p.s. Hey. I think anything that's been going on with me of note will filter out as I continue to type in a southernly direction. ** Kinkynik, Hey, welcome to here, and thanks for adding in. Vacationing by the Red Sea, eh? What was that like? ** D. Travers Scott, Hey, man. Very nice to see and have you here, wise words and all. What's up with you and yours? ** E.D., Hey, Elias. It's very good of you to stop in. That was one very beautiful sentence. I tried translating it via babelfish in hopes of sharing it here, but the rudimentary translation savaged it, so ... Everyone who speaks French, the estimable Elias Duparc met PTLITB's post with this humdinger: 'Il faut maintenant passer à l'élaboration d'une érotique de la croûte, voire à un véritable kama-sutra ; et non se contenter d'une esthétique, si bienvenue soit-elle.' Thank you, E. ** Bernard Welt, The worm is yours. Edible scabs ... do your culinary skills know no bounds? ** Oscar B, After a day or two of baggy-eyed stumbling and whining, I'm so there re: the Ensor. I see you and Jesse have started your conversational Fanzine thing, cool. I'm obviously running a bit behind on my text for our thing, but I'm close. Need anything from the deep South? ** Christopher/Mark, In my room at the Recollets, I sleep in a loft that can only been accessed via very narrow, very steep wooden stairs, and that's where I've been getting mine lately. ** Alan, Jesse returns your hi and compliments with a hey and compliments. I'm plumbing this place as best I can given the heavy, almost non-stop rain, but I think it has stopped now, and so today is officially roving reporter day. ** JW Veldhoen, Promotion, nice, a done deal? Little talk, a must, details awaited. ** Bollo, Have you done performance work before? (Forgive me if that question proves I'm spacing out). The buzz I heard among people I trust in the art world in NYC is that performative work by contemporary artists is the next exciting move/thing. Me, I can't wait. ** Will Decker, Hi, and thank you for your support, Will. ** Allesfliest, Anarcho-capitalist ... I met a guy not too long ago who self-identified in that way. The idea was kind of aesthetically interesting, but his definition was real holey. Yeah, I say make yours either prove or preempt it as per your stated wishes. ** Chris, Yeah, in my experience, it's rare that creating an innovative viewing context is matched by a similar force from the staged part, i.e. that forgotten Red Pilot piece I mentioned. But then again, I remember attending it far more than I remember most of the pieces I've seen while sitting in standard rows of chairs. Theater piece as 'Avatar'? I see the dilemma. ** Steevee, That was truly weird and fascinating. Everyone, courtesy of the superb critic, filmmaker, and d.l. Steevee, comes this site, which has located and mapped occult symbology in Jay-Z's 'Run This Town' video, and which is really, really worth checking out. Thanks much for that, S. ** SYpHA_69, If I was God, mosquitos would have gone extinct before I was even born. Are Trappist Monks a particularly conservative bunch? I realize I don't know a thing about them. When I see the word 'monk', I knee jerk think 'relatively cool', I don't know why. ** Bill, Yikes. ** Stan_cz, How great if you can get the apartment nailed down today. Fingers heavily crossed, man. ** Catachrestic, The trajectory is pretty trippy, yeah. As you probably remember, first I posted his ad, and then he revised his ad to mention that he'd been selected for one of my escort posts, and then I posted that new ad, and then he posted here, and then he turned out to be this really talented writer, and then he and I became friends, and then you and he became special friends, and, yeah, what are the odds? It's one of those occurrences that make me half-believe in fate and destiny and all that. ** Laurabeth, Hey, pal. Yeah, it was really great seeing you in NYC. I might be there a lot more often this year, so hopefully we'll get lucky again soon. I hope school starts very soothingly tomorrow. Lots of love to you. ** Winter Rates, I like to tap on mine. ** Misanthrope, I stayed in a hotel like the Waldorf once. It was a Red Roof Inn in Atlanta. Same deal: hookers, filth, bugs, lock on the door busted, ... My room hadn't been cleaned in what looked like years, and when I pulled back the covers of my 'made' bed, I found two used hypodermic needles. And I stayed there for a week. In other words, I can take it, if need be. Suede without Bernard Butler isn't enough of Suede to me, but I'm not a devotee. Having seen the creek/crick, which is really just the drainage path of a swamp, I won't be doing any swimming, no, sir. ** David, I don't know the Skomilowski one. It sounds like the better bet, though. ** David Ehrenstein, How great that you got to see Belmondo and get a lobby card signed. And thank you a lot for the pix you sent. He does look more fit than I had heard/ imagined he would be. And of course I envy your Wes Anderson encounter. I'm going to keep my eyes peeled for him in Paris. Speaking-wise, my French remains basically non-existent. My comprehension has improved a lot, though I'm still fairly lost. But I do get the gist of things, especially when reading. Hearing is harder. I can order in restaurants basically because I can understand the words on the menu and then point at the appropriate item. ** Thomas Moronic, I guess I meant you sounded good despite the downer stuff in your life. That realization about not being able to help people who don't want help is a big one, T. I reached that with my mom in my teens during her horrible phase. It's a painful and ugly truth, but I think it is the truth. Very glad to hear your visit to Paris won't be too long from now. You might want to let the city warm up just a bit first. ** Blendin, Hm, I don't know. It's just the kind of politesse or good manners or whatever that goes along with agreeing to do an official gig, i.e. not draining away the audience and all that. I'll check it out. I have to see what visitor Mark's in town schedule is first, I guess. ** Frank Jaffee, I'm actually not