Special Interest

I guess the Sotos topic is pretty much mandatory, isn't it?
Well, not much to add to whatever I've said elsewhere, but was slightly annoyed to miss hardcover version of Sotos collected works vol. 4.
First of all, it's actually first which isn't really "collected works" like the past in series, but this one completely new unpublished. What it has is some writing of his, but most of all just clippings from newspapers. It's massive works, more than 10 years of clipping archives pasted into pages of book. There isn't really anything artistic how it is done. Simply short newspaper reports of various cases, some famous, some less known. Paperback is still available at creationbooks...

Don't know if this has been mentioned/published before but there is a 2006 interview of Peter Sotos by Martin Bladh on Martin's blog. Available at http://martinbladh-vf.blogspot.com/

The issue here of the artist interviewing another artist is that it's more of a conversation than an interview. That in itself isn't a bad thing, but I think there are limits to it; Sotos kept talking about things he was doing, rather then centring the interview on Bladh. Still, the format seems to work with this interview and it's an interesting exchange for what it is.

As far as fans of Sotos's work goes, I'm interested in knowing what people find appealing, enjoyable, etc. What do people get out of it? I'm curious.

my favorite part from interview, as silly as it may sound is Sotos saying: A friend of mine was recently selling some used books on porn theory to a bookstore and the guy behind the counter didn't want them. He said they'd buy porn but not porn theory because it was too much like buying a book on beer. The guy's an idiot, obviously, but what does make sense to me is that very few artists actually make something that is better, or more actual, than the theory.

I can never see myself to use Sotos work as "trad." pornography, that would create some sort of arousal for myself. And don't think it would be even intended to be so? If I'm to pick up some material of sexual nature and pornographic, I think Sotos material is simply way too "intelligent" and artistic to affect on such level.
When I read pornographic book, I might even skip parts. The talent of persons writing seems pretty irrelevant, when compared to the fragments of texts, where certain situation or act is described. One could say, that it's incomplete experience to read a book, and skip all the storytelling and building the heat and tension. Building some sort of background for otherwise so dull and routine sexual acts. But I disagree. When pornography is at its best, I tend to think that it includes certain amount of mandatory storyline or set up, but in end it works in lowest urges and primitive impulses that are beyond some artistic or intelligent and theoretical "nonsense". There is still the characteristics what makes something good or bad, but is it art (product of human creativity) or something else...
I have thought about the idea, where book would consist nothing but the low quality porno pulp descriptions of certain favorite sex acts. No real story, no real context. No artistic merit in traditional sense, no obvious philosophical intent. Nothing. But the short paragraphs after another where these simple words deliver the stuff one wanted to read. Just the low arts and junk - pornography.

But yes, I do read also other things than pornography. Which includes Sotos. Why him? I'd say that because subject matter he deals with, interests me to certain degree and the nuggests of information you gather from text is interesting. But do I rate his works unusually high compared to other writers? Probably not. Most of stuff he writes, doesn't make much sense to me either. There is both, language barrier (due such language as he uses) and difference of perspective how things are seen. And I think I do prefer some of earlier books more than some of the later, where you might see some differences?

I think I have always certain prejudice towards something that goes beyong... simply doing. Lets say, when someone is recognized as "author", "writer", "artists", how stupid it may be, it has always certain negative tone in my mind -unless it actually is somehow so obvious that it seems worth of that. This is what sets apart low arts and pornography, noise, punk, metal, whatever. When it's just something that is done. Things that "just happened" and "got done". This doesn't take away possibility to value what is total garbage and what is good. But you can still say that those few riffs you managed to pull out from your guitar, hardly makes you "composer". Or even "guitarist".
I have written many stories that are published in magazines during my life. It hardly makes me "author". I have photographer and had publications, exhibitions,.. I have painted paintings. I have drawn & published dozen of comic books and exhibited stuff even in museums. I have composed and written countless albums. I have done videos... pff and whatever. And list could go on and on. But I find it hard to call it by any fancier name than it is. I think in finnish you could say "tekijä" (guy who does things) is what it is. It's simply creation of "low arts", which doesn't make me (or anyone) that special. Not "artists", not "musician", not "author". Words me be thrown into discussion once in a while, just to explain something vaguely, even if it hardly qualifies as such.
Like, what makes person collector? What is a "collection". Having 10 paintings? 10 dvd's? What is "hobby"? I recall TV show where some attention hungry cunt told her hobby is benji jumping. And turns out she did it once on holiday.  Owning a camera and taking few snapshots doesn't make one "photographer" in my opinion. Nor artist. End result may be interesting and worth seeing, though.
The pornography is, or was, one of the greatest manifestations of this. You had shabbily created anonymous creation, which appealed to someone, including most importantly yourself. And that's about that. Until it leads into research, study, observation and appreciation, and perhaps the communication over the subject matter. And most of all the release becomes more than it actually was.  While a lot of "artists", "painters" or "musicians" or whatever, in my opinion, deliver less than it actually pretends to be.
In this light, Sotos, as underground writer who puts out these ltd 50 copies digiprinted hardcover books. Yeah, he is great what he does. But how high in the world of literature, art and philosophy you'd put it?  Same with guys like Trevor Brown or such. Of course he is good what he does, but how high you can rate it on standards of painting overall? It is low arts and junk that appeals to prurient interests. Which in my opinion, is enough. It doesn't have to pretend to be more or justify itself that much further.

Don't know if it makes any sense, and perhaps I don't have the time or interest to put it in form of nice manifesto of nature of "art" how I see it.

p.s. not to divert attention from target but Bladh's blog has now been removed, I'm not sure why. It was working as of last night. Hopefully it's just been moved.

Seems to work just fine at least here. I guess web is a thing where errors happens.
Just to mention while on topics of web errors, I do take back-up-copies of SI board on weekly basis. If it would be to collapse for reason or another, most of messages are always storaged and no big harm.. Version should be latest bugfree edition, so I don't see much reasons for problems.

Quote from: bitewerksMTB on March 10, 2010, 09:02:40 PM
Jeez. I can see why it took Martin 4 years to transcribe all of that!

Seems like they like talking about themselves ALOT...

(http://nathaliewithanh.files.wordpress.com/2008/06/ivyjoy_006.jpg)

im a sotos fanboyish man but that penpal thing was a bit artsy. martin is nice too exept FUCKING monotonic with the microphone.

my only real problem with the last batch of Sotos's books (since the now dead Void Books releases) is the cost; the worst thing was purchasing the first version of Selfish Little (for a huge amount of bucks) and then finding out a cheaper one was coming out - then some of the latest books are a bit pretentious and boring (Predicate, Lordotics). Obviously i still think high of his ouvre

Quote from: bitewerksMTB on May 02, 2010, 07:13:08 PM

PARASITE was a zine available by subscription only for $40. It ran around 20 or so issues. No imagery. Some of his best work. Someone who knew him told me Sotos did alot of speed when he was publishing Parasite; no idea if that's true but that is what the internet is for: spreading gossip.

www.bitewerks.blogspot.com

Is each issue of Parasite about 4 pages long? Someone sent me some "2nd generation" copies in the mail. There were 15 separate 4-5 page pieces (except for one titled "Whore 1", "Whore 2" and "KP" which is 8 pages) each with their own titles such as "Dodd", "Boy", "Dog 1" & "Dog 2" and a handful of others. Also, this same guy sent me a copy of the original "When you Meet a Stranger" article written by Dodd for some newspaper. Was this part of Parasite, the actual article? I've asked other Sotos collectors and they all told me no, that there was never a the full Dodd "When You Meet a Stranger" article in Parasite, just mentions about it but not that actual piece as written by Dodd.

I got all original Parasite and Pure, including that xerox pile of unpublished pure issue. But hardly remember now how they were.  I remember from Parasite quite amusing record reviews, which are kind of bitter or supposedly critical towards bands/artists, yet when it's something like describing Emperor 1st LP as "sounds like Motörhead and Venom", you suddenly start to wonder what the hell is being listened?

Quote from: RyanWreck on May 05, 2010, 10:14:48 PM

Quote from: bitewerksMTB on May 02, 2010, 07:13:08 PM

PARASITE was a zine available by subscription only for $40. It ran around 20 or so issues. No imagery. Some of his best work. Someone who knew him told me Sotos did alot of speed when he was publishing Parasite; no idea if that's true but that is what the internet is for: spreading gossip.

www.bitewerks.blogspot.com

Is each issue of Parasite about 4 pages long? Someone sent me some "2nd generation" copies in the mail. There were 15 separate 4-5 page pieces (except for one titled "Whore 1", "Whore 2" and "KP" which is 8 pages) each with their own titles such as "Dodd", "Boy", "Dog 1" & "Dog 2" and a handful of others. Also, this same guy sent me a copy of the original "When you Meet a Stranger" article written by Dodd for some newspaper. Was this part of Parasite, the actual article? I've asked other Sotos collectors and they all told me no, that there was never a the full Dodd "When You Meet a Stranger" article in Parasite, just mentions about it but not that actual piece as written by Dodd.

if anyone makes bootleggs of his zines then i'd seriously be interested in buying a copy.

Here is one of the many copies which was sent, this is titled "Boy" scanned to .PDF (I won't upload anymore. This is just for the sake of advertising and giving a quick insight into what I am talking about):
http://www.mediafire.com/?xlxyfioizmk (http://www.mediafire.com/?xlxyfioizmk)

Does anyone know if the "PURE Video Compilation" mentioned in "Forced Mental" and at the end of "Pure #2" was ever released?

I was given "Index" as a present when it was first published and it fair near knocked me sideways, an excellent and unputdownavle read. I found a copy of "Total Abuse" in Germany shortly afterwards, again a prized possession, but I have since to read anyhthing as immediate or stunning as these two books.
Back in 2005 there were plans for my project (Dieter Muh) to perform with Peter in London. The idea came from Salon / Equinox Festival organiser Simon Kane. I chatted to Peter on the 'phone - I remember a bizarre conversation about Jethro Tull + Hawkwind....Peter mailed me a cassette of himself reading in his room + some type (I think extracts from "Selfish Little"). Unfortunately nothing became of the project. Peter did a reading at The Horse Hospital without us. Our paths crossed in Paris 2005, but we missed each other by hours....
I must dig out the cassette and try and work something around it!!   

Quote from: FreakAnimalFinland on March 05, 2010, 12:33:23 PM


I can never see myself to use Sotos work as "trad." pornography, that would create some sort of arousal for myself. And don't think it would be even intended to be so? If I'm to pick up some material of sexual nature and pornographic, I think Sotos material is simply way too "intelligent" and artistic to affect on such level.

I agree. Sotos said the same thing, albeit in a different way, about his own material when asked about the influences of De Sade:

"120 Days is a hard text to clean up. Written as it was in jail. I hope the same idea -that I would write this material for an audience of myself alone- is pertinent later on. Sade's tastes are what matters most to me. I'm not trying to be anti-intellectual. It's just that I see the most comparisons in the way the material could satisfy more than just a simple cum."

Quote from: Steve on May 07, 2010, 08:38:36 PM
I was given "Index" as a present when it was first published and it fair near knocked me sideways, an excellent and unputdownavle read.

"Index", as far as I am concerned, is one of his best books (of those which I have read). It's a shame I lost my copy during a move 2 years ago.

Has anyone read "Show Adult"? I've always been interested in the Masha Allen story ("the officers working her case watched her grow up through film and photographs, abused and taken advantage of and they couldn't do anything about it"), I love how horribly the FBI did on editing that photo of the bed they used in her case. Just another Sotos book I would love to own but runs for a ridiculous amount of money, $200 for a used copy to be exact.

For anyone interested, full scans of all 3 issues of PURE are available to download.

Yea, PURE has been online for awhile. I scanned some copies of Parasite for someone I know privately but if someone here is looking for them I might upload them if you PM me, I won't post them for everyone though so don't bother asking.

Quote from: bitewerksMTB on May 06, 2010, 09:09:33 PM
Each issue of Parasite was 6 pages I think: 2 reg. 8.5x11 pages that was double the length (Paper that was 8.5x22) then folded in half plus one page inside. Each issue was a diff color. Lots of text; I liked his work more when he used books, docu's, etc to work from. I could careless about shit like conversations in coffeeshops or some friend hugging him on the streetcorner or that he eats his cum behind dumpsters on the way home from bars..

I have a copy of Dodd's diary & the book, WHEN A MONSTER COMES OUT OF THE CLOSET, haas Dodd in his own words (comparing cocksize on boys!). The diary was posted on a true crime forum years ago by the author of the other paperback book on Dodd. Gary King, I think?

No, Gary King wrote "Driven to Kill" which is an other book focusing on Dodd; the book you mentioned is written by John Rose & Lori Steinhorst (and in my humble opinion is much more entertaining than the King's book)

Just went over to Amazon to blow half of my check on a few more Sotos books and noticed that they had a pre-order choice for Tool in paperback, release date February of 2011 by Nine-Banded Books who is also releasing a cheaper paperback edition of Comfort and Critique which will be $12 and Tool is going for a nice $10.

yep, Nine-Banded Books is trying to fill the void after Void Books disbanded

I wonder is Best book would be text or collages? Or both?
His collages are just about ideas. Very little of visual pleasure. Simple cut & paste where technic and structure of work seems irrelevant. Just presentation of certain ideas/themes.

Does anyone own Kept? If so, what do you think about it?

Haven't got Kept yet but wanted to share this link:

http://www.more4kids.info/shop/1010-1000-1840680806-Proxy_Peter_Sotos_Pornography_1991_2000.html

" I don't think he's evil or even necessarily dangerous. He just needed more love as a kid and not the kind that includes penetration."

Quote from: HongKongGoolagong on July 15, 2010, 02:56:55 AM
Haven't got Kept yet but wanted to share this link:

http://www.more4kids.info/shop/1010-1000-1840680806-Proxy_Peter_Sotos_Pornography_1991_2000.html

Haha, Sotos writes the perfect books for good parenting. Those reviews are all from Amazon though, I think the entire search engine for books just leads to the amazon database.

I am re-reading the whole Neil Gaiman's Sandman collection.
There is an episode where most notorious murderers gathers for a convention under the fake name of "The Cereal Convention".
One guy is murdered by the lot when they discover he is no real serial killer but the publisher of fanzine "PURE" that features the same subjects we know.
You may also see swastikas on the cover.

Shit, that's one of the best issues. Haven't read it in a while. Never noticed that "PURE" reference before.

In Italian it has been translated PURO, so I supposed in English sounds as Pure... but the whole thing is evidently referred to Sotos' work.
Let's remember that his problems sort of started from Uk and then reached America.

Andrew Vachss quoted that Sandman's issue, telling how great was seeing a serial killer groupie/aficionado ("freak" in the vacchsian language) dispatched by his own myths (the whole worthless interview appeared in a Chicago-based fanzine)

Quote from: RyanWreck on July 14, 2010, 09:23:39 AM
Does anyone own Kept? If so, what do you think about it?

the comparison with Comfort & Critique is quite obvious; massive use of collage-style, displaying dead/lost/kidnapped boys & girls' pictures in the very long first section of the book, a selection carefully planned and assembled of true crime articles (magazines, newspapers) directly from Sotos' collection,  then two sections of written rants about masturbation (where, how much, how long, how, why) mostly based about the personal chicagocentric Sotos' life. With the usual flashback focusing on the arrest...
In a sort of way, being the whole stuff a part of "Peter Sotos' pornography", knowing more (but i dont think the book gives a real insight about how relevant is masturbation for Sotos, we already knew a lot about this specific side of Sotos' ouvre with  Selfish Little and Comfort, and the style is the same) about the man's true obsession about (actual and metaphorical) handjobs could be relevant - but i think it's a nice idea for a fanzine (which was in a first place the real idea...a little magazine called SARAH, mostly featuring photos of dead girls), less interesting for a whole book

I don't have Comfort & Critique either. Out of Comfort & Critique, Kept and Show Adult which one did you personally like most, or at least which would you suggest first?

Quote from: RyanWreck on July 20, 2010, 11:41:07 AM
I don't have Comfort & Critique either. Out of Comfort & Critique, Kept and Show Adult which one did you personally like most, or at least which would you suggest first?

Comfort is by far one of the best. Very personal, intelligent, well written.
In my personal ranking, the first place is still taken by Total Abuse (especially for Parasite and Tool)

Comfort & Critique is my favourite of all his books - the structure works really well. Show Adult was something I thought was a lazy mess on first reading but I've returned to it like a dog to vomit many times.

Quote from: HongKongGoolagong on July 21, 2010, 02:59:50 AM
Show Adult was something I thought was a lazy mess on first reading but I've returned to it like a dog to vomit many times.

I felt the same way about Lazy but I've probably read it more than any of his other books except for Selfish, Little which is one of my favorites.

For the big Sotos fans I have a question which I have been meaning to ask for years. In Lazy Sotos uses three different styles to write; one is the normal typing, standard font and is pretty disheveled at times, even for Sotos. Then you have writing which is in italics, under the headlines (always opposite the other pages), these are usually short one or two paragraph statements that run for a fun pages then stop and pick back up later on with a different story, they are coherent and concise for the most part. Lastly are the quoted sections. I read these the first time assuming they were quotes from somewhere else (I read Lazy before I read most of Sotos' other material) but now I can tell it is he who wrote those pieces, these sections are spread through out the normal typed material but their style is way more "down to earth" and reminds me more of Sotos in his Pure days. Anyway, does anyone know why Sotos did this. Is there any interview where he speak in detail about Lazy? Are the quoted sections only quoted to stand apart from the other material or is he quoting himself from another book, possibly even his diary or something like that?

It's not just Lazy, there are 'quoted sections' in some of his other books - notably the apparently confessional passages in Comfort & Critique. I see it as a literary device to help remind the reader that the narrator should not always be taken for Sotos himself. The 'voices' speaking throughout have different tones and different obsessions and they blend in with the found documentary material. The 'I' can never be definitely said to be him and in fact when he uses material from his own interviews from magazines in the books (eg in Selfish Little) this only further confuses the notion of identity. They're not fiction, they're not non-fiction - they are Peter Sotos Pornography.

Haven't seen the layout of the latest Collected edition but I did think Lazy suffered when reprinted in the Proxy collection without that alternate page thing.

Looks great! Much better than expected!

has anyone mentioned this http://denniscooper-theweaklings.blogspot.com/2010/01/jesse-hudson-presents-peter-sotos-day.html (http://denniscooper-theweaklings.blogspot.com/2010/01/jesse-hudson-presents-peter-sotos-day.html) ? cause there's some fucking great interviews there.

No one has mentioned it in this particular thread but I am positive that every Sotos fan with an internet connection knows about it. It has been around for awhile and most Sotos fans also follow Cooper. Cooper writes some good stuff too (well, sometimes), a lot of the photos found in the book American Campgrounds (the book that the other two people above us are talking about) are from that exact blog.

Quote from: FreakAnimalFinland on September 28, 2010, 06:43:36 PM
Looks great! Much better than expected!

How is Sotos' introduction? Is it inconsequential to the rest of the book, as most Sotos introductions are or does it tie in nicely?

Quote from: FreakAnimalFinland on September 28, 2010, 06:43:36 PM
Looks great! Much better than expected!

no news here about that :/

Quote from: RyanWreck on October 21, 2010, 01:28:45 PM

Quote from: FreakAnimalFinland on September 28, 2010, 06:43:36 PM
Looks great! Much better than expected!

How is Sotos' introduction? Is it inconsequential to the rest of the book, as most Sotos introductions are or does it tie in nicely?

I'd call American Campgrounds essential. Needs its own thread if theres not one.
Soto's intro is intense. His examination and treatment of Best is brutal.
I have the unlimited paperback version. Hard to put down!

Quote from: bitewerksMTB on October 21, 2010, 06:29:43 PM
"Cooper writes some good stuff too (well, sometimes), a lot of the photos found in the book American Campgrounds (the book that the other two people above us are talking about) are from that exact blog. "

So Best is taking his imagery from Dennis Cooper's blog? Some of the imagery looks like it was taken from issues of National Geographic. At least, what I remember seeing on Best's blog. Not a style I dig very much; images next to each other with his signature at the bottom.. I'd be curious to flip through the book if I ever find myself near a copy.

Oops, I meant Best not Cooper. I get those blogs confused.

How can I get a copy of American Campgrounds now that the pre-order link is down?  I see no way to purchase it via Creation, anyone on here carrying it in the US?  I'd imagine Timeless will probably distro it at least.

I can be wrong, but I guess, that the ltd edition 69 copies type of thing is sold exlusively by Creation. If it sells out by pre-orders, probably reason not listed on site? Perhaps worth to email them about availability.
I don't think there are distributors for these limited titles, since Creation controlling whole distribution seems to be the idea.

If anyone wants to trade books PM me, it doesn't even have to be permanent. Back on the old Yahoo! group (not the moderated one) I exchanged books with a guy from Oregon and sent them back after a week, read 3 new books this way and so did he. I have books that aren't Sotos that may be of interest as well.

i really like the track "predicate" on the Proxy CD, the last section where it has the repeated sound of the girl giggling and going "that will never change"...

You should buy the book by the same title then. It is one of Sotos' more boring books, in my opinion, but it is still good none-the-less. If you like that looped sound collage stuff you need to check out his "Waitress" CD, which can be downloaded everywhere.

Quote from: RyanWreck on December 10, 2010, 02:33:02 PM
You should buy the book by the same title then. It is one of Sotos' more boring books, in my opinion, but it is still good none-the-less. If you like that looped sound collage stuff you need to check out his "Waitress" CD, which can be downloaded everywhere.

i do own predicate, have read it.... am checking out waitress..

I enjoyed Predictate however I found Lordotics to be rather dull.....................has anyone got any idea when the Book On Gillis will surface as Peter has contributed heavily to it , or so I have been led to believe?

Quote from: Unheard on July 16, 2010, 11:42:29 AM

Quote from: RyanWreck on July 14, 2010, 09:23:39 AM
Does anyone own Kept? If so, what do you think about it?

the comparison with Comfort & Critique is quite obvious; massive use of collage-style, displaying dead/lost/kidnapped boys & girls' pictures in the very long first section of the book, a selection carefully planned and assembled of true crime articles (magazines, newspapers) directly from Sotos' collection,  then two sections of written rants about masturbation (where, how much, how long, how, why) mostly based about the personal chicagocentric Sotos' life. With the usual flashback focusing on the arrest...
In a sort of way, being the whole stuff a part of "Peter Sotos' pornography", knowing more (but i dont think the book gives a real insight about how relevant is masturbation for Sotos, we already knew a lot about this specific side of Sotos' ouvre with  Selfish Little and Comfort, and the style is the same) about the man's true obsession about (actual and metaphorical) handjobs could be relevant - but i think it's a nice idea for a fanzine (which was in a first place the real idea...a little magazine called SARAH, mostly featuring photos of dead girls), less interesting for a whole book

Just received Kept in the mail a few days ago. Did you read trough every news article in "Filming Children" before moving on to the text or just browse the photos at your leisure? Everyone I have spoken with says they just scanned over it. I want to find someone who went through the entire sections bit by bit to see if it helps the short amount of text. C&C and Selfish, Little are my favorites of his so I really look forward to digging into this one.

I find that the style of art/collage in C&C and Kept is quite different, in my opinion. I personally wouldn't really compare them now that I own both.

Quote from: Kristian on February 13, 2011, 03:53:41 PM
I enjoyed Predictate however I found Lordotics to be rather dull.....................has anyone got any idea when the Book On Gillis will surface as Peter has contributed heavily to it , or so I have been led to believe?

I actually enjoyed Lordotics the second time around a lot more than I did when I first read it. I think because in between both readings of it I read C&C, The Perfect Jason Swift, re-read Selfish, Little and also Predicate and then when back to it. I feel like all three of those books are like "skeleton keys" (I believe someone mentioned this in an interview with Sotos) which are a bit more unambiguous and lucid in comparison to most of his other material (namely newer stuff), so then Lordotics opened itself up more after that.

Opinions on Show Adult? I know that like 90% of the people who read Sotos disliked this book. I finally got a copy, read the first 5 pages and am already a bit lost. I'm hoping it is more lucid than Lordotic because I felt like I had to re-read that with a microscope, all of his other books and a dictionary on hand. I've already mentioned how much I liked the text material in Kept, he seems to have reverted back to the same style as C&C in Indulging Children while Missing Children just needs to be broken down a bit and the paragraphs need to be separated better so you understand who is talking and what they are answering to. If Sotos comes out with a new book I hope its something like Selfish, Little, Predicate or Comfort & Critique (those 3 books make up his best writing "period" in my opinion). I'm not as obsessed with certain things as he is so some of this new material drags on to places we've already been and adds absolutely nothing new except more confusion. Is his introduction in Best's American Campground like this too?

Did this thread die or something...

i liked SHOW ADULT actually. from what i heard or read, most people dont like PREDICATE, but i did as well, so maybe im fucked up. i understand that there is a lot of context to be had when it comes to sotos writing. i find it easier to experience the book blindly, for what happens on the page.

personally speaking, i think knowing the source of his words kind of defeats the immediacy of it all. but thats just me.

i would also like to know how his intro to American Campgrounds was, considering its fucking impossible to find as of late

I was walking in the central of lahti, and saw the sign on the street:
SOTOS
psychotherapy & massage
(of course in finnish). I guess it would be worth taking photo..

Hah. Both professions that he would probably excel in.

Quote from: RyanWreck on April 15, 2011, 03:31:50 AM
Opinions on Show Adult? I know that like 90% of the people who read Sotos disliked this book. I finally got a copy, read the first 5 pages and am already a bit lost. I'm hoping it is more lucid than Lordotic because I felt like I had to re-read that with a microscope, all of his other books and a dictionary on hand. I've already mentioned how much I liked the text material in Kept, he seems to have reverted back to the same style as C&C in Indulging Children while Missing Children just needs to be broken down a bit and the paragraphs need to be separated better so you understand who is talking and what they are answering to. If Sotos comes out with a new book I hope its something like Selfish, Little, Predicate or Comfort & Critique (those 3 books make up his best writing "period" in my opinion). I'm not as obsessed with certain things as he is so some of this new material drags on to places we've already been and adds absolutely nothing new except more confusion. Is his introduction in Best's American Campground like this too?

Did this thread die or something...

I don't think it will die.
The Sotos introduction takes apart the Best material as only a former bandmate could ;)
I agree with you: more like Comfort and Critique.

I remember being unsatisfied with Show Adult on first reading, yet it's the book I've returned to most of all. Some haunting and memorable prose in there, a ghostly kind of hidden structure and very little repetition or found material - in terms of word count it's probably his longest and most ambitious work to date - too bad the planned paperback's cancellation due to the panic the book caused has stopped it from being read by the larger audience it deserved. Some very human stuff in there - 'Like you think I've never missed a fucking bus. Been to more funerals than you, het' etc

Since then there really hasn't been a full Sotos book - Lordotics has such a huge amount of repetitions of previous texts that it almost amounts to a 'remix'. Kept is a bizarre novelty item, I'm glad to have it and Indulging Children is a great piece of writing, but all too short and the book as a whole is just another Waitress.

Bodyguard is a decent piece of work - the bitching at PB is camp and funny, there are also more confusing question/answer sessions with lots of found material - American Campgrounds is certainly worth owning if you can find it for the superb quality of Best's collages. He is a very different kind of artist to Sotos though. 

American Campgrounds will be reavailable again shortly - http://bloodlust.blogspot.com/2011/04/coming-soon-american-campgrounds.html - I picked my paperback copy up from a UK eBay shop late last year - so it's probably not a great idea to share the intro text.

I'd love to know the reason for the temporary withdrawal by Creation - letter from the Groenes' lawyer? Letter from National Geographic's lawyer? The cheapskates figured out how expensive the glossy plates were to print?

A seond Philip Best book is coming soon from Timeless I believe. He's been doing some great trippy, allusive and typically abject stuff with his latest squeeze recently at http://anything-that-moves.tumblr.com/

Quote from: bitewerksMTB on May 07, 2011, 02:37:03 AM
SEX-RELATED HOMICIDE AND DEATH INVESTIGATION is the book. Has a good chapter ont he guy in New Mexico who kidnapped women to perform brutal S&M on them including forced dog fucking. There is text from an audio tape he made his victims listen to.

This is a good book, great stories and pictures. I would love to go through the authors files. I would also suggest (if you don't have it) "Sex Crimes and Paraphilia" by Eric Hickey. It is well worth the $40.00 people are asking for it on Amazon. Large and thorough book that covers a huge amount of material.

Quote from: bitewerksMTB on May 07, 2011, 09:31:36 PM
Maybe sharing Pure lowered his royalty checks?

That stuff is so far removed from the writer he became, I can actually imagine checking that juvenilia out and deciding never to read this pseudo-macho adolescent clown again ;) - so maybe it really did stop some sales. At least theotherjohn got a mention in one of the recent books for his efforts.

Can anyone here describe the 'Waitress' editions that came with the limited Creation 'collected Sotos'? Or the contents of Crows & Repertoire?

American Campgrounds is definitely available from BLOODLUST, and mark is quick with the shipping too. a superb collection of Best's work. related, BLOODLUST also has the 4 Collected Sotos books from creation. still a lot of cash though.

Quote from: bitewerksMTB on May 13, 2011, 05:23:48 AM
What did he write about 'theotherjohn'? Doesn't sound like anythng worth writing about.... in a book.

It was something disparaging like 'some poor guy even made a site from his hard-earned copies of Pure'.

Sotos just loves to bitch - I'm assuming Mark Solotroff is a long-term friend of his but he gets a severe tongue-lashing in 'Selfish Little' over the label art of the Buyers Market album. I am reminded of nothing more than the drag queen DJs and MCs in the sleaziest gay bars in my home town - ultimately kinda cute and harmless stuff.

Quote from: HongKongGoolagong on May 13, 2011, 01:28:03 AM

Can anyone here describe the 'Waitress' editions that came with the limited Creation 'collected Sotos'? Or the contents of Crows & Repertoire

The Waitress I have is pretty much just interviews and material from other books (like Predicate and C&C) seemingly placed together at random with some new stuff like a babysitting adventure when Sotos was a teen, injected in between.

Crows is "illustrated" and shows the images that Index was suppose to have in it, he writes about this in the beginning of Lordotics - "The original manuscript of Index came with pages of xeroxes from underground catalogs, personal letters from cops and perverts and favorite pictures." No pictures or cop letters but it has a bunch of scans from catalogs like the Slave & Master catalog, Superlive, order form for Gymnastics teaching videos, some personal ad's from "Hedonist Society" of people asking for CP photos (these same ads can also be found in an Issue of Pure, forgot which), swingers ad's, scans from a review of a series called "Oriental S&M" and a 3-4 pages hard to read copy of some note about some gay lovin'. The writing itself in Crows is just a few pages, 7 to be exact, and I don't remember much of what it talked about so the text part of it obviously didn't make much of an impression. Like all of the material in the back of the "Collected Sotos" books the text is suppose to "shed light on the themes and motivations behind the three books". Crows is in Private so it is suppose to deal with Index, Show Adult and Selfish, Little.

I have yet to read Repertoire but I will get around to it soon. It's the only reason I bought Public since I own C&C, Predicate and Lazy already.

yeah, thats the fucking problem. dishing out a lot of cash for 90 to 95% of material i already have just to get a small "new" written section. i hate shit like that, but i am more pissed because i know i will end up buying them.

Quote from: humanpulp on May 13, 2011, 08:09:20 PM
yeah, thats the fucking problem. dishing out a lot of cash for 90 to 95% of material i already have just to get a small "new" written section. i hate shit like that, but i am more pissed because i know i will end up buying them.

Yep. The only one I am holding back on is Total Abuse. I don't own Tool but I own everything else (well with the exception of a few Waitress supplements) and Total Abuse doesn't go for cheap. I'm sure one day I will break down and buy it when I'm sitting around thinking "I wish I had a new Sotos to read...oh wait I never did get to read all of Tool."

@HongKongGoolagong - Speaking of supplemental material, I was wondering what you thought of "The Perfect Jason Swift" and KEPT's "Missing Children" (you said a bit about "Indulging Children" but not the other)? Also, if you do not have the Waitress I was talking about in my previous post go ahead and PM me and I will send you a scan of it that I have.

The Perfect Jason Swift has an enormous amount of found material (eg from Tate & Wyre's 'The Murder of Childhood') and not enough original writing, although that collage style of putting texts together is certainly daring, and reminiscent of eg Kathy Acker's work.  Missing Children was an interesting exercise in creative imagination, picturing the bereaved mothers' reactions and public personas as Sotos would seemingly prefer them to be - it didn't quite come off but was a good effort, reminded me of some of the later chapters in Special.

In case anyone wants to know the contents of the FIRST two 'Waitress' editions: #1 was a real winner with lots of published and unpublished interviews (the standout being one for the fictitious 'Pedophile Gazette' in which the relationship with Whitehouse gets dissected), and a long 'remix' of Selfish Little/Comfort and Critique/Predicate, and the entire text of the extremely brutal and unpleasant unpublishable 90s 'Playground Sex'. #2 which came with Show Adult has reprints of articles on Andrea Dworkin, Jennifer Montgomery and treatment programs for sex offenders, lots of webcam cock printouts and a lengthy collection of cuttings from newspapers which is very similar to the stuff in Kept.     

Quote from: HongKongGoolagong on May 14, 2011, 01:20:21 AM
The Perfect Jason Swift has an enormous amount of found material (eg from Tate & Wyre's 'The Murder of Childhood') and not enough original writing, although that collage style of putting texts together is certainly daring, and reminiscent of eg Kathy Acker's work. 

I can't tell which is which in this text, that was my problem. Sometimes Sotos speaks "academically" so it is hard to know when he is talking or when he's quoting someone else when he doesn't actually put fucking quotes around the text.

[quote author=RyanWreck link=topic=230.msg9671#msg9671

I can't tell which is which in this text, that was my problem. Sometimes Sotos speaks "academically" so it is hard to know when he is talking or when he's quoting someone else when he doesn't actually put fucking quotes around the text.
[/quote]

This aspect of Sotos' work adds more to each return reading. You can always pick up different lines of thought and perspective to the subject. What is being said and from what viewpoint. I kind of like it that way.

maybe i am a little confused.. is the full manuscript for Playground Sex available in the Timeless: Peter Sotos edition?

Quote from: bitewerksMTB on May 21, 2011, 01:24:09 AM
Is the Sotos yahoogroup still active or did it turn to all spam? Best thing I ever read there was a comment about if you had to fight him, all you'd need to do is hold up a piece of cardboard with a hole in it and it'd distract him...

After all the spam they split off into a new group called petersotosmoderated but that has been really dead for the last year as well.

there has really been no activity at petersotosmoderated. i recently just pulled the INDEX manuscript adaptation by Davyd Freeman from the files section of the regular sotos group, but that is ALL spam.

Quote from: RyanWreck on May 13, 2011, 06:01:45 AM
No pictures or cop letters but ...some personal ad's from "Hedonist Society" of people asking for CP photos

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,975356,00.html

Cop letters!

They also used 'Midlands Data Research' and 'Heartland Institute for a New Tomorrow' as phony entrapment organisation names around that time.

