I've been reading a lot
schnipper
528 Posts
Here is what I have been reading:Starstruck by Michael Joseph Gross[/b] 
I traded in records to a local book/record store yesterday and thought I'd pick up something new to read. They have a shelf with promotional and reader copies of new books and I browsed it until I found this misfiled in the fiction section. A book by a dude with the initials MJG who used to obsessively collect autographs about fans and stars and their respective relationships to fame. I read the entire thing quite quickly as it's a fairly rolling narrative of anecdotes and half-theses. The prose is easy and not particularly dense in a nice, warm weather way and I was feeling dude's story about a snarky Katie Couric. Towards the end he comes upon the motherload of emotions and crazy people with a story that involves a very touching (seriously) Debra Messing, the author's very own coming out story andsome douchebag wanna-be from Boston with a Madonna tattoo. He wants so hard to believe that starstruck people are not total wackos, but they aren't helping him out a whole lot and it's halfway between endearing and pathetic. Chill book to read in a day. Dude has been doing a book tour and bringing his old autographs and giving them away to anyone that buys a book. Apparently he has thousands. That is serious. Speaking of his own relationship with a Dolly Parton gospel song that brought him closer to a dying mother, dude gets mad when Dolly doesn't show up for a meeting and he doesn't get to share his story before realizing "it didn't matter whether Dolly heard my story. She hears stories like mine every day. If I had told her, she could not possibly have made an anedequate response, because my desire to tell my story stemmed from fandom's most essential misconception: that a fan's intimate relationship with an entertainer's work is an intimate relationship with teh person who made that work." Obviously, hearing this I immediately thought of Roland Barthes (which I am sure made Prof. Bob Valier very happy) and the "death of the author" being a ubiquitious concept throughout all of life. This is really the center of the book's argument, and the personal negotiations of this fact, from fans and stars, are the narratives and ponderings that make it up. Cool book--- June 6th, 2005 issue of New York Magazine[/b] 
I stole this from my parents so I could do the crossword in the back on the train home from Connecticut to DC. I also read the articles. The most worth talking about piece in there is on Andrea Dworkin. I'm not really an Andrea Dworkin fan. This article, though, made me feel something futher than my "you're kind of a douche, lady" feelings that have been prevelant whenever her name is brought up. I am not the most well versed Dworkin reader, but I have actually read her writings and been fairly miffed with what she said. And the overalls, I mean, seriously. Anyway, this talks about her as more sex-obsessed than sex hating, and details how she really failed to make herself clear, and towards the end of her life really kind of lost her shit. She also was married to a gay man her entire life, who when asked if they had a physical relationship, pauses and responds "we were very close." That is next level. You can read the article here if you'd like. If anyone has or does read this, I'm curious to know what you think.There is also an article on why Radar Magazine doesn't really need to exist and the Katie Couric/Diane Sawyer article is okay. The crossword puzzle is Tony Award themed. --- XXL - The Jail Issue[/b] 
Seriously, I am not trying to go to jail. Dudes in here are like "let me tell you why jail sucks so bad and I really hate jail." Except C-Bo, who is like "I always go to jail. What are you gonna do? I really like guns." Mac talking about being innocent is serious. Chi Ali (not) talking about being guilty is also serious. I don't know, read this shit yourself or whatever. Going to jail would fucking suck shit so bad I would just like work out 4 hours a day and write poems and be like "fuck this" and cry. Though she's been discussed on here, I just want to note that if I roll my entire body up into fetal position I think it is about the size of one of Buffie's (this issue's Eye Candy) butt cheeks. She gets very petting zoo about it, and it's nice that she lets people touch it. She acknowledges the mysticism surrounding her gigantic ass and is a bit wooed by it herself. That's nice. Papoose has really bad looking skin in this photo. The Ying Yang Twins review is super on point. The Cassidy review general is but then kind of sounds like a guidance counselor being like "but he tried so hard, give him some credit!" Dude, it's Cassidy. I haven't read the 50 or Yayo articles yet, I kind of just don't care. The white rapper dude from Connecticut with no arms or legs, I want to know if Faux_rillz thinks he is hard enough. Does having no limbs cancel out crackerhood? Calling your group Hushh (Help Us Save Hip Hop) is not getting them points, arms or not. --I got thirty pages into White Teeth and then got noodle soup for dinner so can't get super in depth with that yet. What are you reading?
