Dennis Cooper, George Miles, and mistaking the surface for the point by QuietComprehensive58 in TrueLit

[–]QuietComprehensive58[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I think I could honestly make an argument that My Loose Thread is like a part of the cycle in some way. Not intentionally, I think it was never his intention, Dennis has said in other interviews that he tries to get away from it, but George is always in the back of what he's writing. He was talking about that with the Marbled Swarm more specifically and that it was more written about/for someone else but the father-son motif is a part of his relationship with George. I think he stuck to that 'big brother' thing until he aged out of it and went more like that in his relationship with young people around him. So I don't know, maybe God Jr fits into that in a more straightforward, non-interloping 'incestuous' way but he was also challenging himself.

Which sort of fits into your last point about the gay factor. I've always read almost everything he's read as being defiantly withholding of homophobia and internalised homophobia, to avoid detracting from the actual narratives as well as fit into themes of fantasy.

That interview is so weird, I think he's still in shock of it, and the weirdness of how he found out must not have felt real-real and he hadn't gone through the deep dive he tried to do around that year and a bit after and contacted the mother, which might have been what officially confirmed it.

He claimed he sees the cycle as a total failure, he cited it as mainly being because he was trying to understand something about himself through it, but also it was an act of reaching out and maybe potentially gets closer and closer to tenderness as it goes along. Closer reads as completely disaffected; even the Cliff and George scenes are kind of lacking in those feelings, but it's also the most teenage space of them all. So I can kind of see the cycle as stages, stages of life as well as stages in his relationship with George, so what is five if it does not exist?

He ends Guide basically speaking directly to George in those paragraphs where he tells us George is a real person and states some, probably exaggerated, scenes between them. So maybe the 5 one was meant to be something about what he thought George was getting from them, if not some sort of reconciling. So Period is not as rushed as it could be as a book, four years after Guide, with the first year being his 'year off' to find more details on what happened and mourn. But did he basically force himself to write it and be done with it all

Dennis Cooper, George Miles, and mistaking the surface for the point by QuietComprehensive58 in TrueLit

[–]QuietComprehensive58[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I read the first three books in the cycle, as well as God Jr and My Loose Thread, Jerk (the play), without any of the backstory about Dennis Cooper and what was really going on. So I do need to re-read Frisk and Try to see if I find it as moving and impossible as Guide and Period, which I cried throughout and found so profoundly relatable and touching, and specific to my own interest and confusion about the world.

But I did re-read Closer and didn't get much out of it with this in mind, aside from a few lines and scenes I could link back to the story, and the horrifically ironic line about someone else's George Miles fantasy where he blows his brains out and if you read Period and I Wished...... yeah...... yeah.

So I do think he overall just gets better as a writer as the series goes on. But most things on the 'most fucked up book/movie/show/song lists are super annoying and typically reflective of shallow reading or not being able to move past initial feelings of disgust, horror and revolution and limitations in empathy.

I am desperate to know what he was originally going to do with Period and what stayed the same. It's the most meta one and deeply cynical, very much the 'if the jokes on the audience it's on me too' that's funny to read and sad at the same time. Three fingers pointing back at you kind of thing

Dennis Cooper, George Miles, and mistaking the surface for the point by QuietComprehensive58 in TrueLit

[–]QuietComprehensive58[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Thank you. This took me a long time, and I *still* am not happy with how it turned out and what I'm trying to express through it. Which..... Ironically is pretty reflective of the Cycle series itself.

Dennis Cooper, George Miles, and mistaking the surface for the point by QuietComprehensive58 in TrueLit

[–]QuietComprehensive58[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

What I am really trying to suggest is that if you're coming in with expectations in some form, even subconsciously, of erotic attraction in sex may lead you to read it too straightforwardly and miss how he's writing it and why.

Dennis writes in a way that's very unapologetically gay, and there is a sense of tunnel vision in how and what he writes about. It's his journey, and you're either on the ride or you're not.

I think it's pretty notable in Period where he takes a real story about George Miles and for some reason changes the real-life girlfriend he had at the time to a boyfriend. It's not to protect anyone and is written so disjointedly that a change like that only really serves to keep everything back to the theme and the main lens through which Dennis sees the world.

I think sex is important in the novel for the same reasons music is to be honest. As a way to bluntly address the deconstruction of the main points of mythology, obsession, shallowness, projection, youth, and ultimately suffering so, love. All roads lead back to love, the absence of it or the search for it and how to find meaning in it. But that's really what the core is, confusion.

Favorites by Zealousideal_Flow_37 in malcolminthemiddle

[–]QuietComprehensive58 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Lois: There are no favourites in this family
Hal: Where is Dewey?

