Hiroshi Yoshimura SURROUND (1986)

 

pray for your boy hanging out in an ambiguous state re: job offer, truly schizogenic way to live

Nathan Bowles PLAINLY MISTAKEN (2018)

 

a quarry, largely abandoned, plateaued and graded, cranes rusting on the shore of a lake that may be dug deeper, or may be stocked with fish in secret, fish not for men but for the birds of prey, or other creatures to come

Nathan Bowles WHOLE & CLOVEN (2016)

 

“Learn the true topography: the monstrous and wonderful archetypes are not inside you, not inside your consciousness; you are inside them, trapped and howling to get out.” – R.A. Lafferty, The Devil Is Dead (1971)

Nathan Bowles A BOTTLE, A BUCKEYE (2012)

 

I've been thinking about my compulsive book-buying, and I think it is a collector's urge I've always had, but maybe moreso it is a promise to myself that I'll have time to read, it's some blind swing on a 3-2 count that hours will be made and provided, hours beneath trees, beside rivers

Nathan Bowles NANSEMOND (2014)

 

It does not seem to me … that we understand the laws governing the return of the past, but I feel more and more as if time did not exist at all, only various spaces interlocking according to the rules of a higher form of stereometry, between which the living and the dead can move back and forth as they like … – W.G. Sebald, from Austerlitz (2001)

Daniel Bachman WHEN THE ROSES COME AGAIN (2023)

 

God save the Gazans because God knows we won't

Eluvium (WHIRRING MARVELS IN) CONSENSUS REALITY (2023)

 

sometimes I wonder if I've been alienating people in my sleep, because I don't remember doing it while awake

Allison Lorenzen TENDER (2021)

 

make me a heaven

Old Fire VOIDS (2022)

 

all hail west texas

Old Fire ITERATIONS (2023)

 

driving past disasters in the dark

Tim Hecker NO HIGHS (2023)

wish my other granddad lived long enough to teach me to hunt

The Assassination of Julius Caesar: A People's History of Ancient Rome by Michael Parenti
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Invaluable crash course in Late Republic Rome for the layman. Read it mostly on the beach, so when discouraged at how little has changed in politics and class struggle, I could at least stare at something calming and beautiful. The plutocratic playbook is essentially unchanged for millennia, wild!

Fred again... & Brian Eno SECRET LIFE (2023)

:-)

Midwife & Viva Melinkolya ORBWEAVING (2023)

I wish my granddad had lived long enough to teach me to sail 

Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI by David Grann
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

apparently sometimes conspiracies are real??

The Hold Steady THE PRICE OF PROGRESS (2023)

Craig Finn is a king among men, if I could join one band and play my saxophone like I had a month to live, it would be the Hold Steady, we'd turn the Springsteen knob up to 11 

The Big Lebowski by J.M. Tyree
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

essential for anyone who loves this film or is a fan of the Coen brothers. two of the giants of modern art, deserving of deep inquiry and exegesis. I'm pairing this with Tyree's excellent book on Pynchon's Inherent Vice, The Counterforce.

Braid FRAME & CANVAS 25th Anniversary Edition (2023)

 collect from clark kent

22 Favorite Films of 2022

2 of the 3 local theaters are shuttered, rough scenes for your boy 

here goes:

1. Babylon (dir. Damien Chazelle)

2. The Banshees of Inisherin (dir. Martin McDonagh)

3. Everything Everywhere All at Once (dir. Dan Kwan and Daniel Scheinert)

4. Tár (dir. Todd Field)

5. The Batman (dir. Matt Reeves)

6. Nope (dir. Jordan Peele)

7. Stars at Noon (dir. Claire Denis)

8. The Menu (dir. Mark Mylod)

9. Norm Macdonald: Nothing Special (dir. Norm Macdonald, Jeff Tomsic)

10. Decision to Leave (dir. Park Chan-wook)

11. The Northman (dir. Robert Eggers)

12. RRR (dir. S.S. Rajamouli)

13. Vengeance (dir. B.J. Novak)

14. White Noise (dir. Noah Baumbach)

15. Corsage (dir. Marie Kreutzer)

16. Confess, Fletch (dir. Greg Mottola)

17. Triangle of Sadness (dir. Ruben Östlund)

18. Emily the Criminal (dir. John Patton Ford)

19. Amsterdam (dir. David O. Russell)

20. Spin Me Round (dir. Jeff Baena)

21. Weird: The Al Yankovic Story (dir. Eric Appel)

22. Barbarian (dir. Zach Cregger)

honorable mention:

Cha Cha Real Smooth (dir. Cooper Raiff)

Crimes of the Future (dir. David Cronenberg)

All Quiet on the Western Front (dir. Edward Berger)

Men (dir. Alex Garland)

Ambulance (dir. Michael Bay)

pas pour moi:

Top Gun: Maverick (dir. Joseph Kosinski)

Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (dir. Sam Raimi)

MK Ultra (dir. Joseph Sorrentino)

See How They Run (dir. Tom George)

Death on the Nile (dir. Kenneth Branagh)

in progress:

Marcel the Shell with Shoes On (dir. Dean Fleischer Camp)

Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery (dir. Rian Johnson)

next up: 

The Civil Dead (dir. Clay Tatum) 

Funny Pages (dir. Owen Cline)

Benoît Pioulard EIDETIC (2023)

 20 years ago we went to war in Iraq on nothing more than greed, bloodlust, and ignorance. 20 years in Afghanistan and we had crocodile tears from the Acela corridor when we pulled out. sure seems like now we're feeding a lot more kids into the meat grinder and cheering them on, hiding behind a flag that isn't ours. for fucking shame.

Jeffrey Fayman & Robert Fripp A TEMPLE IN THE CLOUDS (2000)

 canopy ecology: lianas, epiphytes & arboreal animals: ascending to the astral plane with spikes & spurs

Boygenius THE RECORD (2023)

back in the AIM heyday, when being cryptically emo was quite an art, I quoted the great Jason Collett song "We All Lose One Another" ...along the way and somebody messaged me to tell me how depressing it was, and then a few years later, when we coulda hung in the Bay, free ticket to Neutral Milk Hotel, etc. that person ghosted like none other. fucking A man. stay gold ponyboy

Chris Reimer THE CHAD TAPE (2012)

Chris was a Chad. RIP amigo

Califone ECHO MINE (2020)

inside you there are 2 wolves:

Red Red Meat RED RED MEAT Deluxe Reissue (2015)

 crossing fingers that we see the grey whale migration again this spring, and that the harbor seals successfully deliver their pups. lots lost last year due to aggravation from local construction. they're delicate creatures! they like quiet! who can relate?!

Lucky at Cards by Sheldon Lord
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

breezy little beach read, by famed crime writer Lawrence Block. not sure why GoodReads went with the re-published title but stuck with the original pseudonym.

Red Red Meat BUNNY GETS PAID Deluxe Reissue (2015)

if you don't know Red Red Meat, you might let "weird folk" slide, you might let a whole generation of Jared-Leto-ass date rapists pretend to be so quirked up and intriguing. sometimes wonder if some want to be hypnotized by longhaired fauxmystics, like it is some ancestral rite of passage on the way to disillusionment, suburban aspirations, predestined defeat. being a hater is fine if you have the real deal alternative. Chomsky sucks, here's Parenti.

Loftus LOFTUS (1996)

jelly beans in a bernie mug, they want you beaten down so don't be. can't be. 

we've lost power for at least 2 weeks worth of hours in the last few months, my candle and used book supply coming in ever so clutch. 

Actual Air by David Berman
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

my man had a whaleheart

"The Charm of 5:30" is probably my favorite, with "Self-Portrait at 28" in place and "New York, New York" in show. "The Double Bell of Heat" and "The Homeowner's Prayer" are also terrific.

remember: "all water is classic water"

Red Red Meat JIMMYWINE MAJESTIC Deluxe Reissue (2015)

 truly Red Red Meat/Califone/Sin Ropas/Loftus made the most earthy yet sublime music of 1990-2010 and must be remembered, celebrated and shared

Distant Star by Roberto Bolaño
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

an extrapolation and re-telling of the most fascinating portion of Nazi Literature in the Americas, the spiritual enemies of the visceral realists, the barbaric writers have their ultimate acolyte in Carlos Wieder, who take advantage of the chaos and violence of the Pinochet coup to practice his horrific art. can two tired poets and an old private investigator track down a second generation fascist on the lam? we better hope so, because no one else is doing it.

