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Thursday, October 08, 2009 Graphos, Et Tu "The irresisitable proliferation of graphomania among politicians, taxi drivers, childbearers, lovers, murderers, thieves, prostitutes, officials, doctors, and patients shows me that everyone without exception bears a potential writer within him, so that the entire human species has good reason to go down the streets and shout: 'We are all writers!'" Sister quote to my glory standard-bearer never forgotten life slogan. Labels: authors, books, deafness, god letters, quickthoughts posted by Nihilist Loves Hate, Hates Everything at 10/08/2009 06:44:00 PM 0 comments Wednesday, September 30, 2009 Sounds Of The Road  Shot from upcoming film of The Road, starring Viggo Mortensen Continuing a bit on the Calexico tip, I discovered today this great interview between writer Howard Wolfson and Calexico singer/songwriter Joey Burns. Burns is loose and thoughtful throughout, and the whole thing is worth a read, but I was interested (though entirely unsurprised) to see Burns reference the writing of Cormac McCarthy as a key inspiration for the Tucson-based band's music: There’s a history [in the Southwest] which I find really exciting and it’s probably a boring thing to talk about but...it’s had this really interesting historical crossroads, which is if you’re a fan of Cormac McCarthy – it really resonates with some of his themes. Blood Meridian and "The Crossing", the Border Trilogy. When I moved here, I picked those books up and then I just loved the fact that some of his stories are more modern and so even though there are horses involved and traveling out in the desert, it still stems from or weaves through modern cities or towns. For me, when I moved here, I was just fascinated with all of this history and culture and character coming together. And it just - more so than anything, it just inspired us to dig into old vinyl records, old instruments, make sounds. Because we’ve been traveling over the years, we kind of bring that different mindsets from overseas back home here and you see there are more similarities than not. Hearing a connection between the sparse southwestern road music of Calexico and the bleak spaces in McCarthy's writing is pretty much a "Duh!", but I still enjoy the idea of musicians verbalizing the way that books and words influence the way they create sounds. Also, it goes a little deeper: adding to it all is a nifty column from Portland's great Powell's Books on "Calexico's Literary Influences". Make sure to read this one as well. And of course, LISTEN: Calexico - "Frontera", from The Black Light Calexico - "Waitomo", from Tool Box tour album Calexico - "Glowing Heart of the World", from Roadmap tour EP (sorry, to come soon!) Labels: books, calexico, mp3, music, My Love Of The Imaginary West, quickthoughts posted by Nihilist Loves Hate, Hates Everything at 9/30/2009 11:57:00 AM 0 comments Tuesday, September 22, 2009 Pearls, Or Anything Really, Before Swine  Apparently Jimmy Buffet wrote a ... novel. And ... people, including Libraries, have bought it...? Though I suppose it can't be any worse than Ethan Hawke's first novel? Labels: books, deprarious, fucktactics, lolgore posted by Nihilist Loves Hate, Hates Everything at 9/22/2009 10:09:00 AM 0 comments Wednesday, July 29, 2009 Balls, Vise Grips, Tomes Etc.  JeffreyBeaumont: hey what you doing on friday? jaychampionvinyl: hold on jaychampionvinyl: asking S***** [FIANCEE] jaychampionvinyl: haha jaychampionvinyl: her response: "nothing so far" jaychampionvinyl: ideas? JeffreyBeaumont: >>jaychampionvinyl: hold on >>jaychampionvinyl: attempting to remove balls from vise grip of death jaychampionvinyl: HAAAA jaychampionvinyl: oh man jaychampionvinyl: my balls are in a cozy paunch of comfort jaychampionvinyl: and I simply meant that I never remember any plans I make JeffreyBeaumont: have you ever heard of william t vollman? JeffreyBeaumont: 3300 pages JeffreyBeaumont: a book he wrote jaychampionvinyl: !? jaychampionvinyl: the name rings a vague bell JeffreyBeaumont: Seven volumes representing one book JeffreyBeaumont: published all at once in 2004 jaychampionvinyl: whoaaaaaaaa JeffreyBeaumont: http://www.amazon.com/Rising-Up-Down-Set/dp/1932416021 jaychampionvinyl: umm jaychampionvinyl: did the Roots name their album "Rising Down" after this guy!?!? jaychampionvinyl: after naming an album after a Malcolm Gladwell book jaychampionvinyl: and naming another one called fucking Game Theory jaychampionvinyl: they should just call their next book "THE ROOTS OWN MANY LEATHER BOUND BOOKS" JeffreyBeaumont: and Things Fall Apart jaychampionvinyl: right jaychampionvinyl: I forgot Chinua Achebe JeffreyBeaumont: also Do You Want More?!!!??! JeffreyBeaumont: haha jaychampionvinyl: yes, that was actually the name of a post-modernist treatise on race relations in 1920s Paris?  