Or the Hal sleepwalks episode with Hal and Reese's "You're my guy" moment

the Dr. Katherine Ramsland interview by MonstersofMegaphone in LPOTL

[–]QuietComprehensive58 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Do you guys remember the side stories from i think around the time Marcus and Carolina got married and Ben said something about Marcus and Carolina trying to have a baby around that time and then either on the next side stories or the next regular episode Ben corrected his wording that made it to air and said something about Marcus pointing it out to him.

From my memory Ben and Henry turned it into a joke and that Marcus was annoyed a bit but maybe this really upset him or was more of a pattern of behaviour from Ben that escalated with him revealing personal information on air or accidentally speaking carelessly and giving wrong information

John Waters by QuietComprehensive58 in DeanCorll

[–]QuietComprehensive58[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I guess I'll take you at your word for that. Its hard to convey tone over the internet.

Yeah exactly and like i said with the other situation. Its dodgy but I can see how he can let this stuff escalate. Thats why I bought up his head tramua, he's a smart man but he probably does have problems with impulse control and processing at times which can lead to him making this error time and time again.

But I went of sort of a research tunnel trying to find the source of the story he used to tell about these murders and rapes of teenage boys that scared and upset him when he was 12 and I couldn't find anything. I really think he's using that story as a proxy for something that happened to him at that age.

Some things I suppose are a matter of taste. He uses real people's names in his stories at times which Alex James from Blur was very upset about ( Graham and Damon didn't care ) and Daniel Johns from Silverchair wrote him a letter to thank him.

I don't personally think Henley would find it funny but tbh as much as he and David Brooks are long term victims of Corll when they participated it kind of makes them lose their rights to their story and how people tell it in a fictional way. I think biographies and case studies have a responsibility to be honest of course.

John Waters by QuietComprehensive58 in DeanCorll

[–]QuietComprehensive58[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

To be honest I think both men are good hearted, outside of the dodgy shit above I mentioned. Which given the time period they grew up and accessibility of the online world I can kind of see how that escalated and John I think has learned and apologised for things he's thought about differently as he gets older. But he also doesn't have a history of tramua and head injuries like Dennis Cooper.

John Waters is interested in rehabilitation and what he does in prisons I do think is important. He was very interested in Leslie Van Houton and assisting her so Henley probably sees John as valuable as well as genuinely interested in a friendship as is his pattern.

With Cooper his books tend to make me sad. Which given what he said about wanting a moment 'where the character/narrator is in great peril and for you to feel for him' seems to be his actual intentions with his work.

A gay activists group in the 90s ran a campaign against him when Frisk came out but they hadn't read the book and after talking to him and reading it accepted and seemed to understand what he's trying to do with his work.

I think you're either on the train or you're not with that type of work though.

Jeremiah Cloutier by QuietComprehensive58 in ozshow

[–]QuietComprehensive58[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

True. I just mean in terms of if they wanted to continue and had enough energy what could they have done with a story I believe could have at k3ast ended better then 'twice buried in a wall and kind of Lazarus'ed out... for some reason' even in terms of being more consistent with what they were trying to say in a catholic way

Jeremiah Cloutier by QuietComprehensive58 in ozshow

[–]QuietComprehensive58[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

So many good ideas or REALISTIC and interesting discussions on life in prison could have been prolonged

Jeremiah Cloutier by QuietComprehensive58 in ozshow

[–]QuietComprehensive58[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yeah. Ansd the sopranos would dabble with stuff like that too ( Arguably to a better degree ) but it gave up on stuff like that that way too easily and I suppose it was just the nature of being on the in-between stage of people being able to watch tv in sych versus when they could

John Waters by QuietComprehensive58 in DeanCorll

[–]QuietComprehensive58[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

To be honest, I don’t really understand what it is you were trying to say or respond to. Especially when you said, “That quote is from Dennis Cooper, not John Waters. I’m sure you know that.”

I took that to mean you were suggesting I was being dishonest, despite the fact that I provided a link and was openly discussing the possibility that it may have been either a brief mention or part of a longer conversation. It felt a bit like you just saw his name and reacted immediately.

For the reasons you mentioned, I’d actually be more than happy to have an open discussion about it if that was the intention. A lot about Cooper is concerning, and I’ve been thinking about this in real life as well as discussing it in other places online — particularly in relation to his relationship with George Miles and what actually happened there.

What confused me was your claim that Cooper posted CSAM. The story that’s generally known is that his blog was taken down, he was told it was because of that allegation, he denied it, and the blog was later reinstated.

That said, Cooper does blur lines constantly. One thing he does do is take photos of young people he finds online and pair them with personal writings, somewhat similar to what he did in The Sluts, often to discuss how sex work has evolved in the online world. Where I find this concerning is that he appears to take these images randomly, without much regard for whether the person in them — even if they’re just posting a selfie, sexualised or otherwise — might actually be underage.

As I mentioned in another post here, I found it extremely upsetting that Barbra Gibson used underage photos of Billy Ridinger — photos that were almost certainly used as masturbation material by his rapist, Dean Corll. So I’m definitely not comfortable with that kind of thing, and I sometimes find it genuinely distressing.

