----
'America is not only the inventor of the western it is also a central location and theme throughout the entire genre. Even Italy's Spaghetti Westerns and the eastern Osterns play out in the same dusty US deserts and historical context as the original westerns. So it was that this land became iconic to the films and the films portrayal of the lands history in turn came to be seen as truth rather than fiction and so the two were forever linked. This bond was quickly reflected in the American cultures psyche as the cowboy became "emblematic of a strong, hard, rustic masculinity that settled the west, conquered Indians, tamed a hostile land and ensured the spread of American democracy from sea to sea."
'These values were quickly adopted as the hegemonic norm and so as the country advanced it did so like a cowboy, echoing the movement westward, although now there was nowhere left to substitute as the "untamed land, stretching out endlessly and breeding masculine individualism, heroic action, democratic citizenship and national progress" and so this "drive to master the wilderness and build a new nation" was exported to foreign lands and took the "more troubling form of invasion, subjugation and 'rape' of the land and it's natural resources" . There were those however who did not support the use of the gun as a way to further your fortune, be it by a character or a country, and so they took the western, the original propagator of violence as the path towards prosperity, and used it to sell a different message. These people were a part of what was latter termed the 'counter-culture' and these films that they produced are now known as the 'Acid Westerns'.
'The term 'Acid Western' was coined by the American critic and theorist Jonathon Rosenbaum in a piece he wrote on the film
Dead Man by auteur Jim Jarmush and it is a very fitting term whose ambiguities of meaning serve well in describing what is otherwise too formless to grasp. There are two distinct meanings attached to the word acid, the dictionary definition which captures the films attempts to corrode through the social zeitgeist of the time by perverting the iconography of the already established genre into pointed criticisms of the world around them. The second meaning inherent in the word is the slang name for a very potent drug known otherwise as LSD. Acid was a highly hallucinogenic chemical that was very popular amongst the counter culture during the sixties and seventies and the qualities of the drug perforates through into their films creating a uniquely mysterious, disturbing and dreamlike atmosphere throughout.
'These qualities are characteristic of the Acid Western however they are not rigidly upheld throughout every example and this is due to the fact that the title was only applied as a categorization after the films' most prominent era. This has lead to some confusion as to whether the Acid-Western is a sub-genre or a movement as it relies on and exploits common features and iconography but also has strong ties to a certain era of filmmakers and the cultural context that surround them. This is an arbitrary argument however and only serves to highlight that it is this ambiguity, vagueness and uncertainty that the Acid Western thrives on.
'As these films are by nature created through contextual transformations there is a vast amount of variation possible in the final product and so at times the links between them can seem tenuous. Monte Hellman's
The Shooting is seen in retrospect as the first of the Acid Westerns but at the time it was greeted as little more than a slight variation on the usual formula. Does this make it any less of an acid western than the near unpalatable
El Topo or
Zachariah which are nearly unrecognizable as a part of the western genre? I hope not. It is because of this that the real cohesion of the category is in the formative stages, all these films begin as a reaction against the western world and genre's proliferation of violence as a reasonable solution; be it against foreigners or ancestors, for money or land. Jim Jarmush describes this collection of films as "Periphery Westerns" which may be accurate in regards to public popularity but in terms of American cultural significance their pointed bite leaves them as valid, if not more so, then any straight western out there.' -- Viginti Tres
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Stills
