Although released in 2004, this fiction novel has a tonne of early internet feel to it. Taking place entirely through chat forums and reviews on gay escort sites, the story follows peopleās stories and reviews of an elusive escort.
Iāll warn you, itās some of the most horrifyingly graphic stuff youāll read but, I adore how it uses the internets lack of trust to its advantage- constantly throwing the reader and the characters off the scent of an ever expanding story of half truths and blatant lies.
Genuinely one of my favourite books and I still donāt really understand why.
Oct 16, 2024
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just a delight to read. as much as I love billy burroughs, cooper's awfully brutal in his accusations of him "selling out". also understood the language of the internet far better than a lot of current literature with internet prose does ("The Sluts" is at once shocking and feels like it could've been written yesterday).
Feb 14, 2025
i read this book in early 2022. i saw it on tiktok. im admittedly not a huge reader, and books i do read seriously have to surprise me to keep me entertained. im the same with movies.
i spent months trying to track down a physical copy of this book. tiktok would never reveal too much, it really just appeared in haul videos and the comments would talk about it like a secret club. i wanted in.
i eventually gave up and read it on my phone. i wish i waited.
things have gotten worse since we last spoke is hard to explain. its the most pathetic, entrancing, and unforeseen story i have ever read. i sincerely hope someone has read this and recommends me something even more insane because ive been chasing this high ever since i read it.
the story is told over a length chatlogs shared between two women (more points for lesbians). i dont want to say much because half of the thrill of this book is discovering whats really behind those fucking emails but its a basically psychological thriller romance. dark psychological thriller romance with body horror elements but thats all im telling.
my favorite sentence ever is in from book. what have you done today to deserve your eyes? i think about it once a day. its my bio for like everything.
seriously, read this if your into the macabre. especially gay body horror stuff.
Jan 27, 2025
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great book if you're a freak like me. little horror fiction novel about gay serial killers and their intertwining love lives in 90's new orleans. people call this novel one of the grossest most shocking books of all time, so naturally i had to read it. i devoured the book in the span of three days and loved every second of it (despite how scary it is haha). super interesting commentary about living with aids and fascinating portrayals of the psyche of a serial killer. wouldn't read this one if you are at all squeamish, it's very descriptive in its gore and unflinchingly real. this book reminded me of if an ottessa moshfegh novel had a fucked up gorey baby with a gregg araki movie.
Jan 17, 2025
Top Recs from @glenbek
every time I give this a relisten Iām always shocked by how consistently great it is as an album. Obviously, āThe Idiotā gets a tonne of praise and deservedly so, and even though this album helms a lot of Iggy Popās most popular singles, I never see people talking about it as an album and what it does brilliantly.
even with āThe Idiotā, Iggy Pop was very much performing under David Bowie wing and environment- a lot of dark and brooding electronics and atmosphere which complimented Iggy well but, here he is definitively Iggy Pop.
I think people forget that āpunkā music (which Iggy hated the label of) doesnāt necessarily fall into a genre, more so an attitude of performance. This is proved time and time again in this album, as Iggy covers styles of hard rock, blues rock, ballads and soul- all unmistakably polished with a punk edge.
Punk isnāt the music you play, just how you play it (at least I think so), and itās so obvious that Iggy and the band just had a blast recording and performing this, they donāt take themselves seriously, if anything, poking fun at the restrictions of rock and pop songwriting in the process. Yet, the album never feels like itās smarter than you, itās inviting you in to feel the excitement.
Such a blast of a record, if you need a pick-me-up like I did today, give this a whirl!
Nov 4, 2024
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If youāre lucky enough to have a cinema nearby that shows certain films on actual film stock then I canāt recommend it enough.
All of the mistakes and signs of use on the film stock, that are apparent to you throughout the runtime, adds another layer of immersion to a cinema experience. No one else will see that particular showing of that particular film except for the people in that room with you at the time.
One of my old drama school teachers once told me a fun little story about the gaps between each frame. He said that all those empty gaps which are only fractions of a second between frames being processed and projected are all registered in our brains when we watch a film on celluloid. He also said that our brains see these blank spaces and instinctively imagines what would fill the empty gaps so, we feel more immersed in the film as our brains try to connect these dots in front of us.
I donāt know if thatās true at all, but Iād like to believe so.
Oct 15, 2024
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Been a very slow year with not much acting work at all but, last year I managed to get a line of dialogue in the last season of house of the dragon, and also filmed two seasons of a kids show for the BBC.
Iām happy I stuck with this wish, even if itās painful to continue pursuing it sometimes :)
Oct 18, 2024