14th, would you be interested in attending such an event and does that date work for you? If you don't mind, please give me a yay or nay or not sure yet or something in the comments area, please. Thanks. Secondly, I'm not at my best today. Last night while eating dinner, a big chunk of one of teeth broke off, and the shard that remains in place hurts. This is the second time in the last year that one of my teeth has broken for no good reason. So I have to go see a dentist asap, obviously, and I haven't been to a dentist in almost thirty years, and I don't have health insurance, and my teeth are probably a dental horror movie, so I'm both in discomfort this morning and fearful on behalf of my mouth and my bank account. The effects will probably take a toll of some kind on the p.s., and my apologies. ** Alex Rose, Now they're saying the Orca was just into her hair and clumsy. Hey, man. ** Kyle, Hey. I wrote to you over the weekend. I hope you got it. ** David Ehrenstein, I'll be very interested to read whatever you write about 'ASM'. Our difference of opinion about the film isn't important. Whatever it inspires in you is important. Oh Lord, how predictable about the Salon/ Polanski brouhaha. Tell those people they should really donate all the money they've spent seeing Polanski films since the late 60s to charity. Real nice Weir/Henje/ et. al. FaBlog. Oh, I'm not sure if Bernard answered your question, but he meant that, to his amazement, his word verification yesterday was 'flablog'. ** Bernard Welt, Agreed re: your opinion of the film and the opinion's details. I might have more problems with the actual filmmaking than you do, I'm not sure. 'Duh' question: Stinky = girl scout? 'Avatar' is fun to like too. Especially when alone in such esteemed company. ** Kier, The 'VK doppleganger' is a Norwegian boy living in Norway. Nice, right? I always leave out that info. ** Bacteriaburger, Got it, yep, and I see/absorb it whenever I'm sitting at my laptop, meaning a shade less than 24/7. ** JW Veldhoen, Being into people's beauty and wanting to fuck doesn't make you misogynist. Line may be fine, but I see you on the good side of it. Tom Verlaine's boots, nice. I like Matta-Clark, of course. More than most artists, less than some. I like Manet more than Monet, but Monet's all right. I like Kern's movies more than his photos. Your I, II, III thing looks incredible, man, and it's also the first comment today that my nagging tooth pain is preventing me from reading with the right concentration. I'll chug-a-lug it once/if swallowing another Tylenol equivalent makes a difference. Curious about the new/last Sorrentino, of course. I hear the fact that he never completed it is both very noticeable in the writing and interesting/ moving or something. ** Bill, I love when a 'slave's' or escort's photo and text do that. The question of whether it was intentional or not is weirdly revealing or something. Not a huge handful, no, but it'd be nice if, say, Kevin and Dodie and whoever else came along too, if they wanted. It'll be no big deal to plan, I don't think. ** Mark Gluth, Good, good. Hopefully we can get that thing set up. Joel's cell would be better since mine's French. If he doesn't send it, I will. And you must still have our home phone no. there, right? ** Tosh, I liked 'Avatar', but whenever a movie offers technically progressive cgi and/or 3D, I'm a cheap date or like a little kid. ** Ken Baumann, Ken! I'm 'this close' to finishing the Higgs, and it's just a wowzer and stunner of a thing. Talk about getting a publishing venture off on the right foot. Great if you can make it on the 15th. Yeah, I definitely want to meet up and hang out with you otherwise while I'm there, your schedule permitting. You good? I'll bet. ** Sypha, I've seen all three of those movies, and I'm still a bad homosexual. ** Killer Luka, That's two for the lycra slave. I tend to play it cautious with the lycra-headed guys. I start to care about who's under it, which probably spoils their fun. And when I do, I go for the worst case scenario, meaning, oh, it could be Will Ferrell for instance. Thanks for the Knife/opera links and rave, pal. I am so curious. ** Chris (British), What a shame that the USB cigarette is temporarily out of stock. Man, NZ sure doesn't make it easy for the literate. ** Stan_cz, Great about the 14th. I'll hope to nail down a few more RSVPs today so we can cement that. School all right? Getting writing done too? ** Jose, If you weren't building up your self-confidence after what I've seen lately, I'd worry about you. ** Justin, In my case, exhibiting my porn collection wouldn't be an insult, I don't think. I don't know for sure that Butt has anything against me. I'm just used to not being liked by most gay people, and so I'm hedging my bets. I think Butt just isn't interested in me/mine, probably. That's fair enough. No, my Mark is this guy. Oh, I saw the AMcD Day email in my mailbox this morning, but I haven't opened it yet, so thank you incredibly, Justin, and I'll look it over, get it set up, and will get back to you very soon. ** Misanthrope, Dude, you love you some Johnny, don't you? Your own store? Nice. What kind of