Really enjoying Rachel Kushner's "Creation Lake". Curious if/when along the way I wont enjoy anymore--some friends did not like it. A split screen of 1. back to bature philosophical rambling and 2. undercover cop infiltrating radical political group. Several times I laughed out loud.
BOOK THREAD
Recently found a pdf of "I Need More" by Iggy Pop. Good one, and I get why he doesn't want to follow it with a "proper" autobiography.
Randall added!
Just started Elenor Oliphant from your recommendation. I’m digging it so far.
Just started this one, a history of Black popular music starting in 1800's. Should be required reading for all.
I'm fine with punishing minutia from that scene. Less so after the first SY EP, despite liking them plenty on places. What didja think of Kim Gordon's autobiography? She's a good writer and I love the art-world stuff in particular but the terminal introspection was tiring, she couldn't drink a coffee without considering the milky abyss ahead.
haven't read Kim's yet
I’m scared to mention him by name because it coyld conure him but speaking of New York and Thurston Moore, I really enjoyed Scene Loser. Quick read and lots of fun. He gets some trash talk in there, but for He Who Shall Not Be Named not as much as I expected
just started the new Mike Sniper biography "Blank Dogs and Irishmen" (he explains the title in the book--his dad is irish)
- Edited
Re-reading The Orange Eats Creeps by Grace Krilanovich – it’s a novel but also some kind of hallucinatory prose poem starring a bunch of teenage junkies/ hobos that may or may not be « real » vampires. Captivating once you accept you won’t be getting any kind of traditional plot. FFO Naked Lunch, Kathy Acker, etc.
ratcharge score. It’s a fun one.
Just sarted Disaster Nationalism by Richard Seymour. It's interesting. There's a section on the Oregon wildfires in 2020. Conservatives in rural communities refused to evacuate and set up armed roadblocks as rumors spread that Antifa types were setting fires to sneak in and loot. It's a feature of that strange year that I always thought needed more examination.
https://www.versobooks.com/products/3147-disaster-nationalism?srsltid=AfmBOooVp_SpKSBACl8SQRGNhtLuA9r67QdKMaqAYB44xfOQl4ma25_r
Anyone here has read Dhalgren by Samuel R. Delanious? What’s your take?
Read about 70 pages of A Meaningful Life by L.J. Davis. I bought it this weekend at a book stall, had never heard of the guy, but the write-up on the back peaked my interest. The writing has made me laugh a couple of times already so it was 4 euros well spent.
I'm also trying to read this book about IBM facilitating the Nazi regime by Edwin Black, which sounds pretty conspiratory but has proven to be an interesting read thusfar. Apparently a punch card system developed by the company made it possible to organize the deportation and destruction of the jews very effectively for the Nazi's. The argument is grist on the mill for the Luddite in me - is that proper English? Technological progress + a corporate desire for profit + unethical leaders = death.
ratcharge Dhalgren is one of my favorite books. It's something I read years ago that I still think about from time to time.
I always understood it was a metaphor for "white flight", when the bourgeoisie abandoned American cities in late 70s. Those urban spaces turned into waste lands, but they also proved to be fertile ground for new art, music, and self expression.
Lincoln Alright thanks! Haven’t received/ read it yet but will keep that theory in mind when I do. (Would be nice for the bourgeoisie to abandon cities again soon.)
Just started the 33⅓ Oceania book on The Clean's Boodle Boodle Boodle. It's enjoyable so far.