Did not know that, but from looking at some of the personals in it you can gather that some of those people are law enforcement, I didn't think the whole thing was though.

Tate & Wyre's 'The Murder of Childhood'

Great book.

From what I remember of Tate/Wyre's book is that I skipped a lot of parts and found most of it boring, maybe I should read back through it now since I haven't read it in years.

As writers they're nowhere near as talented as someone like Gitta Sereny but the access and mutual trust they got with Robert Black led to some amazing exchanges - see eg text at http://philipbest.blogspot.com/2010/09/damp-stairs.html

Tim Tate's views on Sotos get reprinted at http://www.rigorousintuition.ca/board2/viewtopic.php?f=26&t=31872

Quote from: bitewerksMTB on May 29, 2011, 08:41:50 PM
Are there any british sex crime/murder books published in the last few years that are worth tracking down?

Carol Ann Davis "Youthful Prey:Child Predators Who Kill" has some good chapters in it. Hoodless/Lunnion "Abducted", Hailey Giblin's "Hailey's Story", Alice Jamieson's "Today I'm Alice" and Shy Keenan's brutal "Broken" all suffer from the victim literature syndrome to some extent but are not short on detail.

Quote from: bitewerksMTB on May 29, 2011, 08:41:50 PM
Anyone have a torrent for a nice quality download of the BBC docu on Britian's pedophiles? Or is it available on dvd? I think I looked on the BBC site once & found everything but that one title.

I don't have a link for that infamous BBC docu - although some excerpts are on dailymotion.com - but here is a stream of a recent British TV documentary on the female paedophile ring case of 2009. I hope this link works for those outside the UK: http://www.channel4.com/programmes/breaking-a-female-paedophile-ring/4od

Quote from: bitewerksMTB on May 29, 2011, 08:41:50 PM

Anyone have a torrent for a nice quality download of the BBC docu on Britian's pedophiles? Or is it available on dvd? I think I looked on the BBC site once & found everything but that one title.

i think this is the one youre talking about, "the hunt for britain's pedophiles". its in three parts here:

http://www.dailymotion.com/relevance/search/the%20hunt%20for%20britain's%20paedophile#hp-h-9

Same episode different link just in case one doesn't work:

http://www.videoblogg.co.uk/documentary/the-hunt-for-britain-s-pedophiles.html

Supposedly there is another episode but I can't find it. I do know that the same producers followed up with 2 others pieces, one on Operation Ore and later on 2 episodes about Operation Doorknock. I read something about how a lot of the camera crew and some field producers quit their jobs in the middle of filming because of some of the material they were exposed to and others have regular visits with therapists.

Quote from: bitewerksMTB on June 01, 2011, 08:57:50 PM
who ended up telling me he owned one of the films talked about in the docu so I stopped contact with him soon after.

Red flags? Did you think it may be some Mail Inspection op or some Crimes Against Children sting? From what I know and have been witness to, the pigs really don't target collectors (unless they are part of a larger base of users like a ring or have a substantial amount of 5,000+ img and videos. They don't care much about people who just talk about it either. No need to really worry unless there is a large sweep going on for some political agenda to look good to the public, ISP flagging and sweeps or a recent outcry due to some missing or murdered kids. Most of the time they will just destroy the stuff en-route or put a watch on you and wait until you have a substantial amount that is worthy of an arrest. 6 months of jail time for a video isn't going to get the DA to hand over a search warrant so a swat team can knock down your door at 5:00am and recover a burned DVDr with a 12 minute video on it. But better safe than sorry, and c e e p e e really isn't worth it anyway unless you get off to the stuff instead of just someone who wants to find private video collections just to see them (like me).

Quote from: bitewerksMTB on June 01, 2011, 08:57:50 PM
It'll be good to watch those again. I have the book also. Wonder why they're not available as a dvd from the BBC?

I sent my copy to someone who said the tape broke while playing. I can't remember who I received the PAL video from but I had someone transfer it for me who ended up telling me he owned one of the films talked about in the docu so I stopped contact with him soon after.

2entertain have the licence to put out most bbc output. Most of it is drama based as that is what sells. A documentary on paedophilia is something of a niche market with a poor sell through so it will sit in the bbc archives forever - if it hasn't been junked already (which i'd doubt).

I'll keep an eye on bbc4 as that is the sort of channel that would repeat a documentary of this nature ....... but don't hold your breath.

If anyone has an e-mail to contact Sotos at please PM me it would be highly appreciated.

Latest Peter Sotos controversy: http://lancasteruaf.blogspot.com/2011/06/pro-nazi-pro-rape-pro-pedo-music-in.html - see also original posts at indymedia UK and whomakesthenazis.com

In an increasingly degenerate 4chan inspired digital world where 2 girls 1 cup, 2 guys 1 hammer and 2 pitbulls 1 baby are common currency it's extraordinary that his words on paper should inspire such passion - and perhaps testament to hs power as a writer.

More a testament to the power of self-righteousness on the parts of the idiots who are overreacting.

See Sotos has now pulled out of the sutcliffe jugend/BU event in October due to such overreaction.

and it is funny how they complain when they get hurt by the "real thing"

looks like Nine Banded Books is re-releasing (i guess it would have to be re-re-re-re-releasing) TOOL by Sotos, sometime in February of next year. 

A day late, a dollar short there pulp.

Quality is alright. I own C&C. The pages are nice but the cover is peeling back a little and it's made of weird material and seems to attract finger grease. Nothing to really bitch about though.

I agree he should write a new book. Does anyone know if the guy is even interested in writing ever again? It would suck if there was no more Sotos in our futures.

Quote from: humanpulp on July 09, 2011, 04:03:24 AM
looks like Nine Banded Books is re-releasing (i guess it would have to be re-re-re-re-releasing) TOOL by Sotos, sometime in February of next year. 

*edit* Now that I think about it 9BB was suppose to re-release Tool for the beginning of this year. If I remember correctly it was on Amazon late last year for pre-order for "January of 2011". Not that large of a book, I wonder what the fuck would take them so long?

i havent seen or talked to him in a good long while, but one of the last times i saw him, if i remember correctly, he said he has 2 or 3 books worth of new material in the works, or done, i dont remember as we were both kinda drunk.

i have been checking for updates anywhere, but all i could find was this information about the TOOL re-re-rerelease.

as far as the cover for C&C, i laughed when you said it was made of some material that purposely attracts finger grease. i totally agree.

QuoteNEW TITLE:

"MINE" by PETER SOTOS
ALL NEW MATERIAL.
A LIMITED HARDBACK OF 69 COPIES ONLY.
PRE-ORDER NOW:
http://www.creationbooks.com/creation-titles/MINE.html (http://www.creationbooks.com/creation-titles/MINE.html)

99.99$ to Europe + customs, lim.69 = ridiculous

do you suppose that these are really limited to 69?

seems that this should already be sold out, but its not apparently.

If not now it will be sold out by the time it officially releases, probably a lot sooner than that. I could care less about ltd. books and Waitress supplements, I'll just grab the soft cover and spend the money I saved not getting the Hardcover for whenever 9BB re-releases Tool

I've been out of work forever and couldn't afford the insanely priced HC of "Mine", now I'm kind of upset about missing it.  If anyone who pre-ordered is looking to sell a copy, please send me a PM.

Creation said the pre-order ships this week.

(July 17, 2012 on FERAL HOUSE)
"PURE FILTH" by Peter Sotos, introduction by Jamie Gillis.

Product Description
Jamie Gillis appeared in over one hundred films, and as such was a primary performer in pornography's "Golden Age." Gillis is also known for inventing the "Gonzo" genre of pornography, played out in the film Boogie Nights by Burt Reynolds' character.

Pure Filth appears as transcripts from the films Jamie produced during these early years of radical and highly personal pornography. Completed just before his death in February 2010, Gillis contributed an introduction to each transcript to shed light on his ideas and plans, as well as anecdotal details and personal commentary. The book has more to do with an artist's understanding of sex than the mere views of a flesh peddler. The careful language and brutal intelligence that Jamie brought to interviews are what separates the conversations from any other work that might have more academic or prurient pretensions.

Extreme novelist Peter Sotos, perhaps better known and appreciated in France and the United Kingdom than his home country, was a good friend of Jamie Gillis, and Sotos' unusual perspective makes this volume possible.


About the Author
Peter Sotos became interested in Jamie Gillis' "private tapes" after being told of their limited existence by an old troll in a porn shop that specialized in under-the-counter sales. Thinking that the films Jamie was releasing were far more intriguing than sex acts performed by low level prostitutes, Sotos started transcribing the conversations that took place between filmmaker and performer. It is his contention that the work is more about the insulting elasticity of respect than it is an obscene record of hookers pushed to their mental, rather than purely physical, limits.

Jamie Gillis is known as one of the first male "superstars" of pornography. He started his career in NY during the early basement years and lasted through the Times Square and LA glitz booms, eventually creating the gonzo ("reality porn") genre. He was one of the very few actors capable of introspectively writing about his career, tastes and experiences during his lifetime, and most of it pre-internet. In Pure Filth, Jamie explains that his interest in what sex really is came from his greater desire for "exploration and exposure of the sexual imagination in all its variety". PURE FILTH- by Peter Sotos, introduction by Jamie Gillis.

Gillis and Sotos, a thing of dreams.

(http://i10.glitter-graphics.org/pub/1872/1872950blycs5za6k.gif)

This looks amazing...

good news!

the actual release is spring 2012, not July 2012 (as stated on the Amazon preorder page)
Feral House will unleash some (entertaining) stuff related to the book in the next months

did anyone else on this board get their hands on MINE? i havent read it yet, i got #27 of 69. as expected, its a sort of shoddy binding job from Creation. feels like the book may separate from the cover at some point. oh well. bragging rights for bullshit.

from what i did read, it definitely has a different feel than Sotos other work. i wont say mature, but it just has a different, almost pensive or sullen feel about it. of course, i briefly read only 8 or so pages out of almost 300.

Quote from: humanpulp on October 11, 2011, 12:56:51 AM
Creation said the pre-order ships this week.

Anyone got it?

Quote from: humanpulp on October 29, 2011, 12:46:04 AM
did anyone else on this board get their hands on MINE? i havent read it yet, i got #27 of 69. as expected, its a sort of shoddy binding job from Creation. feels like the book may separate from the cover at some point. oh well. bragging rights for bullshit.

from what i did read, it definitely has a different feel than Sotos other work. i wont say mature, but it just has a different, almost pensive or sullen feel about it. of course, i briefly read only 8 or so pages out of almost 300.

Would you compare it to any of his other books? Are there chapters, how is it set up? Any news clippings/photos in the actual book (not the supplemental material)?

Quote from: FreakAnimalFinland on November 13, 2011, 06:05:37 PM

Quote from: humanpulp on October 11, 2011, 12:56:51 AM
Creation said the pre-order ships this week.

Anyone got it?

Actually got this day after asking...  Read only little of appendix so far.

So, out of those who have read at least half of the book, what do you think so far? Comparisons? Writing style? I would love for Sotos to go back to his Index - C&C writing. Not that I am too dumb to get Lordotics or Show Adult (or KEPT) but it takes a bit more and you have to really mine for the material, especially in Lordotics where everything bounces about.

Quote from: RyanWreck on November 29, 2011, 06:38:25 PM
So, out of those who have read at least half of the book, what do you think so far? Comparisons? Writing style? I would love for Sotos to go back to his Index - C&C writing. Not that I am too dumb to get Lordotics or Show Adult (or KEPT) but it takes a bit more and you have to really mine for the material, especially in Lordotics where everything bounces about.

i am a little more than half way through (read a huge chunk of it tonight), and i have to say, its actually a little different. i guess with his books, it really is a "to each their own" type of thing. one book that people love others fucking despise. i actually liked LORDOTICS a lot, i also liked PREDICATE too, and those are 2 books that people say are his weakest. in this case, the subject matter is very jumpy, purposely- almost obsessively repetitive, you find yourself reading large pieces where there is a seamless change from factual case study or transcribed interview to very personal and introspective sotos writing. now, i may find this later, but there hasnt been so much expected sotos material as there has been a lot more early sexual identity discussion and exploration. but, and maybe this is me being out of tune currently for the book, i find myself jumping back paragraphs or sentences because it is easy for me to get lost in certain parts. finding myself saying "wait, what?" or "wait, who?"

people who have read his books will find reoccurring characters (victims of abuse) that sotos obsesses over usually, and matched with the frantic, jumpy, obessessive style the book is presented in, it is easy to get jumbled a bit, or maybe i am just a retard. in general, the main written section of MINE is very large, definitely not lacking or ripped there. the photographic section seems to be all related to the Moors Murders as far as i can tell, i havent really gone through each article yet (which can be a chore, as i learned with KEPT) and the "WAITRESS" section seems to be very interesting. a lot of article/study material, transcripts, interview stuff.  

Quote from: bitewerksMTB on November 30, 2011, 07:09:52 PM
http://www.videodrom.org/article.php?id=26

I think I may have watched that before. Not too exciting. For some odd reason, I was thinking if he shaved his beard & wore a baseball cap, he would look like Michael Moore. Even the way he speaks, reminds me of Moore.

I saw this on another site but the video didn't work, thanks for linking it. I don't read French and web-translators suck but it says 1999 so I am assuming that this was recorded then? I like how the translation says he choose to read "his less offensive material" but I'm pretty sure a good deal of it is from both Tick and Playground Sex.

*edit* A girl I have over woke up at the part where the dude is jerking off a couple minutes in and asked why I was "downloading gay porn".

I like how "TAINT" is one of the keywords he used in the heading.

Quote from: RyanWreck on November 30, 2011, 07:19:17 PM* A girl I have over woke up at the part where the dude is jerking off a couple minutes in and asked why I was "downloading gay porn"

Well, I hope you put her straight about this. There's obviously nothing gay about that video and nothing gay about any of his books :D

Really pissed off I missed 'Mine' but hopefully there will be a paperback at some stage.

Quote from: HongKongGoolagong on December 04, 2011, 01:42:01 AM

Quote from: RyanWreck on November 30, 2011, 07:19:17 PM* A girl I have over woke up at the part where the dude is jerking off a couple minutes in and asked why I was "downloading gay porn"

Well, I hope you put her straight about this. There's obviously nothing gay about that video and nothing gay about any of his books :D

I fucked her in the ass and called her Robert.

Quote from: bitewerksMTB on December 04, 2011, 04:17:38 AM
Gay as in lame?

Gay as in screaming fag queer homosexual of course. FWIW, I'd place Mr Sotos alongside Dennis Cooper and Jean Genet as the three best homo writers over the last 75 years.

Ex-bandmate of mine told me amazing shit years ago about toilet-trading with married guys who would show pictures of their kids to him before the action.

I can't really figure out the meaning of 'Waitress' myself. Prefer waitresses to businesswomen though.

I wonder what videos are going to be transcribed in Pure Filth (other than Walking Toilet Bowl)? I am assuming at 340 pages that we should get a good amount of material and hopefully some new Sotos text.

not Sotos but a tiny bit Sotos-related : http://www.creationbooksfraud.com/ (http://www.creationbooksfraud.com/)

wtf ....

James Havoc - died in drink binge in Tokyo some years ago, it's on wikipedia so must be true.
Mark Perry CEO of Creation Books lives in Thailand and does not wish to be disturbed. Founder of Alternative TV, publisher of Sniffin Glue zine.
John 'The Rabbit' Bundrick is Creation Books legal and PR when not being a legendary session musician, notably for The Who.
James Williamson joined The Stooges after their second album. Real name cited as Julian Halibut in a book on Creation Records.

Everything about this story is bizarre and hilarious. Publishing sensation of the decade.

Quote from: bitewerksMTB on December 16, 2011, 07:38:05 PM
There are a ton of Gillis home videos. I had or have a trailer tape that has scenes from a bunch I never read about or came across on any lists. Most do not look rough though.

The Humiliation Of Heidi was made for a more mainstream audience (relatively speaking) towards the end of his life but has some great trademark dialogue with those sudden brutal/gentle flips. His verbals were his amazing talent in lots of ways.

Quote from: Peterson on February 08, 2012, 12:02:09 AM

Also, anyone who can provide rip of aforementioned Gillis video, please do. Have been wanting to see for some time.

There are torrents of this floating around.

Here is one with 5 seeders and features both "The Humiliation of Heidi" and another private video with "D Starr":

http://www.onlytorrents.com/torrent/jamie-gillis-2-films-very-sick-shit:239d6b660a87f0202e5a5ceb6b221ec60e3f0678

And in case you didn't see it in the Porn thread here is one of the "Walking Toilet Bowl" torrents (the Carol video, which is my favorite):

http://tracker.zaerc.com/torrents-details.php?id=15329

Did anyone go to this (Feb 2012)? It was a show with other authors/artists like Pierre Dourthe, Hans Bellme, etc.

http://www.centrepompidou.fr/Pompidou/Manifs.nsf/0/AA423CC4A0B27266C125799100353580?OpenDocument&sessionM=2.5.2&L=1

Here is a translation of the main body:

QuoteFree admission subject to availability
The content of this conference may offend the sensibilities of the public and especially the younger ones.

"I have selected in the audio interviews relating to sexual abuse. I found the instructions of psychologists and police reports and I have separated children from adults. Carefully chosen, poorly arranged. Some sources were treated with expertise, while others, when my interest exceeded my ability, remained coarse collages copied / pasted. Of pornography low end, extremely important. A trend, looking at their faces, thinking about these things I had seen in the most vile and degrading situations. I wanted to drag on, draw more than a quick glance or a deliberate cum as much evidence against me. Foul, brooding, malleable. So this time stretches into a thought and a constant quest. I edited the images of weeping parents, nothing more. No selling, no preaching, no lessons given unless it was by someone who had basically nothing to say and only then noticed it. I could dig in everywhere. From countless smaller tragedies and taped. Other news did not interest me at all."
Peter Sotos

wondering the same. also, didn't he perform with Sutcliffe Jugend a few weeks ago, a supposed reading and film performance?
of course, i doubt any kind of documentation was made. still interested to know about it.

Some kid slashed his wrists at that Paris SJ/CE/Sotos show the other week. Seen the picture, it was a deep cut.

Quote from: bitewerksMTB on March 11, 2012, 07:46:15 PM

Quote from: HongKongGoolagong on March 11, 2012, 03:21:19 AM
Some kid slashed his wrists at that Paris SJ/CE/Sotos show the other week. Seen the picture, it was a deep cut.

Wow. They must have been awful!

A nuisance for the promoters and venue.

As the magazine it's published in (Hiroshima Yeah! from Glasgow) has no web presence and a small circulation, this seems a suitable place to drop a review I did:


Philip Best 'American Campgrounds' (Creation Books 2010)

So many circles. Like the ring of Mundy, Best and Dennison on the back inlay of Ramleh's
'Works III' compilation but here it's skinny-armed children whose rings are formed as
protection against the natural disasters, the animal predators, the possibly evil intent of
the readers of this morbid and peculiar photo-collage novel.

Children on almost every page but precious few to whet a pervert's appetites. These children
are vulnerable, tiny, helpless wretches. Best has stated that Shasta Groene, survivor of a
horrific kidnapping by serial killing paedophile Joseph Duncan, is the central figure of the
book. As well as Shasta, some of the other faces I recognised among the anonymous foundlings
are Susan Smith, Ulrike Meinhof with her children and Richey Edwards.

Leaving aside Bests's meanings - and Peter Sotos gets nowhere near discussing them in his
entertaining and bitchy introduction, focusing instead on himself as usual - there's some
aesthetic pleasure to be gained from the layout on the pages of the collages. The
arrangement of the shapes: trees facing childens limbs. Like planting a garden and deciding
to have a row of flowers here, just so.

So much of this material is taken from National Geographic magazine. In 2001 a Russian child
pornography ring was broken which used National Geographic videos of pandas to disguise
their product. Four years later, Joseph Duncan's obscure blog The Fifth Nail was befriended
by an enigmatic blogger fixated on Russian boys whose site was called The Panda Conspiracy.
Some true crime websites have claimed that Duncan used his laptop to upload the footage he
took of the Groene children at the campground later that year,the footage that caused such
upset at his trial. Best has stated that the book is shows "hope, redemption and exemplary
resistance to black, titanic forces". Shasta's resistance, certainly, but also that of
anyone who doesn't succumb to nihilism and atavistic urges and strives for empathy, however
hard it may sometimes be to locate. The final page juxtaposes what appears to be a
trendy-looking anorexic teenager's midriff with feeding tube attached against a desperate
street child in Latin America, huddled in the gutter in filthy clothes. It's hard not to
sense moral stones being cast here: 'American Campgrounds' is advertised as a jeremiad after
all.

It's the elements of scrying and sortilege which fascinate me the most in the composition.
There's a page featuring Frank Corder who set off on the night of September 11th 1994 in a
stolen Cessna and tried to crash it into the White House. Best seems to hint at a mirror
world, at hidden vistas of reality. At worst the book is incomprehensible, but at best it's
unheimliche.

Fan of his work in music will find plenty more of the very personal and esoteric mythology
used in various projects in this nice collector's item which has higher production standards
than most things published by Creation. The real Philip Best book in which he gets to show
off his unique way with words at length has yet to appear.             

Quote from: bitewerksMTB on April 10, 2012, 10:32:50 PM
Just took a look at Creation's site & all the film books + Sotos have been removed.

Looks like TOTAL FILTH will be published this summer. It's on Amazon & It's listed as 'coming soon' on Feral House's site also (Amazon is cheaper).

Ran across some photos from Tesco Fest & there's one of Sotos signing a book. Looks like he's lost alot of weight & shaved the beard. Can't remember the name
of the tumblr I saw it on.

I think this is the photo you mean: (http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lvggejkZbi1qkludko11_1280.jpg)

That queer speed (tina) is taking its toll. Has Sotos ever said whether or not he truly has AIDS? All of the interviews I have no one asks, he even pushes some guy to ask him but the interviewer doesn't go for it. (Speaking of interviews with Sotos, does anyone have his contact information? If so, would you be so kind as to PM it to me?)

Quote from: bitewerksMTB on April 19, 2012, 02:19:59 AM
I didn't know speed was different for those who are queer or straight.

The same substance supplied by manly bikers everywhere who love getting their brown wings with a bunch of other hairy tattooed guys watching actually transforms into a limp-wristed new romantic sort of thing oozing mascara called Tina around the gents who bat for the other team.

I always liked the lines from Language Recovery "Have you ever used a dental dam? Do you even know how to get HIV?" for their vitriol and sarcasm. The paragraph PB is referring to (which Sotos was so proud of he reused it in Special after it first appeared in an issue of Parasite) about dental dams and baby car seats is fucking funny though.

All their suspects in that Patz case ended up not panning out, I don't think they have ever got close. It seems like the 60's-70's were a great time to kill people, way too many cold cases come back to a date in those decades.

If you hang out with a queer or two for more than a few hours it seems like Meth and/or poppers will be brought up at some point. So many different types of speed exist. Crank, the shit bikers started making in the 60's has a consistency of chunky peanut butter, ice is like broken glass and is fucking strong and the usual trailer park shit is yellow tinted shards. Europeans generally get old-school, pure amp's. Queers get it all, although I was watching a show on NBC where some fags were cooking up meth shake-and-bake style and weren't letting it wash so it would come out blue and pink, kinda rainbow looking. For all the Heroin and pills I have done I have never touched the shit, it's disgusting.

Quote from: bitewerksMTB on April 10, 2012, 10:32:50 PM

Looks like TOTAL FILTH will be published this summer. It's on Amazon & It's listed as 'coming soon' on Feral House's site also (Amazon is cheaper).

Yep, and it looks like it has a different cover than what was shown before, and they have finally set a target release date of June 12th. The content of Pure Filth looks great (posted below for the lazy people who don't want to go look for themselves). I've been interested since I had first heard of the release but I am extremely interested now. Even though I have seen a handful of these films there are a couple that I haven't watched and the commentary from Jamie himself on each chapter/film is going to be invaluable in itself and worth the $50 sales price. Sotos only writes the introduction but it seems to be about 32 pages long (of which something like 20 or so full pages can be read on Amazon's preview feature, and like 3 full chapters with Jamie's introduction and the transcripts and all, it actually feels like there is a third of the entire book is shown in that preview. I will link it at the bottom of this post), with fairly small font, of completely new text. A bit more than I expected to get from his hand.

Contents:

(http://i43.tinypic.com/20k2mxg.png)

Preview:
http://www.amazon.com/Pure-Filth-Peter-Sotos/dp/1936239310/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1334989473&sr=8-1

Pure Filth "Trailer": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rf8DwiFNbIo

If anyone is in Portland, Oregon, Sotos and Adam Parfrey are doing a reading at Powell's Books this Thursday, May 3 2012 @ 6:30PM.  And then a couple more appearances in NYC next week.  http://feralhouse.com/behold-the-impure/ (http://feralhouse.com/behold-the-impure/)

Read that 32 page sample of the Sotos introduction to Pure Filth, which only about 5 or 6 pages seem to actually be missing (maybe less?). His intro is really quite good, very lucid and concise this time as opposed to his other later era books. Sotos actually address' this, saying that he "Doesn't write like this usually. I'd rather not explain what I do to people who didn't come for the subject and I despise using something anecdotal or point driven. However, in deference to Jaime, who I understand is dead, I'm less inclined to insist on the context I usually prefer to wrap myself in." Sotos then continues to go over the transcripts, he talks about his relationship with Jamie and the editor of this book, his opinion of the screen grabs used, and his opinion on some of the videos featured. He also talks a bit about how he thinks that most of the "private" videos Jamie did weren't truly private, that was merely a term used to sell more and jack the price up, or something to that effect. I've been skimming through the transcripts too but unfortunately the preview gets a bit more greedy around these areas and you can only read a few from On The Prowl series, along with Jamie's introductions which are pretty good for the most part. I'm really looking forward to getting this book now.

Is there any other published Sotos artwork besides the Still Going Strong/Ankles & Wrists cover and the whip from the Cream Of The Second Coming cover art? The style kind of reminds me of something from the artist who did certain cartoon sections on Pink Floyd's "The Wall" movie.

A tiny bit off topic, but is the continuation of the Creation saga?
http://sunvisionpress.org

I'm trying to put a bibliography with correct dates together, just for a personal list, the one on Wiki is way off. I'm going to start at the beginning and read them all through again even though I don't think there is one Sotos book I haven't read more than once. So any help on these would be appreciated: What year did Tool come out, 1998? When did he begin writing Parasite? And which was written first, Lazy or Tick?

Quote from: RyanWreck on May 31, 2012, 04:21:18 AM
I'm trying to put a bibliography with correct dates together, just for a personal list, the one on Wiki is way off. I'm going to start at the beginning and read them all through again even though I don't think there is one Sotos book I haven't read more than once. So any help on these would be appreciated: What year did Tool come out, 1998? When did he begin writing Parasite? And which was written first, Lazy or Tick?

Tool first came out in full as the middle section of Total Abuse in early 1996 (copyright page says 1995, copyright for Tool excerpt on Buyers Market says 1992) - seems it was written over three years before.

Parasite started in September 1993. Ceased publication on the advice of ACLU 1995. http://www.aclu.org/ Hi ACLU!

Lazy came before Tick. I still love Tick so much, what a fucking book. The stuff in there about all the regrets at bad decisions, mixed in with Matthew Shepard material toward the end - amazing writing. And such fun trying to trace all the mischievous questions and answers in the narrative, and finding where they were all from. All-time classic closing paragraph. One of his very best, up there with Show Adult and Comfort and Critique.

Never seen a copy myself but am informed that Playground Sex was published in a samizdat style ringbinder edition of 50 by someone in Europe well before its unadvertised and unannounced surprise reprint in the first Waitress. Remember 'PS' being announced as forthcoming in Susan Lawly newsletters back in '97. There is even more sensitive material than usual in that book regarding victims of crimes and specific names, it's a shame but understandable that it hasn't been more widely available. Seriously depressing and bleak read though, I pity any paedophiles who may have sought it out due to the title and notoriety expecting some kind of erotica.

Wikipedia entry isn't too bad IMHO, seen worse on all sorts of topics. Index came out '98 though. Lazy was '99.

Desperately seeking a copy of 'MINE' here and will pay decent price to anyone who wants to offload it.

I think I have someone lined up to sell me Mine for a reasonable price because of a trade I did with them before. Crossing my fingers he e-mails me back. If so I have no problem passing it along to you just to read when I am done then you can send it back. I trust you won't keep it or I would have to hire a hitman off of the deepweb.

What happened to the 9BB reprint of Tool? I don't see it mentioned anywhere anymore...

Thanks for the dates. I was pretty correct with them all except for Parasite. I remember him saying that about the ACLU in another book, don't remember which. Too much stuff like that for me, stories and links from his books that I can't remember where they are from which is one of the main reasons I am going to go back through every thing. For instance I was re-reading "The Perfect Jason Swift" earlier and just realized he re-answered the questions from Selfish Little that were asked in section 2 part 1. Funny to read his 'updated' answers after all those years.  He also mentions this guy who he references a few times, a friend of his who went to jail and who had "great access" (Selfish, Little) and I think I figured out who that guy was, David Vaksdal, from Chicago reports at the time and from clippings in Kept. I was trying to figure it out because I wanted to see his artwork of the child murderers. Tick is definitely a great read, one of his best definitely. Is PS reprinted in its entirety in that copy of Waitress because that is the only version I have read (and the chunks featured in some shorter piece along with an interview, both of which were on the old Yahoo groups file section).

Quote from: HongKongGoolagong on May 31, 2012, 05:05:37 AM
Never seen a copy myself but am informed that Playground Sex was published in a samizdat style ringbinder edition of 50 by someone in Europe well before its unadvertised and unannounced surprise reprint in the first Waitress. Remember 'PS' being announced as forthcoming in Susan Lawly newsletters back in '97. There is even more sensitive material than usual in that book regarding victims of crimes and specific names, it's a shame but understandable that it hasn't been more widely available. Seriously depressing and bleak read though, I pity any paedophiles who may have sought it out due to the title and notoriety expecting some kind of erotica.

I have that version, it was released by Timeless (from France) in 2000, the first edition in the samizdat style ringbinder is 100 copies. I think it was my first introduction to Sotos. Good read.

What is on the cover of that?

I have two copies of that.
classic!

Quote from: RyanWreck on May 31, 2012, 11:09:33 AM
What is on the cover of that?

here's the front & back >

(http://homepage.eircom.net/~sewer_rat/fr_104_size880.jpg)

timeless should have a thread of its own.

Quote from: RyanWreck on May 31, 2012, 07:34:36 AM
He also mentions this guy who he references a few times, a friend of his who went to jail and who had "great access" (Selfish, Little) and I think I figured out who that guy was, David Vaksdal, from Chicago reports at the time and from clippings in Kept.

Are you sure about that? Remember Sotos is a masterful liar and distorter of facts. Part of the fun in trying to understand all his references comes from the click of recognition when you realise what or who he's really writing about, and how he's overdramatised things for comic effect - an example would be his insinuation in Show Adult that a silly Meg McCarville art film was some kind of highly underground illegal porn, or how his insults directed at Philip Best's choice in women in Selfish Little initially seem as if he's describing some kind of grooming ring he was into. Seems like many of his readers end up heavily disguised in the books too! It's similar to the tabloid reporting that inspires him in some ways.

QuoteAre you sure about that?

Yea, actually I found that the guy I mentioned was into girls, and the person I am thinking of in Sotos' book is all about boys.

QuoteRemember Sotos is a masterful liar and distorter of facts. Part of the fun in trying to understand all his references comes from the click of recognition when you realise what or who he's really writing about, and how he's overdramatised things for comic effect

I agree. Although I don't know how much he really dramatizes. Do you personally think there is a good amount of "fiction" in his books?

Quote
or how his insults directed at Philip Best's choice in women in Selfish Little initially seem as if he's describing some kind of grooming ring he was into.

I don't remember this. What chapter and part was it in?

Going back through his books I think I am going to start off with "Show Adult". It's been a little while since I read that but I remember liking it.

Do you like "Predicate" at all? I know that a lot of other people dislike it and I don't understand why. It's one of my personal favorites, probably top 3 actually. Then you have ''Lordotics" which a lot of people dislike and I would have to agree, it is my least favorite of all. I'm going to read it again, though, hopefully pick something, anything, up from it since I didn't at all the first time around. Too much repetition in that one.

Certainly over-dramatisation and distortion in the books, which blurs into fiction and draws attention to how narrative is created or focalized, to tricks of memory and perception, to tricks of language.

Page 71 of Void Books edition of "the 191 page stupid little toxic alibi" for the refernce you asked about: "my boorish friend" etc. There's also a reference to "a thin bore wasting my time" talking about pick-up techniques in Comfort & Critique or Predicate, can't remember which - that's WB. And a long and malevolent section in Show Adult again on PB - "Great, so you lost some weight" etc. In their obnoxiousness, intrusion into private lives and general 'smear campaign' aesthetic they are very similar to tabloid journalism. I'm no better for drawing attention to the passages here. All readers implicated.

I like Predicate fine. Lordotics I really couldn't understand what he was doing or going for, maybe it will make sense eventually.

Quote from: bitewerksMTB on June 01, 2012, 09:56:17 PM
"Yea, actually I found that the guy I mentioned was into girls, and the person I am thinking of in Sotos' book is all about boys. "

Is the Chicago guy he talks about the one with a huge cock? I remember Sotos writing that the guy warned him about someone else who was eventually arrested. Same big cock guy had a basement where Sotos had watched films, met one or more of the boys the guy was molesting... Seems like it was first written about in Parasite then same text was used in one of the Void-published books? I remember hoping there would be more about the guy getting arrested. I think I even tried to search for someone in Chicago, arrested for molesting son, whatever but unless the article referred to his huge cock, how would I know?

That's the same guy I am talking about, yes. Yea he mentioned him in Parasite then again in Selfish, Little and Predicate, then again in "The Perfect Jason Swift" where he talks about a collage that the guy made with boys who murdered other children.

Quote from: HongKongGoolagong on June 01, 2012, 08:12:29 PM
And a long and malevolent section in Show Adult again on PB - "Great, so you lost some weight" etc. In their obnoxiousness, intrusion into private lives and general 'smear campaign' aesthetic they are very similar to tabloid journalism. I'm no better for drawing attention to the passages here. All readers implicated.

Ah yea I found the spot in Show Adult that you were talking about. Re-reading through Show Adult and I'm starting to realize why it would be one of your favorite Sotos books. The first time I read it I was "meh", now, at the 3rd reading, I'm starting to really pick up on some things I didn't see before. The same thing happened with Lazy and it is my favorite out of the 3 Index, Lazy and Tick releases (I know most people would not agree with me there). What did you think about Lazy? I looked at the version creation put out in "Public: Collected..." and didn't like it because the format didn't run the same way as the old book with newspaper clippings on opposing pages and the occasional italic texts added beneath those clippings, it's all jumbled together and ugly.

A little bit off topic but new for me:

http://www.creationbooksfraud.com/index.html

What's going on here?

Quote from: algiz on June 09, 2012, 12:27:10 AM
A little bit off topic but new for me:

http://www.creationbooksfraud.com/index.html

What's going on here?

