not much

yes, im ambitious.  i still have swann’s way to read, too

i would like to amend my previous post about bukowski. i think when bukowski is up and talking about bukowski then he’s great and i love him. but them when he’s surly and depressed that’s when he gets me down.

that is all.

can you tell i havent finished the book yet?

…sort of. i have been reading a lot over the past few months, probably more than i ever have before. and ive been doing a lot of what i call immersion reading, reading a lot of books by the same authors. it’s what i do when i get into a band too. huh. i may be slightly obsessive compulsive. this may, in fact, only be news to me. but one of the authors i have been peppering my reading with is bukowski. i really like him, but i cant read 2 books in a row by him. i have a hard time dealing with him for a few reasons. 1) he makes me feel provincial, like i am boring and bourgeois and easily shocked 2) he makes me feel like im not really living, like im not taking advantage of being human 3) he makes me feel really fucking sad because he is so divinely unhappy. a friend of mine recently said that bukowski really cares when he’s fucking all these girls, and i wasnt sure how to respond at that moment, because i wasnt in the middle of a bukowski movement, but now that i am in the middle of another book i think it is the fact that he does just fuck anything that makes me feel so sad, but then the fact that i get sad and feel bad for him makes me feel 1) provincial and 2) like hes just being human. it is a vicious cycle and, frankly, i dont know if my tenderhearted self can handle it. as i read on the train this morning i felt myself sinking deeper and deeper and now i cant really concentrate on my rather busy day. oh, and i dont think he really cares about the WOMEN when hes fucking them. i think he cares about the moment. but maybe that’s in a different book. frankly, i dont know if i am man enough for the challenge. he makes me feel empty and i dont know if it’s worth it.

back when i was in high school, my friend’s older sister told me i should read “neuromancer” by william gibson. i was (and still am) a snob and told her there was no way in hell i was going to read science fiction. and just to prove it i sat there on their couch and ended up reading the whole book that day because i loved it so much. funny how it didnt seem odd to anyone at the time that i spent a whole day on their couch. i think their parents were away for the summer. ah…that was a good summer. anyway, what shoved me out on this trip down memory lane was this news story on billboard about the pussycat dolls’ virtual lounge. you create an avatar and then “navigate the various rooms of the nightclub.” to me this sounds like it would get old really fast, BUT, it’s right out of chiba city in neuromancer. now, is this something that william gibson should get compensated for? or did he steal it from someone else? are we creating these things because we read about them?

only in neuromancer, the virtual world was more of an underground and not a marketing tool to sell shitty music.

hmmm, now where is that book? maybe i can feel 18 again…

i had one of those “moments” last night when you realize the great gulf that separates Us from Them. i was watching the charlie rose show (something i think ive only done twice before–when johnny depp was the guest and when viggo mortensen was the guest. call me shallow, i dont care) and there were three guys on there discussing the dick cheney interview on fox news. everyone was saying pretty much the same thing that i agree with, it seems like it was an accident, cheney just decided that nobody needed to know about it.

my “moment” was when i was sitting there with the cat on my lap, feeling utterly powerless in response to this man’s attitude that he should decide what i need and dont need to know, when i realized that this man actually HAS power. i mean he has a scary amount of power. and i cant even imagine what it feels like to know that you can change something. no matter what way you want to change it, that isnt my point. my point is that there are people who dont know what it feels like to not be able to do something. god they must fucking HATE us. what a weird concept. dick cheney must hold me in contempt for being powerless, that’s all i can imagine. i am actually worthless to him. i cant even further his agenda. that is all i can imagine. because he is in control he must resent the fact that he has to deal with us. i dont mean to sound paranoid and i cant say i even really blame him because i totally understand the thought process, not that i agree with it, but that process of “i know better so why should i have to convince these people?” wow.

i am reading philip roth’s book “the plot against america” about an alternative universe in which lindbergh was elected in 1940 (or was it 42?) instead of roosevelt and kept america out of the war in europe. it is presented as an autobiography (which i find sort of funny in light of the brouhaha surrounding “the memoir” these days) and, being written by philip roth is about (what else) a jewish family in new jersey. now, i am (very much) a protestant girl from (not so much) hawaii but the great thing about philip roth is that he makes me feel like an 8 year old jewish boy from newark. or is that a great thing? anyway, i am losing the plot here a little bit. my whole point is that the book shows just how deceiving a presidential administration can be or any authority figure. it is frightening because what you see in this novel is a president who is just one of the guys, a straight shooter (so to speak, no pun intended, or at least not really intended) and says all the right things and is seemingly above reproach in word and deed, but in the meantime is turning a country into a fascist nazi state without anybody realizing it because he’s so appealing. and the people are just eating it up, thinking “what a great man.” i get the feeling on a very intuitive level that there is a correlation here between dick cheney’s arrogance and the america that roth imagines, but dont have the actual ability to bring it out. and as usual, i dont have the patience to think it through.

i guess it is the fact that someone else is deciding what is important for me to know and what is irrelevant. frankly, i feel sorry for cheney and the other old white dude that got shot. that sucks. no way around it. apparently the other guy was kind of a scumbag too, but still, i mean, it sucks. i am just really uneasy now because cheney is acting more like a bullying father than an executive officer of the government. is that the right term? oh i dont know, i just have too many thoughts bouncing around and probably shouldnt even post this, but i am bothered and busy and just wanted to get it at least somewhere out there so maybe someone could talk to me about it. and it would help if they agreed and offered solutions. ha.

