Where You Go When You Want to Think

This site has excerpts of my novel-in-progress, Hot Love on the Wing, as well as thoughts on post postmodernism, avant garde art, literature, music, and the community of artists in Bushwick and New York.

Friday, April 22, 2011

Daniel Adler's Internet Warehouse is The Internet Warehouse

Guys, I moved. Blogger just doesn't get the respect from Google I need. When you Google search my name, you'll see that it's now at the bottom of the page, at number 9. I used to be number 6. This is one reason I'm moving to Wordpress.

Another is I want to change the format of my blog. I want you to be able to contribute and so it will now be The Internet Warehouse. Feel free to email me at danielryanadler@gmail.com if you want to submit. In the meanwhile, all of my content from Daniel Adler's Internet Warehouse is up on Wordpress at DanielRyanAdler.com. This will be better for my personal SEO and it will be more professional - cleaner and sexier. My personal site, DanielTheWriter.com is still up and running. Thanks for understanding and I'll see you soon.

Thursday, April 21, 2011

Rembrandt and Classic Literature: Finnegan's Wake, The Unnamable

He painted this at 25.
Yesterday I went to the Frick to see the Rembrandt and School exhibit. Rembrandt was a master by the time he was 25. If I had to choose one painting from the Frick to have in my home, it would be the Hans Holbein of Sir Thomas More. The thing about this museum is that it has representative works by most of the masters of Western art.

Now I'm sitting at Barnes & Noble (an activity which will become historical within a few years after all the bricks and mortar bookstores close) reading Finnegan's Wake. Very unlike Rembrandt stylistically. It's like Joyce was just talking out loud for six hundred pages, messing around, and he wrote it all down. Except it took him seventeen years.

Meanwhile I'm almost done with Beckett's The Unnamable, from his prose contribution to classic literature, Three Novels. When you run across three page sentences, it's easy to see the influence of the elder on the younger. The intensity's there, but I tellya, it can get tiresome after a while. That doesn't mean I won't incorporate those stylistic tendencies, especially into a passage I call the big city feeling, which my old man has helped me with writing. I find these techniques very good for building tension, in the same way a Woody Allen joke does.

Tuesday, April 19, 2011

General Advice in the Manner of Kenneth Koch

I have an immense collection of tennis balls. I had misplaced them a couple of years ago and now my great uncle, fine man that he is, has returned them to me. All covered in the same wiry green hairs. Some have black marks from being beaten on the court, though they remain neon. I have thousands.

So my uncle believes. In reality, I am a terrible tennis player. I used to play when I was in sixth grade, but the best thing that came from that was my all white K-Swiss sneakers I wore throughout Middle School. 

Don't play tennis in the rain. And when you invest in a nice pair of tennis shoes with light soles, make sure that they are fashionable enough to wear off the tennis court. Tennis is a very difficult game, more athletic than golf, although in golf you can watch the trees bounce in the wind. 

I dreamed (which is the proper way to spell it, rather than the British version, dreamt, the  version I learned when  younger because my mother is Irish) that I went to a club filled with many people, many women. At eleven o' clock all of the people stopped to watch the latest TV show and I woke up before it ended. 

Today I seek a book of classic literature, poetry, from the late Kenneth Koch, my favorite poet of the second half of the 20th century. 

Thursday, April 14, 2011

The Pale King and Post Postmodernism

We wait. Wait for moments where we’re no longer waiting, like when we’re having sex or are on vacation. And this goes on for about 80 years until we wait to die.

How do we combat self-imposed boredom? We think. And we feel. We think so much because we feel so deeply. And that’s how most people live. Waiting for about 95% and 5% living. There may  be occasional balances but for the most part it is skewed thusly.

A 50/50 balance is hard. Very hard. I can’t even imagine 100% living – maybe that’s what Buddha and Jesus did? It requires practice and meditation. When we find ourselves waiting and living in the waiting, this is called excitement. But excitement can quickly build expectations, which when disappointed mean that you lived maybe for a while, but prematurely returned to waiting.

This is what The Pale King seems to be about, according to Lev Grossman’s review. Which is why it sounds so good. DFW couldn’t deal with waiting anymore. But he knew about the imbalance. Infinite Jest documents it with the aid of postmodern gewgaws, which make it the postmodern novel, but which also detract from the human side of the novel. It aligns more closelywith the ironic farce postmodernism esteems. Perhaps The Pale King is one of first true forays into post postmodernism. I’ll let you know.

