p.s. Hey. This post/p.s. might appear a little late today because I have a morning meeting that will likely interrupt and slice my portion of the p.s. into two halves, if that makes any sense. Luckily, having no news or anything special to headline, I'll get going. ** Afk4life, Hey. Something's missing, that's for sure. I'm personally fascinated by confusion or lie that lead to him being twenty miles away from where he thought or said he was. The story's like a big spiral that starts somewhere in that mystery and then keeps mystifying itself with every statement. Weird stuff. Thanks a lot, Doug. ** David, Interesting. I didn't know that story had gotten consolidated into the Smileyfacekiller thing, but, yeah, no surprise. Me, I like the idea of a more Lynchian solution-impaired solution, one enjambed into the mystical by the blurring lies from every source. Or something. ** Steven Trull, It was kind of made for you, wasn't it? ** Wolf, Damn, how much better can that Five Years sound? I love that whole Stewart to the rescue thing, and, well, all of it. I want the video, like, bad. The homeopathy bashing sounds so very British or something, I don't know why. My household is about 90% homeopathic, and Yury and I are still ticking. ** Oscar B, I'm still trying to sort out my portion of that Tarot thing, you? I forget, are we doing the 'Godland' thing tonight? I'll call you guys. ** Allesfliest, My life is in the inching around if mostly forward state yours is in, basically. Mss. plus whatever else fits in. Things with Yury are good. I mention him in the Itmpw reports fairly often. Historically, I tend to talk about Yury and us more prominently when things get dramatic, and right now things are fine, good, interesting to us but not really worth translating, it seems to me. Will you join her in Tokyo for a while, I'm imagining? ** Scunnard, I owe you an email. It's coming. Sure, totally, I'm way up for that gig, and, obviously, more than that, for seeing you. I'll mostly be here in April, so that should work. When you have your dates, shoot them my way. ** David Ehrenstein, Roland Barthes, very interesting. Seems like the choice of the croaky voice was a blessing, though. It makes the film seem to kind of crumble as it builds, and it's hard to imagine it without that quality. Oh, Christa Lang, yes, that's a great, weird scene with all that E = mc2 encoded signage going on. I haven't seen that 'Allemagne 90 ...' film, and I'll look for it. Nice Don Bachardy piece. I hope I look as sharp as he does when I'm 75. Thanks, David. ** Empty Frame, Me, I'm fine, perhaps not dandy, but possibly starting tomorrow for some as yet unforeseeable reason. Yes, that Rhys is insanely good. 'After Leaving Mr. MacKenzie' is maybe my second fave of hers. Hm, I guess I have a couple of friends whom I disagree with fairly often, but it takes a lot for me to get into an argument. Anger's kind of a relatively rare emotion for me, but when I do get pissed off, I guess it's something to (not) see, I'm told. It's freezing here too. Yesterday was, like, whoa. I think Mr. DeWitt himself answered you. 'Ablutions' is fantastic, yep. ** Kier, Yeah, I saw. Fucking love the Sunn0))) report. I'll make sure Stephen sees it. ** Patrick deWitt, There you are. Yeah, that's a hell of an excuse to visit Paris, the city that doesn't need a solid reason. I did that when my publisher here put out 'Closer', i.e. 'dropped in' around pub time while in the same neck of the woods, and I think being here and doing whatever press that can be scrounged up makes a real difference, so, if you can swing it, do. ** Sypha, Scary scare with your brother. That report was very tense making there for a while. Man, you are like the most illness-receptive guy ever. Not really, but you sure seem to get walloped a lot. I hope your stomach acted more like the perfect houseguest today. ** JW Veldhoen, I guess I think Michals is technically an interesting stylist, and sometimes I get the thing, but those handwritten texts are just ... goopy. Kenward Elmslie's work is sublime in every medium he tackles. If you get a chance to hear his great aliens song 'They', especially if sung by the man himself, take it. Zen + punk rock ... Fugazi? Yeah, the set of Wallace vids are crucial. ** Frank Jaffe, Hey, Frank! It's wonderful to see you. Yes, I got an alert that your festival is happening. Awesome, man, and I'll be curious to hear how it all went to say the least. Let me pass along the online viewing news. Everyone, the honorable Frank Jaffe is the curator/ mastermind behind the 'Florida State Gay & Lesbian Film Festival', which is in progress right now. What does that have to do with 'me', you ask? Well, you can actually watch some of the films that are screening in the festival online, including Dan Falte's terrific 'Weak Species', which is based on my work and which will be viewable this coming Friday, and you can watch it or other films and find out when and how to do that by going right here. Best of all the luck in the world on the festival's big success, Frank, and give us/me a report when you're in the clear. ** Stan_cz, That's what I did when I went to Pasadena City College for a couple after high school. In my case, it wasn't for a visa but rather to make the parents stop haranguing me to get a job. Same deal: three classes in order to be officially enrolled -- two poetry classes and a film making class. Worked well enough. Yeah, I hear LA's getting drenched. It's like an El Nino or La Nina year, I think, or a year of whichever of those two conditions means an increase in the city annual rainfall, isn't it? I forget. ** Creative Massacre, Hey. Well, it's over anyway, and I hope the results only ask for minor adjustments. Let me know. Yeah, ha ha, great timing in that Murtha mistake. When things like that hit the news, I think it makes doctors more act more carefully a while, though. No, I've heard a lot about '1000 Ways to Die', and I've been most curious about it, so I'll greedily use that link, and thanks a lot, pal. ** Thomas Moronic, Dude, your story gets all the credit for my rave. I'm merely one of its mediums. I am going to look into that Grandin character's work more, yes. She seems pretty amazing. ** Distimium, Hey there, man! How very nice to see you! I hope that 'Sluts' translation is a good one. No, I don't know anything about the whole kindle thing. My agent just tells me this and that about those kinds of things once in a while, and I go, Oh, really? Since Kindle and its comrade systems/ devices seem like the future or something, I guess everything will end up in that format before too long. You good? I hope so, my friend. ** Steevee, Congrats on hitting the magic 10,000 number, but, yeah, ninety minutes on the streets of NYC every day in the winter no less is a lot to ask unless you're JW Veldhoen. ** L@rstonovich, I'll take that as a compliment, and I'll apologize at the same time. ** Paul Curran, Yeah, man, that's very stressful all right. I imagine that her being okay with a wheelchair and maybe a little walking as well makes for a doable, acceptable solution, right? Her being only in her 60s would seem to indicate her bone strength should be able to return to that level, no? I don't know. That's very worrisome, Paul, and I just hope the operation in Sydney rights the ship, at it were. My very best to you, man. ** Bollo, Hey. Wow, lots of amazing new stuff on your blog. Love the images, and I'm going to get my ears deep into that Evelyn War work starting tonight. Everyone, the splendid d.l. and artist Bollo aka Jonathan Mayhew has some killer new work up on his blog including more of his kind of exquisite robot-centric drawings and a link where you can grab a free batch of the 'improvised synth based music/ soundscapes' he devises under the moniker Evelyn War. Altogether, that makes this link a must click. Great work, man. Really a treasure trove. ** _Black_Acrylic, Hey. As you should be, sir. Abuzz, I'm saying. Yeah, Skype is one of those things where you're like, Where hath this been all my ... etc.? I do like 'Mouse Heaven' pretty well. The rest, I don't know ... I can't get past the feeling of a massive laziness on his part. But that's just me and some others, obviously. ** Killer Luka, Wowzer, I just turned my head to look out the window, and we're in the middle of an instantaneous fucking blizzard. I thought you'd want to know, ha ha. ** Chilly Jay Chill, You pretty much nailed my exact interest in the story when you characterized yours. I had a little phase of being into Michel Tournier back in the 80s or thereabouts. I remember thinking 'The Orge', which I read first, was really something, and I remember that none of the other novels I read ('Gemini', 'Friday and Robinson', 'Gilles and Jeanne', and maybe a couple more) were in the same league, and I haven't touched his work in years. I'd say try 'The Ogre' first. Tournier has squat to do with the Nouveau Roman. That is a weird contextualization. It's not that kind of work at all, as you'll see. ** NB, I know, trippy amount of missing things