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FurtherSpecial Monte Hellman issue of 'La furia umana'The Mondo Esoterica Guide to: Sergio CorbucciAndy Warhol FilmsThe Shrine to Don KnottsSam Peckinpah @ Senses of CinemaPagina Oficial de Alejandro Jodorowsky'Zachariah: The Quintessinal Hippie Movie'Audio: Listen to Robert Altman discuss his career'Luc Moullet, a Bootleg Filmmaker'The Films of Robert Downey Sr. @ Persistence of VisionIn Praise of Michael J. PollardWestworld Headed Back to the Screen'THE AVENGING CONSCIENCE: An analysis of philosophical themes in Clint Eastwood's HIGH PLAINS DRIFTERLady of the Cake: A Mel Brooks Site'Rancho Deluxe' @ The Internet Movie DatabaseWelcome to Arthur Penn Fansite_______________
17 films (1966 - 1976)_____________________Monte Hellman
The Shooting (1966)
'Hellman's masterpiece asserts that individual choice is often subverted by the moral objectivity of others. The film's ending is a favorite among cinephilles and serves as a paradigm of Camus's thinking—both stoic and humane, it champions the power of nature over violence. Rather than exaggerate the likeability of his characters, Hellman is more concerned with their very human flaws. We mourn their deaths because of this realism. Hellman fabulously fools around with western archetypes—here we have a faithful sidekick with a penchant for comedy, a scruffy yet likeable hero, an obnoxious yet empowered female, and a mysterious man in black. Hellman's spatial dynamics are disorienting and his compositions remarkably political. In one shot, Hellman uses a tree trunk to split his frame in two: on one side stands the character played by Perkins, on the other stands Oates and Hutchins. Most startling, though, is Hellman's refusal to give evil a definitive face.'-- Ed Gonzalez, Slant Magazine
Trailer
________________________Sergio Corbucci
The Great Silence (1968)
'
The Great Silence (Il grande silenzio, 1968), or
The Big Silence, is an Italian spaghetti western. It is widely considered by critics as the masterpiece of director Sergio Corbucci and is one of his better known movies, along with
Django (1966). Unlike most conventional and spaghetti westerns,
The Great Silence takes place in the snow-filled landscapes of Utah during the Great Blizzard of 1899. The movie features a score by Ennio Morricone and stars Jean-Louis Trintignant as Silence, a mute gunfighter with a grudge against bounty hunters, assisting a group of outlawed Mormons and a woman trying to avenge her husband (one of the outlaws). They are set against a group of ruthless bounty hunters, led by Loco (Klaus Kinski).'-- thespinningimage.com
Trailer
________________________Andy Warhol
Lonesome Cowboys (1968)
'
Lonesome Cowboys was shot at the end of January 1968 in Tucson Arizona - on location in Old Tucson and at the Rancho Linda Vista Dude ranch 20 miles outside the city where some John Wayne movies had been filmed. It was edited by Andy while he was recuperating from the gunshot wounds inflicted by Valerie Solanas on June 3, 1968 and won Best Film at the San Francisco Film Festival in November. Unable to find a major commercial exhibitor, Warhol rented the Garrick Theatre where it opened on May 5, 1969. According to Morrissey, the film grossed $35,000-40,000 during its first week, with only $9,000 spent on advertising. It was also booked at the 55th Street Playhouse at the same time where it broke the "single-day housemark", taking in $3,837 at $3.00 per ticket. In the same day it made $2,780 at the Garrick. It also ran for twenty weeks at various art houses in Los Angeles, and 2 1/2 months in San Francisco under distribution by Sherpix.'-- Gary Comenas, Warholstars
Excerpt
______________________________Alan Rafkin
The Shakiest Gun in the West (1968)
'This is a Don Knotts movie—and that says it all. It says, for one thing, that the plot deals with a weak little worm who turns and triumphs, after ten reels of old-style pratfalls. It also says that Universal City Studios will almost surely make $3,000,000 on an investment of $1,200,000. For Don Knotts comedies are what the trade calls "regionals"—movies turned out for rural audiences. In New York City, Chicago .and Los Angeles, the film
Shakiest Gun was buried as a second feature after a Japanese-made disaster called
King Kong Escapes. But it will pack them in as a feature in other areas, where Don Knotts is known and loved for his grape-eyed, slack-jawed frailty in the face of just about anything life sends his way.'-- Time Magazine
Excerpt
______________________Sam Peckinpah
The Wild Bunch (1969)
'
The Wild Bunch (1969) is director/co-writer Sam Peckinpah's provocative, brilliant yet controversial Western, shocking for its graphic and elevated portrayal of violence and savagely-explicit carnage, yet hailed for its truly realistic and reinterpreted vision of the dying West in the early 20th century. Peckinpah had earlier directed another classic western about the West's passing,
Ride the High Country (1962) and the epic western film
