Rome
Hotel Locarno
Pantheon
Piazza Spagna
Colosseum
Castel San Angelo
Basilica S. Pietro
Vatican Museum
Villa Borghese, Bioparco
Tivoli Fountain
Palazzo Venezia, Palazzo Montecitorio, Sante Maria degli Angeli
Firenze
Hotel Fiorino
Palazzo Vecchio, Duomo
La Specola 1
La Specola 2
Palazzo di Pitti, Giardino di Boboli
Santa Croce
Santa Maria Novella
Museo Galileo
Accademia, Serial Killer Museum, Grom Gelateria, Fucci, Santa Lorenzo
Palazzo Medici Riccardi
Piazza Michelangelo
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p.s. Hey. So, there are some visual snippets of what I did. As always with these personal slide show things, I'm not sure if it's of too much interest, but there you go for the sake of, well, going. ** Math, Hey. Sorry again about my delayed response. I thought the piece was quite odd and beautiful. For me, it was almost impossible to read without hearing it being read aloud in my head in a kind of soothing, montaged voice, complete with the sound of cuts and blips between the sentences and weird rhythmic shifts. Like Burroughs' cut-up tape experiments in that sense, but also kind of sci-fi and 'Hal', as at least one other person mentioned. I took it as a kind of play between a kind of nonsensical poetic train of thought and the textual rigidity of, say, instructional manuals or the prerecorded 'waiting time' messages you're forced to hear when you try to reach a real person at a corporation by phone. Lulling and chilly and alienated and suspiciously ingratiating. In that sense, the effect was more like music than prose or even than a poem. I think it's quite interesting as it is in its insubstantiality, and I didn't personally wish for shortening or lengthening, although I do think that creating a context for it would make for something potentially interesting. I wondered if it was heavily based on or borrowed and twisted from a pre-existing form and style, or even taken off an actual text, almost copied from something else but with curious liberties being taken to create the hallucinatory effect. Apart from its distinct pleasures, it left me with a questioning feeling as to what you were going for exactly. I felt an ongoing uncertainty about whether I was receiving your goals properly, and I'm not sure if that's a plus or a minus. I'd like to hear what you were up to, if you don't mind talking about that. Yeah, I'll say it was very pleasurable and that the biggest effect was that it made me wonder if there was a disconnect between my pleasure and your intention. My pleasure felt earned, yet it had a tentative quality too. And maybe that's precisely what you were aiming for? ** David Ehrenstein, Hi, David. ** Chris Cochrane, Hey, Chris. Yeah, I think you saw my last email, and it seems like a discussion between us four is in order. I don't want to say too much more here. I don't think a set fee is necessary, though. Not in my experiences with the work with Gisele. Anyway, we'll talk. And, sure, of course, just give me a heads up/ reminder when it gets around the time of the Kickstarter thing, and I'll do my best re: that here and on Facebook and wherever else, you bet. ** Steevee, Just between you and me, I've nodded out to Burzum before. And not in a bad way really. Anyway, I'll find the new one. And I'll definitely watch out for 'Attenberg'. You made it sound really, really interesting. Yury was feeling somewhat better by last night, thanks. Don't know what was up with the sickness. Maybe a reaction to a medication he's taking. Yes, he has health insurance here. As long as you're a legal resident, you can get insurance. If you're just a sneaky longterm tourist like me, you can't, unfortunately. ** Christopher/Mark, Hi, Mark! Yes, I'm back. You must know Italy fairly well, I'm imagining. I bet you recognize a bunch of stuff up there. How are you? What's going on? ** Richard, Hey, Richard. How really nice to see you here, thank you! Naturally, I would absolutely love a copy of Lynne's book. That would be great and generous. Do you have my address? If not, it's: c/o Centre International des Recollets, 150 rue du Faubourg St. Martin, 75010 Paris, France. I just read that nice piece on Lynne and on the book/press in the Observer. Exciting stuff. Great respect to you, Richard, and take care. ** The Dreadful Flying Glove, Thanks a lot for the great response to Math's piece, of course. I get you on The Doors. I don't really disagree. And I do think 'The Crystal Ship' is an amazing song. I think there are some really terrific things on the first two Doors album. After that, just a few here and there and less and less and less. Cope's take definitely interests me. I imagine that should be findable somewhere. And there's obviously bunch of Doors in the very earliest Echo and the Bunnymen stuff, and they're one of my favorite bands. Best of luck with your head-down work. All love. ** James, Hey. Yeah, our