Zola Jesus ARKHON (2022)

(What like a bullet can undeceive!) -Herman Melville

Beatlebone by Kevin Barry
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

unless you're a Beatlemaniac, I'd strongly suggest starting with 'Night Boat to Tangiers' or 'City of Bohane' first. Barry is an insanely talented writer, but this material is so niche and interior as to be very dull for an outsider. Barry is also a terrific narrator of his own material if you're an audiobook listener.

Joan Shelley THE SPUR (2022)

We have some heroes still, and we lose some by the day. Prayers & thanks for Mike Davis.

Vineland by Thomas Pynchon
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

a love letter to labor and a tribute to communal, rhizomal resistance

View all my reviews

Autistic Auteurist Completionist: Christopher Nolan

We're Gonna Need a Bigger Screen

1) Dunkirk (2017)

2) The Dark Knight (2008)

3) Inception (2010)

4) Interstellar (2014)

Every Artist is a Detective, and Every Detective is a Conman

5) The Prestige (2006)

6) Insomnia (2002)

I'm Mr. November, I Won't Fuck Us Over

7) Memento (2000)

8) Batman Begins (2005)

And Why Do We Fall, Bruce?

9) The Dark Knight Rises (2012)

10) Tenet (2020)

Hiemal AUBURN BLAZE (2021)

the best song colin meloy ever wrote, must have on your summer roadtrip playlists:

Pop. 1280 by Jim Thompson
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

darkest timeline Sheriff Andy Taylor in darkest timeline Mayberry, ymmv

Hiemal CASCAPEDIA (2022)

often under the eaves 

we buried our hearts in linen

marked with a twig, to be found and returned

if not already eaten 

Train Dreams by Denis Johnson
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

belongs in the canon of great PNW literature

GoGo Penguin FANFARES (2012)

 

dx'ed enneagram numero dos ofc

  Gandhi and the Unspeakable: His Final Experiment with Truth by James W. Douglass
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

they'd been trying to get him for decades, he always sent killers away friends. really too bad that the Beatles, et al., while popularizing/fetishizing Hindu culture, didn't care much for the tradition of Gandhi. the methods of the satyagrahi combined with a militant antiwar/labor movement could have leveled mountains. if only he didn't have his own Allen Dulles in Savarkar, who the British magnanimously let loose to oppose him at every turn.

The Dream Syndicate ULTRAVIOLET BATTLE HYMNS AND TRUE CONFESSIONS (2022)

 

battle for the hearts and minds has been going on all along, not to win them but to degrade them, to waste  them away, and we must fight with learning and loving and ruthless criticism of all that exists

Joyce Manor 40 OZ. TO FRESNO (2022)

 

 you don't hear much about MADD anymore i wonder if they gave up after texting and driving took off

Denis Johnson THE LAUGHING MONSTERS (2014)

 

The Laughing Monsters by Denis Johnson
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Johnson re-writes Heart of Darkness for the 21st century, where Africa is still the land of opportunity for Euro-scumbags looking to strike it rich, and often exploiting and extorting the traumatized and vulnerable into collaborating. DJ pulls no punches, painting NATO as duplicitous, AFRICOM as self-serving, and the NGO-sphere as the vanguard+enabler of mineral/energy extraction companies.

He does this with that natural brevity, grace, humor and momentum that make him such a singular author.

Johnson makes a quick, enjoyable read of a tremendously difficult subject, and accurately portrays how neocolonialism persists and evolves, while positing the implicit argument that Africa would be better served if Westerners packed up their capitalism and "charity" and went home. Spoiler alert: they won't.

Bill Evans SOME OTHER TIME: THE LOST SESSION FROM THE BLACK FOREST (1968)

starting to believe wealthy benefactors are made-up!