Major Dundee (1965). Many of the film's major stars, including William Holden, Edmond O'Brien, Robert Ryan and Ben Johnson, were veterans of westerns with a more romantic view of the West in the 40s and 50s. This hard-edged, landmark masterpiece of the Western film genre was beautifully shot in wide-screen by cinematographer Lucien Ballard. The film's lasting influence has been seen in the imitative graphic violence of the films of Martin Scorsese, Quentin Tarantino, John Woo, and others.'-- Tim Dirks, filmsite
Trailer
Excerpt: Final shootout
______________________Alejandro Jodorowsky
El Topo (1970)
'With its druggy wanderings and inscrutable reveries,
El Topo would be part of the revolutionary, post-'60s movement if its private mythology didn't belong so obviously to its maker's acid subconscious. "I am God,"
El Topo at one point intones, and Jodorowsky completely means it: Playing deity in front of and behind the camera, the director uses film as a direct pipe into his own mind, and the bursting valise of ideas, images, and sounds that results is a veritable blur of ridiculous and sublime (and ridiculous-sublime) moments that defy ordinary readings while inviting (demanding, really) audience involvement via active interpretation. Whether one takes it as a staggeringly visionary work or a sadistic circus procession making an opportunistic grab for every artistic base (Buñuel and Zen, Eisenstein and pantomime, Antonin Artaud and Russ Meyer), there is no denying the immersive being of the film.'-- Fernando F. Croce, Slant Magazine
Trailer
Excerpt
___________________George Englund
Zachariah (1971)
'
Zachariah (1971) is a film starring John Rubinstein as Zachariah and Don Johnson as his best friend Matthew. The film is loosely based on Herman Hesse's novel
Siddhartha, surrealistically adapted as a musical Western by Joe Massot and two members of the Firesign Theatre comedy troupe. The band Country Joe and the Fish perform as an inept gang of robbers (more adept as musicians) called "the Crackers," who are always "looking for people who like to draw." In the same vein,
Zachariah boasts: "I can think, I can wait, and I'm fast on the draw." This is a parody of
Siddhartha's famous line: "I can think, I can wait, I can fast." This film is defined as being part of the Acid Western genre. More precisely, in its own publicity releases, it was called, "The first electric western." This was, in no small part, because this film featured several appearances and music supplied by successful rock bands from the era, including the James Gang and Country Joe and the Fish. The movie also features former John Coltrane sideman Elvin Jones as a gunslinging drummer named "Job Cain."'-- jclarkmedia.com
Excerpt: Elvin Jones in Zachariah
____________________________Robert Altman
McCabe and Mrs. Miller (1971)
'If Robert Altman’s movies in the early Seventies –-
M*A*S*H, Brewster McCloud, McCabe and Mrs. Miller, The Long Goodbye –- reveal the overall impact of dope on movie consciousness, representing a halfway house between the softer dope influence of the Sixties and the harder edge it would take on in the early Seventies –- this is because they reflect so many of the stylistic changes reflected above, at the same time that they frequently allude to drugs in their plots. The use of overlapping dialogue and offbeat musical accompaniments (such as the Leonard Cohen songs in
McCabe, the bird lectures in
McCloud, and the multiple versions of the title tune in
The Long Goodbye) created a dense weave that made each spectator hear and understand a slightly different movie -– and, given that these were crowded, widescreen features, see a different movie as well.'-- Jonathan Rosenbaum
Trailer
Excerpt: Ending
___________________Luc Moullet
A Girl is a Gun (1971)
'In 1971, Moullet made his first color film,
Une aventure de Billy le Kid, also known by its English title,
A Girl Is a Gun. A psychedelic Western starring French New Wave icon Jean-Pierre Léaud, the film was never released in France, but was instead shown abroad in an English-dubbed version. The dubbing, conceived by Moullet as a tribute to the “shabbiness” he always admired in American genre films, is intentionally bad, and the short, slight Leaud is given a mismatched deep voice. Despite most Cahiers du cinéma critics admired many western authors, when they themselves became filmmakers few dared to overtly revisit that genre. One year after Alejandro Jodorowsky's
El topo and as Sergio Leone premiered
A Fistful of Dollars, Moullet charges full steam ahead with a wild western starring Jean-Pierre Léaud, taking this genre and one of its key characters to unexpected territory.'-- mubi