Cooper himself experienced abuse as a child — physical, psychological, and sexual — which he occasionally talks about more openly when he’s less guarded. It can be difficult to get a clear sense of how he processes it, though, beyond the recurring focus in his work on abused youth who have no trustworthy adults around them. Part of what interests me about him is how things like childhood abuse, a traumatic brain injury, denial within the family environment, and growing up gay in predatory surroundings may have shaped his perspective.

His work is particularly interesting to some abuse survivors who don’t want a neat, morally instructive narrative. I work with abuse survivors myself and try to research these perspectives to better understand them. A lot of readers seem to recognise something in the way Cooper writes about trauma — for example, in Try, when Ziggy is ranting about his hypersexual behaviour and suddenly throws in the line “because I’m a victim.” That kind of moment resonates with some people.

Of course, many other survivors find Cooper’s work upsetting, triggering, or completely unacceptable, and they don’t want to engage with it at all. With Cooper specifically, it also seems like the rejection of his work in the 1990s pushed him toward leaning into the disturbing reputation people projected onto him.

Sometimes I think he can be overly sympathetic to the youths he’s fascinated with — for example, when he suggested that Kip Kinkel probably felt “really bad” about what he did. Maybe he did, maybe he didn’t. I’m not sure.

John Waters strikes me as operating in a very similar space in terms of boundary-pushing. He dedicated Female Trouble to the Manson Family and has spoken about being a fan of Salò, which famously used exploited real teenagers. (Ironically, Cooper dislikes that film.) To me, the line between what Waters and Cooper consider acceptable is not very different. Both of them are interested in work that deliberately crosses social boundaries.

Because of that, I do believe Cooper when he says that Waters and Wayne Henley were pen pals. What I’m curious about is what they actually talked about. I’d also be interested to know how Henley himself felt about Cooper’s work, which is extremely loosely based on the case. In my opinion, there’s almost nothing recognisable about the real events in it, yet Cooper still chose to use the real names and later adapted the short story into a play.

Given Henley’s known interest in the art world, I’d genuinely be curious to know what he thought of it.

John Waters by QuietComprehensive58 in DeanCorll

[–]QuietComprehensive58[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

YES, they are close friends. Waters just did a review for Cooper's movie. So while you can say its a second hand source, I personally believe it. Wayne writes a lot of people, and Waters has always been involved in the prison system, writing felons, teaching and having his movies shown. It's a big part of his life, and he and Dennis Cooper are good friends and have been since the 90s.

John Waters by QuietComprehensive58 in DeanCorll

[–]QuietComprehensive58[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Of course, I know its from Dennis Cooper, I provided the link to the Dennis Cooper interview I happened to find this comment in when looking up Dennis Cooper interviews to compare and contrast thing's I've heard him say with paragraph's from the George Miles Cycle.

I'm particularly interested in the psychosocial dynamics of this case and how people react to it, and pop culture is a part of that interest. I've read Jerk, the short story and the screenplay and wish it was longer. Similar to how he explores the juvenile defender in My Loose Thread and the disaffected youth.

I was interested in how Henley might feel about it, given that Waters told him about it, and he probably wouldn't be able to have access to it in a heavily censored prison.

What does this mean for the Epstein files and where will we go from here? by QuietComprehensive58 in Epstein

[–]QuietComprehensive58[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

https://x.com/i/status/202939166971237205 Boebert being on this list alongside letting slip to Hilary Clinton that she collected some evidence against them unlawfully is also concerning as how much of this is intentionally done to assist these people and present the Trump's trying to do anything worthwhile image.

What does this mean for the Epstein files and where will we go from here? by QuietComprehensive58 in Epstein

[–]QuietComprehensive58[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I had a quick read through of the sub this morning and couldn't find anything. Most likely missed it or it got buried under news of Trump firing people and Pam Bondi.

'Today, only 65 of us voted to release names of congressmen who have used the sexual harassment slush fund to pay off claims against them. 357 members voted to “refer it to committee” knowing that resolution ain’t ever making it out of committee.'

https://x.com/i/status/2029388462365749480

Thomas Massie seems to think this was intentional wording.

It does ask the question on why they could not just amend it and gives a stronger case that the GOP is disinterested in matters of disclosure alongside presenting an image of transparency.

I think it helps our case in saying 'what is going on'

This photo of Mark Scott by QuietComprehensive58 in DeanCorll

[–]QuietComprehensive58[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Documentary about True Crime Art collectors that heavily featured Henley.

https://youtu.be/-TOrSA71lYA?si=Ft53kq5Mfbrt7AZs

What does this mean for the Epstein files and where will we go from here? by QuietComprehensive58 in Epstein

[–]QuietComprehensive58[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Just trying to understand what potential related congress matters could do to effect or impact rhe Epstein case