p.s. Hey. Weekend greetings. Hope yours rule. Mine is fairly scheduled up between theater rehearsals, a Sunn0))) gig tonight, seeing visiting US friends, work of various sorts, and maybe a movie. Once again, if you're in or around London on Sunday, I highly recommend Winter Rites, the fundraising event for the great art space Five Years, featuring perfs by Stewart Home, Jeremy Reed, and others including some of this blog's d.l.s: Esther Planas, Nick Hudson, Wolf. Here's the info. ** Afk4life, Hey, nice to see you. Well, assuming any 'news organization' would go so far as to click over to the youtube source, they'd see the video were Adobe After Effects experiments, but maybe some of the lower end tabloids would try to run with a story? You good? What's new? ** Bollo, If you're wrong, I'm wrong too. Sunn0))) is tonight, so I'll give you the ears report on Monday, and no doubt they'll still be replaying a very staticky version of the show even then. Don't know about the Sturtevant haunted house. I'll find out this week or maybe next. Very curious. Mm, on Acker, how about starting with 'Blood and Guts in High School'. That's a pretty good place to start, I think. ** Toniok, Hey. Thanks so much again for the great post which certainly inspired an interesting reaction. This blog could ask for no more than that. Take care, my friend, and I'll hope to see you here again soon. ** Jesusangelgarcia, Hello, welcome. Hm, I thought the post was beautiful. Who's to say the post didn't imply or inspire substance and depth even if those were beauty's requirement, and I certainly don't think they are? I think the wrapper of a Japanese candy bar that is resting to my immediate left at the moment is beautiful, and so it is. Is that profound or substantial? Probably not. I think it's a pretty reaching, grandiose statement to say that a handful of videos by a handful of young people who tested Adobe After Effects by creating fake suicides on youtube and the fact that Toniok and others find them interesting are a sad reflection on talented young people's state of mind. Maybe the hundreds of inventively devised youtube paeans to Miley Cyrus would make for a better argument, but I don't think even they imply any kind of indictment of talented youth either. Anyway, those videos and their makers don't say anything newer about culture than a history full of young people writing/ making suicide poems and drawings or playing cops and robbers, as Rigby noted, said about their cultures. The only difference is technological. Me, I think that in your statements/ questions, you're doing this rather common, obnoxious thing of seeing young people not as a the diverse group of individuals they are but as some kind of artificially consolidated study group that give you the opportunity to make simplistic, superficial judgements about youth that flatter your supposedly more mature, substantial values. Those dozen young guys who made those videos are just a dozen young guys who did a particular experiment for reasons we will never know. Those of us who found them interesting are just those of us who found them interesting for reasons specific to each of us. You didn't care for them. Fair enough. In any case, thanks for taking the time to express your reaction here. ** Kier, I agree, naturally. As I said to Chris down below, Norway doesn't count as leaving the EU. Norway and the EU are close buddies or something. ** Rigby, Very well thought out and stated, my man. ** Chris (British), Hey. No, Norway and Switzerland and countries like them that are not technically in the official EU but loosely associated don't count as leaving the EU for whatever reason. I think Croatia is the nearest far away place. Gosh, ha ha, the author of that article is romanticizing the American flag like crazy. I'd guess most Americans don't think twice about the flag, and those who are way into the flag just use it as a shorthand symbol for their far right politics. Yeah, I think her argument is a bit mental, as you suggested. ** Bernard Welt, I was going to say I would imagine Ben Folds is happy to show up anywhere these days, but I'm guessing you or someone else is going to tell me that his career has had a second wind via some reality show or something. ** Alan, No, I've never been to Japan. Going there is one of my biggest dreams. The Nagoya gig, if I'm remembering right, is part of some big Triennial Art Exposition that takes place in the city, or something like that. Ring a bell? Oh, gosh, just check out anything at all for me there. I'm not picky, and Nagoya is a blank, and it's all totally fascinating to me. Thanks, A! ** David Ehrenstein, Yeah, right, about Matthew Barry. Trivia: the boy who played the drug dealer in the film whom Barry buys dope from and whom his mom visits ended up some years later being my real life drug dealer on a few occasions. He lived in and dealt out of the Chelsea Hotel. I mostly bought drugs from him to have an excuse to get him to tell me 'Luna' stories. I like everything I've read by Reynolds Price. I didn't know he was still putting out books. Huh, interesting. ** Joseph, Oh, damn, about the NYC apartment. That was fast. Maybe NB and his offer to suggest can help? Something to read ... my standard recommendation whenever someone asks me that question is Agota Kristof's 'The Book of Lies', so there you go. 'Frontieres': Is that the French horror/slasher film? If so, yeah, I've seen it, and I thought it was really terrific. ** NB, Howdy, Nick. Oh, nice pic. Damn, I want to see that. I'm guessing it's on your European agenda. Everyone, nice pic of something famously much more than nice via an alert from Mr. NB. ** Empty Frame, Yeah, Sturtevant's works are pretty much exact copies, although, interestingly, signs of her hand are always in there somewhere making the difference. I like Gober's work too, obviously, but, hm, I don't think he was on my mind re: that 'God Jr.' sentence. Glad you're feeling better. Yum, Rhys' 'Good Morning, Midnight', a huge fave of mine. Love Rhys to bits. ** Casey McKinney, It's funny, or not, that I didn't make the 'Harold and Maude' connection, duh, until you guys here mentioned it, which is strange 'cos it was my mom's favorite movie. Yeah, Georgia's elected officials leave much to be desired, but you are hardly alone, my friend. True, the new Trecartin stuff on Ubuweb is totally brilliant, of course. Take care, man. ** Will Decker, Oh, thanks a lot for that, Will. Very thoughtful of you, and I'll go see what the translation service leaves