Happy Birthday, Dennis Cooper!
Today we celebrate the birth of the inimitable, incomparable, and indispensable Dennis Cooper–one of our absolute favorite writers and a true brother-in-arms. How will you celebrate Dennis’s big day? You could:
– Order yourself a copy of his most recent book, the story collection Ugly Man.
– Pre-order yourself a copy of Smothered in Hugs: Essays, Interviews, Feedback & Obituaries, his forthcoming nonfiction collection, which according to Amazon will be published on 6/29, which happens to be my birthday. Neat, right?
– See if there are tickets left for any of the remaining performances of JERK, Dennis’s latest collaboration with Gisele Vienne, starring Jonathan Capdeville. JERK is running through January 17th as part of the Under the Radar Festival. I saw the show last night, and it was just stunning–unlike any other theater-going experience I’ve ever had. (See above photograph.)
– Visit Dennis’s blog, which this weekend has an incredible feature on the Winchester Mystery House.
– Blast some Guided by Voices. Here’s a fan-made video for “Smothered in Hugs” the nonfic collection’s namesake song. Happy Birthday!
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dlvn9LfRETM
PS- Here’s a live version that has the embedding disabled for some reason, so you have to watch it on the Youtube site.
Blake Butler—
Dennis Cooper has posted his 1998 interview with Brad Renfro, where he uses his DC powers to get the kid talking about satanism, Stryper, punk, and other. He also drops the title of his next forthcoming book, a collection of nonfiction, Smothered in Hugs: Essays, Interviews, Feedback, Obituaries, forthcoming July 2010 from Harper Perennial.
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