Someone had already posted and discussed that link earlier in this thread (check page 11).

http://youtu.be/Iwst5iQuF1M

He did tell me after that reading that he'd been drinking since about 3 PM. Not so much "sad" as not 100% sober.

Quote from: Mme Deficit on June 10, 2012, 08:41:22 PM
He did tell me after that reading that he'd been drinking since about 3 PM. Not so much "sad" as not 100% sober.

He's coherent, articulate and funny in the clip, which shows his drinking skills clearly mastered over many years. The grotesque descriptions of alcohol-related messy bowel movements in his books is a topic that you just don't get from any other living writer, reminds me of something from Celine or an 18th century picaresque writer.

Indeed. I actually wouldn't have known he'd been drinking so heavily if I hadn't been told.

He's also a fantastic person to get drunk with, as one might imagine. The last couple of times I drank with him in NYC, we spent half the time talking about various murderers.

Quote from: Peterson on June 14, 2012, 02:41:33 AM
I guess 3PM is not so early if you are such a champion alcoholic, haha. I read some stupid Pitchfork Media article with him that made me want to hear him rant about music and such. Also his thoughts/stories about drug use must be REALLY fucking funny.

Oh, I've heard him tell a few booze-and-drug stories . . . He has quite a bit to say on the subject of literature as well.

Random fact: I'm actually visible in the audience in that video posted above. So are two or three of my friends. This whole "world" is pretty small.

Quote from: Mme Deficit on June 14, 2012, 09:55:12 PM

Quote from: Peterson on June 14, 2012, 02:41:33 AM
I guess 3PM is not so early if you are such a champion alcoholic, haha. I read some stupid Pitchfork Media article with him that made me want to hear him rant about music and such. Also his thoughts/stories about drug use must be REALLY fucking funny.

Oh, I've heard him tell a few booze-and-drug stories . . . He has quite a bit to say on the subject of literature as well.

Random fact: I'm actually visible in the audience in that video posted above. So are two or three of my friends. This whole "world" is pretty small.

You're not the jackass that says "post-modern" are you?

Quote from: Peterson on June 14, 2012, 02:41:33 AM
Also his thoughts/stories about drug use must be REALLY fucking funny.

He doesn't talk much about it, at least not as much as all his other subjects. And when he does he mainly talks about Alcohol, Poppers/Amyl and Meth. He has some fairly funny and somewhat gross stories about fluids dripping out of his asshole and onto his chair and in his pants because of "alcohol and bar drugs" and HIV med's. A couple of stories about smoking meth in an arcade room, dangerous hustler drug dealers, etc.

Quote from: RyanWreck on June 15, 2012, 07:53:35 PM

Quote from: Mme Deficit on June 14, 2012, 09:55:12 PM
Random fact: I'm actually visible in the audience in that video posted above. So are two or three of my friends. This whole "world" is pretty small.

You're not the jackass that says "post-modern" are you?

I'm the girl in the red leather jacket smirking whenever anyone in the audience tries to bring up theory.

Ah OK. How many people were there, just the ones we can see?

Quote from: RyanWreck on June 16, 2012, 04:46:20 AM
Ah OK. How many people were there, just the ones we can see?

The cameraman was in approximately the middle of the audience, and there were a few people standing in the back as well since all the seats were filled. Still nowhere near as packed as his NYC reading at Tesco Fest last November.

Sotos performing what Sutcliffe J. & Consumer Electronics this Saturday. What should one expect from that bloke onstage these days?

Just ordered Sotos' Index and Tick. Looking forward to a good hard read. Anyone read the new Pure Filth? Seems like a good dish to have on the table..

Arkhe,


a friend of mine saw Sotos a while back. Don't remember where.. According to him he started a video projection, then went for drinks in the bar while the duration leapt. Film was interesting, though I think my friend expected a more fine-tuned live aktion. Nevertheless worth to check out I believe. Considering a voyage to DK myself. Good line up.

According to my Interpol contacts Peter was spotted at a gig in Paris earlier this week. It's true about the blackface, he also has a parrot on his shoulder and a peg leg now.

not sure if anybody has already posted this: http://ht.ly/bLRVI

Thanx for the interview link Tiny Tove.

Quote from: online prowler on June 20, 2012, 07:42:35 PM
Arkhe,


a friend of mine saw Sotos a while back. Don't remember where.. According to him he started a video projection, then went for drinks in the bar while the duration leapt. Film was interesting, though I think my friend expected a more fine-tuned live aktion. Nevertheless worth to check out I believe. Considering a voyage to DK myself. Good line up.

Don't know if you made it but in CPH this weekend he played some "gonzo-porn" videos and read these kind of transcribed interviews with porn amateurs, while Sutcliffe Jügend provided background drones and noises. He left the stage and the films stopped after this "intro", and then he joined for another piece later on. It was hard to hear what he was reading but several times he pointed to the projection and seemed to urge people to actually pay attention to it. I haven't read any of his books so I can't say I'm a fan but it was a good performance. From what I've read here it seemed to mainly focus around the Pure Filth book.

Quote from: hsv on June 25, 2012, 03:32:48 PM
I haven't read any of his books so I can't say I'm a fan but it was a good performance. From what I've read here it seemed to mainly focus around the Pure Filth book.

Yea, I am assuming, from what you posted, that he was showing "On The Prowl" projections and reading from the transcriptions in "Pure Filth".

I got my copy about 3 weeks ago and have read it through once and am starting it again after I finish my 2nd reading of "Lordotics".

Some of the "Walking Toilet Bowl" -videos are available as torrents. Downloaded all I could find, have to say it's surprisingly strong material, psychologically strongest I have seen from the field of scat humiliation. True enthusiasm for the subject. If interested, get at least "Walking Toilet Bowl (1990)" and "Say Yes To Chastity [aka.Walking Toilet Bowl 2]". The latter is the one that inspired the Whitehouse track Quality Time, most of the lines taken directly from it.

Received this today. I hesitated first because of high price, but now I'm glad I ordered it. Stylish quality hardcover and the texts themself (including lengthy introduction by Sotos and introductions to every transcription by Gillis) seems to be just what I wanted them to be. Jamies introductions are very honest and brutal. For example on Brown on Ebony -film: "Man, I hate niggers. Niggers are the fuckin' lowest. ... lowlife, cretin criminals who deserve to be treated as subhuman". I was under impression that he was somewhat reluctant to reveal himself as the maker of the Walking Toilet Bowl -series, but it seems I was wrong. "I'm not shamed of anything I've done". My notion is that the transcriptions work better if you have seen the actual films. Very good book about an intense and true libertine.

Quote from: hsv on June 25, 2012, 03:32:48 PM

Quote from: online prowler on June 20, 2012, 07:42:35 PM
Arkhe,


a friend of mine saw Sotos a while back. Don't remember where.. According to him he started a video projection, then went for drinks in the bar while the duration leapt. Film was interesting, though I think my friend expected a more fine-tuned live aktion. Nevertheless worth to check out I believe. Considering a voyage to DK myself. Good line up.

Don't know if you made it but in CPH this weekend he played some "gonzo-porn" videos and read these kind of transcribed interviews with porn amateurs, while Sutcliffe Jügend provided background drones and noises. He left the stage and the films stopped after this "intro", and then he joined for another piece later on. It was hard to hear what he was reading but several times he pointed to the projection and seemed to urge people to actually pay attention to it. I haven't read any of his books so I can't say I'm a fan but it was a good performance. From what I've read here it seemed to mainly focus around the Pure Filth book.

Thanx for the reply Arkhe. Missed out on the show in CHP. Didn't have time to travel. Føkking annoying. Seems like it could have been worth it.  

Quote from: Si Clark on June 25, 2012, 09:31:44 PM
There's an audio cassette of one of JAMIE GILLIS'S "BROWN ON EBONY here - http://unholypassions.tumblr.com/TAPE%20RELEASES

Thanx for the share Si !

Quote from: theotherjohn on July 07, 2012, 12:26:28 AM
Psychotic, obsessive and potentially slanderous ramblings passed off as an autobiographical novel - and no, this time it's not the latest Peter Sotos book: http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=vMByyIpgvbEC&dq=peter+sotos&q=sotos#v=snippet&q=sotos&f=false

Wow. Thanks for posting that.

thanks john for posting that. highly entertaining.

Quote from: Peterson on July 12, 2012, 10:36:04 PM
Wow, insane. I would probably buy the paperback edition to see this weirdo's perspective better than Google seems to allow, but it's insanely expensive, being so insane and all. What an obsessive nutcase. I wonder if Peter Sotos is aware of the existence of this book, or even remembers who this person is.

This book is billed as a novel and there is no reason to assume that the narrator's voice is the author's - the passages we get to see struck me as being very mischievous and humorous. Then again I may be completely wrong, he may just be a crazy person.

A very real possibility is that this book was written by Sotos under a pseudonym using a completely different style: quite a few writers do that kind of thing and get busted by their fans' sleuth work a few years later.

After reading what little was given in that preview, with the idea that Sotos himself was writing this, I realized it does have a ring of Sotos' style of writing (namely the "insulting" names he calls Peter). But then again, since I was reading that and assuming it was Sotos there is some selective thinking and confirmation bias going on.

Here is an interview with the mysterious David G Foys (who is not Sotos) - http://www.voiceamerica.com/episode/40139/if-it-bleeds-it-leads - from 23.00 is really intense for a few minutes - I must say he sounds like a very troubled individual

Read Pure Filth over the last twelve hours and loved it enormously. Great careful sequencing in the pieces, clever and cruel 'confusion' over the screenshots and what chapters they are juxtaposed with. Mr Sotos' introduction is honest, revealing and shows that he can put together a thoroughly coherent sentence when he wants. Mr Gillis's introductions are endearing, funny and accessible. Excellent quality of printing and presentation as previously noted here.

The On The Prowl segments which begin the book are mischievously innocuous and dull, with ignorant empty porn stars coupled with tedious sex addicts in the male roles - with the exception of the intriguingly perverse masochistic 'Sam' maybe. A sudden and terrifying shift into Walking Toilet Bowl - I've been around mental illness my whole life, it's a hobby and a career for me, and quite honestly Carol and Jamie (in the transcript at least, which comes over worse than the actual film) sound each a week away from a locked nut ward at this low point in their lives. In Brown on Ebony he sounds like a real creep, but she seems utterly pathetic too: the bickering over a few dollars is a particularly bleak point in a grim book. After some pretty vanilla sounding 'bad girls' (Tiki, Taj and Jojo) there are some sinister suggestions about what might have become of Heidi after her humiliation. The interview with Africa was for me the highpoint of the book. She seemed head-and-shoulders above the other actresses in terms of intelligence and insight and she gets an amazing conversation with Mr Gillis about childhood abuse, D/S, racial issues and their potential sexualization and whatever the fuck sex is all about anyway. Psychologically revealing and intense and took me back to my own confusion and dissatisfaction with teenage romantic and mainstream sexual experiences. Book ends with a 'private film' (which Sotos suspects wasn't really commissioned but done for fun by Gillis) in which Eve pretty much matches Jamie in cynicism and cold-eyed approach.

Absolutely phenomenal collection, a perfect meeting of minds, cannot recommend it highly enough. And kudos to all the amazing women in there, some of whom will be surely checking out these reviews with interest.

Thanks for that review. I received my copy awhile back but I have only read Sotos' introduction which I loved, and a piece of Toilet Bowl and Africa. Since I already have seen most of the videos I figured it may be a pointless read but the reading is somewhat better than actually watching the films, especially if you read it without thinking of the actual scenes, your mind goes on creating its own. The emotionless way that the text reads, as opposed to seeing it on film, works great too. I plan on reading it in its entirety soon.

Have you got around to finding a copy of MINE yet? I want to read your opinion on that one. I'm still waiting on the trade me and someone else did, I sent them Index to read and in turn I was suppose to get Mine and we would send each back after reading but I have yet to get it.

Someone outbid me for a copy of Mine on ebay during the literal last few minutes a couple weeks ago, most annoying.

I have nothing but admiration for James at Creation Books and only hope it continues but all the authors who signed contracts shouldn't take them too literally or seriously or worry about any breaches, y'know. And cheap basic editions of the whole Sotos back catalogue via Nine Banded Books would be a wonderful and possible thing.

Quote from: HongKongGoolagong on August 09, 2012, 09:23:49 AM

I have nothing but admiration for James at Creation Books and only hope it continues

he does i thing, i got this news via the Creation mailinglist:
http://georgepetros.com/books/tnt.htm#.UBdY6b96KHk (http://georgepetros.com/books/tnt.htm#.UBdY6b96KHk)

http://www.ninebandedbooks.com/mine/ - great news. All hail Chip Smith, friend of all manner of objectionable discourse.

Quote...Mine advances an exegetical investigation into the ulterior etiologies of underground pornography...

Huh?

Here is a fairly new video of one of his readings. This is likely one of the better videos I have ever seen of him. It's just about 24 minutes long and he is pretty candid through-out. He is obviously nervous. Someone handed this to me on all places, reddit. Enjoy...

http://www.centrepompidou.fr/cpv/ressource.action?param.id=FR_R-2f3a8ff517ddfa54442a2553a62459b5&param.idSource=FR_E-328c448338f9bfb46ac321ee0bb85e4

Meth.

Then it's probably dancing. Sotos seems like the type who just hits the dance floors to dance off his frustrations.

These recent videos pf readings have left me with the feeling that if I had children, I'd probably feel comfortable letting him babysit.

Quote from: Jordan on January 13, 2013, 05:02:36 AM
These recent videos pf readings have left me with the feeling that if I had children, I'd probably feel comfortable letting him babysit.

Your son has hit his mid-teens and is going through a confused and rebellious phase. He's in trouble with the law, is wearing eyeliner, listening to black metal and hanging round the local bus station. Despite this he has a talent for writing and two authors have invited him to weekend residential literary workshops: Andrew Vachss and Peter Sotos. With which writer will your son be more safe?

Thank you Ryan for finding and linking the reading.

The thing is, despite his infamy, Sotos's books are as potentially life-saving and life-affirming to some fucked in the head and isolated teenager as Burroughs, Genet and Acker were before him - just the relief of knowing that other people have these thoughts and you're not a monster. Someone like Vachss, much as I've enjoyed reading some of his novels, doesn't ring entirely right as a person to me - seems like there's something genuinely creepy about him. Same with the UK child protection crusader Shy Keenan, who got a very interesting blog exposing her hidden past removed recently. Peter Sotos's shameful secrets are all out in the open - it's the people out in the mainstream whose skeletons remain very closeted you wonder about.

I'm due to be a father in four months time myself but will try not to use the phrase "as a parent"...

Just a bunch of novels from the 90s I read from Vachss, but the zealotry is just too much and I completely see why in Parasite Sotos called him a Bruce Ritter waiting to happen. The guy is too intense and there's something not right - methinks the gentleman doth protest too much, y'know.

[Section regarding Shy Keenan and Penny Mellor deleted - http://www.expressandstar.com/news/crime/2013/10/18/woman-52-is-charged-over-stalking-author-shy-keenan/ - her blog had some amazing stuff on Keenan but certainly crossed the lines of right to privacy in the same way as the tabloids do when they cover a story]  

 

Quote from: bitewerksMTB on January 18, 2013, 12:20:14 AM
: "Sexual violence is not sex gone too far; it is violence with sex as its instrument. Rage, sadism and a desire to control or debase others are the driving forces"

I think he's wrong on this. It may be true much of the time, or even most of the time, but sometimes at least, sexual violence is just about sex. Steven Pinker said in The Better Angels Of Our Nature:

QuoteBut if I may be permitted an ad feminam suggestion, the theory that rape has nothing to do with sex may be more plausible to the gender to whom a desire for impersonal sex with an unwilling stranger is too bizarre to contemplate.

He also said on an interview on TVO while promoting The Blank Slate something along the lines of 'sometimes rape happens solely because a man is horny', which I guess gets more to the point.

I love what Sotos' material has became and I am glad he is still writing and his style has evolved into something far more enduring and intricate than in his earlier works. I prefer KEPT and Show Adult to Index and Tool these days. But on the other hand I totally get what Keith is saying, and every time I hear something on the TV in the background about some child rapist murderer in the Chicago area I cross my fingers.

Quote from: RyanWreck on January 11, 2013, 07:24:08 PM
Here is a fairly new video of one of his readings. This is likely one of the better videos I have ever seen of him. It's just about 24 minutes long and he is pretty candid through-out. He is obviously nervous. Someone handed this to me on all places, reddit. Enjoy...

http://www.centrepompidou.fr/cpv/ressource.action?param.id=FR_R-2f3a8ff517ddfa54442a2553a62459b5&param.idSource=FR_E-328c448338f9bfb46ac321ee0bb85e4

Thanx Ryan.

BTW .. anyone read Mine yet? opinons .....

Has anyone who pre-ordered Mine through Amazon received their copy yet? It began shipping recently, right? I hope it comes soon so I can finish it before Tool ships.

I got MINE from Nine-Branded through the post some weeks ago.

Quote from: boorman on February 12, 2013, 10:13:34 PM
I got MINE from Nine-Branded through the post some weeks ago.

What? How? I thought it didn't start shipping until February.

I also received a copy of Mine a few weeks ago from Amazon. Only a couple dozen pages in so far.

Is the Tool reprint still due out this month?

That's odd. I pre-ordered through Amazon some time in November and I have yet to receive my copy. My idiot mailman has probably been reading it in his down-time.

I received my preordered Mine a couple of weeks ago too. I haven't started on it yet, but I'm sure it's worth every minute and cent. I definitely think his later writing is his best (although Tick will always be a favorite). And I'm curious about this new edition of Tool with a new foreword.

Btw, anyone know if this edition of Mine is limited? Not that it matters to me, but I might want to get a copy for a friend later when I can afford it.

Richard Smith from Nine Banded Books just told me via email that Tool is now available.

Think I'll order both. Not too bad of a price, but the shipping will probably be steep. Can't remember if I posted this previously. Anyway here is a reading Sotos did with material from Mine in the Centre Pompidou last year. Runtime: 23min 23secs.

http://www.centrepompidou.fr/cpv/ressource.action?param.id=FR_R-2f3a8ff517ddfa54442a2553a62459b5&param.idSource=FR_E-328c448338f9bfb46ac321ee0bb85e4 (http://www.centrepompidou.fr/cpv/ressource.action?param.id=FR_R-2f3a8ff517ddfa54442a2553a62459b5&param.idSource=FR_E-328c448338f9bfb46ac321ee0bb85e4)

HE!HE! My bad. Alzheimer blues.

The international shipping price is per order, not per book. But there's problems with the online store right now, it didn't add the shipping for me last night, so I had to paypal him additional money.

Was looking on Discogs and found this release -http://www.discogs.com/unitauf-Predicate-The-Peter-Sotos-Reader/release/1444122

Does anyone know anything about this? Just curious if it's something similar to Martin Bladh - Dirge - The Peter Sotos Files.

Quote from: Si Clark on February 26, 2013, 10:19:49 AM
Was looking on Discogs and found this release -http://www.discogs.com/unitauf-Predicate-The-Peter-Sotos-Reader/release/1444122

Does anyone know anything about this? Just curious if it's something similar to Martin Bladh - Dirge - The Peter Sotos Files.

Not at all, it doesn't have anything to do with Sotos. Just random digital sounding blasts of noise, pretty bad.

I received an unexpected and welcome bonus of Tool from Nine Banded Books too. In a neater literary oeuvre, Tool and Special would have remained unpublished 'trunk novels' and his first publication and first real writing would be Index. But of course nothing about Peter Sotos is neat and tidy and his entire work is based on the idiotic decision to write and publish Pure magazine and its consequences.

Chip Smith makes a decent case for the book being a unique and painful birth of a writer in his introduction and brings home the misery of the circumstances under which it was written during the late 1980s. As readers of the uncompromisingly highbrow Hoover Hog might expect, he's not one for using simple words, tending instead towards the polysyllabic as he tries to illustrate how 'dark nostalgia' works and points out the holes in the arguments of Sotos' apologists. The author's afterword or 'key' to the book "Mine/Kept" is in fact the same thoughtful and psychologically intense text presented at the Centre Pompidou last year as seen in the video linked above. The shift into real Peter Sotos writing is very sudden and obvious coming after the poorly executed final chapter of Tool.

As for the book itself, like Special it has its moments of great writing - often the more overtly comedic lines seem to work best. But the moments that fall flat can be painfully weak and cringeworthy. The 'evil narrators' with their "my dear woman" schtick remind me of nothing so much as Thomas Harris' hammy Hannibal Lecter character. A nice item to have and published at a bargain price. But anyone new to his work should start later.

"Chip" seems to be very generous with bonus items, although I did order quite a bit of stuff from him. Seems like a genuinely nice fellow and responds to emails very promptly.

Putting off reading Tool for now, as I've already read most of it.

Does anyone know of any european mailorders who are currently stocking Tool and Mine or getting them in some time? Some Noise/PE distro(s) maybe?

---
EDIT: Chip just told me, that no copies were shipped to the EU. He stated, that he would be interested in getting some of these to Europe. Maybe interesting to know for some distro owners, who are registered here...

Yeah, Chip seems like a very nice guy. I swear I pre-ordered Mine through Amazon, so I was asking him when it was supposed to be shipped and we had a small back-and-forth about that. So I checked my Amazon account and saw I somehow pre-ordered Tool instead, and I had already pre-ordered Tool through 9BB so I asked if he could just replace Tool with Mine and he said, since I was one/20 to pre-order first, I was meant to receive an autographed copy and he said he'd throw Mine in for free.
I ordered Thirteen Girls as well, but I'll go back and order another book sometime later as a nice gesture since he's such a little sweetheart.

Very nearly finished reading MINE. It's a slight shift in style for him with much more sadness and exhaustion than violence and contorted language. Many passages are quite shockingly straightforward and autobiographical: one that really sticks out is about how he had to stop drinking as much for medical reasons and found himself home alone listening to audience tape bootlegs of the Stones at Altamont, which leads to a description of his memories of teenage life in the 1970s. The whole book is in dialogue form, with the 'found voices' and prompts taken from the long list of crime reporting etc on the cover. His censorship class thing mentioned in this thread gets used, and there are also some passages from Bodyguard and Crows I spotted, but it's almost all original and new material, and a long book too.

Very little sexual content although some typically unappealing homosexual encounters have started to creep in like entropy towards the end with greater frequency. The mournful and elegiac qualities seem to be related to the failure of a relationship with a female lover whom I think he also wrote about in Selfish, Little (which this book resembles more than any of his others to me) and there's a lot here about getting old too. His disgust for child abuse is made more clear than previously, as is disgust at any kind of sex and at the whole human condition. It's depressing as hell! Makes Show Adult seem upbeat.

Quote from: HongKongGoolagong on March 16, 2013, 08:14:17 AM
Very nearly finished reading MINE. It's a slight shift in style for him with much more sadness and exhaustion than violence and contorted language. Many passages are quite shockingly straightforward and autobiographical: one that really sticks out is about how he had to stop drinking as much for medical reasons and found himself home alone listening to audience tape bootlegs of the Stones at Altamont, which leads to a description of his memories of teenage life in the 1970s. The whole book is in dialogue form, with the 'found voices' and prompts taken from the long list of crime reporting etc on the cover. His censorship class thing mentioned in this thread gets used, and there are also some passages from Bodyguard and Crows I spotted, but it's almost all original and new material, and a long book too.

Yeah, that section about quitting speed in his sophomore year of high school, and having to stop drinking, but taking percocet and drifting in and out while listening to live recordings kind of confused me, despite being written in a fairly straight forward fashion. He was still drinking as of recently, right? Also, he seems to be still pretty upset about his weight, even though he seems to have lost a fair bit, or at least it seems that way to me. Maybe it's just the beard.

EDIT: On rereading that passage, it occurred to me that his saying "My insobriety isn't a problem for me." implies that he hasn't stopped drinking. The next line is "My gut is." I first read it as "My sobriety isn't a problem for me" which also could have implied being a non-teetotalitarian. My insobriety is sometimes a problem for me when reading/thinking.

Quote from: bitewerksMTB on March 17, 2013, 11:02:04 PM
I don't remember "Show Adult" being downbeat or depressing. I do remember thinking "Tick" (I think) sounded like he was going through a mid-life crisis. Not sure I want to spend the dough on "Mine" now- I have no interest in anyone's health issues...

HA! It's a very small fraction of the total work.

adam parfrey on mark merons podcast, at 59 min they talk about sotos
http://www.avclub.com/articles/episode-372-adam-parfrey,95364/

Quote from: vomitgore on March 02, 2013, 05:19:08 PM
Does anyone know of any european mailorders who are currently stocking Tool and Mine or getting them in some time? Some Noise/PE distro(s) maybe?

---
EDIT: Chip just told me, that no copies were shipped to the EU. He stated, that he would be interested in getting some of these to Europe. Maybe interesting to know for some distro owners, who are registered here...

Hei, just got a package from Nine-Banded Books and Chip today. Items: "Tool." - "Mine" - "Selfish, Little: The Annotated Lesley Ann Downey". Check thread: Where frost reign label & press in new releases ann or store/distro site: http://wherefrostreignhangar.tumblr.com/ (http://wherefrostreignhangar.tumblr.com/) On orders exceeding a certain amount I give discount.

For those of you in the Baltimore (USA) area I understand Chip is organizing an event with Sotos for next month:

"AN EVENING WITH PETER SOTOS

Saturday, April 13.
7:00PM. Atomic Books.
Hampden, Baltimore.

To celebrate nearlyly simultaneous re-release of Peter Sotos' TOOL  and MINE (Nine-Banded Books editions), the controversial author will be appearing at Atomic Books to discuss the evolution of his thought and writing, and to sign books.

"Peter Sotos is one of those rare writers who can say, 'The words I write are me,' or at least as close as anyone can come to communicating who they are in words." –Thomas Ligotti, author of The Conspiracy against the Human Race

"For this latter-day homo sacer, wounds are not to be healed but poked and worried until they bleed. Sotos is literature's outcast, carrying stigma like a rat carries plague." –Mikita Brottman, author of Thirteen Girls

"...among the most important writing being done today."
–Dennis Cooper, author of The Marbled Swarm

Adult beverages will be served."

Event site Atomic Books: http://www.atomicbooks.com/calendar.html (http://www.atomicbooks.com/calendar.html)


Here is the announement/event of the last aktion in Chicago, March 23rd: http://www.chicagoreader.com/chicago/peter-sotos/Event?oid=9033745 (http://www.chicagoreader.com/chicago/peter-sotos/Event?oid=9033745)

So much of Mine does seem to relate to health problems: mental and sexual health problems to be specific.

There is a long and very effective section towards the end in which wordy expressions of autobiographical existential angst are juxtaposed against simple and harrowing excerpts from the book 'Abducted'. Sotos subverting the image of himself as 'suffering artist' by pointing to ordinary people who experienced horrific events most of us cannot imagine - a new and extreme slant on self-loathing - like an anorexic poring over photos of African malnutrition rather than thinspiration. The system of the book's construction is something I will return to to try and figure out more. The source list on the covers is invaluable, and features some obscure crime cases I hadn't come across. There's also a dedication for the fist time since There, Rat and Au Fait LV - POOR DEAR, DOLL.   

Didn't catch that POOR DEAR, DOLL thing on the back, and I was looking for a dedication too.

There is enough material about health and getting old, but there's a whole lot more to it than that.

*about two-thirds into my second go at Mine, and I see the Selfish, Little comparison now.

Having finished reading it twice, I think this may perhaps be my favourite Sotos book. I wasn't blown away the first time around, but now I think I'm convinced. The middle section with the -- "How long did you remain away from the arcade?" "Did you return to the restroom area?" "What did you think, your state of mind?" "When you said you feared the worst, what were you fearing?" "So you had some concern?" -- part is permanently burned into my brain, it's an engram.

Quote from: NEHPF on February 26, 2013, 11:40:13 AM

Not at all, it doesn't have anything to do with Sotos. Just random digital sounding blasts of noise, pretty bad.

Quote from: Si Clark on February 26, 2013, 10:03:09 PM
Ok, thanks for letting me know.

This album does "have something to do" with Sotos, I don't know what NEHPF was listening to but it most certainly was not this. The majority of the recording is in the style of "Buyers Market" with its cut-up sample collages through-out. I believe they were pieces Sotos was going to use but ended up scrapping or that he made specifically for Martin, but in any case they are Sotos sound collages. There is some decent Noise over top and between the samples and loops, not on the same level as IRM but not just "random blasts". Here is one of the tracks:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GfxBz0G1R44

...the rest pretty much fall in line with that.

Quote from: RyanWreck on April 22, 2013, 09:49:00 PM

Quote from: NEHPF on February 26, 2013, 11:40:13 AM

Not at all, it doesn't have anything to do with Sotos. Just random digital sounding blasts of noise, pretty bad.

Quote from: Si Clark on February 26, 2013, 10:03:09 PM
Ok, thanks for letting me know.

This album does "have something to do" with Sotos, I don't know what NEHPF was listening to but it most certainly was not this. The majority of the recording is in the style of "Buyers Market" with its cut-up sample collages through-out. I believe they were pieces Sotos was going to use but ended up scrapping or that he made specifically for Martin, but in any case they are Sotos sound collages. There is some decent Noise over top and between the samples and loops, not on the same level as IRM but not just "random blasts". Here is one of the tracks:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GfxBz0G1R44

...the rest pretty much fall in line with that.

Dirge is a good record, but that was not the record in question.

Ah, I see now. Sorry.

Quote from: RyanWreck on April 22, 2013, 09:49:00 PM

Quote from: NEHPF on February 26, 2013, 11:40:13 AM

Not at all, it doesn't have anything to do with Sotos. Just random digital sounding blasts of noise, pretty bad.

Quote from: Si Clark on February 26, 2013, 10:03:09 PM
Ok, thanks for letting me know.

This album does "have something to do" with Sotos, I don't know what NEHPF was listening to but it most certainly was not this. The majority of the recording is in the style of "Buyers Market" with its cut-up sample collages through-out. I believe they were pieces Sotos was going to use but ended up scrapping or that he made specifically for Martin, but in any case they are Sotos sound collages. There is some decent Noise over top and between the samples and loops, not on the same level as IRM but not just "random blasts". Here is one of the tracks:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GfxBz0G1R44

...the rest pretty much fall in line with that.

The readings are much more interesting. Haven't listened to Dirge in a while, will put it on to go to sleep since I get to sleep in my apartment for the night.

Anyone have some of his works in pdf?
If yes, can you please share it with me. I have just Pure 'zines scanned.
Sotos point of view is inspiring for me. Looking forward more his works.

Quote from: Dr Alex on May 13, 2013, 12:30:24 PM
Anyone have some of his works in pdf?
If yes, can you please share it with me. I have just Pure 'zines scanned.
Sotos point of view is inspiring for me. Looking forward more his works.

Here's what I have related to him >

(http://homepage.eircom.net/~sewer_rat/Capture.JPG)

http://www.mediafire.com/?pnldj39cy0saqyb (http://www.mediafire.com/?pnldj39cy0saqyb)

Quote from: locustfurnace on May 13, 2013, 02:34:04 PM

Quote from: Dr Alex on May 13, 2013, 12:30:24 PM
Anyone have some of his works in pdf?
If yes, can you please share it with me. I have just Pure 'zines scanned.
Sotos point of view is inspiring for me. Looking forward more his works.

Here's what I have related to him >

Amazing! Thank you!

Quote from: locustfurnace on May 13, 2013, 02:34:04 PM

Quote from: Dr Alex on May 13, 2013, 12:30:24 PM
Anyone have some of his works in pdf?
If yes, can you please share it with me. I have just Pure 'zines scanned.
Sotos point of view is inspiring for me. Looking forward more his works.

Here's what I have related to him >

http://www.mediafire.com/?pnldj39cy0saqyb (http://www.mediafire.com/?pnldj39cy0saqyb)

HUGE thanx, man!!!

I haven't seen any mention of this anywhere, but I just got a few copies of "Home" by Sotos with photos by Michael Salerno, I gotta say it is a really beautiful overall product. Haven't gotten to dig into it yet, but a quick flip through looks promising.

Quote from: totalblack on October 21, 2013, 10:46:13 PM
I haven't seen any mention of this anywhere, but I just got a few copies of "Home" by Sotos with photos by Michael Salerno, I gotta say it is a really beautiful overall product. Haven't gotten to dig into it yet, but a quick flip through looks promising.

Thanks for the info, nice to see a limited edition Sotos book that isn't over £50.

Has anyone read Home yet? I just finished it and I've got to admit that I'm not nearly as captivated by Sotos as I once was. I want to continue to pick up and comb through what earlier material of his I don't have, but I was not too impressed with Mine and Home was not very captivating. I suppose I'm just losing interest in his very fractured and disjointed skein of biopic, true crime and autobiography.
I suppose Home deals primarily with the abduction of Shasta Groene; abduction/murder of Dylan Groene, but Sotos' erratic style stabs at so much and connects with so little.
Probably what resonated most with me from this are the little stitches of commentary concerning a maniacal negro slitting the throat of a white child in the bathroom of a hotel room. He writes, "Don't let him have fucked that kid. Just put his nigger mouth on the boy. Did something worse. He wouldn't have been so identifiably insane, Dad, we can't find a single fucking reason that it makes sense. That kid isn't on this planet anymore because the shaking nigger's a maniac, that's all. You have no right to be indignant. Just sad about how really unfair and worthless everything is now." I really love how Sotos cuts through all of the sentimental bullshit and the public's pathetic clamoring for some greater meaning in a tragedy whose victims are not at all special or precious, and tells the families of the victims who sell themselves to the media and public circuit that they are not special or precious just because their children were selected by almost no special criteria.
Beyond that, though, I didn't take much away from reading Home.
Thanks to Brett for the notice because I totally would have missed out on this.

I haven't started it yet because I wanted to get through the last 30 pages of another book I was just finishing up with. Started into the first couple pages but then I just went to bed. Have the whole day off so I'll try and get to it today and tell you what I think. I trust your opinion though, you have read a lot more of his stuff than I have.

The photography portion is actually really beautiful, even if the text side is not great work it was worth the cost just for the Salerno portion.

I like the newer Sotos stuff more and more.  Mine was great. Hopefully I can grab this soon.

What do you like about the new material more than the old?

Michael Salerno & Peter Sotos

"Home".

Avail via Where frost reign. Kiddiepunk is sold out.

http://wherefrostreignhangar.tumblr.com/post/67752224605/distro-new-in-stock-from-kiddiepunk-michael (http://wherefrostreignhangar.tumblr.com/post/67752224605/distro-new-in-stock-from-kiddiepunk-michael)

ITEM SOLD OUT.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6BrciQcuUsk

thought someone might enjoy this.

Quote from: F_c_O on June 09, 2014, 09:45:32 PM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6BrciQcuUsk

thought someone might enjoy this.

I'm pretty sure a good number of users on this forum probably have both the CD and the actual books he is reading from (outside of the obvious tracks). But it's been a while since I listened to my copy, years actually, and this is because I prefer reading them. The last time I did listen to it I choose "Tick" because it was what I wanted to go back too, and I read it along with him like those childish read alongs on Reading Rainbow or Mr. Rodgers, not that these connections ever crossed my mind until just now (probably because they're silly) and I guess I found something in that and may do it again. So thank you for that.