Wednesday, April 13, 2011

The O.G.s of Bushwick

Bushwick is cracking lately. Arancini Bros. has killer rice balls next to Wreck Room, The Morgan’s soft opening this weekend was a success, and Cafe Gia on Irving and a row of other little restaurants may make Irving St. the ideal walk in the neighborhood.

Morgantown is like a college campus. It is literally a small town, except without a mayor, although we nominate Cat Agonis, for her vast knowledge of New York, and in order to help promote her forthcoming genre-blurring novel, Chicken on the Hudson.

All these people be coming outta the woodwork and new hordes of youngsters be moving in. Just wait till summer. Hell, just wait till next year. I’m going to be an O.G. of Bushwick pretty soon. 

All these new joints in town make it seem like we never have to leave. And we don’t, really. Because our thriving arts culture is at the heart of it all. Those who know about Bushwick have the vague idea that it is semi-desirable. Boy, they have no idea.

Monday, April 11, 2011

Portnoy's Complaint: A Review

This book is outrageously funny, obscene, and smart. I learned about twenty new Yiddish words. Roth most closely mirrors my techniques of post postmodernism. And he gets to the heart of human psychology.

It is a classic, a masterpiece of postmodern literature in its digressive, rambling style, a modern Tristram Shandy. And it is the same kind of novel I am writing. Except that mine is not going to be as Jewish, understandably. Nor will it be as ironic.

For irony was inimical to postmodernism, due to the sense of prevailing closure at the end of last century. Today things are a touch more Romantic, in the Shakespearean sense of fairy tale and magic, rather than the 19th century sense of childhood purity and sublimity (though that applies too). The self-deprecation in the story is part of why the self-consciousness is so effective. It isn't until the story's last few pages when Portnoy gets to hear the truth of what he and the society he grew up in really are about. And to compound the narrator's pathetic nature, his flaws are told by a Sabra.

So check it out, I'm sure you'll enjoy it, if not for the postmodern narrative style, then for the masturbation scenes.

Sunday, April 10, 2011

I'm Gonna Love Like Jesus

 I've been thinking a lot about love lately. Both the personal microtial sense of man and woman, or friend and friend, and about the macro level of loving all of humanity. Like Jesus.

I'm gonna be like Jesus. If I can love like an ubermensch and give my love to everyone, let it flow from my arms when I walk down the street, or into a cafe, or when I encounter the stares of a full subway car, I will become incredibly powerful. Just letting everyone feel my energy, know that I love them, no matter their color, size or even how the look at me, just meet their energy with unconditional love, the way you'd love your parents or your best friend, shoot it at them, so that they know they can tell me their problems if they wanted to - that is how I will love.

I mean that's the way Jesus did and people still follow his practices two thousand years later. He was the best lover who ever was. As Matthew pointed out, that's what Christianity implies when they say that God is in you. That's why Catholics eat the body and drink the blood of their savior, to get closer to him.

It's going to take practice. Lots of practice. But like writing, I'll get better the more I do it.

Thursday, April 7, 2011

Infinite Jest is The Postmodern Novel

Half of Daniel Adler's college thesis was that Gravity's Rainbow is the postmodern novel. In 1973, it epitomized a new form and style. Its allusiveness was sporadic and overwhelming and Pynchon's understanding of life and ability to form stories remains admirable.

But when all is said and done, Pynchon was born in 1937. He grew up during WWII and the end of the modernist movement. The War was of a different era.

DFW on the other hand, born in 1962, was raised during the mind-numbing suburban expansion of the 1970s. He saw the "Me generation" rise, flower, and die. And Infinite Jest is a tribute to the future of the world he knew.

With the publishing of The Pale King, DFW's career is over. We can begin to evaluate him with regard to the masters. Fifteen years have passed since the publishing of Infinite Jest, enough time to think about how its grandiose muscles have flexed even harder since his suicide.

The footnotes are what make this book representative of postmodernism. Gravity's Rainbow is dazzling, but easy to misunderstand and get lost in. Infinite Jest is incredibly dense and packed with information. All of the allusions are explained in incredible detail. With the existence of the internet, DFW was able to include all the research and simulate how future earthlings would acquire information.

How long until DFW shows up on college sylllabi?

Wednesday, April 6, 2011

Subjectivism

By now you should be familiar with all my different modernisms: postmodernism, post postmodernism, metamodernism, etc. And while these all have bearing upon my work, I think it's most important to articulate that my work is about one person. Hot Love on the Wing explores one subjectivity.

