Tim Blake Nelson’s Leaves of Grass is some kind of wonder. It has Edward Norton playing Brady and Bill Kincaid, twins from Oklahoma. Bill is a rising academic superstar, a professor of philosophy at Brown who has been offered to establish his own department at Harvard. Brady grows pot back home in Little Dixie, Oklahoma. [...]
“All I know is I’m losing my mind,” Franny said. “I’m just sick of ego, ego, ego. My own and everybody else’s. I’m sick of everybody that wants to get somewhere, do something distinguished and all, be somebody interesting. It’s disgusting–it is, it is. I don’t care what anybody says.”
Franny Glass, in “Franny” (1955)
Quite a [...]
excerpts from but for how long, and why?
When are you gonna go, Sally? When are you gonna go? You should go, I’d love it if you did. When are you gonna go? Sally. I’m going.
The rain is falling, lightly, yet everything is wet. Slowly moving downtown, having just crossed the library and planning to just [...]
Without really knowing why, my reading these days consists primarily of philosophy-as-literature instead of straight-up fiction. Thinking about this it sounds kind of stupid, since all literature can in some sense be deemed philosophy. But still, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, which I have been sneaking off to read every chance I’ve gotten [...]
Tagged Cocaine, Culture, Literature, Philosophy, Tarantino, TVThis week, due to time constraints and other nuisances, I have chosen to highlight Bent Sørensen’s excellent three part series on the Beat Generation, specifically, Beat ‘Others.’ It’s an interesting angle on an interesting movement; the role of women and colored people. In the course we had at U. of Copenhagen on American Literature and [...]
Tagged American Studies, Blogs, Culture, LiteratureI am writing this after 8 hours of standing up and doing nothing, followed by 45 minutes of thrashing around on the squash court, getting humiliated by a curly Italian 3 years younger than me. So my nerves and reflexes are understandably shaken. What I need now is a beer and a book, and tonight [...]
Tagged Binge Drinking, Culture, Literature, Movies, Philosophy“In the immemorial style of young men under pressure, they decided to lie down for a while and waste time.”
Michael Chabon
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay
Pardon the absence, but Portugal and Italy and I apparently did not equal any kind of efficiency. Back to the real world and hopefully an interesting season ahead of [...]
At LA Weekly there is a Q & A with the literary critic James Wood, who is under fire at the moment and has been for some time now. I am not completely up-to-date on the polemics surrounding Wood but the interview/Q & A is interesting as an entry point into the debacle. Wood, in [...]
Tagged Belletristic, Criticism, Culture, Literature, Ménage a troisSummer is upon us, though the weather may not always be clear about this. There is nothing like being caught unawares in freezing rain wearing nothing but a tank top, shorts and worn flip-flops. This is what summer in Denmark is, and we like it. Summer also means beach reading, and sometimes train and plane [...]
Tagged Column, Culture, Libary, Literature, Readings, Recommendations, SummerThis week will be a small one. For Friday, I need to learn the basics of French Theory, and how to discuss it without applying it to anything but itself. So I am writing to you from the non-existent centre of Derrida’s ramblings, as of now, but starting this Friday at exactly 3pm I will [...]
Tagged Explosives, Father's Day, Literature, Novels