DENNIS COOPER RUINED MY LIFE
STIMULANT WEEKLY NEWSLETTER 001 // JUNE 1, 2024
Let’s cut to the chase. Dennis Cooper is ____________.
Picture this: you go to your local used bookstore, the one that really curates their selection to the tastes of the neighborhood. Le Plateau? Patti Smith. McGill Ghetto? Haruki Murakami. Etc etc etc. You know the place. You walk in and the weird guy who runs the store asks you what you’re looking for because of course you look confused. “Something new”, you say. “I’ve got something real fucking new for you…” he says and he’s like licking his lips and shit and you’re like what the fuck man but also curious. He starts to tell you about this one guy Dennis Cooper who used to write these fucked up books about child porn and gay dudes killing each other. Your interest is definitely piqued and the guy has this weird lisp thing and he’s kinda spitting all over the place. The room is way hot but has that nice bookstore scent so you let it slide because the whole thing, really the whole thing, feels like a big hot summer dream. Fever style, you know? Well, he takes you out back to show you his private collection of Dennis Cooper books and opens up his comically large trench coat to expose not only his bare penis (minimal pubes, kind of remarkably large balls, medium sized shaft with a big mushroom style tip) but also a copy of Closer, a little black book, the first in Cooper’s “George Miles Cycle”. He hands you the book and you' read the back. There’s a quote there from Edmund White which kind of makes sense because he’s a bit of a freak too, but you have no idea what the fuck you are about to get into.
That’s not how I found Dennis Cooper. I think I found him from some online list probably. I’m honestly not sure. But imagine how crazy that would have been.
Closer is the story of this kid George Miles being completely ransacked by an immoral world. He’s beautiful, George, in a way only Cooper can really capture: big eyed youthful gaze tall and thin but really, truly beaten down by life. I’m sure you know a guy. George falls for this artist named John who obsesses over his expressionistic portraits, thinking he can find some sort of essential truth in their violence. This John guy breaks his heart and he ends up in the lap of these two older men who are obsessed with death and killing. They love all the things that Cooper makes special about George, aloof teenagery stuff, but they love it in the way that makes them want to destroy it. The book is vile. I don’t think you should read it.
I think the “George Miles Cycle” is probably the best cycle of books I have ever read. By the second entry, Frisk, Cooper has inserted himself as a character in the books, one who simultaneously participates in and creates the events of the story. His self-insert retains the omniscience of his narrator role, but now is given the agency to fuck and be fucked. Try, the third book in the cycle is, at its heart, a love story. Ziggy, this horribly molested teenage boy is in love with his best friend Calhoun. Calhoun loves Ziggy kind of like a dog and loves heroin more than anything. He shoots up and Ziggy gets real worried and does some child porn stuff. It’s complicated of course, but I think the extremes of Cooper’s writing presents the reader with a kind of existential question regarding the nature of beauty. Is it possible for terrible things to be beautiful? Are terrible things essentially beautiful? Is beauty reserved for those things deemed “good”? The “George Miles Cycle” never feels like a celebration of this terribleness. Rather, Cooper allows himself to gaze directly at the terror stuff and let it wash over him. He’s just reporting back to us.
So, I keep coming back to Dennis Cooper and I think it has something to do with this “beauty” question. His work makes me uncomfortable in a way I’m kind of addicted to. Some people could probably pathologize this as masochism or whatever, but that is so boring even if it’s true. You could pretty much consider everything I do to be, at its core, masochistic. Cooper feels different. The “George Miles Cycle” feels like some sort of avant-garde love poem. I’m still trying to figure out just what or who Cooper loves, but I know the centre of this thing is truly love.
state of stimulant
Submissions for our first ever multimedia supplement are still open. We have received dozens already and are working closely with some amazing writers and artists across the world to make something really special. It’s called “This Will Save You”. Here’s a sneak peek at the cover:
I guess it’s avant-garde. It’ll have prose, poetry, photography, stories, interviews, etc all about the coming explosion heat death end of world woke takeover or whatever. Kidding mostly…
We are also looking for guest writers for the STIMULANT WEEKLY NEWSLETTER. We want you to write about things. Tell us about your life, your favorite poems, your favorite book, your least favorite person. Just give us something good, whatever it is.
Submit via email:
stimulantmag@gmail.com
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get hip
Check out Kat Mulligan’s poem, "Rations” in Nifty Lit, an online literary mag.
Check out Amalia Mairet’s poem “Transient Intimacies in the Cosmic Cold; or, Unobtanium” in Orange Peel, an online multimedia mag. Page 59.
Order L’amour - La Mort’s newest issue “ON GOD” online. L’amour - La Mort are a Stockholm based publication who make highly conceptual avant-garde literary collections. “ON GOD” features work from Tao Lin, Jon Lindsey, Jonathan Brott, and many more. Just order it. Big things coming soon regarding Stimulant and L’amour - La Mort. Big news for insufferable people.
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