A new Sotos is now available for pre-order for $25 via 9BB;

http://www.ninebandedbooks.com/desistance/ (http://www.ninebandedbooks.com/desistance/)

"In this prismatic and obliquely appreciative study of Antoine D'Agata's photography, Peter Sotos arraigns the fraught vocabulary of gallery apologists — and of D'Agata himself — to locate a "finer definition of pornography" beneath the exigent demands of desire, transgression, and art."

I ordered this one because I'm doing my best to grab a hold of all of Sotos's works, but I wonder what I'm gonna think of it. I didn't much care for Mine, although after reading some of you guys' opinions of it in this thread I might give it another go. My favorite to this day still remains Comfort And Critique, because I find it the most straight-forward, clear and to the point while at the same time being so raw, uncompromising and brilliant.

BTW, if anyone is selling Home and does not care to ship internationally, I'm interest.

Quote from: endors_toi on July 25, 2014, 11:43:54 AM
A new Sotos is now available for pre-order for $25 via 9BB;

http://www.ninebandedbooks.com/desistance/ (http://www.ninebandedbooks.com/desistance/)

"In this prismatic and obliquely appreciative study of Antoine D'Agata's photography, Peter Sotos arraigns the fraught vocabulary of gallery apologists — and of D'Agata himself — to locate a "finer definition of pornography" beneath the exigent demands of desire, transgression, and art."

I ordered this one because I'm doing my best to grab a hold of all of Sotos's works, but I wonder what I'm gonna think of it. I didn't much care for Mine, although after reading some of you guys' opinions of it in this thread I might give it another go. My favorite to this day still remains Comfort And Critique, because I find it the most straight-forward, clear and to the point while at the same time being so raw, uncompromising and brilliant.

BTW, if anyone is selling Home and does not care to ship internationally, I'm interest.

Regarding HOME ...

I know Canadian imprint TOTAL BLACK have one copy left. Not sure if it is in stock now, but send them an email.

Quote from: endors_toi on July 25, 2014, 11:43:54 AM
A new Sotos is now available for pre-order for $25 via 9BB;

http://www.ninebandedbooks.com/desistance/ (http://www.ninebandedbooks.com/desistance/)

"In this prismatic and obliquely appreciative study of Antoine D'Agata's photography, Peter Sotos arraigns the fraught vocabulary of gallery apologists — and of D'Agata himself — to locate a "finer definition of pornography" beneath the exigent demands of desire, transgression, and art."

I ordered this one because I'm doing my best to grab a hold of all of Sotos's works, but I wonder what I'm gonna think of it. I didn't much care for Mine, although after reading some of you guys' opinions of it in this thread I might give it another go. My favorite to this day still remains Comfort And Critique, because I find it the most straight-forward, clear and to the point while at the same time being so raw, uncompromising and brilliant.

BTW, if anyone is selling Home and does not care to ship internationally, I'm interest.

I agree with everything in this post 100%. Mine was the least favorite of his I've read, but I enjoyed it more on a subsequent read/

Also, thanks endors for posting the link. Ordered.

Gods - couldn't listen to it after the bollocks introduction and the wanky banter.

Those dudes only restated my questions and concerns regarding the book. Mine is too fucking hard to follow, and the fact that two men who were previously unacquainted with Sotos, and were acquainted following a single book and Google search, understand as much, or as little, as I did of Mine is disconcerting.
At least the podcast wasn't an alarmist escapade or a discussion solely of how shocking or transgressive the book is. I appreciated that.

Also, this podcast reminds me of how many times I've fought with my girlfriend over my interest in Sotos. To her, Sotos is only a sensationalist and offers absolutely no insight into anything besides merely presenting a shocking veneer - "Look: Rape! Pedophilia! Murder! Aren't I shocking?!" Without offering anything of substance. I've come to understand this as the general uninformed consensus among those who prefer to live without recognizing that there is a pathology behind the pedophile's mania.

This was a thoughtful and honest discussion of the book - thanks for the link John and please reserve me a Desistance.

Quote from: theotherjohn on September 27, 2014, 03:45:22 PM
Just found this link to a podcast of a review/discussion of Peter Sotos' Mine - just giving it a listen now: http://bookfightpod.com/2014/06/09/episode-62-peter-sotos-mine/

Also, I've ordered a bunch of copies of Desistance for Europe/UK customers who were put off paying $45 - it'll still be somewhat pricey but cheaper than ordering one copy from 9BB. Will add the relevant info when I get them.

how much would be desistance with shipment to Italy?
thanks

Shipping was $20 to CANADA. Fuck.

Man, is it just me or does Sotos become more of a bore in each following book? I was intrigued by the persona of D'Agata and enjoyed the interviews contained in Desistance, but, after pasting a number of Q & A's with the guy, Sotos goes on to lead us by the cock and balls once again through the same darkened quarters, down the same scummy alleyways, through the same faggot joints that we've been through dozens of times. We even meet up once more with our old pals Dylan and Shasta Groene and their captor Jet from "Home."
And Sotos just rambles and rambles and rambles, prattling on about this and that; this cock, that faggot, this paedo, that child, this nigger, that street trash.

Well, that's his way I guess? From what I've gathered in interviews, it's his way of doing it; repeating the same thoughts again and again, only changing the structure slightly. Being a bore for the potential reader doesn't seem to be a problem for him. But I definitely agree with you.

About the repetitiveness, I think his examinations of obsessions and compulsive needs are becoming finer and finer grained, creating an exhaustive, richly connected model out of what little there is there in the first place. I can understand if one gets tired of this sort of ever increasing complexity within the same old material, time and time again, but it's really the only map one can expect from the territory, and it can only be shown in more or less detail, or with certain features highlighted; even enthusiasts of the most mainstream of pornography go through a similar branching into ever finer features (blue fishnet stockings MMF) of what is really just shallow fucking. You can't really expect the guy to try to dream up some new topic or theme to explore just for the sake of writing a new book, he simply follows what he's drawn to and tries to fill in the pieces that to him seem to fit.

QuoteFANZINE: Sara Payne is presented as repetition. You also talk of your own repetitions: "Stop repeating yourself. Stop masturbating onto just photos and pretending it's better than what the rest of the slime don't even do," "I'm not that hard to figure out. Especially when I'm repeating myself." Can you imagine ever writing different sorts of books than the ones you have and are writing?

PS: I don't write just to have a book with my name on it. I write because I'm compelled by the intensity, as well as the lack, in the material at hand. I think there's a huge difference in the way I write now and what I'm better known for writing, but I see absolutely no reason to look for a subject to write about or find something I can somehow turn into a book or whatnot. I don't look for new projects or ways to impress or surprise others. I'm not interested in craft. If I'm told I write well, I know that it comes from a passion with the subject. The subject propels the writing and the constant thought. I don't have a need to create something. I have a need to create this.

I missed out on Home. My copy of Desistance hasn't come in yet, but I was wondering, how is the book in terms of layout, design, etc.? I really disliked the layout of Mine, the 9BB edition, anyway. I found the font and the spacing kind of jarring to read. The Mikita Brottman book from 9BB was even worse, though some other 9BB books have great design.

Thanks for the info! I'm hoping my copy arrives this week, preferably tomorrow so I can read it on the way to the Brighter Death Now show in Montreal on Wednesday.

Quote from: Jordan on October 14, 2014, 03:00:15 AM
Thanks for the info! I'm hoping my copy arrives this week, preferably tomorrow so I can read it on the way to the Brighter Death Now show in Montreal on Wednesday.

How goth, smokes cloves while you're at it

Quote from: C601 on October 14, 2014, 09:38:08 PM

Quote from: Jordan on October 14, 2014, 03:00:15 AM
Thanks for the info! I'm hoping my copy arrives this week, preferably tomorrow so I can read it on the way to the Brighter Death Now show in Montreal on Wednesday.

How goth, smokes cloves while you're at it

Unfortunately I don't think I'll be able to smoke in the car.

Happy to say my copy of Desistance arrived this morning- will give it a read through tonight I think.

Has anyone else finished Desistance yet?  Any opinions?  Eager to hear - my copy has not arrived yet.

Also - there is a very good and long interview with Sotos about Pure Filth available on the Quimbys podcast.  

Desistance is an incredible book which distils everything I've enjoyed about his writing over the last ten years very successfully. It's about D'Agata as much as Predicate was about Thomas Hamilton; while there are lengthy quotes from and conversations with the photographer, Sotos of course forces his art into his own usual preoccupations. In one exchange D'Agata tries to get him to explain what the connection is between his work, and the Bijou, and a famous crime victim. Yet the book does create connections in the mind, always around where art, deviant sex and crime blur.

Of the found voices, many deal with the history of gay pornography and its legal struggles. Sotos still feels uncomfortable describing himself as 'gay' and there's an unexpected and I think deliberately farcical autobiographical strand where he's having an affair with an overweight married woman to try and get at her husband. In his usual contorted paragraphs of internal monologue and argument the tone is now more confused than violent; he's upfront about suffering from something resembling a psychotic illness yet as sceptical as ever about psychiatry. It struck me that 'outsider writing' is a more suitable description for books as unusual as this rather than pornography or transgressive lit. The occasional neologisms would be treated as a symptom of schizophrenia by some. The casual sex with men he doesn't seem to like much is as repetitious as ever, and he throws in a final comic-cum-elegiac mention of how the Machine Shop and LV Sales closed.

At one point there's a conversation, either transcribed or imagined, in which Sotos tries to suggest how his work might prevent crimes of sexual abuse towards children. In one very memorable passage, he visits an old girlfriend hospitalised after domestic abuse: he blames himself for setting her on the road to this situation, the guilt about the sickness of confusing sex and violence seeming absolutely genuine. Then later in the book he visits her again. This time a car crash put her there. You almost miss it - hallucination and false memory and fear, like a Lodge Kerrigan film.

The book ends by addressing his audience directly, with humour and empathy. I'm sure he wouldn't want the book to be described as 'moving' but it is, as well as being as thought-provoking as ever and in parts stunningly written.

I found the layout and page size comfortable to read. The endpapers of poorly reproduced D'Agata images, a catalogue statement and the Joseph E Duncan prosecution's opening argument are, as usual in his books, a dispensable bonus to the meat of the text.

HongKongGoolagong -

Thanks for this thoughtful account.  I agree with a lot of your observations, with regards to MINE too, and that Sotos' unique output continues to accrue ever more nuance and artful complexity, despite and because of its repetition.  The more returns to the older books I make, the more the themes and arcs of his thought are clarified, and some slippery autobiography falls into place as you learn how to read them more thoroughly.  There's so much packed into these books, there's just nothing else like them.  I'm particularly looking forward to Desistance. 

Are the exchanges between him and d'Agata genuine? 

Also, I badly need all the editions of WAITRESS.  If anyone could see their way to making copies, scans, or loaning me originals so I can copy them myself and return them after, I'd be very grateful, and happy to pay whatever.  Sotos has such a small audience - I sometimes wish a dedicated and responsible fan would collect the harder to find material together and make it available through some portal or other..  Any takers? 

If anyone can help with WAITRESS though, please let me know

 

Quote from: boorman on October 23, 2014, 02:06:25 AM
Are the exchanges between him and d'Agata genuine? 

As ever, it's impossible to verify - Sotos is the very essence of 'unreliable narrator'. Anita Dalton's credited editorial assistance on this book may be one of the reasons it especially stands out. She's certainly the most perceptive literary critic who's written about him, and she's very unpretentious.

That interview with James Williamson is an excellent read. Glad to know someone else finds the USA's tipping culture degrading/creepy.

Just finished my copy- got to agree with HongKongGoolagong it has be be his best work for a while, more rounded than his other work, a sense of resignation and tiredness seemed to permemate through the book to me too.

BTW- HongKongGoolagong any links to Dalton's comments on Sotos please?

Nevermind- google worked

Quote from: bitewerksMTB on November 16, 2014, 10:05:36 PM
There's some interesting nonsense here (good chance the link has already been posted):

http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2011/06/480820.html?c=on

I like this quote from 'Not for Profit': "...you're WELCOME to call me a "coward" for not providing the name that would enable people like Peter Sotos and the Pure reader who (according to the Chicago Tribune) was a "suspect in a series of brutal child abductions, murders and grave robbings" to work out who I am and where me and my family live."

your welcome, yes.

Quote from: bitewerksMTB on November 16, 2014, 10:05:36 PM
There's some interesting nonsense here (good chance the link has already been posted):

http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2011/06/480820.html?c=on

I like this quote from 'Not for Profit': "...you're WELCOME to call me a "coward" for not providing the name that would enable people like Peter Sotos and the Pure reader who (according to the Chicago Tribune) was a "suspect in a series of brutal child abductions, murders and grave robbings" to work out who I am and where me and my family live."

I assume he is referring to the Scottish guy who stole a skull to stick on his microphone stand at shows?

Quote from: bitewerksMTB on November 24, 2014, 11:14:01 PM

Quote from: RyanWreck on November 24, 2014, 04:59:58 PM

Quote from: bitewerksMTB on November 16, 2014, 10:05:36 PM
There's some interesting nonsense here (good chance the link has already been posted):

http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2011/06/480820.html?c=on

I like this quote from 'Not for Profit': "...you're WELCOME to call me a "coward" for not providing the name that would enable people like Peter Sotos and the Pure reader who (according to the Chicago Tribune) was a "suspect in a series of brutal child abductions, murders and grave robbings" to work out who I am and where me and my family live."

I assume he is referring to the Scottish guy who stole a skull to stick on his microphone stand at shows?

Without going back & checking, I think N.F.P. is referring to the original articles about Peter's arrest.

Yea, I was thinking of the English guy, not Scottish (Scotland yard is probably what I was confusing), in Metgumbnerbone who Sotos mentioned in an older interview:

(http://i.imgur.com/l2i3G7p.png)

weren't they connected to the new blockaders?

Quote from: tiny_tove on December 03, 2014, 09:42:38 AM
weren't they connected to the new blockaders?

Yea, both Philip and Richard did some work with him, but apparently Metgumbnerbone was John Mylotte's project with session and guest members rotating about so I assume John is who Sotos is probably referring to in that interview.

The Curfew Recordings is a good listen - released by Harbinger Sound last year and consisting of tapes made by members of Metgumbnerbone clandestinely while literally on a curfew over this long ago Satanic panic era case rooted in hysteria which should never have come to court. John Smith (Interchange) talks about the criminal proceedings in As Loud As Possible and still sounds disgusted. Typical of the class-riddled British justice system that the sentencing was lighter on the two who were university students.

That certainly is an embarrassing and jejune letter Sotos wrote.

Yes, that is a very good album. And the mentioned thighbone comes to good use there. Beautiful stuff.

So I just finished Show Adult. Here are my thoughts and some bits from the text since it's so hard to obtain.

"The correct worth of pornography lies in the monsters that think it's important enough to pay it more attention than they'd like to. And better, yet again, when amped up by the understanding that the same fucking revelations happen every time they makes themselves cum. Read the critiques and the cocksuckers who explain what they do. As similarly flat, pervasive, and clearly evident as in absolutely every single relationship and tossed-off sentence ever entered into or uttered. Try again. But try hard to think love, rather than bitterness, or disgust, is what you're aiming at."

His fragments and syntax really annoy me sometimes but I think he does it intentionally to be disruptive ...

"Andrea Dworkin created her body. Created her entire culturally desperate existence by writing directly at herself ... She pummels her books and herself with quotes from others and begins her life telling everyone how beautiful and important words are. Specifically a Sartre quote regarding his treatment under the Nazis. It's remarkable that idiots are still separating her body from her writing. And blaming food or make-up. The words are first and foremost. The thoughts are everything, are brutal, correct, sadistic agent. Her sentences are run-on, your own badly used words constantly repeated. Paragraphs are memories and stink into hysterical hermetic chapters. If she didn't hate it so much she'd be issuing travelers paperbacks. If she wasn't inviting you to debate, she'd be showing you the tattoo just above her ass. Dworkin is obsessed with sex and pummels herself when she sees it pummeling herself."

Sotos' is really invested in her work and how she personifies herself, as he has said in an interviews, so this was illuminating regarding his perspective on her.

Here's my review:

A logical progression after Selfish, Little and Comfort and Critique, which makes Predicate seem even more like a strange stylistic detour, or regression, for having immediately preceded this. Collage is still present, of course, and there is more talk of gloryholes and sad cocksucking here than perhaps in any other Sotos book outside of Index.

Here though, the facts of Sotos' slumming and his deviant queer experience are more closely linked to his obsessions with media portrayals of sex crimes. When talking about lamenting mothers, he says, "[h]ow dare you, cunt, think you're going to tell me what it's like not to understand your loss? You think I've never missed a fucking bus. Known someone with cancer and watched any number of loved ones die of it? Fuck, I've been to more hospital rooms than you, fucking het."

He puts himself, and in general the predator, at some level of human disadvantage, giving them some level of sympathy. The book is a literary Skinner Box experiment, evinced by the cover, which forces the reader to see the evident villains in at least the same light as sad and shudderring monkeys clutching cloth mothers, and maybe seeing Sotos' narrative voice to be a little more empathetic than even that. If he wants it. He gives it out. In Comfort and Critique, he humanizes parents more. In Selfish, Little, Lesley, thus the victim. Here the pigs aren't really dissected, but Sotos himself (at least as persona if not author, poetic speaker if not the man himself wholly) is revealed a little more here than before, and humanized. Through bar conversations, brief meditations on the fear of HIV/AIDS, and biting contrasts like the quote above.

Again, as the years progress, Sotos's becomes more reflective (if not necessarily accessible to a wider audience) and his most recent works are easily found. Sotos' rests beyond the perimeters of marketable "transgressive" literature, and more importantly, hinges at the edge of queer deviance. Without the fantasy of Cooper or the intersectional politics of Delany, Sotos' forces his readers to give thought to darkest edges of human contemplation and the formulation of desire. This book is emblematic of that, and makes interesting formal choices that differentiate it from its predecessors and makes it just as essential reading. Hopefully at some point Sotos' back catalog from this period will be reprinted. This book in particular is so scarce it's almost as if it was never written. It's lack of availability compared to those that are more available from Sotos' ouevre might be purposeful, probably because of its focus on Masha Allen, who was a widely discussed topic in the media at the time of the book's release.

Quote from: RyanWreck on December 31, 2014, 01:03:07 AM
There are people actually using Sotos quotes for their moments of facebook/tumblr "inspiration"...

I want to believe that its a joke by people who actually know who sotos is.

edit: lets remove those images. No need to have them here twice.

So, I see the new, expanded edition of "The Gates of Janus" has two texts by Sotos; an afterword and one called "Bait". Is "Bait" a new, special text for this edition?

Also -- is it worth reading (I mean, EVERYTHING by Sotos always is, but I'm talking about the "meat" of the book itself, by Ian Brady)? I had a period of time where I was obsessed with the Moors murders, but most people's review of the book claim Brady's narcissistic ramblings have no added value to them. What do you guys think?

Quote from: endors_toi on May 22, 2015, 12:09:04 AM
but most people's review of the book claim Brady's narcissistic ramblings have no added value to them. What do you guys think?

I think the book was worth for Peter's text... the rest may be interesting but doesn't add anything to the subject... despite the excellent title :)

Gates of Janus gave me the impression that Brady was trying to fabricate for himself an all-powerful persona; an ubermensch, a cold-hearted killer without empathy or weakness, a daunting intellectual, a visionary, a man who sees the killer as a paragon of virtues man is too scared to see in the killer. His piece on Carl Panzram seems like the chapter he most tossed off to. He wishes so bad that he were Carl Panzram, and there's a slight hint of a sense of inferiority from Brady. He wishes he were as powerful and nearly unstoppable as he and not a man who exercised his IRON WILL and practiced his Nietzschean will to power on small children.

Sotos' piece should have been a foreword. He means to warn us that Brady's text may be outright lies or at least exaggerations; manipulations as would not be unlike a psychopath. Sotos reduces The Gates of Janus to child pornography. Nothing greater nor lesser.

You may as well read it for yourself. Brady writes not one word on crime or psychopathy as regards him and his crimes. His writings on the superiority of the killer, though, are so obviously written as to fashion a castle of grand illusion for him to possess the throne of. Brady drones on about his own superiority under the guise of examining the virtues of other killers. He lives in this otherness and uses it to define himself.

Sorry, not really fits to topic, but maybe to the last few posts... Has anyone read "Face to face with evil - Conversations with Ian Brady" by Dr. Chris Cowley and is it any good or worth reading?

Quote from: cr on May 22, 2015, 10:12:15 PM
Sorry, not really fits to topic, but maybe to the last few posts... Has anyone read "Face to face with evil - Conversations with Ian Brady" by Dr. Chris Cowley and is it any good or worth reading?

No, it's very poor exploitative garbage with hardly any scraps worth picking it up for - Carol Ann Lee is the definitive writer on the case and the only two books of the fourteen or so which I have on the Moors murders which I would recommend without reservation are her titles.

Quote from: Peterson on June 24, 2015, 11:33:19 PMWhat would be the most practical purchase next?

What would be the book you can actually find easily might be a better question. As you already know the books do interlink and the seeds of the  empathetic, broadly humanist and self-consciously intellectual later stuff can be seen in the most obnoxious and vile early material, and counter-intuitively vice versa somehow. Tick and Selfish, Little are important as bridge texts I'd say.

did anyone here have predicate as pdf? I think its time to ask here as my search queries to google has prolly caused enough alarms at nsa and local police deparment by this point.

it was just a joke but yeah, i couldnt find the pdf so it would be appreciated, heh

Understandable but on other hand, I simply can't afford to buy limited book for 90 euros at the moment and certainly believe that I am capable of enjoying the writing for what it is. There are always risks of having your work used against you, especially dealing with this kind of subject of matter in this way and in my opinion, one has to simply accept it. I don't also believe that any kind of financial argument can be made either, as when the material is out-of-print and only traded in second-hand, the artist  himself won't benefit from the sales at all.

Quote from: theotherjohn on July 01, 2015, 11:11:06 PM
Sir, I literally just posted a link where you can still buy the book for its original retail price rather than an inflated cost. And he can send it to Europe etc. He's really good to deal with. Surely you're asking for more trouble if you're writing in a public forum that you're after a scanned and illegally copied pdf, rather than buying a book from a private individual?

As I said, I cannot afford at the moment. And I do wonder, what kind of trouble I might get into? I am not first one on this forum, nor even in this thread, to ask things for download and none have been hassled for it before. Honestly, yes, I would prefer to buy it and have hard copy to read but alas, none can do at the moment. In any case, this seems to have brought way more trouble than intended.

Quote from: theotherjohn on July 01, 2015, 11:11:06 PM
Sir, I literally just posted a link where you can still buy the book for its original retail price rather than an inflated cost. And he can send it to Europe etc. He's really good to deal with. Surely you're asking for more trouble if you're writing in a public forum that you're after a scanned and illegally copied pdf, rather than buying a book from a private individual?

That post is from 2011, dawg.

Settle down, ladies.

I think I've mentioned before that Predicate is an uncharacteristic post-2000 throwback in tone to his nihilistic and cruel much earlier work - coming out with this at about the same time as the very humane Comfort & Critique may have been a deliberate tactic. The writing on the Christiane F movie in there stands out in my memory.

I know the blog you're talking about - it's a strange sort of unfunny satirical thing taking the piss out of countercultural writers etc that hardly anyone has heard of, with a particular focus on Headpress magazine - someone with too much time on their hands, I don't really get it - the books mentioned do not exist. Pseudonymous former Creation Books writer 'Simon Whitechapel' (whose real identity came as a shocker to me) is the obvious candidate.

Quote from: HongKongGoolagong on July 02, 2015, 09:26:38 PM
I know the blog you're talking about - it's a strange sort of unfunny satirical thing taking the piss out of countercultural writers etc that hardly anyone has heard of, with a particular focus on Headpress magazine - someone with too much time on their hands, I don't really get it - the books mentioned do not exist. Pseudonymous former Creation Books writer 'Simon Whitechapel' (whose real identity came as a shocker to me) is the obvious candidate.

Go on then: who is he?

Quote from: HongKongGoolagong on July 02, 2015, 09:26:38 PM
I know the blog you're talking about - it's a strange sort of unfunny satirical thing taking the piss out of countercultural writers etc that hardly anyone has heard of, with a particular focus on Headpress magazine - someone with too much time on their hands, I don't really get it - the books mentioned do not exist. Pseudonymous former Creation Books writer 'Simon Whitechapel' (whose real identity came as a shocker to me) is the obvious candidate.

Yes, who is it??

Quote from: theotherjohn on July 02, 2015, 03:44:23 PM

Quote from: simulacrum on July 02, 2015, 09:58:05 AM

Quote from: theotherjohn on July 01, 2015, 11:11:06 PM
Sir, I literally just posted a link where you can still buy the book for its original retail price rather than an inflated cost. And he can send it to Europe etc. He's really good to deal with. Surely you're asking for more trouble if you're writing in a public forum that you're after a scanned and illegally copied pdf, rather than buying a book from a private individual?

That post is from 2011, dawg.

I ordered a copy directly from him last October for vomitgore, "dawg"... by all means, feel free to buy it from elsewhere for an extortionate cost if you don't believe me. Or, you know, you can just email danger@komabookstore.com and find out yourself?

I'm very tempted to order the remaining copies from him and sell them at the high going value just to spite inconsiderate people like you.

Lol. Chill, brah.

Quote from: Peterson on July 02, 2015, 05:00:38 PM
Please don't do that, haha, I'm planning on ordering. Off-topic, but I'm glad I'm not the only one tired of ubiquitous use of words like dawg, bro, man, dude, and the like to address people. Might as well get patronizing and call people chief, skipper, boss, or mack daddy.

Lighten up, cuz.

Bait is exhausting and very depressing material. As it's aimed at a wider audience than his own books, Sotos writes it in the more accessible style seen in the Gillis book, aside from a few parts where furious moral outrage and self-disgust at his own parasitic role lead to verbal contortions and curses.

There is a history of the background behind the book's emergence in which Brady's problems with the original Sotos afterword are given in full and the hitherto undisclosed involvement of a mysterious female record label owner is explained....hmm. There is a perhaps over-long section dealing with the 2013 tribunal in which the double-bind of Brady's current situation is delineated. There is a desire to trust and empathise with Ann West above all against Brady, and it ends with her words. There is criticism of Cowley and admiration for Lee. Brady is addressed directly throughout and if it's aimed at one Constant Reader, it's him.

There is a line in there mentioning 'Christian burial' which Sotos can barely bring himself to utter and prepares the reader for carefully: it's a heartstopping moment of terrible insight and an illustration of the places Brady's mind and stunted existentialism cannot reach.

Quote from: cantle on July 03, 2015, 03:46:48 AM
Go on then: who is he?

Quote from: boorman on July 05, 2015, 09:32:29 AM
Yes, who is it??

Put that up for a few hours before deciding that the guy does not need further publicity and encouragement.

read many of them as well... epsecially the Topping book... the pic on cover still makes me crack

Quote from: HongKongGoolagong on July 02, 2015, 06:33:33 PM
Settle down, ladies.

I think I've mentioned before that Predicate is an uncharacteristic post-2000 throwback in tone to his nihilistic and cruel much earlier work

Yea, I've always considered Predicate in the same vein as his Parasite writings in a way. That period from "Selfish, Little", "Predicate" and "C&C" I always label, as a whole, "True Crime revue with reviews" since each one has a supposed specific entity or lead (Lesley Ann Downey, Thomas Hamilton and Sarah Payne) like a true crime book, but then he also reviews some paintings, performance art, movies, actors, documentaries, a fucking boys choir, etc. plus the usual Sotos liaisons and points of reference to highlight and focus in and out on the subject at hand then threading it all together into a pretty little aesthetic bundle the way only he can. Probably my favorite era of his, actually. Though the more I read Mine, the text portions of KEPT and now going through "Desistance" for second readinf I really, really am loving his newer works ("newer" as in this decade/post-2010 material) as well.

Reading Pure Filth right now and it's interesting how Sotos, because of the subject and the potentially wider audience (maybe), widens his tone into something slighty more anecdotal, less percussive and labyrinthine. He says some great things about words versus image in relation to pornography and these films in particular. Reading the straight transcripts of the Gillis films is a weird experience, with the words and conversation brought into sharp focus and the blowjobs and sloppy fucks made secondary.

Quote from: Harcamone on November 08, 2015, 11:24:20 PM
Reading the straight transcripts of the Gillis films is a weird experience

Yea,  it sure is. The transcript layout always reminds me of being in 2nd grade rehearsing lines for some dumb holiday play we'd have to put on for our parents. Not that it's intentional, the layout not the memories. No other way you could really transcribe a video or audio clearly to text, though if anyone could have done it, Sotos would be the man.

Quote from: bitewerksMTB on December 24, 2015, 04:46:01 AM
https://www.flickr.com/photos/beverlyhames/sets/72157629049448519/

Cripes, the man looks fitter than ever before! Where were these pictures taken?

Quote from: bitewerksMTB on December 24, 2015, 04:46:01 AM
https://www.flickr.com/photos/beverlyhames/sets/72157629049448519/

Did you attend ?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DesghC9G9r4

Sotos and Parfrey talking about Pure Filth - very good substantive discussion

Quote from: boorman on May 30, 2016, 12:11:00 PM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DesghC9G9r4

Sotos and Parfrey talking about Pure Filth - very good substantive discussion

It's a shame the woman interviewing him is such an idiot. It's like everything Sotos says goes straight past her, you can just hear he doesn't want to be there.

Could someone tell me where I could download any of his writings?

The yahoo group dedicated to him had some scans or his earlier stuff in. Dunno if it is still up.

Yeah I don't think the girl is stupid particularly.  Just unfamiliar with the subject.  I think the interview is remarkable for the degree that Sotos actually explains what the project of Pure Filth is in clear terms; the project's components, his intentions and relationship to the material and to Gillis personally, and the process of the book's construction.  I think at one point Parfrey even comments that this is as succinct as he's ever heard Sotos be on the subject.  This isn't something you get from Sotos normally in such straightforward terms; it's refreshing to albeit briefly engage with his intellect here without the normal obstacles his writing is cluttered with.

Just found this while browsing YouTube. Interview  (although it barely deserves the term) with PS on the Howard Stern Show  (!). Pretty annoying and pompous behaviour by Stern, but maybe interesting as an anecdote:

https://youtu.be/S2rl_GofC8E (https://youtu.be/S2rl_GofC8E)

Quote from: bitewerksMTB on November 26, 2016, 08:46:41 PM

Quote from: vomitgore on November 26, 2016, 07:55:25 PM
Just found this while browsing YouTube. Interview  (although it barely deserves the term) with PS on the Howard Stern Show  (!). Pretty annoying and pompous behaviour by Stern, but maybe interesting as an anecdote:

https://youtu.be/S2rl_GofC8E (https://youtu.be/S2rl_GofC8E)

Makes sense to me. Most people wouldn't want to chat with someone who admits to owning child porn.

Sure, the reaction is pretty understandable. Then again, why invite him to the show and give him a platform in the first place? Seems kind of ambiguous to me. I don't really know much about the way Stern's show is built up, though. Maybe controversy is an integral part or something?

Quote from: boorman on May 30, 2016, 12:11:00 PM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DesghC9G9r4

Sotos and Parfrey talking about Pure Filth - very good substantive discussion

I thought maybe the girl's nativity gave him a specific audience to reach and that was why he expressed himself in such clear terms.

Quote from: Deadpriest on December 15, 2016, 07:35:50 PM
the girl's nativity

You mean "naivete."

Quote from: Peterson on December 15, 2016, 09:48:04 PM

Quote from: Deadpriest on December 15, 2016, 07:35:50 PM
the girl's nativity

You mean "naivete."

fuck!

the link don't work, but if hipster fags, nonces and homos want to wear a buyers market t shirt then copyright law is all.
surely the rarity and 'difficulty' of Soto encourages these people?

"This music and imagery drags the listener down to a terrible and lightless place every time if you let it. A terrible pull of depression and abjection performed with a malevolence any black metal or power electronics musician could only dream of, all the more powerful for mischievously coming in the disguise of pop music, and all the more resonant for me because of what was happening when I got so into it. Yayo is a supergravitational despair anthem, whether you are the mortified Daddy watching through fingers or the one who pathetically wants to put on a show.

Then I thought about comparing Lana Del Rey to Peter Sotos in a book called Arthouse, because I experience similar misery when thinking about either of them. Re-reading the complete works of an infamous underground writer as preparation for a long section of critical reviews in Arthouse was profoundly unpleasant and depressing. The juvenilia which is the only material those foolish enough to have curiosity about his work have generally read is truly hateful and infantile. The '90s material which received legitimate bookshop distribution makes any reader despair of humanity and provokes a feeling of nausea and leaves mental scars. It's not until the lesser known post-2000 series that began with Selfish, Little that the tone descends even further and probes the mind of the reader with real cruelty. Some of these books were in absurdly tiny editions and are almost impossible to obtain, and vile volumes such as Show Adult and Mine - which now sell for hundreds of pounds to connoisseurs - also clearly show a world-class writer at the height of his powers who spends many dark and lonely hours creating these texts for a very small audience with no hope of making a living from this. The only person who will publish him now has a cranky company who also print the delusional ravings of Holocaust deniers, which speaks of his entirely fitting marginalisation. Would I recommend anyone read his work? No. I find the effects he can have on anyone willing to read it remarkable, and very obviously there is no comparable writer, unless we look back to Genet's prison writings or Sade. All light will be blacked out. All Rights Reversed. He is unspeakable and no one wants to say his name. I have learned techniques from these books about how to write. I also learned harsh moral lessons, very uncomfortable truths, how the notion of 'redemption' works, and more than I really wanted to know about anonymous all-male sex.

And without Andrea Dworkin, Sotos wouldn't exist. You search in vain for many mentions of food in her books. She must surely have binged and comfort eaten to terrible extremes..."

Quote from: Peterson on February 02, 2017, 05:50:13 PM
I love that you and Peter are obsessed with the white elephant of Dworkin's obvious weight issue in conjunction with, well, other issues.

Anyway, Desistance on the way. If it's the follow-up to Mine that I expect, shouldn't disappoint. Either way, I like the old-man tendencies creeping up since around Selfish, Little. Anyone willing to part with a copy of Home, please get in touch.

Wanna buy a copy of Mine?

Quote from: Peterson on February 02, 2017, 07:57:55 PM
No, I specifically asked for Home and figured it was implied I already own a copy of Mine. Deadpriest, all due respect, you strike me as characteristically oblivious.

That's probably fair...

Quote from: Peterson on February 02, 2017, 07:57:55 PM
No, I specifically asked for Home and figured it was implied I already own a copy of Mine. Deadpriest, all due respect, you strike me as characteristically oblivious.

I could have replied 'I don't know what you mean' but the moment's gone.

Or 'none taken'.

'Home' will be reprinted in upcoming Kiddiepunk anthology out in early march.

