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p.s. Hey. Today you get the latest episode in Bernard Welt's mini-series, as if you hadn't noticed, ha ha. Dig. I have an earlyish train to Brest in the morning, where I'll be spending a week helping get 'Last Spring, a Prequel' ready for its premiere on the 15th, so I won't be my talkative self in the p.s. tomorrow. I'll say hello, introduce the post, and then I will catch up with your comments from today and tomorrow once I'm settled into my Brest lodgings on Thursday. ** Pisycaca, Thanks, Montse. Yeah, I really need to get to Barcelona. All attempts have been thwarted so far, but fate will surely give me a break. I would think 'TIHYWD' will get to Barcelona. I know there are a lot of future gigs being worked out right now, and I'll check with Gisele to see if the big B is one of them. Love, me. ** Bollo, I did get a tiny bite of brown cheese because Gisele is way into it, and she was buying and packing a bunch to bring back to Paris. It caused a curious sensation within my taste buds. I think I need more than a nibble to figure it out. Yeah, the T. Hecker is super pretty. Still another application? Soldier it, man. ** David Ehrenstein, Thank you, sir. ** Oscar B, Hey, buddah. Yesterday I was recording stuff all day, but I want to see you because I'm going away for a week tomorrow, so let's definitely find time today, yeah? I'll call you or vice versa ere long. ** Allesfliesst, I'm going to try to get the DVD today if the preplanned stars align as, well, planned. Well, Wayne's thing for Jimmy Page is comedy, but it's also totally plausible. Young Jimmy Page was hot. I remember thinking so. Your desire has a strict cut off date? That's interesting. That might be something interesting to write about. ** Jax, Hi, pal. Yeah, I was able to do something with my writing in 'TMS' that I've been wanting and trying to do unsuccessfully since forever. My very first novella 'SAFE' was a feeble, botched attempt, so I've basically been looking for the solution ever since. I feel like I've taken my writing to a new level or something, in terms of my personal goals, and, obviously, that feels great. Whether readers will be interested or care or agree is another matter, but, at the moment, I'm confident enough to be excited to find out. It was white and cold and overcast in Oslo, you got it. I liked it a lot. I want to go back. Oh, right, 'kick' the bucket type list. That was a good idea. Like Math said, maybe ten or less. Hm. I'll figure out how to do that. Thanks, Jack. Yeah, channel most of it into the writing. I know the fear of crashing that you mean, and, yeah, focus is the way to go, I think. ** Renaud Cerqueux, Hey! I'll send you my info today, and it's great you want to meet up. I look forward to it! ** Thomas Moronic, The blog helping people with their own work in some way is one of the highest if not its highest goal, so I'm really happy to hear that. 'I Apologize' might get to the ICA in London. It's being discussed and negotiated and stuff. Post(s) from you would be wonderful and very kind, of course. Thank you for wanting to. The dolls/ robot question is really interesting, and my answer is probably kind of strange. They're completely Gisele's thing and idea. She's spoken about their use a lot, and I'll see if I can find anything in English to repeat or link you up to. They're a lifelong fascination of hers, and while I think I understand what they mean to her, their meaning and usage are quite complex, and I feel hesitant to paraphrase her. In working with her, I see them as her premise, and I see my part in the creation of the pieces as illustrating their premise as she intends in each individual case, and I try not to think too complexly about their usage in a personal way so as not to muddy that component. They have individual identities to her, and they have names. For instance, there's one mannequin who is named George Miles who was modeled after photos of George and who represents her ideas about George from reading my work, and which she uses in the pieces strategically to call up that association for me and for her. There's also a mannequin named Angelique after Robbe-Grillet's character. Etc. My thing is to try to meet her intentions re: the non-human performers as best I can, and I measure out the texts for and re: them based on her wishes and fine tuning. I mean, there are the obvious associations: corpse, fantasy substitute a la prostitutes or lookalikes or children's playthings, etc., etc. And I have them in my head, but I feel that my relationship to the dolls and robots should be a filtered one, and I find that relationship very interesting, of course. I don't know if that helps? Thanks for asking and