store? Did you already say? (My tooth pain thing has a slight memory blocking aspect.) I doubt there are stats on what happens to the slaves. Thinking as I do that most of what they (and the masters) ask for is a fantasy/ pipe dream/ form of flirtation, I'd guess most of the actual meet-ups are relatively PG-rated. Any Dean Corll type with any brains and sense of self-preservation wouldn't select his victims from websites where doing so would leave a pretty damning trail of traceable code straight to his door or at least 'door'. ** Marky, Well, I hope today's post turns your frown upside down. ** Will Decker, Hi, Will. Well, I'm very pleased the Jarman post was so fruitful, although PTLITB gets more than the lion's share of the credit. Still, thank you so much. I do aim to inspire, and that's very kind of you. ** Jeff, Jeff! I saw a string of deletes attached to the name Jeff, and I thought, Could it be? Man, it's very, very nice to see you and to have you back. You've been missed around here, as your other friends have already made clear. Sure, I'd love to meet up, of course. That would be great! If the 14th thing happens, there's that, and, if or if not, let's make another plan when the time comes. Hollis as the Bresson of pop ... Very interesting. I sort of get what you mean. I'm going to pull up some Talk Talk and listen with your idea in mind. ** Chris Goode, Hey, Chris! Serious possibilities to say the least. You're the one deserving thanks for the enhancing weekend, my friend. A ton of my learning and pleasure these last two days were originally in your hands. I'd be really interested to hear how the Tuesday reading goes, so let us/me know or give up the goods on Thompsons, please? ** Christopher/ Mark, I so wish I had liked the film more than I did. Perhaps I'll come around at some future point. For now, at least we'll always have our mutual ... uh, fondness for this month's slave contingent. To quote one of my favorites, 'let nothing tear us assunder and shit!' ** Pisycaca, I'm so sorry to hear that, Montse. Yeah, the hospital might well be the best option for him, and I hope that isn't too hard for him to accept. With my mother, we hired a caretaker to be around her home all the time and take care of her, and that worked well, but, of course, it was very expensive. My weekend was okay until this stupid tooth thing happened, but I'll just have to bite the bullet (ouch), as they say. Tons of love to you. ** Steevee, No, none of the slaves' texts were run through Babelfish that time. They get full credit for all the weird language stuff. ** Alan, Thanks a lot, Alan. I saw it in the box, but I headed over here before I opened anything in there. Perfect timing. I could use a gift and distraction today. You haven't mentioned your novel lately. How is it going at the moment? ** Little foal, Hey, man. Yes, I got the email and its attached gifts, thank you so much! I'll read them as soon as I get some immediate deadline work accomplished and my tooth pain stops clouding my receptors. I wonder whether the real thing would work like it does in one's head. I guess by deciding to be a writer and creating a one-way street between my imagination and the page means I think it doesn't. Hm. Is that Russian tattoo book out of print? I thought I saw it in a store the other day, or maybe that was a different Russian tattoo book. It looked amazing. The poem and collection of photographs sounds really interesting. Maybe you should make a scrapbook? I used to make scrapbook after scrapbook, and it was helpful, and I loved doing that. Putting that discussion off is understandable. I'd probably do the same thing, for better or worse. Maybe you'll know/feel when the time is right, and that's the moment to wait for? ** _Black_Acrylic, 250 words is a nice length, yeah. Prose poem length. I sort of like that tightness too. Good review, man. It made the show desirable and inhabitable. It looks to have been pretty cool from the photo illustration too. ** Bollo, If any of that evidence surfaces anywhere, spread the locale. My weekend was good until my tooth freaked out. Meaning that most of it was dandy enough. Glad you got good stuff done. ** Uli, Hey, Uli! Nice about the Fenn O'Berg. I'll go listen. Also curious to hear that Rhys Chatham track from the previous podcast. Hold on. Everyone, courtesy of Uli, here's a link to a series of podcasts from a place/zine called Vital Weekly that have a lot of very promising things and interesting artists in their tracklists. Highly recommendable. Nice score, man, and thanks a lot for the alert. You doing good? What's new? ** Slatted Light, Filthy rotten genius? Ewww. Sure, the bailing thing is fine. Just give me a shout when you're ready, and I hope your funk takes a long hike beginning pronto. ** Creative Massacre, Hey. Love your new tattoo. It's gorgeous. Is your Facebook page public? Taking the chance ... Everyone, check out Creative Massacre's cool new tattoo, and, if you like, also observe some photos from her recent Atlanta trip and adventures as well. Very cool stuff, pal. I'm kind of impaired by tooth pain, but, yeah, re: what you're going through ... Well, I was in a situation