p.s. Hey. Owing to the bare boned nature of the recent rehearsals, this isn't a very picturesque or telling slideshow, I know, but since I decided to go ahead and chronicle the process of building 'This Is How You Will Disappear' on the blog, I'm putting this latest phase out there in case anyone's curious about how our theater pieces get made, I guess. Any questions or anything, of course, just ask. Oh, your host and curator for this past weekend James Mitchum wrote me to say that while he felt too shy to post a comment, he wants to thank those of you who took note of his art show and spoke well of it. He said he appreciates it a lot, and he hopes to overcome his nervousness and join in here one of these days. I think that's my intro's totality this morning. ** JoeM, Thanks on behalf of James for the good art-related words. Ferry supporting Cameron is a pretty big letdown, I have to say. If he's anti-Labour, he could support, oh, the Greens, after all. Excellent about the new Dr. Who opportunity. Short stories ... Can you say more? I have an Ethan Hawke aversion. I'm hardly alone, but that doesn't mean I can explain it exactly. I'd say River Phoenix is as close to a new James Dean as his era would allow, although he was too 'messy' to spawn the same kind of icon building and merchandise, I guess. ** Steven Trull, Vivian Mercer as in ... ? ** David Ehrenstein, Morning, David. That opera link/thing is curious. I'll look into it more. I had read about R. Wainwright pulling out of some opera, but that's all I had known. That report of 'violence' at the kiss-in was pretty wildly exaggerated. Based on the report of a friend who attended and the news coverage here, the religious protesters at Notre Dame actually numbered maybe a scraggly dozen, and the motorcycle helmet was tossed from a sufficiently far distance that it clattered uselessly on the ground. It's funny to me about the regular need for people outside of France to see this place as less cool than it is. For instance, that report a while back about the so-called death of Parisian nightlife. I ended up tracking that story down, and all it was based on was a petition created by the residents of one apartment building who objected to the noise created by smoking club-goers at a nearby night club which then lead to questions about the club's hours of operation. Just that alone happening is so rare here that it seems to have snowballed via hearsay into a phenomenon. Oh, cool about getting to hear Bill read. Everyone, Bill Reed, writer and musical expert as well as the main squeeze of our own David E, is the author of a really wonderful memoir entitled 'Early Plastic', as some of you likely know already, and now there's the treat of getting to hear Mr. Reed read parts from from this very memoir, and I highly recommend you take the golden opportunity by clicking this. ** Bernard Welt, Really glad you liked the post/show, obviously. Funny young Donald and you story. I sure would love to see 'Black Moon' again. I bet it'll look so nice and so 'then' now. ** David, Thanks, David. ** Thomas Moronic, Thank you a lot for doing the interview with Mark. High quality all the way around. Yeah, I'm happy that I get to help 'Cows' back into print. I even told Akashic they can use its original 'this book makes Dennis Cooper's shocks seem like tickles' (not an exact quote) blurb. I heard that you're likely coming over here in April. Awesome. I hope it's when I'm here and not during the ten days I'm in Brest. ** Killer Luka, Cool, thanks from Mr. Mitchum and from me too. ** Tosh, I'm actually going to pick up that Bracewell book today assuming Shakespeare & Co. has it. I love what you say about it ending before Roxy began. I love Ferry's work too. If he's really publicly supporting Cameron, I just wish he wouldn't. It's not a fatal offense or anything, but support seems like a big word in those circumstances. ** Dan Callahan, Hi, Dan Callahan, and thanks for being here. ** Mark Gluth, That is something really nice about working with Gisele: her process and mine really are not that dissimilar. So your dogs are vegan, and there's no harm whatsoever in that diet. That's a nice blow against the empire. ** JW Veldhoen, Hey, J. Glad James' show got you going. Oh, what you wrote reminds me ... Everyone, a corrective re: 'Pimple Zoo': A lurker wrote to inform me that the work in the show credited to 'unknown' was in fact a work by the artist Patricia Piccinini who also made the piece in the show called 'The Embrace.' Gregory de la Habba: news to me. I'll try to hunt his work down. Thanks! ** Bill, Oh, like I just wrote to JW, that uncredited piece was by Patricia Piccinini. Mueck's huge crouching boy sculpture is a real fave of mine. Yeah, I'd love to see the sketches if you end up deciding to post them, so do let me know. If you do end up here at the Recollets, will you set up a Paris gig? Obviously, I'm anxious to see you perform. ** Christopher/ Mark, That 'Hitler admiring' fuss re: Ferry is just absurd, but there is no bottom that British tabloids won't scrape. Riefenstahl and Speer were geniuses. That's a controversial opinion? Anyway, I hope the event went very well, and, like others here, I would love to hear about it if you feel like passing any tidbits along. So wish I could have been there. _Black_Acrylic, Greetings. That Julian Oliver stuff does look interesting, and I look forward to reading your words about it once I'm back in words inputting mode rather than outputting mode a little later. ** Kier, Yeah, I think that's the Patricia Arquette one. Which NOES is the one where they get caught in that time loop? I like that one a lot too. ** Justin, Hey. A late HVD to you too. Yes, Yury was busily gathering videos for your McQueen post last night. I'm glad you guys are friends. I'll ask if ... Everyone, our fine friend Justin is putting together a post for the blog about Alexander McQueen, and he asks that if anyone within the sight of this text wants to contribute anything to the post -- video especially -- he'd be most welcoming and grateful. If you can and want to help Justin