I'm nearly finished with Desistance, and already, it's almost necessitated that I draft questions to ask Peter about the book, which I have, but will likely never reach him. So far, I've noticed that no one has commented on the likelihood that Desistance is more or less the swan song to his major body of work, if not the entire writing career itself - not one person has mentioned that since "Mine," most of the anecdotes have been written in the extreme past-tense, in addition to the fact that he describes himself as "a dying old man." Let's hope that's not quite the case, but mentions of chemotherapy alongside weight loss and thinning hair could mean a variety of things either typical to any older man or perhaps more specific to those who share some of his health risks.

"For older and middle-aged men, the refractory period between potential for ejaculation or orgasm increases with age and often corresponds to existing health problems."  - Discovery Series Introduction to Human Sexuality

As well as his assessment of artists like Antoine D'Agata, the book also seems to be a run-through of major influences in his lifestyle, manner of thinking, self-perception, and attitudes; some of them being formative sexual experiences from his teens (I suppose every compulsive masturbator of either sex will write about this given the loneliness and time allotted), methamphetamine (which is a huge preoccupation for this book - one might safely characterize the style of language in his books as when meth and a hyperactive, hyper-perceptive intellect combine with spiraling sexual obsessions and a semantics fetish), gay porn, and the Bijou theater; all of which seem to be less present in his current day-to-day life, which if I'm reading this book correctly, is all the more desperate and devoid of proper methods to sate his urges without the latter especially. If I was an older man with dwindling access points to the staples I'd clung to as a young man, left with the task of reflecting on my life spent in such a manner, I'd most likely write this book as well - there's a distinct sense of accountability, honesty, depression and bereavement, whereas earlier works were saturated with heavy characterization and anger/hate/revulsion (alongside an observable humanity more present in these later works, that I think most readers skip over in favor of titillation and "ooh ahh" shock value). But don't worry, the pornographically-minded with eyes firmly affixed to the gutter have plenty to appreciate here.

As such, this book also seems to provide some insight into the literary formula Sotos uses, and might provide some really specific information to those who have access to his entire body published work - with enough familiarity, you begin to see the patterns of influence that converged in his mind to result in his peculiar style of writing: there's song lyrics (he likes the Rolling Stones and Lou Reed as much as I do, seemingly), "found" text from media sources, pornography, and some deeply-buried references to various philosophy, linguistics, and political texts most people would never read unless prompted in an academic context. He also seems to poke fun at a handful of well-known novels (which he's done since the beginning), and if I'm not mistaken, there's a passage wherein he mocks a certain famous Nabokov novel, placing himself as a Humbert of sorts.

In addition, the autobiographical elements continue to creep in at both inappropriate and opportune junctures within the text, providing some very nice contrast between the various incarnations of Sotos and his mindset; as a younger boy, as a growing young adult, a confused middle-aged man, and now, a "dying old man." I really enjoy that we're provided some background here, and see shards of normal development in the life of a man who many consider to be a walking example of abnormality and potentially less kind adjectives. In doing this, Sotos seems to establish that there is an everyday, "normal" Peter that is not particularly present in these books, and lives/exists in a different headspace (there are even some not-so-vague references to estranged children, and not in the context we'd typically associate with Sotos - have you ever had a friend who you didn't know was a parent until you saw them mail the child support check?). Logically, there would have to be, if you're to maintain a job and keep up with the bills. More than what's claimed in his work and what he's accused of by the ignorant, Sotos is a writer, and a really talented one. It's never been a joke when I've suggested that other subject matter would be just as compelling in his hands.

Which begs the question, and again brings up Sotos' formula: when anecdotes use the first-person voice and describe a "character" who is ostensibly Sotos himself, how are we to discern which of these is a fictionalization, which is an outright fabrication, and which is pure, unbleached honesty? Are all of them a combination of the three variants? There's enough contradiction to give weight to the theory that there is an actual Sotos autobiographical voice in contrast to a heavily-embellished Sotos "character." Beyond that, it feels as if there is also an external, social Sotos voice in addition to the internal, stream-of-consciousness exploration of his psychology, without a filter, and organized on it's own terms/logic. Oh, and it might help if you're familiar with Chomsky's Syntactic Structures, alongside which methamphetamine, Lou Reed albums, and selective memory recall may be the "key" to Sotos' work from an analytical standpoint.

If you're looking for some kind of cracking point in Sotos' work, where a kind of guide or legend exposes itself, you won't find that here, but if you've been trying to keep up and doing the work all along, there is really no need for Sotos to explain everything to you in plain terms (as if you were owed that in the first place). It's my conclusion that he's not attempting to define or lay out terms for anything, but more just explaining his own perspective through multiple voices and methodologies; all aspects of the writing fall under that umbrella, and the arrangement of purpose and intent is probably best left for the reader to discern. A friend of mine observed that to fully understand what you can glean from Sotos' work, is that having read the entirety of it is totally necessary. She's probably right.

Quote from: Peterson on February 02, 2017, 05:50:13 PM

Anyway, Desistance on the way. If it's the follow-up to Mine that I expect, shouldn't disappoint. Either way, I like the old-man tendencies creeping up since around Selfish, Little. Anyone willing to part with a copy of Home, please get in touch.

I had "Home" until just a month ago when i traded it. Any other Sotos you're looking fot? Would be quite easy to trade or borrow shit since we live in the same town.

Anyone with a Rude Shape edition of Special? Is the lower black part of the book supposed to look distressed, or is the copy I'm looking at just beat to shit? Any input is appreciated.

P.S. In case I'm fucking up the edition, the one I'm asking about is the one that says Adults Only in the black oval on the back.

Quote from: simulacrum on June 25, 2017, 07:16:49 AM
Anyone with a Rude Shape edition of Special? Is the lower black part of the book supposed to look distressed, or is the copy I'm looking at just beat to shit? Any input is appreciated.

P.S. In case I'm fucking up the edition, the one I'm asking about is the one that says Adults Only in the black oval on the back.

It looks like 'marble' down there.

(https://preview.ibb.co/k3f6Ck/has.jpg)

Without wanting to be completely redundant: that's meant to look like leather (which might make more sense).

Quote from: Deadpriest on June 29, 2017, 03:44:21 PM
Without wanting to be completely redundant: that's meant to look like leather (which might make more sense).

Thanks for your wonderfully insightful contribution on the book cover's texture pattern. You may now return to writing poetry.

Quote from: Smegma on June 29, 2017, 05:16:08 PM

Quote from: Deadpriest on June 29, 2017, 03:44:21 PM
Without wanting to be completely redundant: that's meant to look like leather (which might make more sense).

Thanks for your wonderfully insightful contribution on the book cover's texture pattern. You may now return to writing poetry.

I didn't realise how cunty I sounded there, lol, I'm sorry, what an ass.

Quote from: theotherjohn on June 30, 2017, 01:05:17 AM
Looks like leather to me too. Sorry I can't be more insightful.

You could say what kind of leather it is.

This is the only bullshit I could find about the "What's Up, Doc?" exhibition:

https://www.koikonfait.com/fr/e/59e520e548237e046804f4cc/opening--what's-up-doc

Quote from: bitewerksMTB on October 20, 2017, 11:40:18 PM
This is the only bullshit I could find about the "What's Up, Doc?" exhibition:

https://www.koikonfait.com/fr/e/59e520e548237e046804f4cc/opening--what's-up-doc

I'd be a part of whatever exhibition so long as part of my ticket was paid or lodging would be provided, hah. Seems like a nice excuse to visit friends/lady friends, anyway. Even if it ends up in his next book, like the Centre Pompidou in Desistance...

Apparently that exhibit is open until December 16th. I found a photo featuring some of the Sotos stuff.
"Pictured here:
Darja Bajagić, "Brittanee Drexel ft. Pierrot (Smile)", 2017
&
Peter Sotos, "Holly and Jessica (From the Archives of Peter Sotos)", 1977 - ongoing"
(https://instagram.fagc1-2.fna.fbcdn.net/t51.2885-15/e35/22708702_1638729122838036_8892915938840543232_n.jpg)

There was a closeup photo of that Sotos exhibit that I saw a few days ago but it seems to have been removed.

Probably a stretch but does anyone know of any stores still stocking Desistance or Mine?

Quote from: bitewerksMTB on October 20, 2017, 11:40:18 PM
This is the only bullshit I could find about the "What's Up, Doc?" exhibition:

https://www.koikonfait.com/fr/e/59e520e548237e046804f4cc/opening--what's-up-doc

the presentation text is pure postmodern bullshit artwank but I'll go visit the thing for the Sotos material and eventually post a pic or two here

Quote from: rocksoff on October 26, 2017, 01:45:21 PM
Apparently that exhibit is open until December 16th. I found a photo featuring some of the Sotos stuff.
"Pictured here:
Darja Bajagić, "Brittanee Drexel ft. Pierrot (Smile)", 2017...

I think, maybe, Darja Bajagic's work has been mentioned here? I don't recognize her name but her art looks familiar for some reason. Esp. the "kill a pedophile" imagery.

http://dbajagic.tumblr.com/archive

Just got a copy of Comfort and Critique on ebay for £102. :)

Just want to read it, money is fine, I was just gonna buy a bunch of t shirts this pay day and a book of Otto Dix paintings and the boxset of Sienfield series. I will abide.

I was trying to grab that Timeless On the Prowl issue but the same person was bidding pretty hard on that and Playground Sex. Ah, well.

I finished reading Comfort & Critique for the second time yesterday. The point at which the narrative starts to become more focused and the newspaper articles begin to run backwards all the way to the beginnings of the abduction is one of my favorite things I've read from Sotos.

Another pic from that exhibit.
(https://instagram.fagc1-2.fna.fbcdn.net/t51.2885-15/e35/25018621_129570124406071_664621076382220288_n.jpg)

I would think his newspaper collection would be considerably more beat up and stained.

Quote from: bitewerksMTB on October 28, 2017, 02:49:12 AM

Quote from: rocksoff on October 26, 2017, 01:45:21 PM
Apparently that exhibit is open until December 16th. I found a photo featuring some of the Sotos stuff.
"Pictured here:
Darja Bajagić, "Brittanee Drexel ft. Pierrot (Smile)", 2017...

I think, maybe, Darja Bajagic's work has been mentioned here? I don't recognize her name but her art looks familiar for some reason. Esp. the "kill a pedophile" imagery.

http://dbajagic.tumblr.com/archive

While researching her work I noticed she names Mikko Aspa as one of her favorite living artists in Interview magazine of all places

I missed out on an English copy of 'Special' on eBay last night.  Added it to my watch list in the morning, went about my day and totally forgot to make a bid later that evening. The real kicker? It' sold on a single bid for £10! D'oh!

Anyone read Breillat's Pornocracy? I liked the film but I mostly picked up the novel for the Sotos afterword. Not one of his most lucid pieces of writing...

So, has anyone heard anything about new editions or a new book coming 'soon'? Four years since the last; everything is out of print (9-Banded has one book still in stock). No new interviews or readings. Seems like the only, sort of, recent thing I've found is whatever his contribution to Jamie Stewart's band (Xiu Xiu or something?); anyone know specifically what that was?

I believe some people think Desistance may be his final book due to health issues? Or, maybe, no one wants to risk their day job due to legal issues?

Desistance is a rather hard book to follow, seemed to have a finality - he did have a break from publishing before between '99 and '04. Some kid was trying to tell me about the Xiu Xiu collab that was never properly released recently, cannot recall details.

Deplorable that all of his best work is out of print while people still circulate his dumb juvenilia online. Wish a bigger and more suitable publisher, Serpents Tail or Canongate or City Lights or Semiotexte(e) or someone, would grow a pair and take him on.

I feel it'll be a long time before Sotos receives any academic recognition. There will have to be a safe distance in time from what he writes about. Sade certainly sparked more than enough contention over a century later and that was obviously without making reference to real criminal events.

The owner is on vacation for a few weeks, but lesleyann.com.au still has copies of Mine and Tool. Even with Aus shipping they're quite cheap.

"Academic acclaim", now that's fucking funny!

Anyone ever wonder why Parfrey never sunk money into a full book? I'm guessing he didn't want the headaches. Or knew the interest was just too limited. Hell, the Gillis book is stil available from FH.

Quote from: bitewerksMTB on June 10, 2018, 08:04:56 PM
"Academic acclaim", now that's fucking funny!

Bizarre Uproar Grammy award winner follows ...

Quote from: HongKongGoolagong on June 10, 2018, 11:48:10 AM
Desistance is a rather hard book to follow, seemed to have a finality

In addition to the tone of the book which definitely felt that way I thought the title conveyed as much, maybe that's too simple of a reading though.

A few years ago Chip from NBB mentioned to me if there was going to be a reprint of anything it would be Comfort and Critique, although he didn't sound to hopeful.

Quote from: rocksoff on June 10, 2018, 04:36:08 PM
I feel it'll be a long time before Sotos receives any academic recognition.

Can certainly imagine Sotos being rehabilitated (=co-opted) initially via Queer Studies course taught by some pervert to rich kids somewhere.

Quote from: bitewerksMTB on June 10, 2018, 08:04:56 PM
Anyone ever wonder why Parfrey never sunk money into a full book?

Feral House purely non-fiction press, no memoirs or especially creative writing or whatever it is exactly that PS does ("pornography" lol). Books would certainly have sold OK and with no legal problems but strict FH conceptual thing there.

Peter could have fit in perfectly in between The Weird World of Eerie Publications, It's a Man's World!, and Killer Fiction.

Quote from: theotherjohn on June 11, 2018, 07:40:35 PM
Wasn't Playground Sex optioned for Feral House? I've probably made that up. I know that the manuscript of Rat was originally in Adam Parfrey's possession before a copy ended up for sale on Abebooks by mistake due to a fuck up of events - doubtful it was ever to be published by him but certainly he must have read it with consideration or curiosity.

What was 'Rat'? A full book that is still unpublished?

Quote from: theotherjohn on June 12, 2018, 08:24:58 PM
"There, Rat":

Always assumed Rat was simply cognate with Darling and was a sweet talk pet name for the lady texts around this era were largely addressed to. Suspect the second half of first Waitress must be the original Rat which was then cannibalised for two separate books. At this point it is probably you and me in the world who actually give a fuck about this.

Thanks for clearing that up slightly.

The 'Waitress' stuff that Creation put out is stuff I never managed to get. Was too poor at the time to rebuy books I already owned just to get limited editions....

9-Banded needs to reprint all of those titles! A book collecting all of the Waitress material would be very nice to own.

Otherwise, someone, one day is going to bootleg them. Scan'em & print it up as  cheap Xerox zines...

Quote from: bitewerksMTB on June 13, 2018, 07:35:18 PM
9-Banded needs to reprint all of those titles! A book collecting all of the Waitress material would be very nice to own.

Otherwise, someone, one day is going to bootleg them. Scan'em & print it up as  cheap Xerox zines...

Couldn't agree more- the only major bits I'm missing.

https://twitter.com/NineBandedBooks/status/1010193169940705292

At long last. Looks as difficult as ever.

Quote from: boorman on June 23, 2018, 12:57:09 PM
https://twitter.com/NineBandedBooks/status/1010193169940705292

At long last. Looks as difficult as ever.

good to hear!

"Exegeses on unpleasant things.  Criminal histories, victim histories, rehabilitation, jurisprudence. Sordid encounters in dark-lit backrooms."

- which could describe every single book since what I always think of as the first real one, Index. Can barely stand the sight of the try-hard early stuff Total Abuse, Tool and Special nowadays. Glad Playground Sex never made real print either. It should be like Kraftwerk's discography, where everything before Autobahn is forgotten about as if it never happened. Just my opinion of course. Very much looking forward to this.

Perhaps it's unfair to judge from a completely different set of circumstances, but being only a little older than Sotos when he began publishing PURE, it's amazing to me that he couldn't recognize just how embarrassingly bad it was, and only slightly less amazing that people like Jim Goad thought some of the dullest literary shock rock put to paper was worth publishing years later. I can't complain too much as we wouldn't have the work he would put out later, but the most those writings should serve as now is inspiration that total hack writing can evolve into something much greater.

I'm curious as to what his literary influences even were as he began to stylistically shift into the Index type stuff. There's Dworkin's fiction, obviously, I think I recall him mentioning Selby, and Lou Reed if that counts, but has anyone more well-read sussed out some of his inspirations? edit: naturally Genet and Sade...

Quote from: HongKongGoolagong on June 30, 2018, 02:04:01 PM
the try-hard early stuff

I get what you mean, but I think the only really embarrassing stuff (writing-wise) is Pure, I think the pastiche-y early stuff is still great and important to getting full progression - I don't buy what he says about any of his books standing alone. Lazy seems to have involved a lot less sobriety even than usual, and I get what people mean about Predicate being sort of hashed out compared to other work, but it's got some of his best and most lucid passages, and I think it's a perfect companion to Comfort & Critique and Selfish, Little. I guess what I'm saying is his work has continuity as a whole that I think is important, and beyond that, they seem to work in smaller groups/pairs. All that aside, I like his more recent stuff ('05 to present) most of all; seems to be his most candid, frustrating, and complex stuff. I obviously can't wait for Ingratitude.

Quote from: rocksoff on July 01, 2018, 01:26:50 AM
I'm curious as to what his literary influences even were

He's an avid reader of whatever might remotely relate to what he does, question is what his opinion is of which material, hah. I think there's a Nabokov allusion in either C&C or Desistance, and I think he's got a few stylistic twists on Selby and Burroughs in earlier stuff, and I think it's more his humor than a nod to any influence - my opinion only, though. He's definitely writing to fill a void rather than carry a flag of sorts, so I don't think my projections or really the question itself are very useful, but that's what I've noticed, at least.

Ingratitude

http://www.ninebandedbooks.com/bandedbooks/ingratitude/

Quote from: theotherjohn on July 10, 2018, 06:13:07 PM
Unless Amazon.com gets their fair share of copies, I might order a bunch in to offset the (no doubt) inevitably high shipping costs for UK buyers. Any interest in me doing this, or is someone else planning to do the same?

If you are prepared to do that I'd happily chip in.

Cheers.

NBB is taking orders for Ingratitude now.

Quote from: theotherjohn on July 19, 2018, 10:04:16 PM
Will price them pretty much at cost (including P&P and PayPal fees), as I'm not looking to profit.

The pleasure of knowing you've distributed something which may tend to deprave and corrupt is enough, I know the feeling well ;)  You're great John and thanks.

ordered :)

Mr. Smith was kind enough to hold one 'til payday. "Ingratitude" certainly not, hehe.

Quote from: theotherjohn on July 19, 2018, 10:04:16 PM
I'll be ordering 10 copies for UK (and maybe European) customers once I get confirmation of final shipping costs - further updates including order price in due time. Will price them pretty much at cost (including P&P and PayPal fees), as I'm not looking to profit. PM me to register your interest (cantle, you're on the list).

Excellent- thanks again- any idea on price and eta at this stage?

The book is now on Amazon.com (pre-order of course)

https://www.amazon.com/Ingratitude-Peter-Sotos/dp/0990733580/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1532524103&sr=8-1&keywords=peter+sotos

Excitedly pre-ordered already when I stumbled open somebody mentioning it in the comments section of Dennis Cooper's blog about 3 weeks ago.

Does anybody think the book is going to actually include scans of some of Sotos' collections of news prints?
I wonder if we're going to be introduced to a new format with this one, or perhaps I'm wrong.

"Just received the print run of Ingratitude by Peter Sotos. I'm happy with the production and will begin dispatching advance orders asap. International orders may take a bit longer to fill. If you placed an order, please be patient. It's not yet sold out: http://www.ninebandedbooks.com/bandedbooks/ingratitude/ ..."

That is on 9BB Twitter feed. I just ordered.

Quote from: endors_toi on July 30, 2018, 01:41:01 PM
Does anybody think the book is going to actually include scans of some of Sotos' collections of news prints?
I wonder if we're going to be introduced to a new format with this one, or perhaps I'm wrong.

I honestly doubt much will change or be revealed writing-wise, but yeah, I'd love to see some more of the C&C-style xeroxed artwork. I can't help feeling like his writing is best without the visuals, but would close in around the reader more if they were included. Index apparently had lots of visuals which were left out. The more recent work is my favorite, can't wait for this one.

couple of rare Sotos books for sale here

https://shop.theheartworm.com/collections/rare/products/peter-sotos-proxy-peter-sotos-pornography-1991-2000-book

https://shop.theheartworm.com/collections/rare/products/peter-sotos-total-abuse-book

https://shop.theheartworm.com/collections/rare/products/peter-sotos-selfish-little-book

Cold Cave fans are also big fans of sexual violence?

Quote from: bitewerksMTB on August 08, 2018, 11:27:21 PM
Cold Cave fans are also big fans of sexual violence?

lol apparently

Has anyone received shipping notices or their copy of the new book? I've seen one photo of it on IG but no comments about it.

Quote from: bitewerksMTB on August 11, 2018, 09:02:05 PM
Has anyone received shipping notices or their copy of the new book? I've seen one photo of it on IG but no comments about it.

I was talking to Chip about possible wholesale on the title for WFR, but the shipping cost was too expensive too defend a purchase. Limited quantities left, so don't sleep on this. According to him:"The book is off the press and I'm filling advance orders daily. Will move it to "Current Releases" next week." So, I would believe orders to be sent somewhat parallell to this move. Amazon US on the other hand updated their delivery time to September - late October. The latter might just be an estimation I suspect.

Quote from: bitewerksMTB on August 11, 2018, 09:02:05 PM
Has anyone received shipping notices or their copy of the new book? I've seen one photo of it on IG but no comments about it.

Received it today. I don't think 9BB typically sends shipping emails.

Quote from: bitewerksMTB on August 11, 2018, 09:02:05 PM
Has anyone received shipping notices or their copy of the new book? I've seen one photo of it on IG but no comments about it.

Received mine yesterday. I haven't had the chance to dive in yet, but it looks great. A little under 200 pages of text bookended by sizable scrapbook sections made up of newspaper clippings.

Quote from: expectorant on August 11, 2018, 11:56:04 PM

Quote from: bitewerksMTB on August 11, 2018, 09:02:05 PM
Has anyone received shipping notices or their copy of the new book? I've seen one photo of it on IG but no comments about it.

Received mine yesterday. I haven't had the chance to dive in yet, but it looks great. A little under 200 pages of text bookended by sizable scrapbook sections made up of newspaper clippings.

Awesome, so that's indeed what I thought.
If anyone could share snippets/screenshots it would be amazing. I'm from Israel so guess it's gonna take quite a while for mine to arrive.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BmbcOhoFBns/?taken-by=drawn_to_infection_extreme

^ Wow, thanks. Makes me even more excited.

Pfft, fuck me, never mind my earlier comment. We meet the real Danny, at last.

What's the content of "Crows" plus the "Filming Children", etc. titles? It'd be nice if 9BB could do those all in one book. Some guy on eBay is trying to sell all 4 volumes of those softcovers for $2,250.00.

I just noticed that Danny Bridges article. You really gotta wonder about someone who is keeping newspaper articles from 1984. He may not have all of his ores in the water...

Quote from: bitewerksMTB on August 15, 2018, 04:47:46 AM
What's the content of "Crows" plus the "Filming Children", etc. titles? It'd be nice if 9BB could do those all in one book. Some guy on eBay is trying to sell all 4 volumes of those hardcovers for $2,250.00.

I just noticed that Danny Bridges article. You really gotta wonder about someone who is keeping newspaper articles from 1984. He may not have all of his ores in the water...

Those plus the Waitress editions and similar. I'm probably most curious about all those.

There's a guy repeatedly complaining about Whitehouse on Discogs and he uses Sotos as an example of his problem with them, going "There's just something off about that guy."

Quote from: bitewerksMTB on August 15, 2018, 04:47:46 AM
What's the content of "Crows" plus the "Filming Children", etc. titles? It'd be nice if 9BB could do those all in one book. Some guy on eBay is trying to sell all 4 volumes of those hardcovers for $2,250.00.

I just noticed that Danny Bridges article. You really gotta wonder about someone who is keeping newspaper articles from 1984. He may not have all of his ores in the water...

I've read whichever one was included in Public and it seemed like a rough draft for Mine (same set of questions repeating over the course of the piece).

You can see some more of the newspaper collection, including some of the stuff that got scanned into Ingratitude, near the bottom of this page.
http://artviewer.org/whats-up-doc-at-new-galerie/

Is that Tate book the one that Sotos has had a long-running grievance with? I noticed his unaired documentary Conspiracy of Silence has found a new audience among the pizzagate crowd in the past two years...

What's that all about? Is that one of you guys?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqaxSgx5dpM

Also, has anybody that doesn't live in the US/Canada receive their copy yet?

Quote from: endors_toi on August 15, 2018, 03:44:32 PM
What's that all about? Is that one of you guys?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqaxSgx5dpM

Who makes a 90 minute "discussion" video about a book they haven't read yet?

I noticed in the back of Ingratitude and in that New Galerie exhibit that thanks is given to Laurence Viallet for "archival material". I know she published/translated some of his stuff in French but I guess she's in possession of some of his collection as well.

Speaking of Viallet, I'm not sure if this was posted here before, but I found this via archive.org the other day. Some French language articles on Sotos, specifically Index and Tick, and two interviews compiled for an appearance in Paris in 2005. Surprisingly readable via Google translate since my shit French certainly wasn't helping.
https://web.archive.org/web/20090302093243/http://www.editions-desordres.com:80/critiques/peter_sotos_cahier.php

It's refreshing to have an addicted Sotos reader giving some criticism rather than adulation but I thought Pilleater was mostly clueless and needs more life experience and a broader frame of reference. Kid's only young I guess.

He complains about 'flowery writing' so many times, which makes me think of I don't know, AS Byatt or Margaret Drabble maybe? Not a good or clear description for that contorted and violent prose. I can see the Kerouac in Sotos though and that was a decent point no-one's made before.

Quote from: theotherjohn on August 17, 2018, 10:48:20 AM
alt-right ctrl-leftist

That was brilliant.

Quote from: endors_toi on August 15, 2018, 03:44:32 PM

Also, has anybody that doesn't live in the US/Canada receive their copy yet?

just received my copy in Australia this week. first time user of sotos in longform like this, really excited

received my copy yesterday (I'm in the US)

I also received my copy yesterday & started on it last night.  I like what he did with the news articles & I just put in an order for one of the books from the list that I had never heard of.

About to pick mine up from the post office today, then I'll dig right in.

Quote from: theotherjohn on August 31, 2018, 01:31:29 PM

Any thoughts yet from anyone that's had a chance to read it? All these Instagram posts from people who ordered direct from 9BB are making me itchy. Can't wait to dig into it.

Right now its my favorite thing he's written, very well worth the wait. Far and away the most revealing/honest(I think?) which makes it extremely satisfying if you've spent a lot of time wading through his more difficult work, although I don't mean to make it sound like it isn't still in the classic style. Not as direct as something like the intro to Pure Filth, but some of the passages come close, and most of it is a lot more digestable than Mine, for instance. There's plenty of attention given to long running locations/incidents etc. but also some new ones, the addition of his interactions with camgirls was amusingly current but not out of place, and its all got more of an acknowledged therapeutic element than any previous Sotos I've read. I made the mistake of glancing over the clippings and jumping right into his own writing, quite a bit of it is dedicated to the collection so on rereading Im going to actually go through them now that I've given the main text an initial read.

Ingratitude has some highlights here n' there but it's not holding my attention very well. I read some sections of Selfish, Little last night & everything that I like about it so much is absent, for the most part, in the new one. The news clippings are rather fascinating. I haven't finished it so my opinion may change.

Sure hope they make the decision to reprint OOP titles. They would be stupid not to.

I've actually started over with the new book. Now that I know it's not the violent, vulgar sadism that I wanted, I can be a little more patient with the text. I've just been in the mood for something repulsive lately...

^ I unfortunately agree. The cases in the news clippings/italics are fascinating and some of them I haven't heard about, but from what I've read so far of Sotos's text, there hasn't really been anything that made feel awe-inspired or that made me lose my breath like in Comfort & Critique, for example. Still grateful to have a any kind of new text by him, though.
@RUG, on what pages are the mentions of the camgirls encounters?

I don't remember offhand, I can try to track down the reference later if you want to jump right to them but I recommend reading through it for the full effect. Also, the combination of the camgirl commentary being one of the many recurring themes along with the clipping discussion/memoirs/masturbatory sections that run together and there being no straightforward organization (at least in terms of identifiable chapters etc.) makes it harder to recall in sequence. If you're hoping for something really deviant though don't get too excited, I only mentioned because it caught me off guard.

Too bad the book isn't doing it for you guys, I liked it quite a lot. I can see how it wouldn't be as interesting if you want really cruel Sotos, for "decoding" the man its significantly more frank than his other work (though I haven't read Comfort & Critique, Show Adult, or Lordotics) and I'm less interested in the sadism than I am the rest of it anyway. If you prefer later Sotos I'd be surprised if Ingratitude wasn't satisfying.

No, no -- don't get me wrong. I am certainly not one of the people who like Pure's Sotos (oh god), nor am I looking for bits of "sadism". I must confess I've always had issues with the all-over-the-place aspect of his writing; as you said, a lot of it is about "decoding" him, which is sometimes fascinating and sometimes merely confusing and headache inducing. That said, I own and have read almost anything and everything by him and he is, in my opinion, one of the most fascinating people on this planet and someone whom I'd be thrilled to be a friend of, or at least meet once.

So, as I said, part of the reason I "put up" with (although I don't really like framing it this way) his jumbled/often very vague writing is because once there IS, in fact, a certain insight, sentence or even a mere usage of one specific word that makes me feel awestruck, I feel like it's so damn worth it. And so far it didn't "do" it for me, which I am very sad about. Yesterday night I encountered a bit about camgirls which I found interesting, but still.

I think it'd be great if we could indeed discuss specific sections of the text, which is something people almost never do online with his works. Perhaps it could help me appreciate Ingratitude more.

Quote from: bitewerksMTB on August 31, 2018, 08:46:14 PM
Sure hope they make the decision to reprint OOP titles. They would be stupid not to.

I wonder how much of this is on the part of Sotos. There's that interview where he says he'd rather have not had Tool reprinted and he clearly dislikes Pure, as well as the inclusion in Lordotics of passages from past books that were "particularly irksome memories". Obviously the later writing is quite different but who knows? Typical of many artists that they're rarely satisfied with past work, but I'd love to get my hands on the Waitress stuff, Show Adult, the pieces that were exclusive to the Collected volumes, etc.

I found Ingratitude to be pretty slow going and certainly not an immediate favorite, but like most of his books, I'll be revisiting it and likely soon. Outside of the newspaper bookends, some of the most interesting parts to me were the comparison of child pornography law to the ill-fated MacKinnon/Dworkin ordinances and the way it circumvents obscenity law's prohibition on distribution but not possession, picking apart the motivation of the school shootings at Nickel Mines and Platte Canyon, and the usual autobiographical bits like the aforementioned camgirl sessions or his talking about I Spit on Your Grave. I have the same problem that crops up with all his work since Lordotics where I end up having trouble orienting myself within the text, but unlike Mine or Desistance where I enjoyed getting lost in the mire, this one felt really exhausting especially by the last half. In a way it reminds me of my reaction to Predicate and how it felt like a detour from what was being developed in the books beforehand.

As a side note, the big list of sources on the back is a plus. I picked up the William E Jones Tearoom publication which is a fascinating and somber document.

Yesterday before bed I encountered this part which struck a chord with me and I thought was beautiful.
http://rottencakes.tumblr.com/post/177689168766/most-personal-quote-to-me-so-far-out-of

So it was me and not an idea.

Is there anyone else who HASN'T received theirs yet?

(https://i.imgur.com/3yPLUxJ.jpg)

Just picked up Total Abuse for the lowest price I have ever seen it. Read most of this shit before, but you know. It was cheap. Pure, Tool & Parasite are incredibly cringey, and at times, downright awful. Nonetheless, an important collection that does have some merit, albeit not much re-visitation value other then for general reference: years, dates, names, etc.

On the other hand, Selfish, Little is the single most important piece he has wrote that I have read. This fucking thing will most likely go down as his magnum opus after all is said and done, I hope. Signed, first edition hardcover. If you need a copy of the softcover, I have that as well, please message me as I would love to trade it for a copy of Mine or something I have not read yet.

Quote from: xerographia on September 20, 2018, 11:19:28 PM
Pure, Tool & Parasite are incredibly cringey, and at times, downright awful. Nonetheless, an important collection that does have some merit, albeit not much re-visitation value other then for general reference: years, dates, names, etc.

I disagree. His entire work is important as far as development and chronology is concerned. I revisit Tool often as there is some amazing craft skill and clever humanity in those stories despite their reputation as invariably brutal with little intention otherwise - the section on Danny Bridges/Larry Eyler is one of his finest moments, flat out ("He said he seemed ('no offense') like his clients"). He wouldn't do something so specific today. He already had his start by Parasite, a lot of which ended up in Special, which gets knocked a lot but is also revealingly observant - "oh, so you didn't pay for no conversation, huh?" Pure is of course embarrassing to him more than any reader but we wouldn't have any of this had it not been published. Anecdotal cross-reference value alone warrants heavy revisitation, that's one of the things that typifies his writing.

The merit I find in it lays specifically in that very notion- of seeing just how far he has come. I just don't see myself revisiting it on that note alone. But I hear what you are saying.

I was happy to see that the formatting was different in Total Abuse than the original layout of Pure as well as Parasite. I know Peter wasn't a fan of Jim's decision to lay it out in an almost newspaper style format, as well as James' decision to lay Proxy out in a similar manner, but holy hell is it easier on my eyes.

How did you feel about the last chapter of Tool? I thought that might be the best part of the book.

"What kind of man would do such a bestial thing? It's impossible to feel pity or sympathy toward such a person, isn't it? I think it's because they live another kind of existence-one where people don't matter and feelings don't belong."

I think such quotes are Sotos in a nutshell, in the best possible way. It's truly what differentiates him from any other writer of our generation; it's not the subject matter but the tone and attitude.
He sums up in one sentence what I always feel like when I see thousands of violent comments on news articles about a horrifying attack on a child, for example.

As I said before, I find his references to camgirls in Ingratitude  especially interesting (being a former one myself).
What's with camgirls being our modern day prostitutes (WELL... of some sorts), it would be interesting if he'd one day devote an entire book just for description of/and musings about it.

Sometimes I encounter certain porn vids or cam rooms, in particular, which make me so damn curious to imagine what Sotos would make of.
Yesterday night on Chaturbate the most popular room was this one petite Russian girl with two beautiful (in a Jean Genet characters kind of way, if that makes sense) Russian men. The room was fluorescent-lit with ugly, minimal furniture and they all looked out of their mind high, but mostly extremely bored. Nobody really managed to get hard, and still 35,000 people were in the room, watching. I wish so bad I could understand Russian just to understand what they were mumbling within themselves over there. I don't know, it was fascinating to me. It always is.

Sorry for the rambling.