me a little later on. ** Oscar B, So much for the sun, eh? I'll call you in a while to coordinate the Sunn0))) thing. ** Jose, Totally. ** Stan_cz, Oh, yeah, Denny's is just fine. I'm hardly a stranger to its particular charms. So, how did the test go? And, ugh, I hope you can get yourself into enough decent classes, although you don't sound like you'd be heartbroken if you had to wait. I assume waiting wouldn't be a problem with your visa. ** Bill, Hey. First, I don't know what's going on with the Recollets, but I hope something's going to start happening now. It seems like your app is in some kind of weird limbo. Chrystel is, like, What's going on with that, Sonia? Sonia is, like, I thought you had taken care of that, Chrystel. Chrystel is, like, No, Sonia, you're supposed be working on that. Sonia is, like, I've already worked on it, and I'm waiting for you, Chrystel. Chrystel is, like, No, Sonia, you need to finish that, and then, to me, We will look into it, Dennis. I will check in again soon if you don't hear anything. Sorry. Things seem to be a little weird down there right now. Oh, that blood tutorial is really nice at first peek. Everyone, courtesy of Bill and regarding yesterday's post, here's an After Effects Tutorial on how to do that blood splatter trick. It's pretty nice. Thanks a lot, Bill, and I'm sorry about the application mess. They're usually more efficient about these or things, or rather I've had impression they are. ** JW Veldhoen, No, I've never met Dylan Carlson. Hm, no, I'm pretty sure I haven't. Best comment ever indeed! Excellent stuff re: the post-related comment up top, John. Kudos. ** Armando, You don't think Cobain killed himself? I do. I spent a little time with Courtney right before that happened, and I have friends who were/are pretty close with her, and the murder thing doesn't make any sense at all to me. But who really knows, I guess? Yeah, 'Simon of the Desert', so great, and, yeah, that nightclub hell thing is mindblowingly funny and smart. I want to watch that again very soon. How are you doing, man? ** Chilly Jay Chill, Hey. I've noted your listening list, and I'll seek, thanks. Been curious about the Wussy. I have/like the French psychedelia comp. No, I haven't been very into what I've heard of Surfer Blood. I don't get anything special from it, and I think I've completed my exploration of them for now at least. ** Misanthrope, Oh, is that what some Christians think? Trippy. Me, I'm digging Purgatory just fine. Gisele responded to my question thusly: There are people who've approached her about taking her archives, and she says she'll think about that seriously at some point, but, apart this one early piece 'Stereotypie' from the days before I worked with her, all of the pieces she's made are still alive and touring, so there's no reason to think about the future of the props' and etc' yet. Right now, she needs all of them. I'm kind of surprised Kinkel ranked as high as #5, actually. He seems like such a cult thing. Jesus Christ, no wonder your mom smokes so much. Having seen that, she's lucky. I did see the commercials for 'Legion', and I know exactly what you're saying. It's too bad the film supposedly sucks. That old lady thing was enough to get me in a seat until I read the reviews. ** Creative Massacre, Can you get your medications adjusted if that ugh reaction lasts another day? Lingering Memories, oh yes, I know. I'm sure you've been told this already, but, while it's good to watch 'Buffy' from the beginning, the show doesn't really become what makes it great until the second season, especially once Spike and Druscilla show up. ** _Black_Acrylic, Yeah, that shortened version of the Sartre quote is the one I know. ** Chris, Oh, interesting about the breakthrough via the older works. Are you going to perform them live? My stuff's crawling too. What can you do? Do you know if there's any progress on the 'Them' thing? The last thing I saw was a Facebook message saying let's take the discussion off of Facebook. ** Sypha, Hey. Oh, well, presumably the guy listened carefully, and that's enough to know. Did you have a sense that your complaints were registered and might lead to changes? ** Inthemostpeculiarway, Blue and constantly confused is a thumbnail description of the gates of heaven to me, so goodness gracious. 'Asphalt Flowerhead' is a nice name. What is it about or whatever? There's a new Facebook layout again?! I haven't opened it yet today. Thanks for the warning. That is an inconvenient leg. Yesterday one of my legs was very itchy too, strangely enough. It felt like it was really, really dry and flakey, but it wasn't. My day: Managed to write a little bit before the rehearsals. It went almost okay. Shopping trip to buy the usual food. Shower, phone calls, I don't know. Took the metro then walked to Centquatre. Took my camera so I could start documenting the shebang for the blog. The rehearsal yesterday was particularly tedious. I really didn't need to even be there, it was so technical about dance/movement, and Gisele was always right, so I just nodded the whole time. The rehearsals will get more interesting for me next week when Jonathan Schatz joins in and we start rehearsing the part where Jonathan C. very brutally beats Jonathan S. very gradually to death because I'll be able to provide more input on that. So we rehearsed until about 8 pm, and then I went home, and then nothing much at all happened apart from some blog post building and hanging out with Yury pre-bedtime. That's it. I've got a whole weekend now to get interesting, and you have a whole weekend to further your status as an inherently interesting person. ** Justin, Hey. No, I kind of try to stay away from real images like that unless I need them for research into my work 'cos I get psychologically knocked for a loop by them. It is weird how when people get physically fucked up or really sick in a debilitating way, their will to live usually becomes stronger. I don't understand that, but it's happened so often with people I know that I just assume I would get like that too, although I can't imagine why. ** Wolf, Hey, pal. Hm, yeah, very good point, obviously. ** Okay, I have to shower in a blur and get myself on the way to rehearsals. The post: I was thinking about what if any 'Lost Generation' existed these days, and I ended up compiling all of the other American artists currently on French loan whom I could think of, and, well, that's the story. Excellent weekends to you all, and I'll see you as soon as mine is defunct.