I’m more than halfway through Pynchon’s Against the Day, and so far, like most of his books, it is by turns enthralling, excruciating, beautiful, and boring. I’ll wait until I finish the book to talk about the story and thematic elements, but I just wanted to put in a quick note about something that I keep thinking about it as I read it. (more…)
It is a well-known fact that the worst victims of the recent exacerbation of the international division of labor are women. They are the true surplus army of labor in the current conjuncture. (more…)
Paolo Virno’s latest book, Jokes and Innovative Action, has been translated and will be released by trailblazing indie label Semiotext(e) next month. Gerald Raunig has a review. (more…)
…But just because they are avenues of escape and not fantasies doesn’t mean they are all the same, or that they are all desirable. It seems to me there are two kinds of escape, at least, and here again, D.H. Lawrence’s stories in The Woman Who Rode Away outline the contours of each of them. (more…)
The get in the title of Yo La Tengo’s “Sometimes I Don’t Get You” should be taken in its double sense, as understand and as possess. The two are really inseparable. (more…)
Today is William Faulkner’s 110th birthday. From The New York Times:
In April of 1962, less than three months before his death on July 6, William Faulkner made a trip many thought he wouldn’t. As a favor to a relative, the reclusive and taciturn writer spent two days visiting at West Point.
The Times covered Faulkner’s visit in a dispatch by George Barrett, which ran under this 4-column headline: “Faulkner Inspects West Point, Gives a Reading and Stays for a Chat: Faulkner Finds Cadets Knowing: Corps Studied Works for Nobel Laureate’s Visit.”
[…]
He showed surprise when almost all the cadets broke into extended applause for his reply to a question concerning the “spirit of nationalism” in which he said that “if the spirit of nationalism gets into literature it stops being literature.”
The final Lemony Snicket book is, so far (we’re on chapter 10), kind of a disappointment, mostly because of its not-so-veiled personification of the Bushits and their political failings. (more…)
Yesterday was Virginia Woolf’s 125th birthday: (more…)
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