I traded in records to a local book/record store yesterday and thought I'd pick up something new to read. They have a shelf with promotional and reader copies of new books and I browsed it until I found this misfiled in the fiction section. A book by a dude with the initials MJG who used to obsessively collect autographs about fans and stars and their respective relationships to fame. I read the entire thing quite quickly as it's a fairly rolling narrative of anecdotes and half-theses. The prose is easy and not particularly dense in a nice, warm weather way and I was feeling dude's story about a snarky Katie Couric. Towards the end he comes upon the motherload of emotions and crazy people with a story that involves a very touching (seriously) Debra Messing, the author's very own coming out story andsome douchebag wanna-be from Boston with a Madonna tattoo. He wants so hard to believe that starstruck people are not total wackos, but they aren't helping him out a whole lot and it's halfway between endearing and pathetic. Chill book to read in a day. Dude has been doing a book tour and bringing his old autographs and giving them away to anyone that buys a book. Apparently he has thousands. That is serious. Speaking of his own relationship with a Dolly Parton gospel song that brought him closer to a dying mother, dude gets mad when Dolly doesn't show up for a meeting and he doesn't get to share his story before realizing "it didn't matter whether Dolly heard my story. She hears stories like mine every day. If I had told her, she could not possibly have made an anedequate response, because my desire to tell my story stemmed from fandom's most essential misconception: that a fan's intimate relationship with an entertainer's work is an intimate relationship with teh person who made that work." Obviously, hearing this I immediately thought of Roland Barthes (which I am sure made Prof. Bob Valier very happy) and the "death of the author" being a ubiquitious concept throughout all of life. This is really the center of the book's argument, and the personal negotiations of this fact, from fans and stars, are the narratives and ponderings that make it up. Cool book--- June 6th, 2005 issue of New York Magazine[/b] I stole this from my parents so I could do the crossword in the back on the train home from Connecticut to DC. I also read the articles. The most worth talking about piece in there is on Andrea Dworkin. I'm not really an Andrea Dworkin fan. This article, though, made me feel something futher than my "you're kind of a douche, lady" feelings that have been prevelant whenever her name is brought up. I am not the most well versed Dworkin reader, but I have actually read her writings and been fairly miffed with what she said. And the overalls, I mean, seriously. Anyway, this talks about her as more sex-obsessed than sex hating, and details how she really failed to make herself clear, and towards the end of her life really kind of lost her shit. She also was married to a gay man her entire life, who when asked if they had a physical relationship, pauses and responds "we were very close." That is next level. You can read the article here if you'd like. If anyone has or does read this, I'm curious to know what you think.There is also an article on why Radar Magazine doesn't really need to exist and the Katie Couric/Diane Sawyer article is okay. The crossword puzzle is Tony Award themed. --- XXL - The Jail Issue[/b] Seriously, I am not trying to go to jail. Dudes in here are like "let me tell you why jail sucks so bad and I really hate jail." Except C-Bo, who is like "I always go to jail. What are you gonna do? I really like guns." Mac talking about being innocent is serious. Chi Ali (not) talking about being guilty is also serious. I don't know, read this shit yourself or whatever. Going to jail would fucking suck shit so bad I would just like work out 4 hours a day and write poems and be like "fuck this" and cry. Though she's been discussed on here, I just want to note that if I roll my entire body up into fetal position I think it is about the size of one of Buffie's (this issue's Eye Candy) butt cheeks. She gets very petting zoo about it, and it's nice that she lets people touch it. She acknowledges the mysticism surrounding her gigantic ass and is a bit wooed by it herself. That's nice. Papoose has really bad looking skin in this photo. The Ying Yang Twins review is super on point. The Cassidy review general is but then kind of sounds like a guidance counselor being like "but he tried so hard, give him some credit!" Dude, it's Cassidy. I haven't read the 50 or Yayo articles yet, I kind of just don't care. The white rapper dude from Connecticut with no arms or legs, I want to know if Faux_rillz thinks he is hard enough. Does having no limbs cancel out crackerhood? Calling your group Hushh (Help Us Save Hip Hop) is not getting them points, arms or not. --I got thirty pages into White Teeth and then got noodle soup for dinner so can't get super in depth with that yet. What are you reading?