vacation was a lot of work, actually. Body work. I'm used to sitting and typing and staring. Oh, 'Insidious', I really want to see that. I was just reading about it. Yeah, totally, it sounds like big fun. I'll have to watch the French movie posters carefully because they'll undoubtedly retitle it. Not sure when the TPR thing comes out. We haven't edited it yet, so I don't think it'll come out for a while. Happy Monday and love to you too, man. ** Quailty, Hey, welcome to here, and thank you. Beautiful read on Math's thing. Your blog/site is super intriguing and inviting. Happy to have found and bookmarked it. Everyone, Quailty has a very interesting looking wordpress blog/site thing called Good Jobbbbbbbb that I recommend you check out. A pleasure, sir. Please feel more than free to hang out here anytime. ** Syreearmwellion, Really nice thoughts on Math's thing. Thanks for bringing your game. Yeah, it definitely was like '.. but I'm a cheerleader'. Like totally like it, but more masculine and groan-filled. ** Sypha, Oh, sure, I'll bear that in mind. I know how it goes. That is interesting about how making the post diminishes your interest in the subject, at least for a while. I suppose that happens to me with some of the posts here in some minor way at least, now that you mention it. It makes sense even. Curious. There's some wacky stuff on those early Ono/Lennon albums. If memory serves, the worst is 'The Wedding Album' by far. Just awful. 'Live Peace in Toronto' is good. And I think 'Life with the Lions' has some odd stuff on it. ** Casey McKinney, Hi, Casey. I'm really excited to read your piece on Blake's book, obviously. Don't sweat it; I'm sure it'll turn out amazing. That Bookforum review was so interestingly off, grasping and overconfident and resistant. I thought it was kind of fascinating in that sense. You've probably seen that there's some blog that's posting a line by line review of that Bookforum review. I expect Blake's novel will really throw some critics. Paris this summer, really? 'Twould be incredible, obviously. Yeah, let me know as you know. That would be great! ** Hyrule Dragon. Hey. Thanks for the fine read, man. I got your email. Very interesting. Curious to know more when the time is right. ** Alan, Hey, man. Super thoughtful, good thoughts there, of course. Thank you! ** Cap'm, Greetings, and thank you a lot for being here and for giving Math your thoughts. I also got to find your blog, which is very cool. I really like your writing. Really sharp and smart, and I love your sentences. Tell us/me more, if you feel like it. A real pleasure. Everyone, cap'm, who commented here for the first time this weekend, has a blog and is a very interesting writer, and I recommend you check out her blog/work. It's called CAP'M PARIAH, and it's here. ** Paul Curran, Hi, Paul! Lovely thoughts on Math's work, thank you. Yeah, I was sort of imagining your recovery would be slowish based on that bout I had with adult measles. Strange, isn't it? I'm glad you've been able to write through it, and of course the news of a full draft being within your grasp is very exciting. New LIES/ISLE, wow, cool. I didn't know that. Everyone, Paul Curran passes along the word that the new issue of the great online lit. mag/site LIES/ISLE is up and fully viewable. The theme is 'silence', and it includes a must-see collab work by Paul and artist/d.l. Bill Hsu, as well as work by a number of other quite good writers and artists including the legendary Richard Kostelanetz. Check it out. It's here. I'll go gorge on your piece with Bill as soon as I get done here. ** Allesfliesst, Thanks for your smarts re: Math. Well, my tan is fading as we speak. I'm going to try to go walk around and give it a boost. That theater piece: I saw it in the mid-80s in Amsterdam. It was done by an experimental Yugoslavian theater company called Red Pilot. I don't remember the name of the piece itself. If memory serves, I think Red Pilot were part of the then-collective of Yugoslavian artists that included the band Laibach and others. I hope you can find something about it. ** Miles, Hi, Miles. Welcome, and thanks for being here and for the Math props. Your 'hikes' blog looks very curious and like some kind of first. I'm going to explore it later. Everyone, again, I highly recommend you check out the blog, or, rather, blogs of new guy Miles. This one entitled 'hikes' is about, well, hikes he's taken, and this one entitled 'it is understood he had signed to star in a video game', covers all sorts of grounds. Thanks. Do hang out here, if you like. ** Jax, Hi, Jack. Awesome thoughts and words to Math, man. What's up, your latest, etc.? Fill me in, bud. ** Wolf, Coolness re: Math's thing. Thanks, pal. Refreshed? Hm, more kind of, uh, in recovery mode in a way. Spacey. It feels good, though, don't get me wrong. I know, July, you, them, us, everyone-ish in Italy