caring, T. ** JoeM, Hi, Joe. I'm really glad you're working, and that's fantastic about the finished piece and the short story competition entry. In theory or in my head, the Abigail and serial killer thing makes a very interesting combo, of course, but that's why they call it theory, I guess, and that's why I call it my head, ha ha. Obviously, I would love to read anything or showcase it here or whatever if the interest arises for you. What does a 'ned-looking' guy mean? Have you been to Scandinavia, I forget? I love it there, the climate and everything else. ** Sypha, Don't overthink it too much, man. His previous crushes don't necessarily mean anything. You can end up determining his patterns at your expense where none actually exist. I always think it's good to stay in the present and not backpedal into his past experiences too much unless you detect signs that he's a psycho or something. ** Steevee, Sounds like you diagnosed your melancholy pretty well. How was the Breillat talk/ screening? I agree with you about the Blake album, yeah. Well put. I only know the name Cult of Youth. I'll give them a listen. Thanks a lot, Steve. ** _Black_Acrylic, Best wishes on your hopefully not cold, man. Great topics for the 'Trash Humpers' piece, obviously. How will you construct it?Will you write it out based on what you learned from the discussion, or will you recreate the discussion, or ... ? ** Mark, Hey. Oh, thanks for explaining that. The site does sound incredible. I'll register. It's a good thing that I'm okay with piracy 'cos that 'Missing Men' download is news to me. Everyone, d.l. Mark passes along something that's pretty interesting and potentially very useful to you, so listen up: 'aaaargh's books are pdf downloadable only, and registration + downloading is free. Everybody should check it out; they have a huge collection of the most amazing digitized books that can be found nowhere nowhere else, mainly on the topics of philosophy, sociology, radical politics, contemporary art.' Really loved the 'Control' piece you made. Pretty crazy and amazing. ** Chris Cochrane, Progressive rock rut .. like who? ** Shannon, Hi, Shannon! Great to see you! How's writing and life and everything? Yeah, but if we went around the net power mongering, we'd inspire an anti-d.l. movement, and that would be sad, no? Maybe we're power mongering in our own special way like, uh, Tibetan monks clinking our finger cymbals on a mountaintop or something? Okay, a bit of a stretch, I guess, ha ha. ** Math, Yeah, pal, enjoy the chill phase. It probably won't last too long. I mean you're pretty snaggable. Taupe vnecks, ha ha, I feel a blog Day coming on. No, I think not. Yeah, maybe 10 choices or less on the 'before you die' list thing. Hm, I'm dwelling on how to do it. Ongoing love and total support for the infinity of you, my friend. ** Andrew, We'll have to figure out a way for you to see our big maze piece when it's finished. It's nothing but robot dolls. No humans. The replicants have finally taken over. I do know Tomas the Tank Engine, yes, and that toy you describe is a search engine must. Thank you kindly. Might be true about printer ink, but I think they've sorted out a long life span for that stuff, haven't they? Surely they have by now. ** Chris (British), I guess they could smoke clove cigarettes. God, I hate their smell. I went to an X-Files convention once for fun, and the Smoking Man was there, and he revealed that the SM smoked clove cigarettes onscreen, and it almost ruined the whole show for me. Day off work, yes! You see the ENT this week? Did I remember that correctly? Ha ha, yeah, the dolls in the seats: when I first showed up at the theater to start work, I opened the stage door, saw the dolls in their chairs, and I thought there was a play going on, and I said to everyone, 'How the fuck are we supposed to rehearse when there's a play going on?!', and everyone laughed at me. ** Misanthrope, I should just say for the record that Gisele had not seen 'Donnie Darko' when she thought that up. She still hasn't seen 'Donnie Darko'. I will skip past your mild criticism of GbV with my fists balled and a thin smile. It's for the best. Yeah, the new Strokes single just sounds like The Strokes being The Strokes to me. That bone and tissue has to be from an Abominable Snowman. I mean, seriously, what other explanation is there? ** Michael Karo, Real writers? What?! We're all real writers around here. We just choose our forms differently sometimes. Cool about your 80s era fan base. That's awfully nice. Any links you can pass along? ** Inthemostpeculiarway, Thank you, man. Damn internet, ha ha, yeah. I hear you. That Nico/ Charlie Sheen mash-up was scary and inventive to think about. Yeah, the new Britney