Trailer
_________________________Robert Downey Sr.
Greaser's Palace (1972)
'I am about to embark on the most pointless exercise known to man and I'm not talking about teaching a pig to fly. (Which actually works with a mildly sedated porker and a small trebuchet.) I'm going to try and explain
Greaser's Palace to a group of people who probably have not seen the movie. Heck, even if you have seen the movie it's pointless. You are probably thinking to yourself, "It couldn't be that outlandish. Could it?" The entire movie is an anecdotal allegory for religion, Christianity to be precise. If you want to start splitting hairs, I think Catholicism is the basis for everything that comes to pass.
Greaser's Palace is a huge saloon in some tumbleweed town out west; we can identify it as being "a church" since people come running to watch the show whenever bells begin ringing. Seaweedhead Greaser is the Catholic Church as represented by a gunslinger with itchy trigger fingers. Why in the world does he have a mariachi band and his mother locked in wooden cages?'-- Badmovies.org
Excerpt
Excerpt
_____________________Stan Dragoti
Dirty Little Billy (1972)
'This is no typical, Tinseltown western. It's more like The Making of a Sociopath, with Michael J. Pollard starring as displaced, 17-year-old Billy Bonney, in the days leading up to his evolution into the notorious Billy the Kid. Leaving New York City with his mom and (asshole) step-dad, the trio is first glimpsed arriving at a tiny Kansas cesspool named Coffyville; a DJANGO-like shanty town which keeps the entire cast continually ankle deep in dried mud, and with cinematographer Ralph Woolsey (THE MACK) bringing out the worst in the place. This is a true anti-western, without a character that you can totally warm up to, since they're either inept, crazy, stupid or ruthless. Even the occasional moment of violence -- like a barroom blowout -- is quick, brutal and totally convincing. Unlike any western you've ever seen, this is McCABE AND MRS. MILLER's evil brother.'-- Shock Cinema Magazine
Excerpt
____________________Michael Crichton
Westworld (1973)
'Welcome to
Westworld, where nothing can go wrong...go wrong...go wrong....Writer/director Michael Crichton has concocted a futuristic "Disneyland for adults", a remote resort island where, for a hefty fee, one can indulge in one's wildest fantasies. Businessmen James Brolin and Richard Benjamin are just crazy about the old west, thus they head to the section of Westworld populated by robot desperadoes, robot lawmen, robot dance-hall gals, and the like. Benjamin's first inkling that something is amiss occurs when, during a mock showdown with robot gunslinger Yul Brynner, Brolin is shot and killed for real. It seems that the "nerve center" of
Westworld has developed several serious technical glitches: the human staff is dead, and the robots are running amok.'-- Hal Erickson, Rovi
Trailer
Excerpt
_________________________Clint Eastwood
High Plains Drifter (1973)
'Though occasionally amusing, in ways similar to
A Fistful of Dollars and Akira Kurosawa's
Yojimbo, in which tough protagonists also manipulate weaker townspeople to humorous effect,
High Plains Drifter is a brooding, surprisingly artistic Western, accented by a haunting score. Vigilante justice and broad depictions of good and evil tend not to work as well in stories set in the present day, because we're all too aware of the damage Dirty Harry-style justice can do to the social fabric of the contemporary world. But it does work in Westerns, where the only law is the law of the gun. It's a genre made for severe parables of justice and retribution like
High Plains Drifter. At the end, Mordecai remarks that he still doesn't know the stranger's name. The stranger simply responds, "Yes, you do." Mordecai understands, as do we. We understand that there are several ways to answer the question of the stranger's identity, all equally valid.'-- AboutFilm.com
Excerpt
________________________________Sam Peckinpah
Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid (1973)
'A companion picture to
The Wild Bunch, being set in a similar period,
Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid takes an entirely different approach. Here the focus is upon people rather than situations, with the title characters casting inky shadows over a memorable selection of ruffians. Completing Peckinpah's complex and all-inclusive vision, John Coquillon's photography remains striking. Filling the generous screen width with people and their trappings,
Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid is beautiful in a downbeat way. The biggest weakness is the unstructured narrative, a major barrier to comprehending the story's central third. Here the tale is difficult to follow, wandering aimlessly across the plain, intent on introducing a stream of bit parts. Interesting maybe, but also spotty and further clouded by the often-indistinct dialogue. In fact this last point is a real disappointment, given that the script is attractively dirty and direct -- people say what they have too with little elaboration. So,
Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid is a terrific Western with rather too many studio battle scars. Oh for what might have been!'-- Damian Cannon, Movie Reviews UK
Opening sequence
____________________Mel Brooks
Blazing Saddles (1974)
'Vulgar, crude, and occasionally scandalous in its racial humor, this hilarious bad-taste spoof of Westerns, co-written by Richard Pryor, features Cleavon Little as the first black sheriff of a stunned town scheduled for demolition by an encroaching railroad. Little and co-star Gene Wilder have great chemistry, and the delightful supporting cast includes Harvey Korman, Slim Pickens, and Madeline Kahn as a chanteuse modelled on Marlene Dietrich. As in
Young Frankenstein (1974),
Silent Movie (1976), and
High Anxiety (1977), director/writer Mel Brooks gives a burlesque spin to a classic Hollywood movie genre; in his own manic, Borscht Belt way, Brooks was a central player in revising classic genres in light of Seventies values and attitudes, an effort most often associated with such directors as Robert Altman and Peter Bogdanovich.'-- Robert Firsching, Rovi
Trailer
Excerpt: 'I'm Tired'
____________________Frank Perry
Rancho Deluxe (1975)
'
Rancho Deluxe is a comedy western film that was directed by Frank Perry and released in 1975. Jeff Bridges and Sam Waterston star as two cattle rustlers in modern-day Montana who plague a wealthy ranch owner, played by Clifton James. The film also stars Harry Dean Stanton, Richard Bright, Elizabeth Ashley and, as the aging detective Harry Beige hired to find the rustlers, Slim Pickens. The script was by novelist Thomas McGuane, who was married to Ashley. The film was described as a form of "parody Western" by critic Richard Eder in his Nov. 24, 1975 New York Times review. "It is so cool that it is barely alive," he wrote of the film's general tone. Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave
Rancho Deluxe only one-and-a-half out of four possible stars. He wrote: "I don't know how this movie went so disastrously wrong, but it did."'-- imdb.com
Excerpt
________________________Arthur Penn
The Missouri Breaks (1976)
'On first release, Arthur Penn's 1976 western found itself derided as an addled, self-indulgent folly. Today, its quieter passages resonate more satisfyingly, while its lunatic take on a decadent, dying frontier seems oddly appropriate. Most significantly, the film provides a showcase for a mesmerising turn from Marlon Brando as the regulator hired to wage war on Jack Nicholson's reformed horse rustler. At the time of shooting, Nicholson was fresh from an Oscar for
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, his star in the ascendancy. And yet he appears happy to cede centre stage to his one-time acting idol. Not that Brando needs much invitation. Improvising his lines from beneath a series of comedy hats, he embarks on a merry dance from burlesque to menace and back again, while the picture frantically plays catch-up behind him.'-- The Guardian
Trailer
Excerpt
----
*