Comments
I don't think a trait exists--cultural, racial, experiential or otherwise--that could cancel out that name.
this has been peeling my cap back for the last few weeks. Found it in the trash, and it's been holding my attention since. I know Rand is very good at polarizing her readers, but I really dig some of her philosophies that she puts forth in this book. I can't get with it all the way, because the context that she places the characters in seems totally unrealistic in my opinion - I mean, I don't see our government doing away with the patent and copyright office outright, we're pretty against communism/socialism in this country.
But she makes good points about being compensated based on what you have EARNED not by what you need, and how the opposite of that can create a 'victim' mindset that is can be very destructive. I also dig the complete advocation for total honesty and not 'faking reality in any matter whatever' motto as well. Also the basic tenet that live is about a state of happiness, not a state of misery or guilt.
But I can't get with the whole looking at the facts and just the facts, and ignoring what your heart tells you because it's irrational and doesn't belong. It kinda goes against the whole "mind-body" connection she alludes to throughout.
But overall, it's a great little mystery story, and a bit of a moral story on letting government make too many decisions for the people.
Schnipper
I read the Dworkin piece and found it very interesting. I guess I always found her kind of strident and more than a little frightening, and reading about her life put a lot of what she said/did into perspective.
I'm currently reading 'A Cooks Tour' by Anthony Bourdain, the book version of the series he did for the Food Channel where he travels all over the world sampling indigenous cuisine. Good writer, great stories.
Next up is a bio of the Carter Family.
But I've had these babies on the train this week:
Renee Gladman - The Activist (Krupskaya)
An interesting long narrative that comes at you from several points of view (news reports, first person, politicians' press conferences) to tell the story of a bridge that may or may not have been blown up by radicals. The writing is fantastic (in the fantasy sense - maps changing before peoples' eyes, etc.) but not hokey, and the shifting vantagepoints keep it clipping along. Recommended.
Ben Lerner - The Lichtenberg Figures (Copper Canyon)
Ben Lerner's smarter than you. He spends these fifty-odd loose, untitled sonnets proving it. He's also really funny, so that helps, but I started to get the feeling that he was coasting by the end, rehashing, doing his "real world moves" rote, without breaking new ground. The first forty or so are downright breathtaking.
Bambouche - Dissidence Begins Within
So real. But y'all know that.
[sorry, no jpegs]
LA WEEKLY
i cant believe how shitty this free, [supposedly] progressive street tabloid is. but it has a crossword puzzle in it and i like them and last week there was a clue that read "cool, to rappers" and i couldnt figure out the word. turns out the word was PHAT.
PAPER
so i get this magazine for free in my mailbox every month. its addressed to some dude named maurice lee. this months issue has puffyamiyumi on the cover and there's a small diplo article. first off, how fucking lame is paper. i mean, theyre basically ripping off VICE mag's template these days with some high society pictures thrown in for good measure. but yeah, i was slightly offended by the diplo article. he says something along the lines of "japan is sad. there's nothing japanese about japan." which made me think that perhaps diplo is romanticising japan a bit too much. like what was he expecting, dudes in loinclothes and pointy hats running down the boulevard with rickshaws? getting sucked off by some chick in a kimono and white face paint? i mean, im not faulting him, cuz i think most americans romanticize foreign countries. sure, japan is about as western as you can get in the far east. and most of that has to do with american occupation. but as a foreigner in a foreign land, i think it is pretty presumptuous to say japan is not japanese. they may have burger king and mcdonalds, but the efficiency in which they run those joints is very japanese.
ANAHULU
its this anthropology book on a specific part of an oahu river valley and how that society was affected/effected by outside capitalism and trade. its kinda boring and its put me to sleep manny a night. but these books are kinda cool cuz you get more insight on the common man. and im a common man.
Ay! Those two typos are killing me.
