Today is turning out to be a money issues day. I’m working on selling the 1624 Dutch edition of Ambrose Pare’s book De Chirurgie, ende Opera: van alle de Wercken / van M. Ambrosius Pare. This is not as easy as one might think. Old books are valuable, and this one is in very good condition for a book that is almost 400 years old, but there is a very limited market for them. And a much more limited market for surgical manuals in Old Dutch. So, even though it’s worth a few grand apparently, I may not be able to sell it.

As well, there is the distant possibility that a distributor, the dream distributor of basically most any artist working in the realm of moving images, that they might point us out to people they know in the world of investing. Yeah, I know tortured language. I’m as scared of saying something online that fucks up a possible deal as I am of getting a deal. LOL.

However, even the distant possibility of investors from outside my cloistered realm getting involved, required a call to my lawyer. And I think it means we are going to alter the financing of the project to bring it more in line with the realities of L.A. It will have less of the egalitarian, “Gee shucks fellas, why don’t we use the old barn to put on a show. We can share the profits to help save Father Todd’s barber’s school!” and more of the “the party of the first part will receive 10% of profits, after hum and ahem and haw, for each 20% of said budget (see section 09.65.c.2 of said contract) invested.” My lawyer is actually really happy about this change. She thinks it’ll be a lot easier to sell and distribute the film with conventional contracts attached, as opposed to contracts being artworks in themselves.

This is not a bad thing. The project was always intended to be an actual film in practice, as opposed to just mimicking one. So, bringing our financing in line with tradition makes perfect conceptual sense.

It sounds like - and I’m not supposed to put these things on line because then they can be construed as contractual on some level, apparently but I’m only willing to limit the transparency of this project for the sake of financing so much - anyway, it sounds like, the initial investments will be “bridge loans” and, of course, we will honor the initial contract we wrote about here and on the website. But, as of today, all future investments will hew to the typical industry format. My next stop after this blog post is the invest page on the site to expunge details which might lead to lawsuits or breach of contract claims.

Then a few emaisl to book dealers.

And this folks is the real work of art.

P.S. Can I just say that, to the best of my knowledge, everyone involved in this project adores David Lynch? I personally consider Twin Peaks a paradigm shift in my televisual life. And Inland Empire? One of the best movies ever made. Honestly, I loved it. When Han, upon first reading about Disembody, said it sounded like Inland Empire in a gallery, I just about wept I was so flattered.