p.s. Hey. Thanks a lot to those of you who sent in costumes for the Halloween SPD. It will appear here on Saturday the 29th and Monday the 31st. Otherwise, I'm tired of talking about my fucked up back, and I'm getting another round of treatment today, and hopefully I'll be entering the clear if not even in said clear asap. ** David Ehrenstein, Hi, David. Oh, I was looking at a number of Rohmers, basically the ones that I could find in large chunks or more online. 'Pauline à la plage', 'Claire's Knee', 'Conte de printemps', 'Conte d'automne', and others. Apart from 'Perceval le Gallois', which is a big favorite film of mine and which was something I was thinking about a lot when I was working on 'The Marbled Swarm', I hadn't watched his films in a long time, and I had forgotten how phenomenally great they are. Very inspiring. You have a favorite or two? Yikes on that Todd Verow thing. I would say screw him, but that seems to have been taken care of already. Oh, yeah, Patrick Chiha's 'Domaine'. It's a terrific film. Gisele is the first twenty minutes or so. Patrick's a friend of mine and a very old friend of Gisele's. He's great. Right now he's lobbying the Pompidou to do a John Waters film -- and maybe art as well -- retrospective, which is something they should have done ages ago, and I think it's going to happen. ** Sypha, I love the late-mid psychedelic Beatles stuff especially. I think 'Magical Mystery Tour' is my favorite album of theirs. ** C.P., Hey. Thank for poppers offer, but you know me, my drug of choice is the clearest head possible. I don't really direct our theater pieces, but I have a lot of input, and it is kind of like what I imagine sculpting would be like. Yeah, Gisele's here. We're going to be attending as many Halloween attractions as we can stand as research for a big walkthrough maze piece we'll be working on next year. Thanks for the healing vibes. I can use all I can get. ** Heliotrope, Hey, Mark! Damn your foot. Damn my back. Wtf, right? You might not make it back in time? Oh, that's sad, but understood, of course. Plus, I'll be back here again in about three weeks, by which time I would imagine you'll be free of there at last. Love to you, Mark. ** Steevee, Blood blisters are nasty things, but, yeah, not serious as long as you don't get them infected, and I'm sure you're taking all the necessary precautions. ** Matthew, Hi, M. Oh, that's quite a first gig there. I mean, it would seem like Bach would suit any serious occasion, right? I guess the trick is to not get too tragic? Like no Mahler or that sort of emotive stuff? I don't know. At least you won't have to deal with the 'will they ask for an encore or not' anxiety. Interesting past weekend you had. A little bit of everything. Yeah, sounds pretty nice, actually. ** Bernard Welt, You're most welcome. I figured that clip might be a 'cake and eat it too' situation. ** Jared, Hey! It wasn't me, obviously. I do sport a ratty, faded blue on occasion. From the waist down. Actually, I think my coat is blue. It was black in Paris where the light is low, but it's blue here where the light is light. Man, I'm sorry about the double dose of bad news. Jesus. I need to get back to you phone-wise, and maybe I'll even call you today if the chiropractor makes a difference. ** Postitbreakup, Hi, Josh. My back gets better, relapses, gets better. It's surprise-filled, if you want to see it that way. I'll survive. I hope you feel better. Maybe feeling all that emotion is a good thing. I always think that feeling sad is so much better than negative thoughts crossed with states of anxiety, but I don't know. ** Kyler, No, the video is cool, man. Your transcend that guy's context. Oh, it was the real book, not a galley? Yeah, I guess it does come out in a week and a half, so I suppose the real thing is out there now. Weird. ** Misanthrope, Hey. Well, the cool thing in France is that when I go to a doctor, it's so bizarre to them that I don't have health insurance, and it such a rare occurrence, that sometimes when I go to pay they'll just go, Oh, don't worry about it. No, I haven't seen those ads. They sound most manipulative and uncharming. Well, 'Marie' has a killer hook too. I know that sometimes merely the perfection of a killer hook can make me tear up. ** Creative Massacre, Thanks, pal. Yeah, totally, if you do the pumpkin carving, I'd love to see the results. I can imagine that living with a paranormal investigator would take the good kind of edge off the whole idea. Like I've known people who worked at Disneyland, and the way they talked about it wasn't pretty. I don't know why I'm such a sucker for paranormal stuff since I don't believe anything about it. Maybe that's why, ha ha. Could that 'Shining' remake sound any more pointless? I don't think so. Jesus. ** Brendan, I hear you about the stress. Man, chances are it's going to be okay, you know, but still. Yeah, let's hook up this weekend. I was at Universal Horror Nights last night, so I missed the WS. The