December 2009
51 posts
Books bought & read in 2009
I bought 174 books this year: http://bit.ly/5j0TQM
I read 60 books this year: http://bit.ly/5wdu13
Reading Gaddis was definitely this year’s highlight.
Now I’m going to drink until it’s 2010.
Cormac McCarthy’s Paradox of Choice: One Writer,... →
nerdshares:
bookshares:
Scott Esposito, of The Quarterly Conversation and Conversational Reading (his own blog), wrote this essay on Cormac McCarthy’s body of work — an essay that is so impressive in scope and substance that I feel like a jackass trying to settle on an adequate superlative with which to praise it. I’ll say this: I read it in full, bookmarked it, and printed out the entire 20...
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Weird books
From http://www.abebooks.co.uk/books/weird/index.shtml
Some highlights:
Soldier Bear
Tattooed Mountain Women and Spoonboxes of Daghestan
Was Karl Marx a Satanist?
Erotic Dots: Join the Dots to Create 60 Sexy and Exciting Pictures
How You Can Bowl Better Using Self-Hypnosis
Jewish Chess Masters on Stamps
Semen for Sale. All About Artificial Insemination
Dead Pet: Send Your Best Little...
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Daniel Plainview the house is on fire!
Just wanted to yell that in my head real quick.
Things I bought today
Zombie toy,
Skull (quarter machine),
Magnets,
Slippery spheres,
Magic cards (why not),
Lottery tickets (didn’t win),
Ugly doll,
Fireplace DVD,
Beer (Santa’s private reserve, Rogue)
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Xmas movies
I’m sorry, but Christmas Story is boring. Scrooged is the best Xmas movie ever.
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Windowlicker, by Aphex Twin. I will listen to this...
Useless pandas
Our forsaken fecundity stresses our American captors. Bald eagles starve while we gorge!
From http://rolcats.com/
Haaaaaaaaaaaaaaa.
Just won HudMo tix for NYC tomorrow
I just won tickets to the Hudson Mohawke album release party in NYC tomorrow night. It’s supposed to blizzard the whole east coast this weekend… What to do, what to do…
It was a Bleep contest where they asked what your ideal party would be and which three guests you would invite. I said, “My three ideal guests to my ideal party would be Tom Waits, Bjork and Richard James...
Books to Watch for in 2010 →
Bolano, Bernhard, others. Also, Vollmann is insane. He looks like a serial killer.
Design an iPhone case →
“I need a shot. Heads espresso, tails whiskey.”
– It’s almost noon.
“What the fuck.”
HTMLGIANT's 25 Important Books of the 00s →
Sometimes I get distracted at work
Whiteboarding
Yeah. See. Well, they were trying to “brand” the new Exchange mail rollout here at UNC ITS, and this is the shitbrainstorm they came up with:
CampuSEXchange. I like it. Has a nice ring to it. Or, as the kids will be calling it any day now, pusX.
Where the fuck
I’ve lost my ipod for the 300th time.
Blackwater founder outed as CIA spy? What the... →
Recognition, Recollection, Repetition
I’ve been reading a bunch of essays on Gaddis’s novels and it’s kinda blowing my mindgrapes.
Just noticed a pack of matches on my desk
And now I kinda want to start a fire. Bad idea?
Jack Gibbs talking to greeting card salesperson
— Got a friend jumped out a window, got a card for that? — Well gee I, maybe get well … — Can’t get well went home and hung himself got a card for that? — Well gee I, I don’t think so but maybe you could … — Got a woman on alimony sleeping with a book salesman hell of an occasion, got a card for that? — Well gee I, like here’s sympathy.
From...
OK, now I'm done with Gaddis
Last night I read the 96-page paragraph that is Agapē Agape, a dying man’s rant against pretty much everything. It was based on Gaddis’s nearly lifelong research on the history of the player piano (which pops up in a few of his books before becoming its own short novel) and serves as a frantic rumbling impotent here’s-what’s-wrong-with-Western-culture-before-I-die...
[makes it rain], forces sale of stuffed llama
chas blackman: I bought my older sister a goats in trees calendar
bonehill: say what? send link
chas blackman: heh
chas blackman: http://bit.ly/6JzWNg
chas blackman: she likes goats
chas blackman: and llamas
bonehill: there were stuffed llamas at mami noras and I really wanted one
chas blackman: ha
bonehill: this is hilarious
chas blackman: how much?
bonehill: they weren't for sale
chas blackman: oh
bonehill: I just wanted one
chas blackman: I said HOW MUCH!
chas blackman: ha
chas blackman: don't make me go veruca salt all over this bitch
bonehill: so sir, are your llamas for sale. no? well, how about I name a price.
chas blackman: ha
bonehill: perhaps you can be persuaded
chas blackman: [takes out checkbook]
chas blackman: [uncaps golden pen]
bonehill: [takes out cash roll]
chas blackman: ha
chas blackman: [makes it rain]
bonehill: [thumbs out hundreds]
William Gaddis
Last night I finished reading the fourth and final William Gaddis novel. There’s a lot more to say about that but I’m a little brain-exhausted, so here are some Wikipedia links.
The Recognitions (1955)
J R (1975)
Carpenter’s Gothic (1985)
A Frolic of His Own (1994)
Wait, is Agapē Agape a novel? I thought it was non-fiction. Shit, looks like I’ll be starting that one...
Schumann on tour?
Schumann’s on tour? Really, last.fm? I’m pretty sure he died in 1856. Of syphilis.
In late February Schumann’s symptoms increased, the angelic visions sometimes being replaced by demonic visions. He warned Clara that he feared he might do her harm. On 27 February 1854, he attempted suicide by throwing himself from a bridge into the Rhine River. Rescued by boatmen and taken...
“As much as I definitely enjoy solitude I wouldn’t mind, perhaps, spending...”
Owning Evil
At UNC ITS we use an ORACLE software product, and it’s kinda shitty. It comes from some humongous-ass monolithic global corporation who is slowly buying the tech world. There are several big software companies out there with faceless uncaring support and insatiable purchase-lust, but what I like about ORACLE is how they just seem evil. Everything about their brand and MO shrieks evil:...
“I only know that I will maintain what I believe to be true in my own universe,...”
– Camus
Littell wins bad sex in fiction prize →