in there, right? The story got all tangled up in my head for a while. It would make a pretty terrific short story if someone wanted to add some trimmings. ** Misanthrope, It might just say that I take desire too seriously. I've been told that before. Not by anyone I've desired or had sex with, mind you. Or not to my face, at least. VK is kind of insane or at least a big weirdo. Honestly, I'm not sure I'd even schtup that little turtle Jesse Starr. Oh, maybe. I'm weird, I know. I suppose artists come here for all kinds of reasons. I mean Paris is a great city to live in, and that's the basic answer, and artists are treated as very important figures here, even by the government, and supported/ funded a zillion times more generously than in the States, and that's surely part of it. And the US is a fucking nightmare of idiocy at the moment, so, if you're interested in living a culture and society that prioritizes the intelligent and rational over the nitwitty and fame-seeking, that's an awfully good reason to get the hell out of there, I guess. How's your driveway doing? ** Bill, Someone just recommended Pascal Contet to me the other day. Interesting. I'll seek. ** Inthemostpeculiarway, I guess a mocha frapachino counts. I don't even know what that is. Is it sort of like drinking a Rose Parade float? No, French words rarely exit my mouth, but I understand French just a little better every day. Well, now the Burroughs documentary people aren't so sure they want to come all the way over here to Paris, so I don't know. My favorite Burroughs is 'The Wild Boys'. Oh gosh, I hope your lovestruck friend is right by some bizarre miracle. Right, it's almost Valentines Day, isn't it? It must be a very minor holiday over here. I haven't seen a cardboard heart anywhere to save my life. Did you write? And what? My day: The snow stopped pretty quickly. Then it got really cold. I used my cleaning crew exile to buy the usual food and read some of the issue of Mojo I hadn't read. Weird, good interview with Sly Stone in there. It made me listen to Sly and the Family Stone for a while yesterday, and the music was just total genius like I remembered. I wrote some, novel-wise, which went fine, and I worked on editing the texts for our new theater piece, which went fine. I almost finished consolidating the 'epiphany', which is going to hopefully be this very emotional and sad and intense outburst of a song that one of the performers will spontaneously sing -- although it won't be her actual voice -- upon finding the very dead body of Jonathan Schatz's character, if all goes as planned. Obviously, it has be a really good piece of writing to pull that off, and I have to finish it 'cos Stephen O'Malley is going to compose the music to go with it in the next couple of weeks. So, I did that. Oh, in the evening, Scott Treleaven did a tarot card reading for Oscar B and me. Kiddiepunk changed his mind and decided he didn't want one, but we did it in his room. I took pictures, but I'm not sure if they turned out okay, so I don't know if I'll post them yet. I shouldn't speak about what the readings themselves said, but neither one of us was told we're going to die soon or anything like that. After that, I diddled about for a while and crashed. That's all. And your Wednesday? ** Justin, Hm, I'll go check that Smileyfacekiller connection. I don't how I missed that when I was putting the post together. Curious. No doubt Valentino is a jerk, and I'm jonesing to see that documentary. It's worth watching, right? People keep telling me it is. ** Slatted Light, Yeah, completely and precisely on that weird news story. Exactly. Pretty submersive, right? I started reading your piece on the Trinidad/ Powell book this morning while I was awakening, and it's a total stunner. I'm heading back there in a bit to finish and swipe part of it. Yeah, the Lonely Christopher title is good, right? It has a very strange relationship to the actual book too, as you'll see. No, he's never been around here, as far as I know. I think he has shown up in HTMLG's comments arena sometimes. His mss. was recommended to me by Zach German. I think they're friends or comrades or something. Sure, I'm totally up for a Skype talk. That would be awesome. Tell me when's good, and we'll sort that out immediately. ** Rigby, Right? Tell me about it. The story is wrongness gone googolplex or something. I want to coopt it somehow, I don't know how. ** Zoom, and I'm off. Clarice Lispector is pretty wonderful, I think, but see what you think. Stay real, guys.