I wanted to tell deepstank and schnipper (and anyone else interested) about Haki Madhubuti's A Poet's Handbook.
The first half of the book is Run Towards Fear, a collection of poetry. Some wonderful poems. Even one to R. Kelly, right next to a poem for Wynton Marsalis.
A Poet's Handbook, which occupies the second half of the book, is great. I think you need to read it. I will not give anything away, but I find it endearing that Haki manages to work "pay attention to children" into damn near every one of the 40 "lessons" in the handbook, keeping each one fresh, humorous, and grimy as fuck!
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I've also been reading Donald Nicholson-Smith's translation of Raoul Vaneigem's The Revolution of Everyday Life. The other translation was very hard to get through. This one is nice.
Vaneigem has a way with words. Sometimes I read the sentence three or four times in a row, marveling at his choice. He seems to make it hard and worth it at the same time. This is why I hate reading translated text, because I always catch myself wondering, "Is this what he said?" See:
Perhaps it is in order to ensure that a universal desire to perish does not take hold of men that a whole spectacle is organized around particular sufferings. A sort of nationalized philanthropy impels man to find consolation for his own infirmities in the spectacle of other people's.
Consider disaster photographs, stories of cuckolded singers, the ridiculous dramas of the gutter press; hospitals, asylums, and prisons: real museums of suffering for the use of those whose fear of entering them makes them happy to be outside. I sometimes feel such a diffuse suffering dispersed through me that I find relief in the chance misfortune that concretizes and justifies it, offers it a legitimate outlet. Nothing will dissuade me of this: the sadness I feel after a separation, a failure, a bereavement doesn't reach me from outside like an arrow but wells up from inside me like a spring freed by a landslide. There are wounds which allow the spirit to utter a long-stifled cry. Despair never lets go its prey; it is only the prey which isolates despair in the end of a love or the death of a child, where there is only its shadow. Mourning is a pretext, a convenient way of spitting out nothingness in small drops. The tears, the cries and howls of childhood remain imprisoned in the hearts of men. For ever? In you also the emptiness is growing.
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There is also a great comic strip book out about the Industrial Workers of the World (the "Wobblies") that I've been perusing off and on.
I love this shit. The drawings are fantastic. And they squeeze entire speeches into the thought bubbles, which is a great way to re-live some of those moments. Like my girl Lucy Parsons, whose husband was one of the Haymarket Martyrs. Her speech, To Tramps, in 1884 is beautifully realized in the book:
A word to [those] now tramping the streets, with hands in pockets, gazing listlessly about you at the evidence of wealth and pleasure of which you own no part, not sufficient even to purchase yourself a bit of food with which to appease the pangs of hunger now knawing at your vitals. It is with you and the hundreds of thousands of others similarly situated in this great land of plenty, that I wish to have a word???
Send forth your petition and let them read it by the red glare of destruction. Thus when you cast "one long lingering look behind" you can be assured that you have spoken to these robbers in the only language which they have ever been able to understand, for they have never yet deigned to notice any petition from their slaves that they were not compelled to read by the red glare bursting from the cannon's mouths, or that was not handed to them upon the point of the sword. You need no organization when you make up your mind to present this kind of petition. In fact, an organization would be a detriment to you; but each of you hungry tramps who read these lines, avail yourselves of those little methods of warfare which Science has placed in the hands of the poor man, and you will become a power in this or any other land.
Learn the use of explosives!