Whereas modernism was about exploring different subjectivities objectively, and postmodernism was all about rejecting the possibility of such a thing, this new movement is all about the individual.

Why do we all Tweet whatever we're doing, update our Facebook status, let our friends know where we are on Foursquare, blog on Blogspot? To get noticed. To be understood and accepted.

We're all curating our online experience to each other. Whoever is most popular, has the most friends, followers, is the coolest. Even capitalism is in on it when businesses are vying for Twitter followers. But ultimately it's about you.

The number of memoirs published has blown up thanks to e-publishing. Why? Because everyone who has a story is now able to share it.

This technology is so new that the repercussions of this are difficult to fathom. But you can bet your bippy they're going to start showing over this decade. Don't believe me? In Egypt they joke that “Nasser was killed by poison, Sadat by a bullet and Mubarak by Facebook.” Just wait.

Tuesday, April 5, 2011

How to Get Back to Bushwick

Utica Ave., more than 3 miles of this.
Under a Florentine sky I saddle my beast and we ride into the early dusk. She is slow to get going but responsive to stop. I've had to take care of her often lately; I ride her hard.

Yesterday she had a broken spoke so I took her to Larry's Bike Shop down on Flatbush Ave. It took a while to fix and true the wheel, so that by the time I was ready to roll I had scoped the map and devised an alternate route home - up Utica Ave.

Lined with auto stores and flat fix shops, I was doing just fine when I heard a nasty hiss. Too good to be true. I laughed at what the fates had dealt, walked, tried to get on a bus, was denied.

I was the only white person on the streets, which is fine by me, but the closest subway was about a mile an a half east. How to get home to Bushwick? About to take a cab, I asked a nice woman and her son if they knew of a car service.

They told me to get my bike fixed at a shop right there, next to the yellow store. A dude who rode a teal fixie with a rainbow colored chain named Duiight, d-double-i-g-h-t,  laughed at me for not having a spare and said, you gonna learn ow to patcha tube today. But the tube wasn't all - the tire itself had popped too, and he cut a piece of rubber to brace the wheel to make it work "that much mo' bet-ta'." I thanked him, now I won't even have to get it fixed. He laughed, you will, he said.

I'm calling Duiight this weekend to get my baby remodeled - front free wheel fixed. Ooooeee!!

Monday, April 4, 2011

The Deviant

You lay coddled in her arms and she in yours. And when she tilted her chin back to expose her neck there it was, curled comfortable under her chin hanging a breeze-space below: a black hair. Half an inch long.

Imagine my disgust. To see that my woman, granted her left breast wasn't as good as her right, drooped a little and wasn't quite as perky as its sister, but that my woman should have an actual flaw - this was enough to make me think.

She had that hair under her chain. Like a gnat in the buttermilk. When I projected on my happiness with her in twenty years, the hair was a reminder that I could do better. This woman was not gorgeous. She was flawed. Added to her mental issues was this physical reminder. But if I could have taught myself to live with and love it, instead of being desiring and human... have you ever met an Enlightened person anyway? I've never been to Tibet, but I have a suspicion no one since Buddha has been perfectly happy and undesiring as an ascetic. Suppress and repress your unconscious (the wanting part of the self) to the point where you've convinced yourself that you're happy? Is that even possible?

I've tried not wanting, and it's just so...boring.

If variety is the spice of life won't we want to go through as many different kinds of happiness as possible? I wanted to go to Peru and Iran and taste all kinds of different flavored pussy. Just the possibility of being with other, more attractive women was enough to make me want to destroy relative happiness once I attained it. Or maybe I sought a reason to destroy it because I was scared I'd fuck it up eventually. Or maybe it was the hair I couldn't stand. Or the fact that she didn't seem to know about it (and Lord knows I couldn't tell her).

Because when we're young and there are so many possibilities to have what we haven't, to throw it all away on commitment is the ultimate.

Saturday, April 2, 2011

April in Bushwick

La la la la. April Fool's. I'm staying here.

I just love Bushwick so much. In the McKibbin lofts there are glass entry doors. People are moving in - a new generation of hipsters who are able to mock their elders of two and three years ago. One of the repeated tags on the roof is "They exist. They gave me my iPad."

At 3rd Ward last night there were many attractive women at the Preyground exhibit. The art has a very animalistic feel and was filmed in different regions of our grand country. #Americuh.

And have the soote April raines yfallen. 

Thursday, March 31, 2011

April Fools Day in Postmodernism

This is where I'm going to stay, maybe.
I'm going to Europe. I just received my Irish citizenship so that I can be a Euro Zone member and work wherever I want. Like in a month or two. I'm up and leaving. London, Paris, Barcelona, Madrid, I don't quite know yet. But I will and I'll keep you posted. Blog posted.