for the big shebang. It's going to be so much fun except for the burning heat and sweating part. ** Kiddiepunk, Mikester! Thanks! Let's ... something today. Did you check out the site about the Kubrick show. It looks amazing, no? Talk in a bit. ** Squeaky, Hi, D. You did good, man. Not harsh at all. I learned stuff from you too. You were razor sharp. ** FreeFox, Hi, man! Good to see you. Did you behave yourself while I was in Italy? I like your confusion about Math's thing. Good questions. I want to see what she says about the thing too. And you? What's up? ** David, Hi, David, and thanks. ** Dennis Cooper, Likely story. ** _Black_Acrylic, Hey, Ben. Quality and gracious words to Math. The Salmon of Knowledge, wow, okay. More like Salmon of the Cryptic, it sounds like. Like an 8-ball but even more minimalist. ** Bill, Hi. Really looking forward to absorbing the LIES/ISLE piece by you and Paul. Great about the Sonia thing. I'm paying my rent today, and I'll see if there's anything I can do. It sounds like it's moving along just fine, though. Hm, yeah, your being here might be the thing to get Oscar, Kiddiep, and I to get off our asses and organize that Recollets gallery show, come to think of it. ** MANCY, Hey, man. Yeah, Ballardian, I thought so too. Thanks! ** Inthemostpeculiarway, Hi. That getting lost in the woods story was eerie and beautiful I know Texas has woods, but I can't imagine them. I guess they look like woods, duh. Anyway, I think I would have been scared shitless if I did that. I only know 'Vanilla Sky' from that horrible Paul McCartney song. Why was the sky vanilla? I always like it when you visit your relatives. I probably like it a lot more than you do, ha ha. Are you going to see 'Insidious'? I'm also kind of excited to see that new movie by the guy who made 'The Cell' and 'The Fall'. I think it's called 'The Immortals' or something. My weekend: Mostly spaced out and gradually despacing, I think. I coffeed with Kiddiepunk and Oscar, and I told them about Italy, and they told me about Paris. It was nice. There's a big exhibition about Stanley Kubrick on at the Cinematheque, and we decided to see that asap, and to eat at Hard Rock Cafe vis a vis nachos, etc. asap. Gisele called and caught me up on the stuff that happened while I was gone. Like I guess the performance of 'TIHYWD' last week was the most technically fucked up, borderline disaster performance ever, but the audience liked it anyway, which is good, I guess. There are a bunch of likely new gigs for our pieces, including one in New Delhi, of all places. Mostly, it was very good news. I realized that I'm, like, 20 friends away from reaching the 5000 friend Facebook limit, and I guess I have to make a fan page or something and steer people over there, which I really don't want to do, but I guess it's better than not being able to have new friends. I looked at one of the old, failed experiments that I did when I was trying to figure out how to write 'TMS', and I thought it had possibilities, so I decided to work more on it just to have something to work on, and maybe it'll end up being an okay short fiction piece or something. It was warm and nice on Saturday, and it was raining and chilly yesterday. Yury got sick, like I said. He said he felt weird, and then he just threw up suddenly, and then he was really sick and vomiting for a while, and then he started feeling a little better. So, I watched over him and went out to get stuff from the pharmacy and so on for him. We're not sure what happened. He's still asleep, but I hope he has recovered once he wakes up. I was interviewed yesterday by this American girl who's here in Paris studying in the NYU overseas program and is writing her thesis about expatriat American artists living in Paris. That was interesting. Uh, I can't remember what else I did. I think I'm mostly sort of getting back into the Paris way of life. Maybe I'll do something cool today. I just might. How was Monday, my friend? ** Misanthrope, Hi, G. Good thinking and stuff there for Math. You're a trooper. Exactly, about the consensual slave thing. I figure people should only scream in pain when they want to scream in pain. Krieger wrote those lyrics? Why was he allowed to do that, I wonder? Artistic democracy has ruined a lot of bands. Speaking of which, take the new Strokes album for example. 'Jim never wrote a bad lyric in his ...' Okay, man. Let's just calm down and be sensible now, eh? Ha ha, etc. Hip-hip-hooray about The Undertaker. The Rock actually wrestled? I didn't expect that. ** Pascal, Hi there, Pascal! How are you? Thanks for talking so lustrously to Math about her work. What's up with you du jour, man? ** Okay, now, look at fragments of Yury's and my Italy trip today, if you want. I'll ... do something while you're doing or not doing that, deal? See you tomorrow.
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