Currently Reading

[surfer]

[jkudler]

i'm apparently on a memoir kick, though it wasn't consciously until just now. read most of steve martin's book in one sitting, then have been having a lot of trouble finishing it. not sure why it got such great reviews. while it's kind of interesting, it has only surface insights, the prose is really pedestrian, and i feel his ego somehow coming out a lot. i was hoping for some interesting thoughts on improvisation and developing one's craft and touring, but that's only a small part. i should just sit down and finish this tonight and be done; it's a quick read.

also started "persepolis," which for obvious reasons makes even more sense now. looks great, the little i got through. finally, bought shalom auslander's "foreskin's lament." i had read one or two excerpts and really liked them - thoughtful, funny, and interesting. it's about growing up in a really nuts orthodox jewish family and coming to grips with that as a secular adult.

-j.

[schiksalgemeinschaft]

http://www.markprindle.com

So yes, Obituary is still playing midtempo sludge-doom metal -- just a bunch of heavy chords and a guy growl-shouting some lyrics. It's way too sluggish and draggy, with almost no energy and far too many space-wasting nothing passages between the fascinatingly strange ones. They kick out the fucks jammermother only for two high-speed thrashers ("List Of Dead" and "Violent Dreams") and three far-too-brief speed metal breaks in otherwise slow as pud songs ("Blood To Give," "See Me Now," "Forces Realign"). The remaining eight songs clomp along at a pedestrian's pace, occasionally handing you a memorable chord sequence but never anything really amazing. "Payback" and "Truth Be Told" strike my brain as a bit hookier than the others, but that's really just personal preference. None of the songs go out of their way to blow your mind, believe me.

I will say this though: Darkest Day makes for very good background music. If you're only halfway paying attention, you don't notice all the do-nothing riffs they stick in to fill space; you only notice the good parts! Since there's generally one good part per song (excepting the throwaway "Outside My Head" and unfathomably slow and boring "Your Darkest Day"), listening to the work in this way results in a warm feeling of familiarity and safety overtaking your person.

Speaking of "warm feeling," I need to urinate out the window on somebody's head now so fuck you.

And don't give me that "maybe if you stopped pissing out the window and telling your readers 'fuck you,' somebody would hire you" crap. I tried it your way last time, and look where THAT got me!

Well okay, employed for 12 years.

But you'll see! You'll see what I can accomplish by peeing out of my window onto peoples' heads! And boy, are you gonna have egg on your face! Because I'm going to hit you in the face with an egg!

As for the rest of you, thank you for being a friend. Traveled down the road and back again. Your heart is true; you're a pal and a confidante. And if you threw a party and invited everyone you knew, you would see the biggest gift would be from me and the card attached would say, (*takes a dump on a greeting card*)

My wife told me not to review an album tonight. She said, "You're tipsebriated. Don't do that." But I did, and htank God I did, because I've just created the most insightful record review in the history of record reviews. I'm now going to post several drunken comments sent to my fingers by my brain for your enlightenment:

1. Don't get raped

2. Death happens, but you know whtat? I know!

3. Dogs are the best person in the world.

4. Republicans are sociopaths and should be beaten with a chain. Democrats want their money for nothing and their chicks for free. I say skip them both, particularly if you don't live in the United States.

5. There's no reason at all to buy this comic book/CD, ecxept that the CD rules and the comic book is probably hilarious.

6. If somebody walks towards you threateningly, do these three things in immediate succession: (1) use the bottom of your palm to shove their nose into their brain as hard as you can, (2) bash them in the temple (right above their eye, on the side of their face) with your elbow, and (3) punch them with all your might in the throat. Then run!

7. If you're a psychopath, kill assholes, not nice people. I've mentioned this on my site a lot, but people keep killing nice people. Come on psychopaths! Do the world a favor, not a BLAVOR!

8. I made up the word "blavor."

9. Enough with the dreams about me living at the top of the world trade center! The Ggoddem thing blew up 8 years ago! Why do I keep dreaming that (a) I live at the top, (b) the elevator takes like 45 minutes, and (c) if you take the elevator from the top, it's a scary as hell amusement park ride? None of these itemized occurrences benefit today's youth.

10. We need to change the name of our country to "The United States Of Love." Then on our flag, we can change the stars to little hearts, and replace the stripes with HR Giger's "Penis Landscape." What will North Korea do but unarm?