Cardinals are pooping out, right? ** Syreearmwellion, Hey. Wow, that's a lot of pages to be in. That's really impressive. I'm going to try to start looking at what you sent me this weekend if my back eases up. Right now I have, like, a haze where my usual powers of concentration live. Thanks about my book, man. I hope you like it. Happy Friday! ** Bill, Hi, Bill. Oh, the pumpkins were pretty easy. Google image search: 'weird pumpkin Halloween'. Like I may have said before, the trick to Google image searches, at least vis-à-vis looking for stuff for the blog, is to always add the word weird or weirdest to your topic. The only problem is that no matter what you're searching for, is 'weird' is an added search term, you end up having to wade through hundreds of pictures of Weird Al Jankovic. ** Bollo, Thanks, J. Car sitting ... me too. You can pretend you're in a prettier chillier LA. Thanks for the second reminder. Yeah, I've got that task lodged in my brain now, and I'll get you a copy, no problem. Good day to you. ** Little foal, Hi, Darren! Yes, I did get the email, and I'll write back to you very soon. I'm just trying to get this pain business a little more out of my life 'cos its effects on thinking/typing are a downer. But, yes, in the next day or so. Thank you a lot, D, and much love to you. ** 银猫, Hi. I can't write smoothly for a couple of days too. Well, more than a couple. So, no problem, and your words seem quite smooth to me. I'm really glad I've gotten you into Halloween. When considered and celebrated within the right mindset, it really is an excellent occasion, I think. Oh, I don't think knowledge of horror pop culture its needed for my work, or I hope not. Ideally, my sift is all one needs to know. I didn't know about that Mark Hewson book. Cool, thank you for letting me know. Since I'm here, I can probably actually a buy a copy easily. Great! Yes, that does sound like something I would really like. I've actually been rereading and thinking a lot about Mallarme recently, so that's excellent timing on that front as well. Very kind of you, my friend. Enjoy your day. ** Paul Curran, Hi, Paul. Thanks. I'm so over my back, I can't tell you, but maybe the guy will cast the right spell on it today. ** Joakim Almroth, Swedish cuisine can't look any more gross than the ugly vegetarian junk I eat every day. And I hear that you guys make some mean pancakes, or else that's one of those American stereotypes. It's weird, or maybe not, but I've been living in France for six years, and I often ask people I know there if they eat fois gras or escargot, and not once has anyone said yes. But I know people do. Oh, that would be swell if you and Eli visited Paris/me. That would be great! You've never been there? You definitely should come. It's a super great city and place to be, I swear. Yeah, when you guys firm up a plan or anything, just let me know so I'll make sure to be there then. I'm glad you liked the Octant thing. Me too. It was a total newbie to me as well. You'll have an email from me now or within minutes. Love, me. ** Chilly Jay Chill, Hi, Jeff. Got your email. I should have a sense of my schedule today, but most daytimes should be doable. I'll write to you. Yeah, I prefer Wolf to Muddy too. It's kind of interesting how little people talk about Muddy Waters these days. When I was younger, he was kind of the blues guy that the rock crowd could deal with best. ** 5strings, Hi. Man, listen, I've been off for days too, so I wouldn't have noticed if you were on or off. You seemed on. Sometimes how busy mouths are can be a real challenge. But then it's so victorious when yours manages to ace someone else's. I mean cooperate with someone else's, I guess. Or do I? The spooky houses were real good. 'The Thing' was the best one. Eli Roth's 'Hostel' was my number two. Diego Luna's 'Llorantes' (sp?) was my number 3. Rob Zombie's was the most meh, although I always love hearing his multi-tracked crunch guitar riffs and there were a lot of them inside there. Dio goes pretty good with most things, right? I'll give the concept of a killer day my best. You too, buddy. ** Okay. I've always kind of loved the whole 'acid western' genre even if a bunch of the films don't hold up so well these days. Anyway, I hope you find pleasure in the assortment, and I'll see you tomorrow.
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