Ingratitude is a colder and more guarded and defensive text than Mine or Desistance. Fewer glimpses of private fallibility like the stomach troubles and booze-free dry spell and quality time spent with Altamont festival tapes (Mine, a still astonishing passage). Or the affair with the wife while thinking of the husband (highly mischievous section of Desistance). Camgirls confessions didn't open up that much. I could hate him for comparing or proxying himself as a victim of pornography wars to actual child abuse cases like the ones quoted at length, then you think, well, he's giving them their voice. In a truly perverse kind of way.

Very much the Predicate as opposed to the surrounding Selfish Little and Comfort & Critique for this decade. For me the one-off Show Adult stands as his very best work. But then, Neil Young Year of the Horse, opening heckle: "It all sounds the same"/"It's all one song". The new book is the same song as ever, and no one else at all is doing this stuff, and I raced through reading it with great enjoyment.

Endpapers with long-withheld materials highly related to early Pure writings (Eyler, Bridges, Gecht) and the similar shape and size to Total Abuse made me think of it as a last book. My first is in my last. Just delighted he is still writing and being published.

I agree on Show Adult, its my favorite too.

Seems like some of you guys didn't like MINE or at least wouldnt rate it as highly as most of his other work? MINE was one of my favorites of Sotos, probably my second favorite book overall, took about 3 passes but they were worth it, so i dont know what to make of some of these opinions on Ingratitude.

Quote from: RyanWreck on August 31, 2019, 08:22:50 AM
I agree on Show Adult, its my favorite too.

Seems like some of you guys didn't like MINE or at least wouldnt rate it as highly as most of his other work? MINE was one of my favorites of Sotos, probably my second favorite book overall, took about 3 passes but they were worth it, so i dont know what to make of some of these opinions on Ingratitude.

I think MINE is one of his most interesting books. I rate Show Adult very highly too.

Mine was a trudge to get through for me. I read it coming off of Selfish, Little which I thought was amazing.

I loved Mine, and definitely liked reading it more than Ingratitude. Lazy has easily been my favorite of his, with Selfish, Little or Predicate coming close

Quote from: xerographia on September 20, 2018, 11:19:28 PM
(https://i.imgur.com/3yPLUxJ.jpg)

Just picked up Total Abuse for the lowest price I have ever seen it. Read most of this shit before, but you know. It was cheap. Pure, Tool & Parasite are incredibly cringey, and at times, downright awful. Nonetheless, an important collection that does have some merit, albeit not much re-visitation value other then for general reference: years, dates, names, etc.

On the other hand, Selfish, Little is the single most important piece he has wrote that I have read. This fucking thing will most likely go down as his magnum opus after all is said and done, I hope. Signed, first edition hardcover. If you need a copy of the softcover, I have that as well, please message me as I would love to trade it for a copy of Mine or something I have not read yet.

Been waiting to find a reasonably priced copy forever...Paypal ready if you feel like sliding into my PMs son

Quote from: absurdexposition on August 31, 2019, 06:33:11 PM
Mine was a trudge to get through for me. I read it coming off of Selfish, Little which I thought was amazing.

Mine was a slog for me as well, although for that reason it's what I'd most like to re-read so I can see whether or not I can enjoy it some more the second time around, although it'll have to wait til after I actually bother cracking Ingratitude open.

Only got the files too- saved them some years back.... a lot of internet history got wiped when yahoo did that.

I remember seeing those types of photos on the old newsgroups- but that was some 20 years ago....

Thanks for that- very useful.

Quote from: theotherjohn on February 16, 2020, 04:05:25 PM
"Recent posts from # petersotos are currently hidden because the community has reported some content that may not meet Instagram's community guidelines."

As someone who has zero interest and quite a lot of distaste for Sotos' works (as an author, not as a "musician"), I feel like this might be a good place to retain some credibility while asking this question: how long can this "community guidelines" bullshit go on? Granted, pornography and entertainment doesn't necessarily have that much to do with "free speech" per se, but convention, recent history and various court rulings have determined that they actually do, so how is this even happening? More importantly, why isn't some form of "neutral" free speech platform arising?

Are the mainstream alternative scenes all now so obscenely useless and non-offensive that they can't even grasp the theoretical value of free speech? It is extremely strange to me that every single initiative in these matters is always "far right" in nature - or at least only attracts that kind of people - and consequently turns to shit (sorry to say so, but if anyone is offended I believe James Mason shared the assessment in Siege, so relax). Is everyone except "literal nazis" fine with billionaires determining exactly what can and cannot be said/done/discussed online? Considering the ever widening, ever more arbitrary and ever more conflicting nature of "community guidelines" style private censorship, one would think this is an issue which should be worry people enough to provoke a reaction. Preferably one with some kind of insane, government Dorrnie-Trumpers-Commie-Fascist legislation/firing squad, but more realistically simply one with the boring free market doing its boring free thing and establishing a few functioning alternatives to the social media giants (as well as PayPal and such). It would really be quite easy; a nice interface, ban any form of personal attacks on individuals, implement absolute political free speech and add an on/off switch for "adult" stuff like verbal obscenity and PRESTO - the village square is restored.

Quote from: Yrjö-Koskinen on February 16, 2020, 11:33:37 PMIt would really be quite easy; a nice interface, ban any form of personal attacks on individuals, implement absolute political free speech and add an on/off switch for "adult" stuff like verbal obscenity and PRESTO - the village square is restored.

I think places like this forum fit that bill, at least for discourse. It's still just a matter of sniffing around. It isn't easy to find forums one can be oneself on, but then it never was.

Quote from: Andrew McIntosh on February 17, 2020, 03:20:43 AM
I think places like this forum fit that bill, at least for discourse. It's still just a matter of sniffing around. It isn't easy to find forums one can be oneself on, but then it never was.

Definitely, but this is a freak occurrence owing to the fact that this odd music style of ours is one of very few "open" forms of art, while remaining on the outskirts of even outskirt discourse. This has created a situation in which any ideological orientation becomes at least temporarily subordinate to the sound at hand. It forces a certain type of esprit de corps. I believe it was Voltaire who said: "I may  hate your political views, in fact I think you should be fucking strangled for even entertaining them if you ever were to contribute to their implementation, but we do have the same retarded taste for audio recordings of someone violating gasoline containers, so I'll at least read your bullshit." A subaltern version of George Soros and the Koch brothers hanging out on the same cocktail party, if you will.

Once again: I think it would be both financially viable and "socially responsible" to create a major social media site based on the principles I delineated in my last post. Not that it will happen anyway, and it may well be that the entire notion of "global communication" online is inherently flawed and absolutely awful.  At least as long as it is based on anything else than simplifying contact within ultra-specific, "special interest" communities.

(as a post-script, the Soros/Koch cocktail party I made up appear to have existed and been a surprisingly decent affair, after all: https://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2019/06/30/soros-and-koch-brothers-team-end-forever-war-policy/WhyENwjhG0vfo9Um6Zl0JO/story.html)

Does anybody have a scan for whatever interview Sotos gave where he discusses Pierre Guyotat and his work? I feel like he mentions the pronunciation of Guyotat's Eden Eden Eden as resembling a machine gun, if that rings any bells. Or if anyone at least knows who/what published the interview, I'd appreciate it.

I would have sworn a user sent me a scan of it on here years ago, but my inbox says otherwise (unless it was on the Stench forums...before the wipe).

Quote from: simulacrum on April 30, 2020, 02:47:07 AM
Does anybody have a scan for whatever interview Sotos gave where he discusses Pierre Guyotat and his work? I feel like he mentions the pronunciation of Guyotat's Eden Eden Eden as resembling a machine gun, if that rings any bells. Or if anyone at least knows who/what published the interview, I'd appreciate it.

I would have sworn a user sent me a scan of it on here years ago, but my inbox says otherwise (unless it was on the Stench forums...before the wipe).

Hopefully this link works. It was from a German publication, I think?

https://imgur.com/a/aML6iss

Quote from: rocksoff on April 30, 2020, 07:36:06 PM

Quote from: simulacrum on April 30, 2020, 02:47:07 AM
Does anybody have a scan for whatever interview Sotos gave where he discusses Pierre Guyotat and his work? I feel like he mentions the pronunciation of Guyotat's Eden Eden Eden as resembling a machine gun, if that rings any bells. Or if anyone at least knows who/what published the interview, I'd appreciate it.

I would have sworn a user sent me a scan of it on here years ago, but my inbox says otherwise (unless it was on the Stench forums...before the wipe).

Hopefully this link works. It was from a German publication, I think?

https://imgur.com/a/aML6iss

Thanks for sharing this, the portion at the end about the blending of subject and object was really interesting.

Quote from: rocksoff on April 30, 2020, 07:36:06 PM

Quote from: simulacrum on April 30, 2020, 02:47:07 AM
Does anybody have a scan for whatever interview Sotos gave where he discusses Pierre Guyotat and his work? I feel like he mentions the pronunciation of Guyotat's Eden Eden Eden as resembling a machine gun, if that rings any bells. Or if anyone at least knows who/what published the interview, I'd appreciate it.

I would have sworn a user sent me a scan of it on here years ago, but my inbox says otherwise (unless it was on the Stench forums...before the wipe).

Hopefully this link works. It was from a German publication, I think?

https://imgur.com/a/aML6iss

Yeah, that's it, thank you!

A few years ago Tumblr was pretty open (and with a leftish bent instead of a rightish one), but once Yahoo bought them out, the party was over.

I get the impression that most of the really open discussion these days happens in private Discord and Slack. It's like the old BBS days.

I've briefly used Discord for chatting with friends over the lockdown but haven't even considered using it to join any outside groups. I'm not really a fan of apps/websites/chatrooms where you have to be Extremely Online (Discord, 4/8chan, Telegram, even Instagram etc) for FOMO. This forum, though archaic, is more to my pace. Re: open discussion, I find that the forfeit for that is a closed identity and when that entails exaggerated avatars or roleplaying like you see on the edgier/darker sides of the internet, I just zone out. Thankfully, most of the users on this forum seem to still exist in the real world (maybe not so much some of the newer posters who have appeared on here recently...) and you can still put a name or face to them, and chat one-to-one with them like reasonable human beings.

Going back to Sotos, I dug out these links to two interviews that used to be posted on the Void Books website:

https://web.archive.org/web/20040825185425/http://www.void-books.com/peter_sotos_interview.asp
https://web.archive.org/web/20061107084311/http://void-books.com/peter_sotos_interview2.asp

I've been meaning to comb through the saved messages I have for the old Yahoo group and organise the important bits into a timelined document or a bibliography of sorts whenever I have a spare minute. There's got to be some interview links in there that are no longer online but are hopefully available on the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine?

Oh, and I'm still looking to buy/trade for the first three Collected Volumes in hardback with their Waitress supplements if anyone is willing to part with their copies... message me!

Thanks for digging up those links. I ran across this old Geocities interview awhile back, not Sotos at his most enlightening, but hey, for completionism's sake...
https://web.archive.org/web/20050114142401/http://www.geocities.com/garbagedumpit/PeterSotos_interview.htm

Quite a few French interviews floating around as well, some of which were translated and included in a few of the Waitress volumes, I think?

Another archived Sotos interview, this time from the Mr Skin website (of all places) to promote Pure Filth: https://web.archive.org/web/20120701095259/http://blog.mrskin.com/peter-sotos-the-mr-skin-skinterview-pics---14593

There's an article/interview by Andreas Falkenberg in the magazine Natt & Dag, but unfortunately it's all in Norwegian: https://issuu.com/nattogdag/docs/2011-mai-oslo.pdf (would love to read an English translation). An earlier issue had Dennis Cooper interviewed by the same author, and Sotos gets namechecked a few times. Unfortunately, a mugshot of Levi Bellfield is used in place of a photo of Sotos (I never could quite figure out why his photo was prominent on the front page of the Peter Sotos Moderated yahoo group).

Someone on Steve Albini's Electrical Audio forum interviewed PS for a college class on censorship, but as I'm not a member there I've not got a copy of it (I believe some of the questions and answers make up part of the text of Mine, if the cover of the 9BB edition is to be trusted). Another interview I'd like to read in full...

On an unrelated note, some time ago I reread some bits of Selfish, Little and the P. Sex text in the first Waitress regarding how Peter first got hold of *that* magazine that ultimately got him charged with possession following his arrest, and whilst he doesn't outright mention the name of who it was that sent him it, he offers enough generous clues to suggest who it could have been... send your answers on a postcard/private message!

John, the Natt & Dag interview in English is Part of the Last waitress supplement which was 60 Extra pages of the Mine hardcover edition from 2011, so is the censorship interview.If anybody need that I can provide copies. Also nice to see that someone was willing to shell out 199 pounds for a zerox copy of a waitress supplement recently.
Finally I reread the bodyguard text as well as the foreword to the Frank Bauer exhibition catalogue which were both kind of neglected texts cause hard to get a hold of.
Funny that you mentioned the magazine story if my memory serves me right the guy you mean got bad karma since he was arrested in return for a copy a Pure II after the whole thing blew up.

Does anyone have and can share the video of Sotos reading from Selfish, Little - at the subTonic Lounge in NYC, 2004 - which was uploaded on the (now defunct) Void Books website?

Archive of that site around that time: http://web.archive.org/web/20041216162854/http://www.void-books.com/
And for what it's worth here's the defunct link straight to the video file: http://void-books.com/img/psv1.mp4

Thanks.

I remember a long time ago seeing a video online of him doing a reading, which involved him showing a clip from a porn series - of some fella who'd made a hobby out of sucking off "straight" military types for money, I think? I can't remember was it the same reading as the 2012 Pompidou reading, available on their site and youtube, or another reading entirely. But I take it that's the one you mean.

Either way, if you could share that, that would be great. Would like to see it again.

I'm crippling my bank balance on a huge Sotos reading binge at the moment, and I'm not very well.. I've just finished reading MINE, which along with TICK I'd say is him at his best. I doubt he's ever been compared to Samuel Beckett before.. but I see a lot of affinity between these two books in particular (more so MINE) and The Unnameable / How It Is-era Beckett than any other writer brought up in relation to his work.

Funny That you mentioned Beckett, Jamie Gillis got Peter into Beckett. I think it is obvious when you Look at Mine or Ingratitude.

For those curious, Pete is seemingly alive and well, as his latest literary output comes in the form of a quick Q&A he conducts with Ms. Mikita Brottman in the afterword of 82189: Confessions Of A Prison Bitch. She serves as the editor and commentator for the posthumous memoir from an inmate going by the pen name Henry Bellows. In typical Sotos fashion, we find our Chicago native poking and prodding the mind of the editor for answers that he selfishly wants to revel in more than actually discussing the topic at hand. Gotta love his commitment. I believe this piece of work is still available from Nine Banded Books, but I am having trouble accessing their site right now from my phone for whatever reason to confirm this.

(https://i.ibb.co/cJRz6c9/IMG-3243.png)

Still need to order that myself, along with the two Isabelle Nicou books released by Amphetamine Sulphate that Sotos had a small part in. I suspect he lays low these days given his online notoriety in recent years, or perhaps for other reasons.

I actually recently did a trade with someone for some very interesting Sotos rarities, though I'm hesitant to spill the beans publically as to what specifically these things are. And prior to his passing, Simon also traded with me a rarity of a similar nature. Legal material, obviously. Interested parties who I trust from past interactions can inquire further if curious.

Oh shit, new Sotos! Instagram post from Philip Best: https://www.instagram.com/p/CTLE2xJpKZT/

And Nine Banded Books: https://twitter.com/NineBandedBooks/status/1432085588400766980

This will be a good week for fans of Sotos.

Quote from: theotherjohn on August 30, 2021, 07:18:07 AM
Oh shit, new Sotos! Instagram post from Philip Best: https://www.instagram.com/p/CTLE2xJpKZT/

And Nine Banded Books: https://twitter.com/NineBandedBooks/status/1432085588400766980

This will be a good week for fans of Sotos.

Exciting, but when the publisher themselves warn you about the price it's concerning...

It's looking like a collaboration with Lionel Maunz, who is a contemporary fine artist. I'm guessing there will be some mondo pricey artist edition alongside a regular? I guess we'll see on Friday !

Quote from: Eigen Bast on September 01, 2021, 07:58:24 PM
It's looking like a collaboration with Lionel Maunz, who is a contemporary fine artist. I'm guessing there will be some mondo pricey artist edition alongside a regular? I guess we'll see on Friday !

Well, it's gonna be an art book with high-quality photos, so it seems there is only gonna be one expensive edition released. They havent announced anything else at least.

I pestered Chip and Philip about the book and they kindly confirmed with me some details which hopefully they won't mind me sharing in advance.

It will be an 8.5x11" hardcover at 330 pages, with a full novel-length text and 160 or so colour illustrations of Lionel's artwork. Pre-orders open this Friday and then it'll take 6-8 weeks for the books to return from the printers (I think they're using one recommended by Timeless, so it definitely won't be a disappointing Creation Books effort). Both Peter and Lionel intend to meet up to sign all the copies once they're done, and then all orders will steadily begin to ship out - hopefully just in time for Christmas.

With all that said, the book itself will retail for $100. I would say that's reasonable for both a combined Sotos text and what I assume will be an artist monograph (Lionel's first, no less), executed to the highest standard at considerable production cost. Both AS and 9BB are going all out and stepping their game up with this release, so I'm definitely going to get one. Hell, if it's cost effective, I may purchase several copies again (like I've done before for Desistance and Ingratitude) for people on this forum to purchase direct from me.

It really does feel like a return to the mid-2000s again, when Void Books took a risk in producing fine quality archival publications, instead of common trade paperbacks. Paperbacks have their place certainly, but I think this one will be most deserving of this presentation.

And another thing that the mid-2000s brought was the unearthing of Sotos rarities through the dedicated Peter Sotos Yahoo Group. Well, that group is no more and I suppose this forum thread has succeeded that for sharing news and gossip, so I'll mention this rarity here: the 2001 Mark Hejnar film 'Proxy', featuring Peter Sotos. This was previously shown as part of Chicago's underground film festival 'Z Fest' and recently I discovered the festival organiser had uploaded a Best Of compilation (with little fanfare) that includes it. You can watch 'Proxy' here, at the 40 minute mark: https://vimeo.com/401685855

thanks for the insight, sounds fantastic.

Pre-orders are now up on both publisher's websites - only book orders received before the official publication date in December will be signed by Lionel and Peter.

Pick your poison:

http://www.ninebandedbooks.com/bandedbooks/lionel-maunz-peter-sotos/
https://amphetaminesulphate.bigcartel.com/product/lionel-maunz-peter-sotos

AS's Bigcartel is charging $157 per copy for shipping to the UK. Not sure yet if a wholesale price is available or a shipping discount for multiple copies.

Are you going to be picking up multiple copies for UK distro like you did with the previous Sotos release?

There is a new interview with Thomas Moore by Peter Sotos on Dennis Coopers blog about his new novel Forever: https://denniscooperblog.com/please-welcome-to-the-world-forever-by-thomas-moore-amphetamine-sulphate/

I find this interview and the one he did for "Confessions of a Prison Bitch" almost comical because the people he interviews seem baffled by what he is trying to ask and he seems to adopt an almost pseudo-intellectual or absurd academic language when asking.   

Quote from: Dodgson on September 05, 2021, 07:54:36 PM
I find this interview and the one he did for "Confessions of a Prison Bitch" almost comical because the people he interviews seem baffled by what he is trying to ask and he seems to adopt an almost pseudo-intellectual or absurd academic language when asking.   

I honestly can't blame them. The way he himself writes certain paragraphs/entire pages of his books (and I own the majority of them) read like "absurd academic" language to me and sometimes I don't know what to make of it.

I will still buy anything that he writes, though, which sucks for me, cause the latest is gonna cost me around $160, as I've checked.

It kinds of kills my initial joy and excitement from the book itself, not gonna lie. Although the A24 Euphoria 8-volume set cost me (ok, my boyfriend) about $250 earlier this year, so that's better, but still...

Quote from: endors_toi on September 09, 2021, 04:42:05 AM

I honestly can't blame them. The way he himself writes certain paragraphs/entire pages of his books (and I own the majority of them) read like "absurd academic" language to me and sometimes I don't know what to make of it.

I will still buy anything that he writes, though, which sucks for me, cause the latest is gonna cost me around $160, as I've checked.

It kinds of kills my initial joy and excitement from the book itself, not gonna lie. Although the A24 Euphoria 8-volume set cost me (ok, my boyfriend) about $250 earlier this year, so that's better, but still...

I read his work more like art or fiction that anything else - however autobiographical or not - at least in form, almost poetic with its use of syntax. Like Deleuze & Guattari I get the sense it's meant to be read feverishly, like porn, and not like theory or nonfiction.

wtf would you buy the A24 Euphoria 8-volume set?

Quote from: Dodgson on September 11, 2021, 01:19:01 AM

Quote from: endors_toi on September 09, 2021, 04:42:05 AM

I honestly can't blame them. The way he himself writes certain paragraphs/entire pages of his books (and I own the majority of them) read like "absurd academic" language to me and sometimes I don't know what to make of it.

I will still buy anything that he writes, though, which sucks for me, cause the latest is gonna cost me around $160, as I've checked.

It kinds of kills my initial joy and excitement from the book itself, not gonna lie. Although the A24 Euphoria 8-volume set cost me (ok, my boyfriend) about $250 earlier this year, so that's better, but still...

I read his work more like art or fiction that anything else - however autobiographical or not - at least in form, almost poetic with its use of syntax. Like Deleuze & Guattari I get the sense it's meant to be read feverishly, like porn, and not like theory or nonfiction.

wtf would you buy the A24 Euphoria 8-volume set?

Because I like it, and wanted to. I vehemently apologize for it not being worthy of syntax analysis nor an opportunity to namedrop French philosophers on an online board. ♡

Here is the list of reference work for the upcoming Sotos/Maunz book that was published by Philip & Chip
approved by Peter and Lionel on fb & insta, so far 18 titles :

Sabine Dardanne - I choose to live
R.D. Laing - the politics of the family
E.M. Cioran - the trouble with being born
Wensley Clarkson - Vanessa portrait of evil
Martin Duberman - Andrea Dworkin: the feminist as revolutionary
Sarah T. Roberts - behind the screen, content moderation in the context of Social media
Vanessa Place - you had to be there, Rape Jokes
Philip Larrat-Smith - Louise Bourgeois, Freud's Daughter
Bruce M. Achauer - Burn Reconstruction
Ernst Jünger - on pain
Jean Paul Sartre - Saint Genet
John Borneman - cruel attachments
Rebecca Barrett-Fox - god hates
Henry Scott Stokes - the life and death of Yukio Mishima
Mark Matthews - The Horseman
Stephen O'Shea - the perfect heresy
Paul Kaihla and Ross Lever - savage messiah
David Sylvester - interviews with Francis Bacon

Movies:
Robert Glinski - Piggie
Peter Robinson - Asylum

Quote from: deakin on September 29, 2021, 02:08:03 PM
Here is the list of reference work for the upcoming Sotos/Maunz book that was published by Philip & Chip
approved by Peter and Lionel on fb & insta, so far 11 titles :

Sabine Dardanne - I choose to live
R.D. Laing - the politics of the family
E.M. Cioran - the trouble with being born
Wensley Clarkson - Vanessa portrait of evil
Martin Duberman - Andrea Dworkin: the feminist as revolutionary
Sarah T. Roberts - behind the screen, content moderation in the context of Social media
Vanessa Place - you had to be there, Rape Jokes
Philip Larrat-Smith - Louise Bourgeois, Freud's Daughter
Bruce M. Achauer - Burn Reconstruction
Ernst Jünger - on pain
Jean Paul Sartre - Saint Genet

Very well done. Thank you for that. I only recall seeing the Sabine Dardanne one and getting shivers down my spine.

I can hardly wait, really. Anybody knows of any source with good coverage regarding Lionel?

For Lionel Maunz info: https://bureau-inc.com/artists/lionel-maunz/works
I guess the Mark Matthews book should be mentioned here as it was quoted as
major influence on his work: The Horseman,Obsessions of a Zoophile, Prometheus, 1994
it's hard to find and pricy
Sotos and Maunz first met in 2009 when both participated in the Mirror Me exh. in NY put together by
Brandon Stousy. Sotos has mentioned him in several books.
His work stands out in my opinion not because he uses material like iron, concrete or steel which are handled quite originally but how he creates space. Giacometti comes to mind when looking at his work cause he did in some of his earlier work invent these cages. Maunz takes it to another level with some almost furnace look a like half closed structures with the figure inside. the figures he presents are almost always fragmented or otherwise disfigured sometimes with horse references. His sculpture work pre 2013 is different using a variety of materials including human teeth and bones.
His graphite drawings are very different to his sculptures. Though figurative but surreal and visceral themed.
The cover for the upcoming book with Sotos is a part of the work Mother My Body Disgusts Me from 2016
Here is an interview from the same year: https://www.interviewmagazine.com/art/lionel-maunz-fealty
There is a portrait triptych that he did in graphite featuring a picture of a pedophile from desistance.

Quote from: deakin on September 29, 2021, 02:08:03 PM
Here is the list of reference work for the upcoming Sotos/Maunz book that was published by Philip & Chip
approved by Peter and Lionel on fb & insta, so far 12 titles :

Sabine Dardanne - I choose to live
R.D. Laing - the politics of the family
E.M. Cioran - the trouble with being born
Wensley Clarkson - Vanessa portrait of evil
Martin Duberman - Andrea Dworkin: the feminist as revolutionary
Sarah T. Roberts - behind the screen, content moderation in the context of Social media
Vanessa Place - you had to be there, Rape Jokes
Philip Larrat-Smith - Louise Bourgeois, Freud's Daughter
Bruce M. Achauer - Burn Reconstruction
Ernst Jünger - on pain
Jean Paul Sartre - Saint Genet
John Borneman - cruel attachments

Nice to see Cioran still being read.

Got really excited seeing the pictures of the first copies up on Twitter. Looking hefty indeed.

Waiting til December sucks.

Lionel Maunz Peter Sotos is now sold out from Amphetamine Sulphate, however Nine Banded Books may still have a handful of copies for sale. I've only ordered a single one for myself (at very short notice from 9BB) as I didn't get a reply from Philip re: buying multiples. Here's a picture of Lionel and Peter signing the books courtesy of Amphetamine Sulphate's Twitter.

(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FCGZEzRXEAY9f8L.jpg)

Did anyone see/snag the signed manuscript of Tool. that was sold on eBay.com earlier this month? Listing here: https://www.ebay.com/itm/185073749842. Really wish I got a notification for that!

Here is the updated reference list:

Sabine Dardanne - I choose to live
R.D. Laing - the politics of the family
E.M. Cioran - the trouble with being born
Wensley Clarkson - Vanessa portrait of evil
Martin Duberman - Andrea Dworkin: the feminist as revolutionary
Sarah T. Roberts - behind the screen, content moderation in the context of Social media
Vanessa Place - you had to be there, Rape Jokes
Philip Larrat-Smith - Louise Bourgeois, Freud's Daughter
Bruce M. Achauer - Burn Reconstruction
Ernst Jünger - on pain
Jean Paul Sartre - Saint Genet
John Borneman - cruel attachments
Rebecca Barrett-Fox - god hates
Henry Scott Stokes - the life and death of Yukio Mishima
Mark Matthews - The Horseman
Stephen O'Shea - the perfect heresy
Paul Kaihla and Ross Lever - savage messiah
David Sylvester - interviews with Francis Bacon
William E. Jones - True homosexual experiences
Steven Toushin - the destruction of the moral fabric of America
Rupert Goldsworthy - consuming terror
Eileen Ormsby - The Darkest Web: Drugs, Death and Destroyed Lives
Susan Curtiss - Genie
Hubert Klocker - Otto Muehl: Works 1956–2010

Movies:
Robert Glinski - Piggies
Peter Robinson - Asylum
Frank Vitale - Montreal Main
William Rotsler - the agony of love

Quote from: theotherjohn on October 20, 2021, 09:07:58 PM
Lionel Maunz Peter Sotos is now sold out from Amphetamine Sulphate, however Nine Banded Books may still have a handful of copies for sale. I've only ordered a single one for myself (at very short notice from 9BB) as I didn't get a reply from Philip re: buying multiples. Here's a picture of Lionel and Peter signing the books courtesy of Amphetamine Sulphate's Twitter.

(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FCGZEzRXEAY9f8L.jpg)

Did anyone see/snag the signed manuscript of Tool. that was sold on eBay.com earlier this month? Listing here: https://www.ebay.com/itm/185073749842. Really wish I got a notification for that!

9BB still has copies.  I just ordered mine.

Quote from: endors_toi on October 16, 2021, 08:25:47 PM
Got really excited seeing the pictures of the first copies up on Twitter. Looking hefty indeed.

Waiting til December sucks.

It looks like these are shipping already, at least from Amphetamine Sulfate.

Is that so?! How do you know?

I got mine from nine banded, international shipping... don't think it's going to be anytime near haha.

But, yeah, for the people who have any news whatsoever, please do share.

Phil has just been posting a few pics on his twitter of folks who have received copies (including someone in the UK); I was also emailing with Chip at Nine Banded over the weekend and it sounded like he was otw back from ATX, assuming his copies will start shipping soon.

Quote from: Eigen Bast on November 08, 2021, 08:07:31 PM
Phil has just been posting a few pics on his twitter of folks who have received copies (including someone in the UK); I was also emailing with Chip at Nine Banded over the weekend and it sounded like he was otw back from ATX, assuming his copies will start shipping soon.

When I ordered from 9BB, I received a notification from him that he will ship in early December.  But earlier would be great too!

Me too. I asked Chip if there's any chance it would be earlier, but he said most likely not. So FYI, anybody who ordered from nine banded.

According to 9BB Twitter, copies are being sent out:

https://twitter.com/NineBandedBooks/status/1459257650848440323

https://twitter.com/NineBandedBooks/status/1458843683407601672

any impressions so far? It's rapidly approaching on my "to read" pile. Utterly gorgeous presentation

It is, in fact, gorgeously, deliciously designed.

I am, however, 20 something pages in, and I'm underwhelmed by the text, which I didn't expect. It manages to both confuse me and make me feel kinda empty/unsatisfied at the same time.

But there are plenty more pages, and of course I will read it all. I wonder how other people are feeling, cause so far the only mentions of it I saw online are about the art/design of the book.

Still waiting on my copy from 9BB. In the meantime, Dennis Cooper's Blog has a spotlight on the book with page excerpts and the collected photos of all of Peter and Lionel's respective inspirations that were shared through social media: https://denniscooperblog.com/please-welcome-to-the-world-lionel-maunz-peter-sotos-amphetamine-sulphate-nine-banded-books/

If anyone didn't get Peter's previous book Ingratitude, hit me up as I have a couple of copies squirreled away that I may be willing to sell for the right price. I see that one sold on eBay recently for just shy of $300 - impressive!

Quote from: endors_toi on December 09, 2021, 01:51:02 AM
It is, in fact, gorgeously, deliciously designed.

I am, however, 20 something pages in, and I'm underwhelmed by the text, which I didn't expect. It manages to both confuse me and make me feel kinda empty/unsatisfied at the same time.

But there are plenty more pages, and of course I will read it all. I wonder how other people are feeling, cause so far the only mentions of it I saw online are about the art/design of the book.

Still underwhelmed? I found it pretty good. Not as good as "the early stuff" but still pretty good. Ignoring the somewhat bland art of Maunz, the text is classic recent Sotos. Maybe not as good as Ingratitude, but close.

Lionel Maunz Peter Sotos (I assume that is how they would like the book to be titled?) was the first Sotos that I read, and I liked it quite a bit.  It felt like something that would become more meaningful/interesting with multiple readings.  While there were a few sections where the discussion of the art was rather explicit, much of the book seemed like it was just dwelling on/circling around a collection of themes, ideas, and images related to Maunz's artwork (from Sotos' perspective at least).

The art, of course, was fantastic on its own.

The one thing that I personally think would have added a lot to the book, now that I think of it, would have been an interview with Maunz conducted by Sotos - but maybe that would have been a bit too direct for what they were aiming for.

So how indicative is this book of Sotos' general style as a writer?

Quote from:  BalorSo how indicative is this book of Sotos' general style as a writer?

I'd read all of Sotos' previous books before reading it - with the sole exception of Show Adult, I've never been able to get a copy of - and from the 2010s on Sotos' work is getting more cryptic/abstruse and dense, and far less extreme; an elegiac, depressing quality seeping in to boot. Not a criticism, just an observation. I see parallels with Samuel Beckett, with books of his like The Unnamable and How It is, more than any other writer, with this later era Sotos. And Lionel Maunz Peter Sotos certainly carries on in that direction. To me the late-1990s to mid-2000s work like Lazy, Tick, Comfort & Critique and the underrated Predicate are the height of his powers: in terms of experimentation (bizarre structuring), his prowess as a writer, the nightmarish and nauseating quality. But I'm glad he's mellowed out somewhat since, and gone in a relatively different direction, rather than repeating himself..

The problem I did have with Lionel Maunz Peter Sotos though (to contradict myself that I'm glad Sotos isn't repeating himself) is quite a portion of it is constituted of copied-and-pasted passages from his previous books - something I don't think he's ever done before, with perhaps the exception of Lordotics if I remember correctly? Such as the anecdote about his father's queer bashing - taken from Predicate - and his taking up smoking in gay bars - taken from Comfort & Critique. And various sex scenes, lifted wholesale too. I suppose there's an argument to be made he's "revisiting haunted themes from his previous work, placed in a new context", or whatever, but to me it seemed more like a lazy attempt to pad out the word count. Which is a bit out of order considering the price of the book, if you're not a Lionel Maunz fanatic at least. That said, I do think Sotos has it in him to do a William Burroughs Dead Fingers Talk-esque unalloyed collaging together and revisiting of his previous work in a book.. If this was it, it wasn't too great an attempt.. Though some of the newly-written text was quite brilliant, particularly the opening pages.. And I imagine a reread will be more rewarding..

Quote from: Grimpin on May 08, 2022, 07:43:29 PM

Quote from:  BalorSo how indicative is this book of Sotos' general style as a writer?

I'd read of all of Sotos' books before reading it - with the sole exception of Show Adult, I've never been able to get a copy of - and from the 2010s on Sotos' work is getting more cryptic and abstruse, far less extreme; a elegiac, depressing quality seeping in to boot. Not a criticism, just an observation. I see parallels with Samuel Beckett, with books of his like The Unnamable and How It is, more than any other writer, with this later era Sotos. And Lionel Maunz Peter Sotos certainly carries on in that direction. To me the late-1990s to mid-2000s work like Lazy, Tick, Comfort & Critique and the underrated Predicate are the height of his powers: in terms of experimentation (bizarre structuring), his prowess as a writer, the nightmare quality. But I'm glad he's mellowed out somewhat since, and gone in a relatively different direction, rather than repeating himself..

The problem I did have with Lionel Maunz Peter Sotos though (to contradict myself that I'm glad Sotos isn't repeating himself) was quite a portion of it constituted of copied-and-pasted passages from his previous books - something I don't think he's ever done before, with perhaps the exception of Lordotics if I remember correctly? Such as the anecdote about his father's queer bashing - taken from Predicate - and his taking up smoking in gay bars - taken from Comfort & Critique. And various sex scenes, lifted wholesale too. I suppose there's an argument to be made he's "revisiting haunting themes from his previous work, placed in a new context", or whatever, but to me it seemed more like a lazy attempt to pad out the word count. Which is a bit out of order considering the price of the book, if you're not a Lionel Maunz fanatic at least. That said, I do think Sotos has it in him to do a William Burroughs Dead Fingers Talk-esque unalloyed collaging together and revisiting of his previous work in a book.. If this was it, it wasn't too great an attempt.. Though some of the newly-written text was quite brilliant, particularly the opening pages.. And I imagine a reread will be more rewarding..