[surfer]

A Bend In The River

About 80 pages from the end. I remember this book sitting on the shelves at the Peace Corps house in Guinea, a few people saying they didnt really like it. I've been meaning to read it for years, and perhaps I'm being a bit hasty since I havent finished it yet. But I cannot recommend this book. Its always a danger to corrolate a narrator's and an author's views, but this book is more than a bit racist. I wont deny a few passages of inspired writing, but overall the Indian/Arab/African merchant narrator views Africa and Africans as a deadend, a dark continent where all human endeavor is doomed to failure, and where everything ends up beign consumed by "the bush". Humans (Africans and Europeans and Arabs) tend towards their lowest instincts: basic survival, every man for himself, and exploitation of others when one can. Its basically a rehashing of Conrad, 75 years later (Naipaul's setting is a barely diguised Belgian Congo). On top of that, Naipaul's prose is often hard to follow, not because its difficult, but often illogical. By the end of a train of thought, you're not sure how or why he's arrived at this conclusion. He does have some interesting characters, and he does a good job of fleshing them out.

"Its going to be bad here Salim. They're going to kill everybody who can read and write, everybody who ever put on a jacket and tie, everybody who put on jacket de boy. They're going to kill all the masters and all the servants. They're going to kill and kill. they say it is the only way, to go back to the beginning before its too late."

Maybe I'll have more thoughts as I finish up.

[Jesse]

Reading the extraordinary Swedish poet Tomas Transtromer, first mind-stopped by his work in the early 80s. Both the Robert Bly and Robin Fulton translations.
Darren, get a hold of his stuff post-haste! If I had a million dollars I'd send you Great Enigma: Collected Poems!



The airy sky has taken its place leaning against the wall.
It is like a prayer to what is empty.
And what is empty turns its face to us
and whispers:
'I am not empty, I am open.'

-Vermeer, Transtromer

[surfer]

Reading the extraordinary Swedish poet Tomas Transtromer, first mind-stopped by his work in the early 80s. Both the Robert Bly and Robin Fulton translations.
Darren, get a hold of his stuff post-haste! If I had a million dollars I'd send you Great Enigma: Collected Poems!



The airy sky has taken its place leaning against the wall.
It is like a prayer to what is empty.
And what is empty turns its face to us
and whispers:
'I am not empty, I am open.'

-Vermeer, Transtromer

I asked my friend who teaches poetry and comp at UC Boulder about him, because I'd never heard his name before, and he replied:

He's right up your alley. Think Szymborska or Salamun's slightly more reined-in poetry. Transtromer is what Merwin was trying to be in the 60s & 70s: Surrealist, elementally local (?), meditative. Anyway, I like him a lot. Ecco Press put out a selected called Selected Poems 1954-1986 which is interesting because you get to see not just an overview of his poetry, but who his major translators were. Quite a few. I like the Bly translations a lot (not that I know Swedish, so guess that doesn't mean much).

Good rec Jesse, I'll definitely have to a volume to check out. Thanks!

[surfer]

aka rereading the first 60 pages (and prob some of the Manx Martins sections) of Underworld.

[grisha]

Vasily Grossman - Life and Fate

[Gary Sisco]

Good one, Grisha. I'd like to read that one again. Gave mine to a friend years ago.

[al jones]

aka rereading the first 60 pages (and prob some of the Manx Martins sections) of Underworld.

possibly the strongest start to an otherwise forgettable novel in the history of literature.

[surfer]

Nice to see you over here Gary.

[Gary Sisco]

Thanks.

[jon abbey]

Gary, you were here before, weren't you? we lost all the screen names when we switched domains a while back, but if you care and you can find an old post of yours by searching, Mark can connect it to your new screen name if you want (PM him at mudd).

aka rereading the first 60 pages (and prob some of the Manx Martins sections) of Underworld.

possibly the strongest start to an otherwise forgettable novel in the history of literature.

heh, I got good advice on this, and just stopped after the first section.

[Gary Sisco]

Yeah. I had to register again. Nothing important to dig up, I don't think. I suspect I may be something of an old fuddy duddy for this board, but JC's evidently sunk, all but the stern. Most of my music listening for the past nine or ten months has been stuff from the way past. The most recent thing on my mp3 player is from '72. :-0 But I love it, still.

What I'm reading:

Shelby Foote, *The Civil War* (huge -- it'll require a long, long time)
Col. David Hackworth, *About Face* (I sure do miss Hack's commentary)
Joseph Ellis, *Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation* (so far quite good, just started it)

[jon abbey]

you're good, man, we could use you around here. just get yourself an avatar!

[Gary Sisco]

Right.

[Jesse]

Gary, I'm reading Wobblies and Zapatistas, a very good edited dialogue (241 p) between Balkan anarchist Grubacic and the ol' crocodile lefty lawyer Staughton Lynd. I think of you often working through this one, explicitly because of the respect paid to Bookchin, more implicitly because of the still beating heart of popular movements.

[surfer]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lrI7dVj90zs

NR:

[jon abbey]

Darren, you know about this, right?

http://www.nytimes.com/2001/02/01/sport ... signs.html

[Jesse]

Good ol' Hawkes, he's a perverse fella.
I used to press The Blood Oranges and (especially) Second Skin on every friend who read for literary pleasure.