out, I guess either connect up with him on the blog or write to him directly if you know how to do that. Thanks! ** Sypha, I hope by the time you see this, you've begun to follow your bouncing back brother. I did a quick google search re: Vladik Shibanov to see who you were talking about and found this pretty serious, dedicated memorial page, which I imagine you already know. I only knew of him from your Boy Destroyers cover. Well, who knows if the fan base of his naturist stuff weirded him out, of course, but, unless he stated that it did weird him out, there's as much reason to think it didn't. ** Ken Baumann, Hey, Ken! Oh, thanks so much for reading 'Closer' and for your kind words. Means a lot, man. I'm super excited about Sator Press, and I so can't wait to read the great Christopher Higgs' book. Everyone, the massively and multi-talented Ken Baumann has just started up a new publishing venture of unspeakable promise called Sator Press, and the first Sator book is a novel by Christopher Higgs whom many of you probably know as one of the leading lights at HTMLGIANT and/or as the man behind the sublime blog 'bright stupid confetti'. Go here to visit the Sator Press website and join me in a state of slobbering anticipation. Huge congrats, Ken. You're the inspiring one. And I'm happy to report that sunshine is supposed to start creeping back into Paris this week, they say. ** Stan_cz, Hey. Well, I don't have nearly enough time to work on my novel at the moment, but I'm finding whatever there is. The new poems of yours sound like very intriguing beauties. I'm glad you're able to write even with all the phonelessness and the settling in. ** Steevee, Hope you hear back from the publicist today, and that the gig comes through, obviously. ** Armando, Hey, man. No, I haven't read the new Coupland. I've never been a gigantic fan of his, although I'm not down on his work at all, and I don't think I've cracked a book of his in, gosh, a long time. I'm off to the bookstore today, I think, and I'll have a look at it if it's on the shelves. That Diamanda Galas show does sound pretty incredible. I think she's coming here soon, and I haven't seen her live in, again, gosh, a long time, so it's high time, and you've got me excited at the prospect. ** Creative Massacre, Mm, my Valentines Day was a day like any other, I guess. I don't think the French give much of a shit about that holiday, and I guess the ennui is contagious. Sorry yours was rough, although with that new someone in the possible cards, it wasn't all bad, right? Here's hoping. ** Oscar B, My Sunday was nice if uneventful, pretty much. Yeah, let's confer, see Chrystel, go out. On the latter-most front, around 3:30 to 4 pm would work for me. On the Chrystel thing, earlier's okay. Call me, or I'll call you. ** Alan, 'This Is It' without sound sounds just about right, (he said while ducking and covering). 600 pages of 'Infinite Jest' is pretty damned good. 'Vanity Fair' is as lofty as my nicotine starved airborne attention span will allow. Two days until 'Fantastic Mr. Fox'. Two days! ** Chris, I'll bet it's not easy. Still, I'd walk a mile in your shoes if you could walk a mile in mine. The Seattle gig sounds potentially invigorating. Roar of the crowd and all that. 'Mezzanine' is my fave Massive Attack. I tried their new one, but I thought it was pretty much a big snooze. ** Inthemostpeculiarway, Oh, probably ninety percent of the people I admire most either weren't or wouldn't become a vegetarian if you paid them. No big. I bet your showers are more fun than mine. Our shower is a skinny little pod of a thing whose inadequate curtain always allows water to spill/spray out onto the bathroom floor no matter how carefully you position it or how hard you try not to bump into it. Gosh, thanks for the writing compliment. I can imagine that Wurtzel being fun and very 90s and all that. My weekend wasn't much, I'm warning you. What can I dredge out? I wrote a fair amount. Nice for me, the usual for you. A friend of mine's boyfriend died of HIV-related causes. I never met the boyfriend, but obviously that shook me up anyway. His name was Dannie Ray, and he was only 39. Anyway, uh, I did a coffee with Kiddiepunk and Oscar during which we started planning some day trips to some cool Parisian things. They start today with a visit to Musee Maillol, where none of us have ever been before, to see a show called 'Vanites' that features 'vanity' art starting back in Pompeii and going all the way up to that horrible Damien Hirst diamond skull thing. I watched a fair amount of the Winter Olympics, and that was relaxing and ambient in just the way I wanted it to be. This friend of mine Dorna, a fantastic translator who's posted here a couple of times, is applying for a French government grant to fund her plan to translate Alain Robbe-Grillet's final novel 'Un Roman Sentimental' into English, and since I think it's criminal how that novel hasn't been translated yet, and because Dorna's awesome, I wrote her a recommendation letter re: the grant. I also put together some blog post stuff. Uh, ... ate stuff. Unless I'm forgetting something that isn't just blah like waking up, going to sleep, or smoking, I think that was my weekend almost in full. Sorry. Give me a nice Itmpw Monday to wake up to tomorrow, please? ** Misanthrope, To give Borders the benefit of the doubt for no good reason, Justin's book just came out, like, two days ago, but, on second thought, that's no excuse. No, I didn't know Panda?'s new Pacific Blush masterpiece has hit the airwaves. I guess I need to pay more attention to Facebook or something, Damn. I'm so going to get that sucker. Panda? is genius. You can quote me. A whale? I beg to differ. Bottle nosed dolphin maybe. ** Bollo, Hey. VD was vd. Lower case is supposed to indicate blaze. In the French sense, not in the 'roaring fire' sense. Hope James saw and followed your link. I think he probably did. That 'Seven Sinners' thing is pretty funny. ** With that, I leave you for yet another 24 hours or so. If the slideshow gives, cool, but if it takes without giving, I owe you one.