Technorati Tags: dick cheney, philip roth, fascism, powerlessness

i was just wondering yesterday why no had spoken to annie proulx given the phenomenal success of brokeback mountain. well, i was poking around on kottke.org today and noticed–hey, someone has! if you havent read any of annie proulx’s books, i highly recommend them. michelle gave me a copy of postcards when it first came out, maybe when i went to italy for the year? whatever, from there, i have gone on to read all of her books, in fact i would probably say she is the only contemporary writer i get excited about. except i dont think i liked the shipping news very much. she is such a terrific writer, her style is so rich but clean. my sister made the comment that proulx writes like a man, but i would add with the insight of a woman.

e annie proulx books on amazon

oh, and please note that the interview was done by the dad from the OC, sandy cohen.

in today’s NY Times (i guess, i dont check it every day and it’s the online version) there is a piece about a panel discussion featuring tony kushner and e.l. doctorow on the topic of the rosenbergs in fiction. i have always been fascinated by the rosenbergs’ story and doctorow’s fictional account of a couple based on juilus and ethel rosenberg, the book of daniel, is one of my favorite books. the movie kinda sucked, but timothy hutton…anyway, as doctorow is quoted in the times story, “I didn’t want to write about the Rosenbergs, I wanted to write about what happened to them.” so essentially this story just furthers the discussion about the furor surrounding primarily james frey (i dont think jt leroy has really caught on aywhere except on gawker.com, but i could be wrong)

i suppose the crux of this discussion should be, does it matter whether the facts are true? on another level, and this is evidenced on every episode of “top model” what is true? i mean, what i think happened i an argument and what i absolutely believe to be a true series of events may not be what the person i was arguing with thinks happened. who is right? even if a video camera taped the whole thing, would it necessarily reveal any facts? not necessarily. wheher or not james frey ran over a cop can be proved however. i suppose if he had just called it something besides a memoir, or if he had just written an “autobiographical novel” this wouldnt matter. thats what every male american writer has done since 1950, isnt it? females too, i guess, i just cant think of any. i suppose it’s so hard for writers to become famous that frey felt he had to make himself seem a certain way in order to gain the fame he craved.

so does it matter whether the facts are true? to me, no. i dont trust autobiographies (sorry, memoirs, affected much?) anyway, everybody bends the truth to make it the way they want it to be. as long as everybody listening keeps that in mind, we’re all set.

oh, and p.s. dont trust that wikipedia link above to the rosenbergs.

as i head out to continue my month long stretch of dentist and doctor visits (what the fuck? is this what always happens when you dont go to anyone for 3 years?) i will obsess over these two things from today’s page six

1) what is this unspeakable, unprintable act that ricky martin engages in while showering that cant be printed in the paper? surely if you can say “blowjob”, “shit”, and “asshole” on superstation, then the post can at least give us a euphemism.

2) candace bushnell considers herself a “serious novelist” i have never read the books but she says that her characters are real and have darkness and throw philosophical questions about men and women into the universe. i guess i’m missing that when i skip by sex and the city reruns on superstation when they’re saying “blowjob”, “shit”, and “asshole.”

more importantly, though, i want to know what ricky martin is doing in the shower.

i dig a good mystery movie or even law and order, but have never really been into mystery books. theyre okay, but in general i…well, apparently i am a harsh judge of these things. i was at the bookstore the other day looking for some magazines, though, and found out that there is a whole series of mystery books that feature cats? unfortunately i dont think the cats are the actual detectives…that i might be into. if they wore little fedoras and trenchcoats and those funny short ties that all the hardboiled private dicks wear in black and white movies then i might be into it. anyway, if you’ll look with me at the titles of the other cat books, i think this woman is crazy. as far as i’m concerened though, “the cat who dropped a bombshell” is in the running for best title of the year, though, as any one with an indoor cat and a litter box will agree.

oh my gosh, all of a sudden i think i’m as bad as this woman who wrote the cat mysteries.

so on the train coming home tonight i happened to glance across the way and noticed that a girl was reading a new john grisham book called “the broker”. what, the title “yawn” was taken? for someone who writes supoosed thrillers the man sure comes up with some boring-ass titles. but i do i dig the intro page on his website.

it did bring a welcome smile to my day though. after a pretty good year all of a sudden i’ve been faced with a series of not really bad things but more like a series of things that when you tell people what happened their response is “huh, that sucks.” so if i see you around, please be nice.

oh well, things are looking up. next week is the first Y VEL show. and then for the second year in a row (for the first time in memory) i have something to do for new year’s eve, because LEVY’s playing at mercury lounge.