That sounds tight! Imma pick that up because all I do is read these days because not having a job/applying for them is making me lose my mind. I've given up shaving and spend a good deal of the day in bed reading books and listening to music on my computer because those turntables are just too far away (and the records are in the other room MY GOD). Anyway that book reminds me of this book my favorite book of poetry EVER
where she has one third of the book be poems about dreams (often featuring celebrities [my favorite being her date with Jack Nicholson, who brings you nice things when you are dating him], one third being a 13 part poem written first person as Muhammad Ali, and the other third being generally trill on its own, including a piece on James Hampton
I went to Barnes and Noble the other day with a gift certificate and thought I would buy some new shit. I saw the new Nicole Krauss and thought about buying that but opted to buy her other book, as I'd only read an early story of hers about this old Jewish guy. So I found a paperback copy of
MAN WALKS INTO A ROOM by NICOLE KRAUSS
A pretty good book. About a dude who forgets who he is because of a brain tumor. He can remember everything up until he is twelve, and can make new memories, but everything in between is gone. Fortunately, he was a pretty smart English professor at Columbia with a hot wife who soothes him, but he doesn't care because that's who he is now and he's got to figure himself out which includes a scientist doing some fucked up shit to him and going to Las Vegas and reading a lot. It's often flowery in a way which edges on total douchery and beautiful and I feel shit like that hard. I read this whole thing in less than a day because I was up real late after crashing super hard because I was real drunk this weekend and got sick so I needed some me time and got it reading the book. Tight book
I also picked up another new book it totally doesn't seem as tight as Man Walking in a Room Alone or whatever so I haven't gotten far because I need to shed the memory of man character Samson Greene, who really is quite lovable.
that book is a total mind rip. absolutely essential reading. i have yet to get throught the whole thing but plan
to one of these days. the online version is translated by these two guys
John Fullerton
Paul Sieveking
are they the other ones you refer to Bam?
i think i actually printed the whole thing at work a while ago
http://library.nothingness.org/articles/SI/en/pub_contents/5
This young man calls up the photographer from the town where he was born to see if perhaps he had a negative from the only known portrait of his mother. What he ends up finding is the history of Greenville, Mississippi, which he described as "A Mayberry with an all black cast"
The pictures in this book are very surreal, it is not the usual town that you are shown in history books when it comes to segregated blacks. I feel this is a must read.
Excerpt from book
Images from book
You should read this:
Trust me, if either you or I go to jail we will not be working out 4 hours a day or writing poetry. We misght cry, however, when we get anally raped.
In the Belly of the Beast by Jack Henry Abbott. Abbott, as you may know, originally started writing to Norman Mailer when he learned Mailer was writing about Gary Gilmore's execution. The exchange (although one-sided in the book) is very powerful. Abbott explaining how a trip to the prison infirmary is like vacation for a convict, somuchso that he'd rub semen in his eyes to mimic suppuration. It's eye opening.
Soledad Brothers by George Jackson. Probably one of the most famous prison letter books. Letters to his mother, mostly. And later in the book, there is a good amount of correspondence with his attorney and Angela Davis. Like Abbott, Jackson originally went to jail for petty robbery (stealing $70), and was never able to "conform" so he remained in prison for his adult life. George's little brother, Jonathan, took a Marin court hostage, announcing, "All right, gentlemen...
I'm taking over now," demanding the release of the Soledad Brothers. He was shot dead. In the book, George writes about the incident:
Terrible Jonathans teethed on the barrel of the political tool, hardened against the concrete of the most uncivilized jungles of the planet -- Chicago, St. Louis, Los Angeles, San Francisco -- tested in a dozen fires.... They will be the first to fall. We gather up their bodies, clean them, kiss them and smile. Their funerals should be gala affairs... We should be sad only that it's taken us so many generations to produce them.
It can get a bit rediculous and artsy fartsy but anyone interested in music and sound needs to read this.
Also, been reading this:
The pics a bit small, but the books is Arnold Schoenberg's "Theory of Harmony." This thing is one the hardest books Ive ever read. But its blowing my mind and teaching me tons at the same time.
wow. ive actually read these books. not all the way through tho, but yeah, i was shocked that the cage one was a lot easier to follow than that schoenberg joint.
on a related note, there's a book by robert bresson that details his theory on sound in film that's pretty interesting. plus its only like 20 pages long or some shit and i did make it all the way through that one.
Are you talking about Notes on the Cinematographer, or something like that? If not Ill check around for that, sounds very cool.
yeah, Schoenberg has got to be one of the worst writers I've ever read. Or maybe its the translation? But its hard enough to do the music exercises without having to decipher what in the hell he is talking about.
nope. this one, i found it on the innernets. not 20 pages long, just a real short bit. i think it may have been a part of another book or something. nothing complex, but as you can see, its pretty interesting.
notes on sound
Appreciate, motherbitches!