Red Red Meat THERE'S A STAR ABOVE THE MANGER TONIGHT Deluxe Reissue (2014)

 it's pup szn, you know I'm back on my otter spotting grind

Midwife LIKE AUTHOR, LIKE DAUGHTER (2017)

 marionberry imperial sour fixing life right on up, cheers my once and future friends

猫 シ Corp. SELECTED WORKS (2022)

 

spotted otters from one hundred fifty feet up on CA-1: 3 aunts, mom and baby in a nameless cove, seafloor evidently crawling with gifts hard and soft

Fiskadoro by Denis Johnson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

a tremendous short story of a refugee from the fall of Saigon hidden in a tone poem about communities surviving fallout decades later in the Keys, waiting for the Cubans or God

Saariselka THE GROUND OUR SKY (2019)

 

 more Oakland goodness. I'll take it over Berkeley all day every day.   

Nmesh and t e l e p a t h PATH TO LOST EDEN (2015)

 

 hot tip: the whole Geometric Lullaby label discography is on massive sale right

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court by Mark Twain
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Twain is funny as all hell, but boy does it take a long walk to get to some of the jokes here.

Steve Roach TOMORROW (2020)

 

we got Pattycakes married so the last desperado has hung up his spurs. legendary bachelorhood run my man.

   Last Evenings on Earth by Roberto Bolaño
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

great collection of short stories. I most highly recommend the title piece and "Mauricio "The Eye" Silva" if you want to give it a try.

Steve Roach REST OF LIFE (2023)

snow in the seaside foothills, calm on the land. based on many conversations with co-workers and friendlies of all stripes, honestly think defunding the C I A is an easier sell to the general public than the local police, and would do demonstrably more good on the worldwide scale. good starting point, if you're getting static, at least. just my dumbass two cents, per usual

Imaginary Softwoods THE NOTIONAL PASTURES OF IMAGINARY SOFTWOODS (2023)

 writing the pope to submit Thomas Sankara for sainthood

Boston Mob: The Rise and Fall of the New England Mob and Its Most Notorious Killer by Marc Songini
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

some really great anecdotes, but needs an organizational re-write. very curious how little Whitey Bulger figures in.

Ernest Hood THE NEIGHBORHOOD (1975)

 a weird OR original

The Medieval World by Dorsey Armstrong
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

regretting not majoring in medieval studies like my frenemy did. dude gets to check out every castle he wants and call it field research. respect the hustle!

Ernest Hood BACK TO THE WOODLANDS (1982)

Oregon is filthy with Tom Bombadils I'll tell ya what

King Arthur: History and Legend by Dorsey Armstrong
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

rex quondam, rexque futurus

Parannoul AFTER THE MAGIC (2023)

 now this is some K-Pop I can get behind
 

The Spirit of Science Fiction by Roberto Bolaño
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

wonderful, consider it a subplot to The Savage Detectives, lesser visceral realists fleshing out a Mexico City that sounds like the only place worth living, the true NYNY of the Americas

The Men NEW YORK CITY (2023)

 we need renters' unions so goddamn bad

Self Help by Ben H. Winters
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

AI life coaches prolly will be leading to some murders iwbh

Yo La Tengo THIS STUPID WORLD (2023)

 wish me luck I wish you luck

Blood on the Moon by James Ellroy
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

well he sure came out swinging

Black Belt Eagle Scout THE LAND, THE WATER, THE SKY (2023)

 damn proud of this Portlander

The Skating Rink by Roberto Bolaño
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

maybe the easiest entry point for someone to get into RB, has overlap most closely with The Third Reich in the Bolañoverse

Caroline Polacheck DESIRE, I WANT TO TURN INTO YOU (2023)

detective work against empire, for clients unpaying and uncaring, evidence moldering. 

there is great chaos under heaven, hence the situation is excellent! 

Investigation Hollywood by Fred Otash
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

good stuff, but I hope he has the real dirt memoirs stashed away, ready to release on some great Reveal Day in the future

Garcia Peoples NIGHTCAP AT WIT'S END (2020)

 

we have a view of the bay, down the hill, through 2 neighbors' windows, so you know i'm staying current on surf conditions. looking choppy today!

Weak Signal SHIMPLING (2019)

 

LIZZIESINABOX

Weak Signal LOOK SEE (2021)

 

RIP Croz, you were sus as hell and couldn't play guitar, but pretty good at twitter

Weak Signal LP1 (2019)

 

no face/no case

Weak Signal BIANCA (2021)

pray & do communism

Weak Signal WAR & WAR (2022)

 Mike Bones is the real deal, accept no substitute

Tomu DJ IF YOU'RE SO COOL HOW COME NO ONE LIKES YOU? (2023)

 

getting tricked into going to junior prom really sums a lotta shit up about me