single isn't genius, but it's okay. Nice jogging one-sided conversation. I could feel the panting even. Sad about her kid going away to ... college? That must be sad for moms. Not a bad day, man. You made it shine. My day: Mostly in the recording studio. I walked over there. It's close, like, fifteen minutes. I tried to buy something to eat along the way since we would be pressed for time and would probably not get a food break, but, after going to three supermarkets, I only managed to find a plastic thing that had three apple turnovers in it acceptable to me 'cos every sandwich and prepackaged pasta or tabouli or whatever salad thing I found had chicken in it. The French think if chicken isn't in something, it's inedible. Anyway, I took that to the recording studio. It was in a basement. Lots of famous (in France) people have recorded their albums there. Jonathan (who was really sick with a cold and all bundled up and drinking lots of tea), Gisele, and Stephen were there plus the recording studio guy. Jonathan's crapped out sick voice actually kind of helped the evil hand puppet's voice sound even more evil, so that was good. We recorded with multiple takes and everything for about three hours. Then we edited everything into the final recording that we'll use in the piece next week for ... a long time. The final recording ended up lasting about 15 minutes, which is basically what we hoped. Actually, we hoped for 12 minutes, but 15 is okay, although we might put some chairs there for any people who might be old and not want to stand and watch a robot boy and his evil hand puppet talk for that long. When we get to Brest, we'll have to program the robot to move and breathe and blink and so on at the right times and in the right amount to match the voices, which will probably be pretty labor intensive, but we'll see. Then I came home and ate dinner and washed my clothes and stuff. I watched French 'Top Chef'. The contestants had to cook for a bunch of comedians, and also for a bunch of really hyper and critical children. My favorite Pierre came a hair's breadth from being voted off again. I don't think he's going to win. They voted off Ludovic from Marseilles, which was kind of sad because he was very likable, but he undercooked some beef dish, and the hyper kids hated it, and that was that. Then I slept. Okay, I'll catch you up on my next wo days on Thursday, and, in the meantime, how did you spend your day(s)? ** The Dreadful Flying Glove, Hi, bud. Field trip to what? Whenever I go do almost anything in Paris, I pretend it's a field trip. I've never heard of that Fripp album, hm. Faust would work, certainly. Yury is currently obsessed with two songs -- The Cure's 'All Cats are Grey' and Serge Gainsbourg's 'Love on the Beat', and he was playing one or the other nonstop whenever I was home yesterday, and now I have a collage song of them in my head, and it's not pretty. It is, however, repetitive. Man, wanting to go home, I know that, and I guess I know the passing of the wanting too, or the sublimation at least. ** Schlix, Hey. Gisele told me that, yes, in fact the birds did do exactly what they were supposed to do at the Hamburg shows, much to her shock. A rarity, let me tell you. Sleep: if I don't get 8 hours, I'm fucked. I got 8 hours last night, and, even so, I still think I might be getting a cold today. Oh, yeah, I like that Hecker/Baker album too. It's great! Good day to you, Uli. ** Squeaky, Hi, D. Thanks, man. I hope you get to see 'IA' too. It's still alive to some degree, apparently, so maybe. Interesting about that screening. The generational divide thing is so true. I wasn't there for the first few weeks of rehearsals for the 'Them' reboot, but Ishmael said he had to really explain at length what it was like vis a vis AIDS/HIV in the early 80s when we made the piece because the performers, who are in their twenties, just didn't have a clue or know much of anything about that. Also, interestingly, he said, if my memory serves, that the two heterosexual performers knew and understood a lot more about that time/AIDS than the gay performers did. Anyway, exciting about the two shows. Dude, totally, come to Paris and do a residency. I can try to hook you up at the Recollets. I feel pretty at home here, yeah, but it has never become home really. I still feel like a lucky, excited visitor when I'm not missing LA too much. But, yeah, Paris is a great place to live. My love for it is undiminished even after all these years here. ** All right. Bernard is your director today, and be with him fully. Like I said, I'll say hello to you in the morning, and then I talk with you and all of that in full again on Thursday. Later.
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