Guns, Books, Etc.
NEED IMAGE Aleksander-Bak.jpg
William T. Vollmann reviews Crossers. (Anybody else find that title just a little too close to The Crossing?) It’s brutal, and all the more so because you can feel Vollmann trying to hold back.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/18/books/review/Vollmann-t.html?ref=books
http://www.amazon.com/Crossers-Philip-Caputo/dp/0375411674
http://www.amazon.com/Crossing-Cormac-McCarthy/dp/0679760849/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1256052020&sr=1-1
And Michael Dirda’s even rougher on Dave Eggers’ novelization of Where the Wild Things Are.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/10/15/AR2009101503738.html?sub=AR
http://www.amazon.com/Wild-Things-Fur-covered-Dave-Eggers/dp/1934781622
“’I would tell them to go to hell,’ Sendak said. And if children can’t handle the story, they should ‘go home,’ he added. ‘Or wet your pants. Do whatever you like. But it’s not a question that can be answered.’”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2009/oct/20/maurice-sendak-wild-things-hell
The Lolita cover contest.
http://venusfebriculosa.com/?p=261
“Modern industrial civilization has developed within a certain system of convenient myths. The driving force of modern industrial civilization has been individual material gain. Now it’s long been understood–very well–that a society that is based on this principle will destroy itself in time. It can only persist–with whatever suffering and injustice it entails–as long as it’s possible to pretend that the destructive forces that humans create are limited, that the world is an infinite resource, and that the world is an infinite garbage can. At this stage of history, either the general population will take control of its own destiny and will concern itself with community issues guided by values of solidarity and sympathy and concern for others or–alternatively–there will be no destiny for anyone to control.”
http://planetgreen.discovery.com/work-connect/wrong-fix-time-survive.html
The read-nest.
http://www.smallhousestyle.com/2009/03/25/read-nest-a-small-getaway-space/
The Automatic Insurrectionary Manifesto Generator.
http://www.revolutionbythebook.akpress.org/automatic-insurrectionary-manifesto-generator/
- “Caputo has stenciled his villains out of the cheapest cardboard he could find. The character of Yvonne, ‘queen of the city,’ the sadistic, nymphomaniacal, aging, addicted boss of a Mexican cartel, is about as convincing as Cruella De Vil.”
- “‘I would tell them to go to hell,’ Sendak said. And if children can’t handle the story, they should ‘go home,’ he added. ‘Or wet your pants. Do whatever you like. But it’s not a question that can be answered.’”
- The Lolita cover contest.
- “Modern industrial civilization has developed within a certain system of convenient myths. The driving force of modern industrial civilization has been individual material gain. Now it’s long been understood–very well–that a society that is based on this principle will destroy itself in time. It can only persist–with whatever suffering and injustice it entails–as long as it’s possible to pretend that the destructive forces that humans create are limited, that the world is an infinite resource, and that the world is an infinite garbage can. At this stage of history, either the general population will take control of its own destiny and will concern itself with community issues guided by values of solidarity and sympathy and concern for others or–alternatively–there will be no destiny for anyone to control.”
- The read-nest.
- “But it never loses its cynical manipulativeness, starting with a dedication that demands the Heimlich maneuver to preventing gagging: ‘For Maurice Sendak, an unspeakably brave and beautiful man.’ Come on now.”
- Automatic Insurrectionary Manifesto Generator.