Thanks for this.  I recently gained access to some of Sotos' earlier books, so I will have to read those soon for a better sense of comparison.

It is interestion that you mention the repetition.  I assumed when I was reading Lionel Maunz Peter Sotos that the only quotations were the sections written in italics, but maybe that was only sources by other authors.

It has been a while now since I last opened the book, but I agree that going through it again will prove more interesting that the first time around.

I feel like I am missing something really obvious, but was this Sotos' book "about" an artist?  I know that he did a book with the Kiddiepunk guy a while ago, but my understanding was that that was more like a text/art pairing rather than a commentary.

Quote from: Balor/SS1535
It is interestion that you mention the repetition.  I assumed when I was reading Lionel Maunz Peter Sotos that the only quotations were the sections written in italics, but maybe that was only sources by other authors.

I think that's what made the passages of brute self-plagiarisation quite interesting in Maunz Sotos. He wasn't "quoting" these passages or putting them in italics. He was outright copying and pasting chunks of his previous writing, from books written around fifteen years ago, with no obvious reference or declaration he was. Like I said, the most cynical way of looking at it is he was dry of inspiration and was trying to fill up the word count, to hoodwink the people who hadn't read these previous books (within his loyal 500-person-strong fanbase or whatever). Though I suspect (hope) more was going on..

QuoteI feel like I am missing something really obvious, but was this Sotos' book "about" an artist?  I know that he did a book with the Kiddiepunk guy a while ago, but my understanding was that that was more like a text/art pairing rather than a commentary.

Desistance (2015) can be considered a companion piece to Maunz Sotos, more than Home, in that that book is ostensibly all about the work of the photographer Antoine D'Agata - but in fact just a springboard for Sotos to go on a wild goose chase inside his own obsessions (albeit the most sexless book he's penned so far), occasionally returning to the fulcrum.

I think that "missing something really obvious" feeling is an essence of Sotos' work. There's always that aura of mystery you'll never really pin down, or his motives, if he even has any.. Though like I said in my first message this cryptic feeling is getting more pronounced in his later work. Probably that missing-something-obvious factor is a few screws inside Sotos' head!

edit.

Quote from: Grimpin on May 09, 2022, 05:53:53 AM

Quote from: Balor/SS1535
It is interestion that you mention the repetition.  I assumed when I was reading Lionel Maunz Peter Sotos that the only quotations were the sections written in italics, but maybe that was only sources by other authors.

I think that's what made the passages of brute self-plagiarisation quite interesting in Maunz Sotos. He wasn't "quoting" these passages or putting them in italics. He was outright copying and pasting chunks of his previous writing, from books written around fifteen years ago, with no obvious reference or declaration he was. Like I said, the most cynical way of looking at it is he was dry of inspiration and was trying to fill up the word count, to hoodwink the people who hadn't read these previous books (within his loyal 500-person-strong fanbase or whatever). Though I suspect (hope) more was going on..

QuoteI feel like I am missing something really obvious, but was this Sotos' book "about" an artist?  I know that he did a book with the Kiddiepunk guy a while ago, but my understanding was that that was more like a text/art pairing rather than a commentary.

Desistance (2015) can be considered a companion piece to Maunz Sotos, more than Home, in that that book is ostensibly all about the work of the photographer Antoine D'Agata - but in fact just a springboard for Sotos to go on a wild goose chase inside his own obsessions (albeit the most sexless book he's penned so far), occasionally returning to the fulcrum.

I think that "missing something really obvious" feeling is an essence of Sotos' work. There's always that aura of mystery you'll never really pin down, or his motives, if he even has any.. Though like I said in my first message this cryptic feeling is getting more pronounced in his later work. Probably that missing-something-obvious factor is a few screws inside Sotos' head!

On of the things that struck me about Lionel Maunz Peter Sotos is that the "title" of the book does not make a clear distinction between title and author.  To me, that means that it can be read as either (or simultaneously) Lionel Maunz by Peter Sotos or Peter Sotos by (or illustrated by) Lionel Maunz.  If you take the latter of the two options, then it makes sense that Sotos would include direct quotations of his own work.  Maunz was inspired by Sotos' previous books, not this one clearly, so it makes sense that to understand Sotos' connection to Maunz we have to look back at his older writings.

The "missing something obvious" was less an interpretation of his writing on my part, than an "I feel like he wrote another book about an artist, but am forgetting the title."  But I nevertheless find your analysis interesting.  I didn't get any sense of mystery from reading the most recent book, but that might just be due to my lack of experience with his writing.  If anything, my first impression was a lack of mystery, a certain sense of carnal familiarity with his subject matter that does not warrent explicit description.

I will have to seek out more information about his book on D'Agata now!

https://amphetaminesulphate.bigcartel.com/product/b-missed-better-still-b-br-peter-sotos

Just went on sale today.

Quote from: Pius on September 24, 2022, 08:39:38 PM
Just went on sale today.

Thanks!  Just got my copy.

Since nobody posted anything regarding Missed. Better Still.
Collecting material from nearly all of his books (leaving out Tool & Special and Maunz/Sotos)
plus texts that came exclusively with the Collected Peter Sotos series issued by
Creation books in 2009/2010. The short waitress section is comprised of excerpts from
the 4 issues that came with the limited hardcover editions of aforementioned collected series.
Complete to this compendium are only the Home, the perfect Jason Swift and the Crows texts (the perfect Jason Swift comes with the artwork that was in the collected series, Home is text only like Crows missing the xeroxed personal ads and catalogues etc.)
The book also features artwork from Kept (filming children) and a 15 page excerpt from Indulging Children
from the same volume. This however is labeled incorrectly as Missing Children (which is the 35 page text that concludes Kept.

Quote from: deakin on December 30, 2022, 01:26:36 PM
Since nobody posted anything regarding Missed. Better Still....

I haven't gotten around to reading yet - arrived a few days ago - but I really like how regardless of the contents page each excerpt isn't titled, so you can plough on regardless congealing it all into some stand-alone thing, if you so wish...That and the fact I've never read any of these pieces included as addendas in The Collected Peter Sotos volumes, which will be new to me. I wrote in a previous message, before this book was announced, that I think Sotos has it in him to pull off a William Burroughs Dead Fingers Talk-esque thing (if which he threw in a pot four or five of his previous books, and created something new), and this looks like it's likely that, judging by having a skim through..

Interested to see what he does next, if he stays alive much longer. As this book seems like a full stop. Rainer Werner Fassbiner once said, in response to criticism about some of his films being so similar: "I hope to build a house with my films. Some of them are the cellar, some are the walls, and some are the windows. But I hope in time there will be a house." Sotos has certainly been building house too for about forty years..

The only other thing I'd bother to mention - before reading it - is it's interesting he notably left out Special for inclusion (the earlier more over-the-top, juvenile stuff is understandable). I say that's my favourite book of his, if i had to pick. Best to keep it untouched I suppose! Said the actress to the Bishop.

edit.

It's interesting to hear that the book contains some complete texts, as it was marketed as if it was entirely works in excerpt.  While I do like the idea of not having any marking indicating which books the chapters come from (aside from the table of contents), I still think it would have been nice to include at least some bibliographic information---even just as an appendix.  I had never really read Sotos aside from the book on Maunz, so some of that would be important to me.

The only real complaint that I have about the book (I love the writing, his style is genius) is the cover art.  I'm not sure how I feel about it.  It seems to lack the crude cut-up-ness of the collages included in the book, more digital-looking than anything.

(Also, let's face it, it was pretty expensive for what we actually got in terms of physical book quality.)

Quote from: Balor/SS1535 on December 31, 2022, 07:11:09 PM
The only real complaint that I have about the book (I love the writing, his style is genius) is the cover art.  I'm not sure how I feel about it.  It seems to lack the crude cut-up-ness of the collages included in the book, more digital-looking than anything.

Yeah thought the same when I first saw it as advertised for pre-sale - some half-arsed photoshop job, almost a Sotos parody - but it's warmed on me a bit seeing it in physical reality. I prefer the brute simplicity of covers like the Creation-published Index, and especially the Void-published Comfort and Critique, and of course the Jim Goad published Total Abuse compendium (I dread to think the source). And The Collected Peter Sotos covers are fantastic too. It seemed to go downhill a bit, cover-wise, with Nine Banded Books... see: Ingratitude for a particularly dire job.. Though I love the Nine Banded Books re-issued Mine cover, one of the best!

I'm never usually that bothered about book cover art, at all, but when I'm effectively crippling my bank balance for a book it's at least worth thinking about..

Quote from: Grimpin on January 01, 2023, 04:02:20 AM

Quote from: Balor/SS1535 on December 31, 2022, 07:11:09 PM
The only real complaint that I have about the book (I love the writing, his style is genius) is the cover art.  I'm not sure how I feel about it.  It seems to lack the crude cut-up-ness of the collages included in the book, more digital-looking than anything.

Yeah thought the same when I first saw it as advertised for pre-sale - some half-arsed photoshop job, almost a Sotos parody - but it's warmed on me a bit seeing it in physical reality. I prefer the brute simplicity of covers like the Creation-published Index, and especially the Void-published Comfort and Critique, and of course the Jim Goad published Total Abuse compendium (I dread to think the source). And The Collected Peter Sotos covers are fantastic too. It seemed to go downhill a bit, cover-wise, with Nine Banded Books... see: Ingratitude for a particularly dire job.. Though I love the Nine Banded Books re-issued Mine cover, one of the best!

I'm never usually that bothered about book cover art, at all, but when I'm effectively crippling my bank balance for a book it's at least worth thinking about..

I really like the simple covers too, personally---especially the hardback version of Pure Filth and the volumes of collected works.  If Missed.  Better still. had a scan of a physical collage of the same materials for the cover rather than what appears to be a digital collage, then I would like it more.  Never mind the lack of a summary or anything on the back.

Given it was a reprint and I own most of what is in it already I passed on thios one... from the recent comments here that sounds like a good decision

I suspect that Best had his reasons for pricing it high but I hope it doesn't continue as a pattern, otherwise it'll be like the Creation Books ltd editions fiasco all over again...

Damn, I completely missed out on "Missed". Are any copies still available anywhere? Do dm me if you want :)

Try asking Chip at Nine Banded Books as he might get some spare copies, it was listed in the Future Releases section on his website.

Worth checking 9BB if it was listed there, but AS and 9BB have had upcoming titles cross over to one or the other by time of publication in the past, so the mention of it forthcoming might just be old news before AS picked it up if that's the case.

There was no wholesale as per Sotos' request, so it won't be popping up in any distros.

Quote from: absurdexposition on January 06, 2023, 05:04:25 AM
There was no wholesale as per Sotos' request, so it won't be popping up in any distros.

I've always wondered whether the limited editions of his books was due to the lack of a market for them or deliberate to make them more rare.  Does this mean that Sotos purposely limits the publication runs/distribution?

Quote from: Balor/SS1535 on January 06, 2023, 05:56:53 AM

Quote from: absurdexposition on January 06, 2023, 05:04:25 AM
There was no wholesale as per Sotos' request, so it won't be popping up in any distros.

I've always wondered whether the limited editions of his books was due to the lack of a market for them or deliberate to make them more rare.  Does this mean that Sotos purposely limits the publication runs/distribution?

Personally I would have thought it related to 'flying under the radar' where fanatics can get the books, but also avoids a glut of extra copies floating around getting into the hands of the easily 'offended'. No idea of the truth of that though. Only a thought of mine.

That is what he told several years ago. Couple emails were sent back and forth. Due people asking his books all the time (including this one), I mentioned to him why not bigger print run like in old days (Creation books), so stuff could be distributed wider. He has no interest for wider distribution due reasons re:evolution mentions above. I think when you miss one book, you know that in future one must be following news as it is likely you'll have to do direct order from publisher, in advance. That's the only way.

As frustrating as that might be, it does make some sense.  I still don't see why that would necessarily mean that periodic, limited reprints shouldn't happen, though.

Quote from: re:evolution on January 06, 2023, 08:30:36 AM

Quote from: Balor/SS1535 on January 06, 2023, 05:56:53 AM

Quote from: absurdexposition on January 06, 2023, 05:04:25 AM
There was no wholesale as per Sotos' request, so it won't be popping up in any distros.

I've always wondered whether the limited editions of his books was due to the lack of a market for them or deliberate to make them more rare.  Does this mean that Sotos purposely limits the publication runs/distribution?

Personally I would have thought it related to 'flying under the radar' where fanatics can get the books, but also avoids a glut of extra copies floating around getting into the hands of the easily 'offended'. No idea of the truth of that though. Only a thought of mine.

Thinking about it more, would it really damage his, I guess, artistic integrity to get a wider distribution/produce higher print runs at this point?  Thanks to the Internet, the most shocking details of his writing are widely available, and anyone can quickly discover what he is "known" for through Wikipedia or some similar site.  In other words, limited distribution doesn't seem to have camouflaged him in recent years.  I sort of doubt that anything other than a book deal with a major publisher would really change his stature?

Quote from: Balor/SS1535 on January 06, 2023, 06:43:22 PM

Quote from: re:evolution on January 06, 2023, 08:30:36 AM

Quote from: Balor/SS1535 on January 06, 2023, 05:56:53 AM

Quote from: absurdexposition on January 06, 2023, 05:04:25 AM
There was no wholesale as per Sotos' request, so it won't be popping up in any distros.

I've always wondered whether the limited editions of his books was due to the lack of a market for them or deliberate to make them more rare.  Does this mean that Sotos purposely limits the publication runs/distribution?

Personally I would have thought it related to 'flying under the radar' where fanatics can get the books, but also avoids a glut of extra copies floating around getting into the hands of the easily 'offended'. No idea of the truth of that though. Only a thought of mine.

Thinking about it more, would it really damage his, I guess, artistic integrity to get a wider distribution/produce higher print runs at this point?  Thanks to the Internet, the most shocking details of his writing are widely available, and anyone can quickly discover what he is "known" for through Wikipedia or some similar site.  In other words, limited distribution doesn't seem to have camouflaged him in recent years.  I sort of doubt that anything other than a book deal with a major publisher would really change his stature?

I guess my thoughts on this have nothing to do with 'damage to reputation', as Sotos could hardly fare worse if someone did some basic Google searching on him.

Rather, my view is that low print runs may be a tactical one, given it would be extremely difficult (if nigh on impossible) to create a 'cancel culture response' for 'controversial' books which are simple not visible/widely available/immediately sold out.

I also assume Sotos may have a dim view of the number of readers who would really 'get' him, which may also result in low print runs.

But again, I am only spit balling on this, and have no 'insider knowledge' on this either.

Quote from: re:evolution on January 08, 2023, 01:16:50 AM

Quote from: Balor/SS1535 on January 06, 2023, 06:43:22 PM

Quote from: re:evolution on January 06, 2023, 08:30:36 AM

Quote from: Balor/SS1535 on January 06, 2023, 05:56:53 AM

Quote from: absurdexposition on January 06, 2023, 05:04:25 AM
There was no wholesale as per Sotos' request, so it won't be popping up in any distros.

I've always wondered whether the limited editions of his books was due to the lack of a market for them or deliberate to make them more rare.  Does this mean that Sotos purposely limits the publication runs/distribution?

Personally I would have thought it related to 'flying under the radar' where fanatics can get the books, but also avoids a glut of extra copies floating around getting into the hands of the easily 'offended'. No idea of the truth of that though. Only a thought of mine.

Thinking about it more, would it really damage his, I guess, artistic integrity to get a wider distribution/produce higher print runs at this point?  Thanks to the Internet, the most shocking details of his writing are widely available, and anyone can quickly discover what he is "known" for through Wikipedia or some similar site.  In other words, limited distribution doesn't seem to have camouflaged him in recent years.  I sort of doubt that anything other than a book deal with a major publisher would really change his stature?

I also assume Sotos may have a dim view of the number of readers who would really 'get' him, which may also result in low print runs.

I think there is truth to everything that you are saying.  If books only go to fans, it would be near-impossible to censor them.

I find your point about Sotos' view of his readers especially interesting, though, because it is not something that I had considered before.  Even though the content of his books is so base, there is still a lot of elitism underlying and motivating his commentary.

Quote from: theotherjohn on January 05, 2023, 10:45:51 PM
Try asking Chip at Nine Banded Books as he might get some spare copies, it was listed in the Future Releases section on his website.

How do I reach Chip?

He runs Nine Banded Books. Email him.

Thanks. Hoping to hear back from him.

Are there any recent pictures of Sotos apart from the Lionel Maunz signing?

My thoughts on the latest print run is that it was "what it needed to be" at the time--that being the logic. The book was listed for sale by the publishers for a month, which were all advanced orders. It never 'sold out' during that time. Thus, the publishers determined the print run by the advance sales.

Quote from: MyrtleLake on January 10, 2023, 08:18:53 PM
My thoughts on the latest print run is that it was "what it needed to be" at the time--that being the logic. The book was listed for sale by the publishers for a month, which were all advanced orders. It never 'sold out' during that time. Thus, the publishers determined the print run by the advance sales.

If my memory is correct, I think Best said that during the lead-up to preorders.

Guess I missed my chance. Unless anyone has a spare copy? No reply from Chip.

New Sotos book was just announced by Philip Best AS
Obviates
Define reality by using the vocabulary of those who need to sell you something, convince you that they deserve your lunch money, since they've figured out what everybody else, all of you like them, wants. Words are nonexistent, unreliable, insufficient. Hope is everything that doesn't stop. It hurts physically. Lets you mistake airy thoughts for wishes and needs. Puts you in place, makes you feel time. Sales is the real hole you push into with anything other than your cock. Until you decide to make the object even prettier. Prove all of them as wrong as you were before you were able to admit

It's Predicate & Show Adult plus extra stuff from Pete's archives.

I am hoping for another pre-order this time around.

Quote from: deakin on May 16, 2023, 05:24:38 PM
New Sotos book was just announced by Philip Best AS
Obviates
Define reality by using the vocabulary of those who need to sell you something, convince you that they deserve your lunch money, since they've figured out what everybody else, all of you like them, wants. Words are nonexistent, unreliable, insufficient. Hope is everything that doesn't stop. It hurts physically. Lets you mistake airy thoughts for wishes and needs. Puts you in place, makes you feel time. Sales is the real hole you push into with anything other than your cock. Until you decide to make the object even prettier. Prove all of them as wrong as you were before you were able to admit

It's Predicate & Show Adult plus extra stuff from Pete's archives.

so 2/3s of it is what we have already....

Best said on Facebook that the preorder will be up in 4 weeks or so.

Quote from: cantle on May 18, 2023, 06:28:46 PM

Quote from: deakin on May 16, 2023, 05:24:38 PM
New Sotos book was just announced by Philip Best AS
Obviates
Define reality by using the vocabulary of those who need to sell you something, convince you that they deserve your lunch money, since they've figured out what everybody else, all of you like them, wants. Words are nonexistent, unreliable, insufficient. Hope is everything that doesn't stop. It hurts physically. Lets you mistake airy thoughts for wishes and needs. Puts you in place, makes you feel time. Sales is the real hole you push into with anything other than your cock. Until you decide to make the object even prettier. Prove all of them as wrong as you were before you were able to admit

It's Predicate & Show Adult plus extra stuff from Pete's archives.

so 2/3s of it is what we have already....

Not all of us, though!

Great news! For me at least, what with Show Adult being the only Sotos book I've never been able to get hold of. Here's hoping it's the original text and not some sort of newfangled mash-up with Predicate. And that Amphetamine Sulphate charge a reasonable price this time!

I recently ordered - it's on its way in the post - a book of photography/art by Frank Bauer, published in 2001. Which includes a text by Sotos. Almost no information about this out there. The Susan Lawly Whitehouse website announced at the time: "OCTOBER 24 2001. SOTOS 'FRANK B' TEXT. An extended new text by Peter Sotos is featured in the book of paintings by German artist Frank Bauer published by Galerie Voss. www.kunstmarkt.com or email vossgallery@t-online.de" I'll give an update, or even scan the Sotos piece, if anyone's interested, on receiving it.

Scans would be very welcome- thanks

Quote from: Grimpin on May 22, 2023, 01:57:39 PM
Great news! For me at least, what with Show Adult being the only Sotos book I've never been able to get hold of. Here's hoping it's the original text and not some sort of newfangled mash-up with Predicate. And that Amphetamine Sulphate charge a reasonable price this time!

I recently ordered - it's on its way in the post - a book of photography/art by Frank Bauer, published in 2001. Which includes a text by Sotos. Almost no information about this out there. The Susan Lawly Whitehouse website announced at the time: "OCTOBER 24 2001. SOTOS 'FRANK B' TEXT. An extended new text by Peter Sotos is featured in the book of paintings by German artist Frank Bauer published by Galerie Voss. www.kunstmarkt.com or email vossgallery@t-online.de" I'll give an update, or even scan the Sotos piece, if anyone's interested, on receiving it.

Is the book still available from the publisher, or did you get it secondhand?  (I would appreciate a scan as well, if it's not too much trouble!)

Quote from: Balor/SS1535 on May 22, 2023, 06:50:30 PM
Is the book still available from the publisher, or did you get it secondhand?  (I would appreciate a scan as well, if it's not too much trouble!)

I ordered it second-hand from abebooks.co.uk from a German seller. Came to £30 inc. postage overall (maybe $35-40). Looks like you can order it direct from the publisher/gallery here: https://www.galerievoss.de/main/kataloge/kataloge_details.php?picdetail=1&kataloge_id=30&pic_id_s=125&pix=1&langs=deu&langs=eng. Being a German publication, there is a possibility they've translated Sotos' text into German though! I'll soon find out anyway.

Weird, I've had a secondhand copy sitting in my Abebooks shopping cart for a while too, so you've given me the nudge to go ahead and buy it (unless it's a duplicate listing in error).

Last thing I got was the Mirror Me zine that Primary Information released in 2010 which is OOP from them but maybe still available elsewhere. It's printed on newspaper and the deadstock copy I have is already yellowed and frayed. Just a couple of newspaper collage scans from Sotos which I'm certain are in Ingratitude already. There's no contents or numbered pages, nor are any of the featured works/artists mentioned or named in the zine itself, so I really wouldn't go out of your way to get it. Fortunately, I ended up getting a full refund from the Amazon seller due to it taking so long to arrive.

https://primaryinformation.org/product/mirror-me/

Obviates is not on the Amphetamine website yet?

Quote from: Dodgson on June 11, 2023, 12:48:39 AM
Obviates is not on the Amphetamine website yet?

The last update stated that pre-orders will be open towards the end of the month, as they're still fine-tuning some of the details.
I wish there was a better way to keep updated than instagram

Obviates is up for pre-order: https://amphetaminesulphate.bigcartel.com/product/b-obviates-b-br-peter-sotos

Edit: Thanks all for your interest, have placed an order. See message below.

https://amphetaminesulphate.bigcartel.com/product/b-obviates-b-br-peter-sotos

Obviates is getting deleted from the AS catalogue very shortly at the author's request, so I would HIGHLY suggest ordering sooner rather than later from the Bigcartel page (no sales are possible via email, other payment means or from other distributors).

I have now ordered and paid for 7 copies for myself and the handful of UK buyers who had expressed prior interest via PM in paying for a lower distributed cost - once the copies are in my hands I will confirm UK postage, request the total payment amount and dispatch them to people. I cannot meet extra demand now but in case someone drops out I will consider other interested parties.

My copy of Obviates was marked as posted today via USPS tracking. Or the shipping label was printed at least. I'll finally get to read Show Adult then, God help me I suppose.

Just letting you all know the ball's rolling, if you haven't received the email yet, as as far as I can see there's been no announcement on any of Amphetamine Sulphate's social media pages re: shipping commencement.

I'm sure PB has his hands busy currently with packaging up X amount of Obviates. He's probably swimming in cardboard mailers, shipping labels and packaging tape.

Quote from: theotherjohn on August 24, 2023, 03:15:57 AMI'm sure PB has his hands busy currently with packaging up X amount of Obviates. He's probably swimming in cardboard mailers, shipping labels and packaging tape.

Here's to hoping he gets a move on, then!

Does anyone think Sotos will be write another book, proper? I'd love for him to go silent now - re: new material - for about five years or so then write a really plaintive book aged 70, about sitting alone amongst his newspaper clippings, in his Chicago apartment, and writing about everyday mundane details of his life, revealing a side of him we've never seen before. I'm hoping he develops a bone-fide obsession with cats too (or a similar creature) - a la William Burroughs in his elderly years - which gives him a bit of genuine cheer and joy, away from the blatant hell of humanity. Just to take the edge off, before the great calamity strikes.

History will be treat him kindly. Definitely one of the most talented and fearless artists in operation. Though of course he's unreadable for most people right now. Fuck 'em.

Quote from: Grimpin on August 30, 2023, 03:47:49 AMDoes anyone think Sotos will be write another book, proper? I'd love for him to go silent now - re: new material - for about five years or so then write a really plaintive book aged 70, about sitting alone amongst his newspaper clippings, in his Chicago apartment, and writing about everyday mundane details of his life, revealing a side of him we've never seen before. I'm hoping he develops a bone-fide obsession with cats too (or a similar creature) - a la William Burroughs in his elderly years - which gives him a bit of genuine cheer and joy, away from the blatant hell of humanity. Just to take the edge off, before the great calamity strikes.

History will be treat him kindly. Definitely one of the most talented and fearless artists in operation. Though of course he's unreadable for most people right now. Fuck 'em.

I'm hoping that he will at least release an art book-style edition of all the Waitress material plus additional clippings/collages from his archives.  Infinity Land Press, why have you not made this a reality?

I received my copy of Obviates today. Excellent design and layout by Chip Smith. The newspaper clippings I've never encountered before, or at least they're not in Ingratitude I think.

The first book I'm aware of where the author's name isn't credited anywhere, on the covers or therein. Not even on the copyright page. The (alleged!) conman extraordinaire James "Havoc" gets a thank you, quite rightly. An attempt by Sotos to efface himself and just let the work speak for itself, or what?!

It's up to a similar thing as Missed Better Still too, where there's a deliberate attempt to blur the work into one. Not even a contents page here, to delineate the two books. Though I can confirm Predicate is in full, comparing it to the Creation Books release. And Show Adult commences page 275.

I'd assume the "1." prefacing the title means this will be the first in the line of Amphetamine Sulphate Sotos rerelease compendiums. Due to the price, I'll only been purchasing more if they're of books I don't have physical copies of already. The extra newspaper clippings aren't worth it. I'd probably be tempted if there is new/unreleased written material included.

Quote from: Grimpin on August 31, 2023, 02:35:23 AMI received my copy of Obviates today. Excellent design and layout by Chip Smith. The newspaper clippings I've never encountered before, or at least they're not in Ingratitude I think.

The first book I'm aware of where the author's name isn't credited anywhere, on the covers or therein. Not even on the copyright page. The (alleged!) conman extraordinaire James "Havoc" gets a thank you, quite rightly. An attempt by Sotos to efface himself and just let the work speak for itself, or what?!

It's up to a similar thing as Missed Better Still too, where there's a deliberate attempt to blur the work into one. Not even a contents page here, to delineate the two books. Though I can confirm Predicate is in full, comparing it to the Creation Books release. And Show Adult commences page 275.

I'd assume the "1." prefacing the title means this will be the first in the line of Amphetamine Sulphate Sotos rerelease compendiums. Due to the price, I'll only been purchasing more if they're of books I don't have physical copies of already. The extra newspaper clippings aren't worth it. I'd probably be tempted if there is new/unreleased written material included.

Interesting.  The self-effacement sounds like an interesting development of his self-loathing.

Best mentioned on Facebook that he is hoping to make this a series of reissues, but that nothing is set in stone.  It sounded like Sotos was still on the fence about it.

A new Peter Sotos book is around the corner to be published by Nine Banded Books, titled Kee MacFarlane. From Twitter/X (https://twitter.com/NineBandedBooks/status/1727375656819048503):

_{Here's the cover spread for an upcoming 9BB release that may be of interest to some of you. The galleys are expected to arrive in about a week, and it should be available for purchase by early December. It's an extrapolative study of Vanessa Place's art. Brilliant, in my opinion.}

(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/F_jcY2pXIAAEZ8I?format=jpg&name=large)

Quote from: theotherjohn on November 23, 2023, 03:15:28 AMA new Peter Sotos book is around the corner to be published by Nine Banded Books, titled Kee MacFarlane. From Twitter/X (https://twitter.com/NineBandedBooks/status/1727375656819048503):

_{Here's the cover spread for an upcoming 9BB release that may be of interest to some of you. The galleys are expected to arrive in about a week, and it should be available for purchase by early December. It's an extrapolative study of Vanessa Place's art. Brilliant, in my opinion.}

(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/F_jcY2pXIAAEZ8I?format=jpg&name=large)

Came here to post the same thing.  Looking forward to this.

Already sold out?

https://www.ninebandedbooks.com/shop/future-realeses/kee-macfarlane/

Quote from: Balor/SS1535 on December 20, 2023, 08:42:29 PMAlready sold out?

https://www.ninebandedbooks.com/shop/future-realeses/kee-macfarlane/

I'm almost certain that's just an error, as as stated on the page too: it doesn't go on sale until boxing day.

No idea how quickly the 200 copies will sell out though! First day I imagine?.. He must surely have a few more than 200 fans (350 perhaps?!) That plus the mere $25 price tag to boot, as opposed to usual bank crippling prices which I'm sure put some people off the recent AS releases.

I've emailed Chip re: International postage and am awaiting a reply back. If he's okay with me buying multiple copies, I'll be happy to do that if it saves ££ for potential UK buyers. Just hoping I don't miss out on the Sotos x 9BB drop before the other hypebeasts get there first.

Quote from: Grimpin on December 20, 2023, 10:00:57 PM

Quote from: Balor/SS1535 on December 20, 2023, 08:42:29 PMAlready sold out?

https://www.ninebandedbooks.com/shop/future-realeses/kee-macfarlane/

I'm almost certain that's just an error, as as stated on the page too: it doesn't go on sale until boxing day.

No idea how quickly the 200 copies will sell out though! First day I imagine?.. He must surely have a few more than 200 fans (350 perhaps?!) That plus the mere $25 price tag to boot, as opposed to usual bank crippling prices which I'm sure put some people off the recent AS releases.

Crap, I just realized you were right!  There is still hope for me yet.

An extremely indepth and exhaustively researched Spanish language article about Peter Sotos, with particular regard to his music/audio credited work, was published just recently on the Argentinian website Metacultura and can be found here:

Música - Pornografía: La faceta sonora de Peter Sotos (http://metacultura.com.ar/pornografia/) (Google translate does an ample job rendering it into English)

The authors Matías Bragagnolo and Mauricio Tomassetti have succeeded very well with correlating his history and recorded work into a readable and mostly accurate chronological timeline, with indepth biographical information about closely (and loosely) related musical groups to Sotos. They've also done an amazing job with breaking down his audio collages, especially with the subjects featured in them and their histories.

It's up for pre-order now on the Nine Banded Books website, although it seems the website has crashed.

Chip has Xeeted saying he's aware of it: https://twitter.com/NineBandedBooks/status/1739673527962182019

Chip has very kindly emailed me amidst this site crash and he's suggested limiting orders to 2 copies per person given the unexpected attention it's brought onto his website. This scuppers my plans to help distribute copies to other people in the UK for an overall lower price, but given the limited run this is understandable. He said shipping for 2 copies would be $40 to the UK for those who might wish to email him when he's a bit less stressed (I did notice that the PayPal cart when it was working only charged $4 regardless of country and amount, so expect to pay some added difference if ordering from outside the US).

I recommend that people remain patient whilst he gets the technical issues resolved. I'm sure you won't have to resort to eBay scalpers.

That was the worst online ordering experience that I have ever had, but I managed to get a copy in the end.  The checkout page would never complete my order, but somehow Paypal did.  I only received a Paypal receipt, but Chip (very quickly!) confirmed through email that my order was processed.

Now to hope that the book was worth it!

For anyone struggling with the website and don't know this already: send Chip an email with your location and he'll send you a paypal invoice. This is not me being officious, he suggested this himself on his twitter feed. I can't see these 200 copies lasting long if this going on pre-order apparently crashed the bloody website! As theotherjohn said: $40 postage to the UK and I imagine most other international orders will be in the same ballpark, so lucky you if you're in the States.

Finally was able to place my preorder. Now eagerly awaiting the book. Wasn't Kee MacFarlane mentioned in Pure when writing about McMartin preschool trial, I seem to remember he was disappointed when the whole thing turned out to be fake

no answer from publisher since the 27th I supposed no luck this time

I don't know what backlog of emails Chip has to wade through, but there's definitely copies available (just shy of 50) if the Add To Cart button is any indication of stock available.

Quote from: theotherjohn on January 08, 2024, 01:14:51 PMI don't know what backlog of emails Chip has to wade through, but there's definitely copies available (just shy of 50) if the Add To Cart button is any indication of stock available.

aa I could order my copies, but I think there is something wrong with postage. let's see

I think Add To Cart is only for US domestic orders as it's only charging $4 shipping, but I guess Chip could contact you to request additional shipping costs if you went ahead that way. Probably better to stick with email though whilst it's still seemingly available.

Quote from: theotherjohn on January 08, 2024, 02:10:16 PMI think Add To Cart is only for US domestic orders as it's only charging $4 shipping, but I guess Chip could contact you to request additional shipping costs if you went ahead that way. Probably better to stick with email though whilst it's still seemingly available.

well I preordered two copies and sent two mails. sooner or later he will notice me I suppose ahah thanks mate

Does anyone know the origin of this quote that is supposedly from Sotos?

QuoteFurther, I'm obsessed with how language contorts and creates bodies.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Quote from: Balor/SS1535 on January 15, 2024, 10:58:18 PMDoes anyone know the origin of this quote that is supposedly from Sotos?

QuoteFurther, I'm obsessed with how language contorts and creates bodies.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

This interview (https://web.archive.org/web/20041010041010/http://www.void-books.com/peter_sotos_interview.asp) with Void Books, released around the time of Selfish, Little:

Alex Kasavin: You often extract pornographic content from material that most of us find tragic or appalling. Do you believe there's an overt or conscious eroticism in this sort of information?

Peter Sotos: Fuck, I wish.

I think there's a problem with a lot of the reviews I've had in the past. There are those that want me to be seen as a deconstructive commentator or jobbing artist that tries to point out the ugly hypocrisies of contemporary culture. Picking out the prurience and then explaining it to you. I'm not denying that my work may do that. But it is not a focus or something I'm particularly interested in. I've always tried to include transcripts and cuttings and grabs in my work to go much deeper than that. I'm including bits that have extremely personal resonance to me. Further, I'm obsessed with how language contorts and creates bodies. Desperate, seething less-thans. Crawling hopefuls. And, more than that, I create favorites. I'll trust that a lot of you really do find much of this material appalling. Honestly, I try very hard to see that and feel it as well.