Labels: authors, books, IMs, lolgore, rap posted by Nihilist Loves Hate, Hates Everything at 7/29/2009 05:51:00 PM 0 comments Monday, July 27, 2009 Now I Understand Why I Never Enjoyed Studying English In College  Inspiration from Will Self, on why he studied philosophy rather than English at Oxford: Labels: authors, BEAUMONT, books, heroes posted by Nihilist Loves Hate, Hates Everything at 7/27/2009 07:02:00 PM 0 comments Crash Into You  Not sure how familiar many of you are with author JG Ballard--arguably one of a handful of the most important and famous British writers of the post-WWII twentieth century--but my friend Katie passed on this fascinating article on the publishing of one of his books and it's definitely worth a read. In my experience for whatever reason there seems to be a curious gap on Ballard-awareness in the minds of Americans--usually when I mention his name I am greeted with only blank stares; and, to be fair, I had never heard of him before studying in England in 2003 and reading his work in one of my courses. Of course, when you mention his two most famous works, Empire of the Sun and Crash (the subject of the aforementioned article), those blank stares tend to turn into slow realizations, as both books were made into significant films by significant directors (Steven Spielberg and David Cronenberg, respectively) that received both widespread release and mainstream discussion. It is worth keeping in mind that even folks who've heard of or even seen these films have not read the actual books (and many people will tend to ask with trepiditation if by Crash I mean the other, gulp, 2004 schlockfest Crash). One of the offshoots of a lack of American awareness of Ballard is that over the years US publishers have struggled to understand how to properly market and sell the man, whose work is admittedly difficult to characterize and harder to generalize. In the beginning, much of what he wrote crossed into the territory of science fiction, and at other times he was incredibly surrealistic and experimental; at all times he was at least suggestively post-modernist, but he never really fit the true post-modernist archetypes like many of his contemporaneous experimental peers of the era. Ballard's work went all over the map, and it didn't help that his two most famous books included one that was semi-autobiographical and completely unlike anything else, and the other partially dismissed as obscene even in the increasingly free early 70s when it was written. This latter book, Crash, in particular posed a challenge as the desires of its subjects--one of whom "craves a union of blood, semen and engine coolant in a head-on collision with Elizabeth Taylor"--cross into boundaries that Americans rarely feel comfortable discussing with emotional detachment or analysis. The result: many many many different covers were printed to sell Crash, as author, publisher and audience differed in the attitude of what the book was about and how it should be sold to target readers. The two covers below include the conservative first cover on the left, which Ballard hated, and the fantastically expressive (and therefore UK-only) paperback cover, which Ballard loved best. I've often thought from time to time how books covers influence my decisions to buy and read books*** and strolling through this article gives you a great sense at the lengths taken to define a block of text into an immediately judgeable package. Two sample covers of Crash below--read the article to see the rest:  -------- And for those of you interested Ballard and his world, I would recommend that you poke through the crazy crowd-sourced love letter of a site that is Ballardian.com (where the above article comes from) and checking out the books Atrocity Exhibition, High Rise, and Cocaine Nights for a sampling of Ballard "deep cuts". NOTES: *** -- Confession: as a 13 year old, I purchased the Ween album Chocolate and Cheese from BMG Music Club exclusively because its hilariously suggestive cover made the newly pubescent Me feel crazed with excitement when looking at it. Incidentally I grew to enjoy the album and the band (though nothing else as much as C&C), but prior to purchasing I'd never heard a note of Ween or even read about them. Yep. Life Of Beaumont, defined brick-by-brick. Labels: books, case studies, heroes, thoughts posted by Nihilist Loves Hate, Hates Everything at 7/27/2009 06:40:00 PM 0 comments Wednesday, February 04, 2009 Soul Loss Reading a book now on the cultural complication of the new lives of the refugee Hmong people, who immigrated to the US from Thailand after being forced to leave their homeland in Laos. These fierce, proud people truly come from a different world with mindsets that, as far as I can tell, run literally opposite to those of their new American neighbors. The book is called The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down, which is a description for the way the Hmong translate epilepsy, as they literally believe that epilepsy is the result of a malevolent spirit called a "dab" coming and kidnapping the soul from a person, causing them to fall down. One part that caught my attention in particular was the following description of "soul loss": Your soul is like your shadow. Sometimes it just wanders off like a butterfly, and that is when you are sad and that is when you get sick, and if it comes back to you, that is when you are happy and you are well again. I like this understanding, and it seems to be more true than we Americans allow ourselves to acknowledge. Medicine and clinical objectivity do not and can not bring happiness or fullness into a person's life without that person injecting their own soul with a necessary thrust of humanity. We overmedicate our society and rely too much on other people and other factors beyond what lies within ourselves to find happiness and fulfillment (let alone "good health"). It's worth remembering that there is not a person alive on this planet who is above learning new lessons from any other person--there is no limit to our infinite levels of inexperience. Open minds and open hearts are the surest paths to continued physical, mental, and emotional freedom. Also: the Hmong people have a phrase for "the truth eventually comes to light," called "yuav paim quav," which literally means "feces will be excreted." Labels: books, junkjunk, thoughts posted by Nihilist Loves Hate, Hates Everything at 2/04/2009 01:43:00 AM 1 comments 1
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