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 [...]
Paris Without End, the Novel
Some call this shadow I’m Brailing walls in Paris down rue Jacob night, having
satisfied both cultural & sexual curiosity, within visual pulse of the neon deus ex
machinas, reptilian instincts keen to the jazz dizzying dervishing whirlwind Id.
Again, limestone weight of Time coupled with glass desublimation of the [...]
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, TVaspeers, the first and currently only graduate-level peer-reviewed journal for American studies calls for contributions for its 3 (2010) issue on “Crime and America.” We are looking for articles (revised term papers, chapters form theses, etc) that explore this topic in its widest sense, in literature, media, culture, politics, history, etc. In addition, we are [...]
Tagged Announcements, Journals and PublicationsI 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, PhilosophyAt 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