Quote from: theotherjohn on January 16, 2024, 01:02:06 AM

Quote from: Balor/SS1535 on January 15, 2024, 10:58:18 PMDoes anyone know the origin of this quote that is supposedly from Sotos?

QuoteFurther, I'm obsessed with how language contorts and creates bodies.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

This interview (https://web.archive.org/web/20041010041010/http://www.void-books.com/peter_sotos_interview.asp) with Void Books, released around the time of Selfish, Little:

Alex Kasavin: You often extract pornographic content from material that most of us find tragic or appalling. Do you believe there's an overt or conscious eroticism in this sort of information?

Peter Sotos: Fuck, I wish.

I think there's a problem with a lot of the reviews I've had in the past. There are those that want me to be seen as a deconstructive commentator or jobbing artist that tries to point out the ugly hypocrisies of contemporary culture. Picking out the prurience and then explaining it to you. I'm not denying that my work may do that. But it is not a focus or something I'm particularly interested in. I've always tried to include transcripts and cuttings and grabs in my work to go much deeper than that. I'm including bits that have extremely personal resonance to me. Further, I'm obsessed with how language contorts and creates bodies. Desperate, seething less-thans. Crawling hopefuls. And, more than that, I create favorites. I'll trust that a lot of you really do find much of this material appalling. Honestly, I try very hard to see that and feel it as well.

Thank you very much---Google was no help in this matter for me.

Quote from: theotherjohn on January 08, 2024, 02:10:16 PMI think Add To Cart is only for US domestic orders as it's only charging $4 shipping, but I guess Chip could contact you to request additional shipping costs if you went ahead that way. Probably better to stick with email though whilst it's still seemingly available.

sorted :))) my two copies are preordered

A very patient and technically apt gentleman is helping me digitize my Sotos collection. Our goal is to create high quality PDFs of all the books not yet available online. We're looking for a few proofreaders to look over the texts before they're released publicly. All of the major texts are in hand and will be done eventually. Currently, we have Show Adult ready for review.

As a supplemental project, I'm working on a PDF which collects tertiary texts, interviews, forewords and the like. Things that I know are missing include any Waitress material not on Soulseek, the Frank Bauer foreword, the Pornocracy afterword, the student interview on censorship, and his correspondence with James Mason (currently held at the University of Kansas). Less common texts which are already covered include Bodyguard, the additional texts from the Collected volumes, and anything from both Timeless editions. If you are unsure how, I can provide instructions to quickly and non-destructively capture high quality images of any material you'd like to contribute.

If you have some time or material to volunteer, or are just curious to see how the project is progressing (I don't want to clog up this thread with further updates or replies), you can PM me here or email me at ruthlessbabysitter@protonmail.com (ruthlessbabysitter@protonmail.com). Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Not sure how Sotos would feel about this, but I suppose it would be inevitable at some point and enough of his work has already slipped out through scans or even leaked print quality pdfs. I only just recently read about his correspondence with Mason via a 4chan post (possibly that you made?) - a photo of them together is in Art That Kills and online.

3 copies left of Kee MacFarlane by the way according to the 9BB website.

What was/ is the Mason connection all about then?

Quote from: RuthlessBabysitter on January 27, 2024, 05:45:34 AMA very patient and technically apt gentleman is helping me digitize my Sotos collection. Our goal is to create high quality PDFs of all the books not yet available online. We're looking for a few proofreaders to look over the texts before they're released publicly. All of the major texts are in hand and will be done eventually. Currently, we have Show Adult ready for review.

As a supplemental project, I'm working on a PDF which collects tertiary texts, interviews, forewords and the like. Things that I know are missing include any Waitress material not on Soulseek, the Frank Bauer foreword, the Pornocracy afterword, the student interview on censorship, and his correspondence with James Mason (currently held at the University of Kansas). Less common texts which are already covered include Bodyguard, the additional texts from the Collected volumes, and anything from both Timeless editions. If you are unsure how, I can provide instructions to quickly and non-destructively capture high quality images of any material you'd like to contribute.

If you have some time or material to volunteer, or are just curious to see how the project is progressing (I don't want to clog up this thread with further updates or replies), you can PM me here or email me at ruthlessbabysitter@protonmail.com (ruthlessbabysitter@protonmail.com). Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Where do you plan to host this collection?

requesting for current updates/ news? i'm so unbelievably out of the loop with current sotos news despite being an obsessive consumer with everything about his work, music, writing, interviews, whatever, i'm infatuated with him- apologies for the begging but i'm kind of desperate for any input around upcoming reissues and publishing (amphetamine sulphate?) etc. also if anyone has a pdf/ scan they'd be willing to share with me for more recent publishings and specifically pure filth? cannot find a pdf online for it at all. i have various news article/ interview scans, pure 1-3, all in the proxy comp, lordotics, selfish little, comfort and critique as pdfs i've found through digging through the internet equivalent of the trash if anyone's after those id be happy to email/ put up somewhere if that's worth anything lol.

This thread is as good a place as any for all current updates/gossip!

Kee MacFarlane is now sold out. Chip of 9BB recently shared on Twitter/X a reading list relating to KM:

https://twitter.com/NineBandedBooks/status/1751537276931178541#m
 (https://twitter.com/NineBandedBooks/status/1751537276931178541#m)(alternatively, use this Nitter link) (https://nitter.cz/NineBandedBooks/status/1751537276931178541)

You Had To Be There: Rape Jokes - Vanessa Place
The Guilt Project: Rape, Morality and Law - Vanessa Place
Rape-Revenge Films: A Critical Study - Alexandra Heller-Nicholas
Allison Unchained: One Woman's Quest to Find Love, Faith, and Forgiveness - Allison Wolf
Most Outrageous: The Trials and Trespasses of Dwaine Tinsely and Chester the Molester - Bob Levin
A Long, Dark Shadow: Minor-Attracted People and Their Pursuit of Dignity - Allyn Walker
Freedom to Fail: Heidegger's Anarchy - Peter Trawny

Quote from: theotherjohn on January 30, 2024, 03:49:59 PMThis thread is as good a place as any for all current updates/gossip!

Kee MacFarlane is now sold out. Chip of 9BB recently shared on Twitter/X a reading list relating to KM:

https://twitter.com/NineBandedBooks/status/1751537276931178541#m
 (https://twitter.com/NineBandedBooks/status/1751537276931178541#m)(alternatively, use this Nitter link) (https://nitter.cz/NineBandedBooks/status/1751537276931178541)

You Had To Be There: Rape Jokes - Vanessa Place
The Guilt Project: Rape, Morality and Law - Vanessa Place
Rape-Revenge Films: A Critical Study - Alexandra Heller-Nicholas
Allison Unchained: One Woman's Quest to Find Love, Faith, and Forgiveness - Allison Wolf
Most Outrageous: The Trials and Trespasses of Dwaine Tinsely and Chester the Molester - Bob Levin
A Long, Dark Shadow: Minor-Attracted People and Their Pursuit of Dignity - Allyn Walker
Freedom to Fail: Heidegger's Anarchy - Peter Trawny

In mentioning books of reference, I can't tell which are Sotos' sources and which are recommended by the publisher.  I'm curious, though, about the book on Heidegger especially.  I don't recall any engagement with Heidegger in the past, on Sotos' part (but that could just be my own ignorance)?

That said, the very fact that this link is now made is very exciting/interesting---it also vindicates a sense that I have had for a long time that Heidegger is probably a better theoretical approach to thinking about what Sotos is doing over other "more obvious" ones (like psychoanalysis or some such thing, which I think will primarily miss the point).

Quote from: Balor/SS1535 on January 30, 2024, 06:46:18 PMIn mentioning books of reference, I can't tell which are Sotos' sources and which are recommended by the publisher.

Chip refers to them as books of relevance, not reference in the Twitter thread I linked to (do try reading via the Nitter link if you're not on X, though with all privacy alternatives these services can be erratic at times). The Heidegger book is one that Chip mentions specifically for his part, but all will be revealed in due time I suppose. I'm looking forward to what Chip has to write, and I'm glad to see him publish an authored work himself (albeit as a tie-in pamphlet). Not sure if he's got any books of his own out there.

I first became aware of Place's work when reading Kenneth Goldsmith's book Uncreative Writing some years ago; he focuses on her professional job and her trilogy Tragodia, a three volume work made up entirely of court transcripts plagiarised (or "repurposed", as Goldsmith would call it) from the sex offender cases she's handled. I wonder if Sotos has read those books too, especially as he's continued to mine (geddit?) similar raw material in his later works?

Quote from: theotherjohn on January 27, 2024, 11:48:08 AMNot sure how Sotos would feel about this, but I suppose it would be inevitable at some point and enough of his work has already slipped out through scans or even leaked print quality pdfs.

If I had any way of knowing that he was strongly opposed to these works being publicly accessible, then I would respect his wishes. Not without raising an eyebrow, of course. Show Adult is on its third printing, with the most recent being (seemingly) print-to-preorder-demand. That kind of hampers the believability of any supposed desire for privacy, by my measure anyways.

Quote from: theotherjohn on January 27, 2024, 11:48:08 AMI only just recently read about his correspondence with Mason via a 4chan post (possibly that you made?)

Not my post, but that is where I first heard about it as well.

Quote from: Balor/SS1535 on January 28, 2024, 02:02:50 AMWhere do you plan to host this collection?

I'll be hosting them on Soulseek and posting them on various private torrent trackers. Additionally, the guy I'm working with will be posting them on LibGen. I'm also happy to email them to any interested parties who can't work their way around the aforementioned services.

Quote from: Balor/SS1535 on January 30, 2024, 06:46:18 PMIn mentioning books of reference, I can't tell which are Sotos' sources and which are recommended by the publisher.  I'm curious, though, about the book on Heidegger especially.  I don't recall any engagement with Heidegger in the past, on Sotos' part (but that could just be my own ignorance)?

That said, the very fact that this link is now made is very exciting/interesting---it also vindicates a sense that I have had for a long time that Heidegger is probably a better theoretical approach to thinking about what Sotos is doing over other "more obvious" ones (like psychoanalysis or some such thing, which I think will primarily miss the point).

I won't pretend to be some theory genius, as fun as that sounds. That said, I don't think he's engaged with Heidegger in the past. The only adjacent writer I can recall him evoking explicitly is Sartre (briefly, in Mine/Kept). Personally, I tend to see Deleuze in all things (who, yes, is in the room with me right now), and Sotos' work is no exception. Psychoanalysis also strikes me as a non-starter here (and everywhere). The thought of an oedipalized Sotos is very funny to me, however.

Quote from: theotherjohn on January 31, 2024, 12:12:10 AM

Quote from: Balor/SS1535 on January 30, 2024, 06:46:18 PMIn mentioning books of reference, I can't tell which are Sotos' sources and which are recommended by the publisher.

Chip refers to them as books of relevance, not reference in the Twitter thread I linked to (do try reading via the Nitter link if you're not on X, though with all privacy alternatives these services can be erratic at times). The Heidegger book is one that Chip mentions specifically for his part, but all will be revealed in due time I suppose. I'm looking forward to what Chip has to write, and I'm glad to see him publish an authored work himself (albeit as a tie-in pamphlet). Not sure if he's got any books of his own out there.

I first became aware of Place's work when reading Kenneth Goldsmith's book Uncreative Writing some years ago; he focuses on her professional job and her trilogy Tragodia, a three volume work made up entirely of court transcripts plagiarised (or "repurposed", as Goldsmith would call it) from the sex offender cases she's handled. I wonder if Sotos has read those books too, especially as he's continued to mine (geddit?) similar raw material in his later works?

Ok, reading the thread now, it definitely looks like it's just Chip's contribution.  Even still, I think it's an interesting direction to take the whole thing.  At this point, I am almost more curious to read Chip's thing than I am the book, just because it felt like an unexpected surprise.

Quote from: RuthlessBabysitter on January 31, 2024, 01:11:18 AM

Quote from: theotherjohn on January 27, 2024, 11:48:08 AMNot sure how Sotos would feel about this, but I suppose it would be inevitable at some point and enough of his work has already slipped out through scans or even leaked print quality pdfs.

If I had any way of knowing that he was strongly opposed to these works being publicly accessible, then I would respect his wishes. Not without raising an eyebrow, of course. Show Adult is on its third printing, with the most recent being (seemingly) print-to-preorder-demand. That kind of hampers the believability of any supposed desire for privacy, by my measure anyways.

Quote from: theotherjohn on January 27, 2024, 11:48:08 AMI only just recently read about his correspondence with Mason via a 4chan post (possibly that you made?)

Not my post, but that is where I first heard about it as well.

Quote from: Balor/SS1535 on January 28, 2024, 02:02:50 AMWhere do you plan to host this collection?

I'll be hosting them on Soulseek and posting them on various private torrent trackers. Additionally, the guy I'm working with will be posting them on LibGen. I'm also happy to email them to any interested parties who can't work their way around the aforementioned services.

Quote from: Balor/SS1535 on January 30, 2024, 06:46:18 PMIn mentioning books of reference, I can't tell which are Sotos' sources and which are recommended by the publisher.  I'm curious, though, about the book on Heidegger especially.  I don't recall any engagement with Heidegger in the past, on Sotos' part (but that could just be my own ignorance)?

That said, the very fact that this link is now made is very exciting/interesting---it also vindicates a sense that I have had for a long time that Heidegger is probably a better theoretical approach to thinking about what Sotos is doing over other "more obvious" ones (like psychoanalysis or some such thing, which I think will primarily miss the point).

I won't pretend to be some theory genius, as fun as that sounds. That said, I don't think he's engaged with Heidegger in the past. The only adjacent writer I can recall him evoking explicitly is Sartre (briefly, in Mine/Kept). Personally, I tend to see Deleuze in all things (who, yes, is in the room with me right now), and Sotos' work is no exception. Psychoanalysis also strikes me as a non-starter here (and everywhere). The thought of an oedipalized Sotos is very funny to me, however.

Interesting.  If you don't mind me asking for more information, I would like to hear what connections you see between Sotos and Deleuze---which also seems like an apt and more robust conceptual approach.

At very least, what I could get from reading a brief review of that Heidegger book is that making the connection to Sotos sort of brings the discussion more in line with non-psychoanalytic interpretations of Sade (like Blanchot's), which frame the problematic as existing on the ontological more than (or at least just as much as) the sexual plane.

I also guess that Lacan, with a more robust notion of the symbolic than Freud, might actually get somewhere, but I am skeptical in general.

Quote from: planetary:defence on January 30, 2024, 03:27:42 PMrequesting for current updates/ news? i'm so unbelievably out of the loop with current sotos news despite being an obsessive consumer with everything about his work, music, writing, interviews, whatever, i'm infatuated with him- apologies for the begging but i'm kind of desperate for any input around upcoming reissues and publishing (amphetamine sulphate?) etc. also if anyone has a pdf/ scan they'd be willing to share with me for more recent publishings and specifically pure filth? cannot find a pdf online for it at all. i have various news article/ interview scans, pure 1-3, all in the proxy comp, lordotics, selfish little, comfort and critique as pdfs i've found through digging through the internet equivalent of the trash if anyone's after those id be happy to email/ put up somewhere if that's worth anything lol.

do you have the parasite issues? if not, i'd be happy to drop those to you. i have a decent amount of sotos pdfs/epubs

Quote from: prolapsedlielack on January 31, 2024, 05:29:39 AMdo you have the parasite issues? if not, i'd be happy to drop those to you. i have a decent amount of sotos pdfs/epubs

i have 1-20 but thank you regardless :) currently starting to be drip fed the work of his i havent read/ been able to find online by ruthlessbabysitter digitalising their collection now.

Quote from: theotherjohn on January 30, 2024, 03:49:59 PMThis thread is as good a place as any for all current updates/gossip!

Kee MacFarlane is now sold out. Chip of 9BB recently shared on Twitter/X a reading list relating to KM:

https://twitter.com/NineBandedBooks/status/1751537276931178541#m
 (https://twitter.com/NineBandedBooks/status/1751537276931178541#m)(alternatively, use this Nitter link) (https://nitter.cz/NineBandedBooks/status/1751537276931178541)

You Had To Be There: Rape Jokes - Vanessa Place
The Guilt Project: Rape, Morality and Law - Vanessa Place
Rape-Revenge Films: A Critical Study - Alexandra Heller-Nicholas
Allison Unchained: One Woman's Quest to Find Love, Faith, and Forgiveness - Allison Wolf
Most Outrageous: The Trials and Trespasses of Dwaine Tinsely and Chester the Molester - Bob Levin
A Long, Dark Shadow: Minor-Attracted People and Their Pursuit of Dignity - Allyn Walker
Freedom to Fail: Heidegger's Anarchy - Peter Trawny

thank you for the welcome and links :) totally beating myself up about not signing up to newsletters sooner re: kee macfarlane, gahh...

Can anyone direct me towards some of the more interesting critical literature on Sotos in French?  Specifically "The Peter Sotos Question" by Bruce Benderson?  The more I dig, the more it seems that there is a fair bit that has been written about him---just not in English!

Quote from: Balor/SS1535 on February 01, 2024, 09:40:40 PMCan anyone direct me towards some of the more interesting critical literature on Sotos in French?  Specifically "The Peter Sotos Question" by Bruce Benderson?  The more I dig, the more it seems that there is a fair bit that has been written about him---just not in English!

there are some odds and ends collected here: https://web.archive.org/web/20090302093243/http://www.editions-desordres.com:80/critiques/peter_sotos_cahier.php
you should be able to get a PDF of the Benderson essay through the Nouvelle Revue Française website. It's no. 577, Avril 2006.

re the Sotos/Mason correspondence mentioned earlier, there's really nothing to it. iirc Mason asks for a replacement copy of Buyer's Market since his was confiscated by the police and there's just one letter from Sotos where he apologizes for being late to reply.

Quote from: rocksoff on February 02, 2024, 02:08:20 PMre the Sotos/Mason correspondence mentioned earlier, there's really nothing to it. iirc Mason asks for a replacement copy of Buyer's Market since his was confiscated by the police and there's just one letter from Sotos where he apologizes for being late to reply.

Cheers for that... Mason got busted for KP once didn't he?

Quote from: rocksoff on February 02, 2024, 02:08:20 PM

Quote from: Balor/SS1535 on February 01, 2024, 09:40:40 PMCan anyone direct me towards some of the more interesting critical literature on Sotos in French?  Specifically "The Peter Sotos Question" by Bruce Benderson?  The more I dig, the more it seems that there is a fair bit that has been written about him---just not in English!

there are some odds and ends collected here: https://web.archive.org/web/20090302093243/http://www.editions-desordres.com:80/critiques/peter_sotos_cahier.php
you should be able to get a PDF of the Benderson essay through the Nouvelle Revue Française website. It's no. 577, Avril 2006.

re the Sotos/Mason correspondence mentioned earlier, there's really nothing to it. iirc Mason asks for a replacement copy of Buyer's Market since his was confiscated by the police and there's just one letter from Sotos where he apologizes for being late to reply.

Thank you very much.  I recall coming upon that page a while back, but I couldn't remember it when I started digging this time around.

received my copy of Kee MacFarlane yesterday and am about halfway through it. the publisher's note accompanying it is interesting and recommended reading before starting the book. Chip from 9BB refers to this new work almost as a "book review" in the publishers note, and so far Soto's prose is pretty lucid in covering Place's work.

i found the assertion by Chip that if Dworkin were still alive that she'd be a TERF pretty notable and probably correct.

Quote from: d_i_v_i_d_e on February 04, 2024, 09:28:39 PMi found the assertion by Chip that if Dworkin were still alive that she'd be a TERF pretty notable and probably correct.

yep she would definitely be.

In Italy terf are a rare thing, since they are 99% insted the lGBTQ movement, whilere there is a  HUUUGE percentage of Swerfs. but this goes out of topic

My copy made it out to me today.  Haven't had the chance to do anything other than look it over yet (he packed it like a tank!), but everything looks interesting so far.

Sadly I completely missed out on the new Sotos books.
Maybe a silly question, but is there anyone who wants to sell these books:
1. Kee MacFarlane
2. Obviates

I am selling some Sotos books myself [click here] (https://special-interests.net/forum/index.php?topic=13243.0).
Ironically, I understand that the Obviates book is a compilation/re-issue of 2 of the original books I am listing (Predicate & Show Adult).

Quote from: barktime on February 08, 2024, 04:41:12 PMSadly I completely missed out on the new Sotos books.
Maybe a silly question, but is there anyone who wants to sell these books:
1. Kee MacFarlane
2. Obviates

I am selling some Sotos books myself [click here] (https://special-interests.net/forum/index.php?topic=13243.0).
Ironically, I understand that the Obviates book is a compilation/re-issue of 2 of the original books I am listing (Predicate & Show Adult).

As far as I am aware, Obviates does not add anything besides a few sections of scrapbook material.  It's interesting, but likely far from essential.

Quote from: Balor/SS1535 on February 08, 2024, 06:23:22 PM

Quote from: barktime on February 08, 2024, 04:41:12 PMSadly I completely missed out on the new Sotos books.
Maybe a silly question, but is there anyone who wants to sell these books:
1. Kee MacFarlane
2. Obviates

I am selling some Sotos books myself [click here] (https://special-interests.net/forum/index.php?topic=13243.0).
Ironically, I understand that the Obviates book is a compilation/re-issue of 2 of the original books I am listing (Predicate & Show Adult).

As far as I am aware, Obviates does not add anything besides a few sections of scrapbook material.  It's interesting, but likely far from essential.

Yes, it will be something to thing about. I agree that it is non-essential, if you do not already own the books, either individually, or as part of a compilation book.

For anyone interested in Buyer's Market, I transcribed the entirety of it.
I wanted to find out how the content changed by a change of medium. When you can't hear the cries, when you can't hear the age, the stutters, the sniffs, the cars passing by: what remains?
The words. What these people actually said.

https://open.substack.com/pub/aifeith/p/peter-sotos-buyers-market-transcribed?r=wnawq&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web

Not sure if either of these will interest anybody, but I thought I'd post just in case:

1. I just scanned my copy of Total Abuse, and I'd be glad be glad to send it over if you PM me.
2. I am printing Buyer's Market shirts (from a high-resolution scan from Solotroff!) to order. I sell the shirts at-cost, so PM me to order a shirt on white or black for something like $5 USD (plus shipping).

A shirt with either the Lazy, the Tick or the Index book covers would be really dope. Maybe even all three would fit, but that depends on the design.

Anyone here that speaks Portuguese:
I'm currently translating Index into Portuguese and I'd love some feedback. So if you want to read what I have translated (halfway through, I've translated the first two chapters) send me a dm and I'll send you what I have so far.

Quote from: theotherjohn on December 26, 2023, 03:27:20 AMAn extremely indepth and exhaustively researched Spanish language article about Peter Sotos, with particular regard to his music/audio credited work, was published just recently on the Argentinian website Metacultura and can be found here:

Música - Pornografía: La faceta sonora de Peter Sotos (http://metacultura.com.ar/pornografia/) (Google translate does an ample job rendering it into English)

The authors Matías Bragagnolo and Mauricio Tomassetti have succeeded very well with correlating his history and recorded work into a readable and mostly accurate chronological timeline, with indepth biographical information about closely (and loosely) related musical groups to Sotos. They've also done an amazing job with breaking down his audio collages, especially with the subjects featured in them and their histories.

I'm from Latin America and my first language is Spanish. I could help make an English translation if anyone is interested. In the meantime I recommend using DeepL as a translator instead which does a much better job.

Quote from: ariel026 on March 11, 2024, 02:38:54 PM

Quote from: theotherjohn on December 26, 2023, 03:27:20 AMAn extremely indepth and exhaustively researched Spanish language article about Peter Sotos, with particular regard to his music/audio credited work, was published just recently on the Argentinian website Metacultura and can be found here:

Música - Pornografía: La faceta sonora de Peter Sotos (http://metacultura.com.ar/pornografia/) (Google translate does an ample job rendering it into English)

The authors Matías Bragagnolo and Mauricio Tomassetti have succeeded very well with correlating his history and recorded work into a readable and mostly accurate chronological timeline, with indepth biographical information about closely (and loosely) related musical groups to Sotos. They've also done an amazing job with breaking down his audio collages, especially with the subjects featured in them and their histories.

I'm from Latin America and my first language is Spanish. I could help make an English translation if anyone is interested. In the meantime I recommend using DeepL as a translator instead which does a much better job.

An actual translation would be great!

Quote from: Balor/SS1535 on March 11, 2024, 04:16:28 PM

Quote from: ariel026 on March 11, 2024, 02:38:54 PM

Quote from: theotherjohn on December 26, 2023, 03:27:20 AMAn extremely indepth and exhaustively researched Spanish language article about Peter Sotos, with particular regard to his music/audio credited work, was published just recently on the Argentinian website Metacultura and can be found here:

Música - Pornografía: La faceta sonora de Peter Sotos (http://metacultura.com.ar/pornografia/) (Google translate does an ample job rendering it into English)

The authors Matías Bragagnolo and Mauricio Tomassetti have succeeded very well with correlating his history and recorded work into a readable and mostly accurate chronological timeline, with indepth biographical information about closely (and loosely) related musical groups to Sotos. They've also done an amazing job with breaking down his audio collages, especially with the subjects featured in them and their histories.

I'm from Latin America and my first language is Spanish. I could help make an English translation if anyone is interested. In the meantime I recommend using DeepL as a translator instead which does a much better job.

An actual translation would be great!

I love doing translations so I'll try my best! If anyone else wants to help please consider PM'ing me.
edit: Sorry it's taking me a bit of time, I'll upload the article in a .pdf format on DocDroid once it's done.

Wondering what peoples impressions are / thoughts on Kee MacFarlane

Quote from: IVX on March 14, 2024, 03:12:13 AMWondering what peoples impressions are / thoughts on Kee MacFarlane

I thought it was easier to follow than some of his other more recent writings, but it also felt rather meandering at parts (such as the weird aside involving Trump).  I get what Chip was saying about not wanting to edit Sotos in the pamphlet, but maybe some discretion could have been used in this case.

Overall, I should probably reread it.  It's certainly short enough that there is no excuse not to.

I just scanned Ingratitude, so you know where to find me if you want a link to it. More scans to come.

I'm not sure if it's even worth asking, but fuck it: I'm only a lowly college student, so I'd appreciate any little donations (just a few dollars) for my scanning efforts. It takes a great deal of time for me to sit down and scan the books, so a little money would go a long way to encourage me. A cup of coffee always comes in handy... ;)

That being said, I'm gonna be scanning the books for posterity anyway, so you can ask for a copy and tell me to scratch my taint.

Has anybody in Europe received their copy of the latest, yet? I have contacted NBB twice but am getting the impression I'm being ignored. I pre-ordered in december and am starting to get concerned.

Quote from: loudbugling on March 24, 2024, 10:17:18 PMHas anybody in Europe received their copy of the latest, yet? I have contacted NBB twice but am getting the impression I'm being ignored. I pre-ordered in december and am starting to get concerned.

Yes- he is just very behind with them

Quote from: thatonekidatshows on March 16, 2024, 12:34:16 AMI just scanned Ingratitude, so you know where to find me if you want a link to it. More scans to come.

I'm not sure if it's even worth asking, but fuck it: I'm only a lowly college student, so I'd appreciate any little donations (just a few dollars) for my scanning efforts. It takes a great deal of time for me to sit down and scan the books, so a little money would go a long way to encourage me. A cup of coffee always comes in handy... ;)

That being said, I'm gonna be scanning the books for posterity anyway, so you can ask for a copy and tell me to scratch my taint.

I just wanted to say you're all doing an inmense gratitude to all those interested in Sotos' books since they're so rare, expensive and hard to come by so I just wanted to thank you and I hope all of you guys give this guy some appreciation for the work he's done at digitally preserving Sotos' books. One book in particular I'd love to see scanned is 1. Obviates: Predicate, Show Adult (2004-2006), or either Predicate and Show Adult individually. Those two seem really interesting books by Sotos' so if anyone has them for sale please PM me and I'll gladly buy them.

Thank you so much for the kind words and support!

As for Obviates, I just purchased a copy along with the Maunz collaboration, so expect scans of those soon. ;)

Quote from: thatonekidatshows on March 26, 2024, 10:14:07 PMThank you so much for the kind words and support!

As for Obviates, I just purchased a copy along with the Maunz collaboration, so expect scans of those soon. ;)

Thank you, I sent you a PM.

Quote from: thatonekidatshows on March 26, 2024, 10:14:07 PMThank you so much for the kind words and support!

As for Obviates, I just purchased a copy along with the Maunz collaboration, so expect scans of those soon. ;)

That's awesome! Thank you so much for all your hard work. I hope you get donations for this, you really deserve it.

I've just finished scanning Pure Filth and Mine. (Pure Filth took a fucking while--three hours at least!) As before, reach out if you would like the and/all of the scans. I've accumulated enough to make a folder of all the scans that I have (that includes scans that I did not make myself), so I'm gonna start sharing that with people instead of the individual books.

I don't know if the migration of those files that I have already shared will render the links that I've been sharing broken, so ask me for a link to the folder if they are.

Obviates is up next! I also have the Maunz/Sotos book now, and it's absolutely gorgeous. I'm not sure if a scan will really do it justice, but I'll obviously still make one. That being said, if you can find a copy, I highly recommend picking it up. The quality is top-notch.

Selling my collection:

https://special-interests.net/forum/index.php?topic=13344.0 (https://special-interests.net/forum/index.php?topic=13344.0)

Quote from: IVX on March 30, 2024, 06:51:44 PMSelling my collection:

https://special-interests.net/forum/index.php?topic=13344.0 (https://special-interests.net/forum/index.php?topic=13344.0)

I wanted Desistance so bad since I'm a huge fan of Antoine d'Agata's works. But it's okay, I'm sure I'll find another copy on sale next time.

Quote from: ariel026 on April 04, 2024, 11:31:31 PM

Quote from: IVX on March 30, 2024, 06:51:44 PMSelling my collection:

https://special-interests.net/forum/index.php?topic=13344.0 (https://special-interests.net/forum/index.php?topic=13344.0)

I wanted Desistance so bad since I'm a huge fan of Antoine d'Agata's works. But it's okay, I'm sure I'll find another copy on sale next time.

His posting that book reminded me of d'Agata---so I finally spent some time researching him, and I like his work a lot from what I see.  I just ordered a copy of Acephale earlier today.  Favorite works/books by him?

Quote from: Balor/SS1535 on April 05, 2024, 02:35:13 AM

Quote from: ariel026 on April 04, 2024, 11:31:31 PM

Quote from: IVX on March 30, 2024, 06:51:44 PMSelling my collection:

https://special-interests.net/forum/index.php?topic=13344.0 (https://special-interests.net/forum/index.php?topic=13344.0)

I wanted Desistance so bad since I'm a huge fan of Antoine d'Agata's works. But it's okay, I'm sure I'll find another copy on sale next time.

His posting that book reminded me of d'Agata---so I finally spent some time researching him, and I like his work a lot from what I see.  I just ordered a copy of Acephale earlier today.  Favorite works/books by him?

I can strongly recommend Antibodies and Ice.
Apart from Acephale, some other books were also released on Studio Vortex in recent years - https://studio-vortex.com/ (https://studio-vortex.com/)
I also really like the documentary film about d'Agata called The Cambodian Room: Situations with Antoine d'Agata

Quote from: cr on April 05, 2024, 08:29:03 PM

Quote from: Balor/SS1535 on April 05, 2024, 02:35:13 AM

Quote from: ariel026 on April 04, 2024, 11:31:31 PM

Quote from: IVX on March 30, 2024, 06:51:44 PMSelling my collection:

https://special-interests.net/forum/index.php?topic=13344.0 (https://special-interests.net/forum/index.php?topic=13344.0)

I wanted Desistance so bad since I'm a huge fan of Antoine d'Agata's works. But it's okay, I'm sure I'll find another copy on sale next time.

His posting that book reminded me of d'Agata---so I finally spent some time researching him, and I like his work a lot from what I see.  I just ordered a copy of Acephale earlier today.  Favorite works/books by him?

I can strongly recommend Antibodies and Ice.
Apart from Acephale, some other books were also released on Studio Vortex in recent years - https://studio-vortex.com/ (https://studio-vortex.com/)
I also really like the documentary film about d'Agata called The Cambodian Room: Situations with Antoine d'Agata

Antibodies looked very interesting, but it was out of my price range for a first-off "see if I really like it" sort of purchase.  I'm hoping that Acephale will give me enough for a start.  Thankfully, it looks like several of those other books listed there have made their way to US sellers!

I came across that movie in preliminary research too, so I will try and watch it sometime soon.

As I think that d'Agata is worth a topic alone and not being discussed further in Sotos topic, therefore I will make
another thread only dedicated to him.

Quote from: cr on April 07, 2024, 04:22:02 PMAs I think that d'Agata is worth a topic alone and not being discussed further in Sotos topic, therefore I will make
another thread only dedicated to him.

Thanks!

Perhaps I've missed it in this thread, but, does anyone have the Bruce Benderson essay on Sotos? Translated to English would be great, but in French would still probably work.

At last, I have finished scanning Obviates and added it to the folder.

Quote from: ariel026 on April 04, 2024, 11:31:31 PMI wanted Desistance so bad since I'm a huge fan of Antoine d'Agata's works. But it's okay, I'm sure I'll find another copy on sale next time.

Good thing I was the one who purchased it, huh? I'll scan that one next. ;)

And just like that, it is done. I just scanned Desistance and added it to the folder. With the help of Adobe Acrobat (which I didn't have before) and getting into the groove of things, it actually didn't take me long to scan the entire book in one go.

I think I'll scan Kept next.

Quote from: thatonekidatshows on April 25, 2024, 10:53:09 PMAnd just like that, it is done. I just scanned Desistance and added it to the folder. With the help of Adobe Acrobat (which I didn't have before) and getting into the groove of things, it actually didn't take me long to scan the entire book in one go.

I think I'll scan Kept next.

How might one gain access to this folder?  (Also, looking forward to my Sotos shirt!)

Quote from: Balor/SS1535 on April 26, 2024, 02:27:54 AMHow might one gain access to this folder?  (Also, looking forward to my Sotos shirt!)

Just shoot me a PM for the link. ;)

Quote from: thatonekidatshows on April 25, 2024, 09:20:40 PMAt last, I have finished scanning Obviates and added it to the folder.

Quote from: ariel026 on April 04, 2024, 11:31:31 PMI wanted Desistance so bad since I'm a huge fan of Antoine d'Agata's works. But it's okay, I'm sure I'll find another copy on sale next time.

Good thing I was the one who purchased it, huh? I'll scan that one next. ;)

That's awesome! Thanks so much man.

Quote from: thatonekidatshows on April 26, 2024, 06:36:56 AM

Quote from: Balor/SS1535 on April 26, 2024, 02:27:54 AMHow might one gain access to this folder?  (Also, looking forward to my Sotos shirt!)

Just shoot me a PM for the link. ;)

Thanks!  Will do.