not entirely unlike yours once. An important relationship came to what seemed to be an abrupt halt, and that was the other person's decision, not mine. I felt like I needed to get through that by keeping a connection with the person, working it through together, feeling like the only way back or the only way to create a new kind of relationship with that person was to stay in contact and not let go. The other person felt like the way to get through the situation was to cut off all contact with me and find the way forward alone and without having any traces of me around. It was really hard, and I suffered for quite a while, but, one, I didn't have a choice because if the other person didn't want contact, there was nothing I could do about that, and, two, once I accepted that and looked around at what and who was left in my life and realized that was all I had, I tried to embrace the life I had left, and after a while, I realized that by putting so much emotional and mental energy into trying to maintain my relationship with a person who had made it clear that he didn't want me around, I had been allowing the other person to have way too much power over me, and I started to feel more free than damaged, and I eventually decided the other person's need for silence was healthy for me as well, and after the pain and confusion of the separation had passed for both of us, we became friends, and now I think the lengthy lack of contact was the right choice, and if we hadn't taken that time away from each other, we probably would have ended up hating each other rather than looking back at the mutual exile as the thing that saved our relationship, if that makes any sense. I don't know. Faced with being cut off so abruptly, that's how I dealt with it, and it turned out a lot better than I could have imagined back when I was suffering. I guess, based on my experience, that's my advice? ** Chris, Hey, man. Yeah, Ish's Facebook post-show update status things were almost un-Ish-like in their exuberance, so it must have gone well. I need to get in touch with that rascal and figure out September. Glad to hear the music flowed or escaped or whatever. ** NB, Maybe Cory18 is the new Beethoven. Damn, I wish I'd kept/ noted his location so I could possibly locate him in your hometown. I'll try to remember to hunt that info down next time. ** Math, Math! Yeah, that's a degree of obedience I think I could without. New job, wow. I think of you as sort of the Queen of AA, so that's pretty big. But, yeah, pal, you need a real, airier, freer and easier, art-making-filled life, that's for sure. So, here's heavily hoping you get the right prospect and offer. Excellent on the France-related savings! I look forward to basking in the dividends. You're hugely loved and missed by us lot too, be assured. ** Inthemostpeculiarway, Hey. Uh, I think the next movie will be 'The Ghost Writer', if I'm not mistaken. You know, I only saw 'Rocky Horror Picture Show' once, isn't that weird? And only in a movie theater back when the audience used to dress up in costume and prance around singing and throwing things and shit all during the movie, so in a way I've never really seen it. Oh, gosh, thanks about 'Guide'. My weekend ... This'll be weak due to the weekend itself and my painful tooth which is getting more ouchy before it's getting better. Wrote a lot. Went well. Getting there. On Saturday, Oscar and Kiddiepunk and I went to Maison Rouge, a great art space/ museum over in the Bastille area, to see this show, which was pretty big fun. The weather was mostly clear and pleasant and semi-delicious. Whatever else happened on Saturday, I don't remember. Sunday morning, France got hit by that sort of hurricane-like storm you might have read about on the news, and I guess people died and towns got flooded and fucked up because it's been declared an official national disaster. In Paris, it just took the form of incredibly strong winds and rain, and it was super beautiful to see out the window and hear. It was loud. So that happened. I wrote more, again pretty well. Blah blah. Then the thing happened that I mentioned up top where one of my teeth broke in two for no reason when I was eating a sandwich, followed by disbelief and some pain and dread as I realized I won't be able to slough it off and pretend like nothing happened. So, since then I've been figuring out what dentist to go to and going ouch a lot and just fearing the future pretty much across the board. And thus we arrive here. Your Monday, please. ** Tomas, Oh, yeah, it's great, In fact, I'll just go ahead and tell you that it'll be posted on the blog on Friday, March 12. Mark your calendar, and thanks a million, man! 'This Is How You Will Disappear' doesn't have a Paris engagement set up yet. Probably next year sometime, I think. The closest it'll get to Paris so far and soonish is in July in Avignon and at the beginning of March 2011 in Brest. I'll let you know when the Paris show is a done deal. Meeting in 2010 is a very good idea, yes. Any thoughts? ** Gotta go decide on a dentist and make the soonest appointment now. The post today doesn't need my input, surely. Take care. See you tomorrow.