sure where I'm going to fly out of because I haven't nailed down a ticket yet, stupidly, 'cos I'm not flying back to Paris from here. I'll see what the possibilities are. Hope your trip was blast-like. ** _Black_Acrylic, 'Jack Your Body' Robinson, nice. What does one need to do to jack one's body anyway? I've never really thought it through before. Jack like hijack or like jacking up your car or, hm, like jacking off? ** Rigby, Actually, I've seen about eight skin tight pink shirts on the rednecks around here so far, it's weird. Not gingham, though. ** You-x, Sorry to hear you were sick, man, but glad you're post-. How's school so far? What's the deal there, by which I mean re: classes and classmates, I guess? Excellent to see you, pal. ** Chris, The deep South is very rainy so far. I'm not used to rain starting to pour and then not letting up even slightly for more than a day. LA and Paris get scattered showers, basically. Otherwise, it seems hospitable enough, not that I'm fraternizing with the locals exactly. There's full boar Southern hospitality on display in the shops and stuff. 'Them' buzz would be awfully nice, and why not? When I'm writing, I hardly read things, but songwriting is probably different? ** Justin, Yeah, I clearly had the wrong 'Deep End' in mind, and that Skolimowski one sounds way better. That is worrisome about your friend. I mean, pragmatically, he's probably fine. It's actually pretty rare that people one worries a lot about are in the kind of trouble one imagines, not that pragmatism is a huge help when you're worried. I hope you hear something soon. Wow, yet more reportage on the occult subtexts of music videos. That's really weird. Everyone, you know how I alerted you via Steevee to the site seeking/finding occult residue in a Jay-Z video? Well, our pal Justin has another one for us -- this site doing a similar kind of occult read on Beyonce and Lady Gaga's 'Video Phone' video. A must see, no? It's here. Thanks a lot for that, J! ** Inthemostpeculiarway, 'The Midnight Meat Train' wasn't awful or anything. I just expected better, especially after Barker approved of it. It should have gotten released, although I guess it was pretty hardcore gory. Wow, interesting and unusually mysterious weekend you had there. It spun my wheels in the good way. Mine: Well, on Saturday, it rained and rained and rained non-stop. Jesse and I ventured out under umbrellas, and he kind of showed the basic lay of the local land, which will be explored and documented fully under today's sun. So far I can say the town is little and that quite a lot of the town consists of dead. empty storefronts. There's no ATM machines in the town center, and you have to walk about forty minutes to reach the closest one. The townsfolk seem mostly very old, and they looked upon my unfamiliar face very suspiciously. Today's the first real test. Otherwise, we hung out and talked and indulged our mutual horror movie fandom. Let's see ... we watched 'Hostel 2', which was a lot better than the first 'Hostel', I thought. And 'Texas Chain Saw Massacre: The Beginning' (or whatever it's called), which was okay. And we tried watching 'Repo', but it seemed really lame, so we bailed. I think we watched another movie, but I forget which one. Oh, 'House of Bones' on SyFy. It wasn't as bad as it seems. On Sunday, the rain let up occasionally, and we walked to the town supermarket where my vegetarian options were basically pasta and bread and cheese. Jesse showed me the town's swamp, which looks very swampy and horror movie-worthy. The rain returned, and we hustled back to his place. I talked to Gisele, who gave me a thumbs up 'Jerk' report. Matthew Barney and Bjork saw it on Saturday and took Gisele and Jonathan out to dinner. MB apparently loved it, Bjork was all shaken up by it and cried. Interesting. Also, it looks pretty good that 'Kindertotenlieder' is going to play in NYC, which is cool since that's my favorite of our works. What else? Jesse's TV doesn't get broadcast channels, but we searched the internet and found a site illegally (I think) streaming the Golden Globe Awards, so we watched that. It was whatever. Glad Jeff Bridges won. Kind of vaguely fun seeing drunk celebrities accept and give out awards. I think after that we just crashed. I think that was the weekend. How's Monday treating you? ** Put The Lotion In The Basket, Thanks a veritable zillion for such a great weekend, man! The rain has kind of lowered the heat here, but I think you would prefer our temperature to yours anyway. Love and deep bows, lots of the former and the latter. ** Kier, Hey. Yeah, I'll do my best to photo capture Jesse's archives, which are, yes, pretty impressive. The Oslo trip should shake you out of your feeling weird, yes? I hope so. The powers of distraction can not be underestimated. Love to you, my friend. ** Uli, It would make total sense if you've been suppressing a lot of stress about Tanja's situation and that it would be using and abusing the opportunity to now escape. That's classic. Take it from me. I'm really glad to hear she's doing really well. What did your doctor say or prescribe for you or ... ? My ultra-best to you, Uli. ** Tender Prey, Hey, man. Yeah, I'll hit the Ensor show as soon as I'm awake. The 'Chasing Napoleon' show was almost weirdly good considering the PdT's track record, yeah. For the Laffoleys if nothing else. And Tony Smith is a god. Plus they have that wonderful cursed pedestal piece by Tom Friedman. I'd really like to hear your thoughts on the Soulages show. I'd never heard of him before I saw it, and I'm not quite sure what to make of it. I was pretty impressed, and yet, ... well, I'd just be interested to hear what you think. Ha ha, wow, that is amazing you found a restaurant that was okay with both Kiddiepunk and Wolf. Talk about the oppositional. It wasn't 'La Passage Oblique' was it? Hugs to you and Wolf, and enjoy the South, and come back to Paris soon, please? ** Tomkendall, Hey, Tom? How are things hanging at the moment? ** I'm out of here. I recommend today's post and the work of Lydie Salvayre, clearly. See you tomorrow.