Meanwhile, I've been thinking about metafiction. I've been reading Portnoy's Complaint which is really great. Alexander digressively works back and forth, building suspense, dropping tidbits about his sex life and we can't wait to read more of the juicy stuff. And he very self-consciously makes note that his memories may be misconstrued:

"...Now, whether the words I hear are the words spoken is something else again. And whether what I hear I hear out of compassion for him, out of my agony over the inevitability of this horrific occurrence, his death, or out of my eager anticipation of that event, is also something else again."

Roy showed me a book by some writer whose name I can't remember but there was a metafictional part where he tells the reader that he's going to write about these characters reading a newspaper because he finds that interesting. And so the characters, both bad poets, are supposed to reflect him and things get all metamodern.

But see what I'm going to do is allow the protagonist to look out of the page and talk to the author. And that ain't no April Fools. You smell me?

Tuesday, March 29, 2011

Live for a Thousand Years in an Instant. Try It.

From the most recent female ephemera, remember the spirit children, the essences that united from all of our physical union and they whisper, what about us. But they drift into the atmosphere and I have done all I can.
  
Sometimes I remind myself that it doesn't matter whether you live for another three days or twenty years. For the mystic lover, three hours could be a hundred years. Remember this; I can tell you no more about it.

Repress desires and you become a hypocrite. Rumi said that.

All we have is to give and to hurry. But when we act with abandon, surrender to the life we pass through and become spirit, the way people do in love, we can be happy. Which is why people like falling in love: they are able to live a thousand years in a single instant. And most come crashing back to earth in jealousy and carnal lust. "What should we do next?" The spell is broken.

After practice you can eventually surrender to death and each life frame you live passes in slow motion.

I still can't do it, but I'm getting better. Classic literature helps.

Monday, March 28, 2011

Quixotic or Panzaic? Both in Post Postmodernism.

The great duality: the body and the mind. The ethereal and the ephemeral. High and low. I've been thinking a lot about the low recently, especially while reading a certain postmodern piece of classic literature, Molloy. Meanwhile, Portnoy's Complaint has led me to start thinking about the parent-child dynamic, and I realized that in Hot Love on the Wing poor Gabriel is trapped in the middle. Read on.

Like Sancho Panza she rebutted his criticism with the body. She ate, she laughed, and her bromides were saturated with undeniable truth. “You like what you like.” “Bad things come in threes.” And when the old man droned, they’re taking steps to preserve Bach’s original manuscripts in Leipzig, she listened interested and let him go on.

But his lean figure betrayed an inability to see things from her side. He ate like a bird and his health suffered. After a long day he was neurasthenic. He used Preparation H the way an 8-year-old used whip cream. She guffawed at sitcoms while he lined the bathroom floor with magazines. Bracelets jingling like a small animal's bell, she poured wine through the gap in her incisors. The blue TV glow cast reels in her chinked eyes. Her back hurt sometimes so she sat on the floor flushed, while he chased windmills and dreamed of glory.

Friday, March 25, 2011

Metamodernism in a New York Moment

 Imagine being in a garden terrace where American ‘90s jazz plays and the art that hangs on the walls is a menagerie of midcentury color-swerving, obviously Picasso inspired. One particular painting strikes you, this one more Fauvist: a purple blonde clutches a pearl necklace as she emerges, orange-nippled and open-mouthed, from a parlor with sitting chair. Now imagine yourself as the painter, or voyeur or whoever, sitting comfortably in another chair watching self-satisfied. This is how I felt as I ate the steak au poivre avec pomme frites. This reminded me what it was like to be in love.

And I wish I could transmit the same feeling to you – it is so luxurious, so serene. So I looked up to the sky through the swinging beech branches that clamber over the black fire escapes and brown brick apartments and stored in my memory what New York was like.

Maybe I would do better to show you in a story of my own, how it feels to be in love. But that’s so 20th century, not metamodern at all. Or is it?

Thursday, March 24, 2011

Tazmanian Devilish vs. Hurricanal

Sometimes in an attempt to express myself I invent neologisms like “hurricanal,” meaning to feel like being trapped in a whirlwind. But as a colleague has pointed out, you can’t get away with just adding the suffix “al” der. Latin to any noun to make it an adjective. What would you say then I asked.

I don’t know, Tasmanian Devilish?

Of course! Because the Tasmanian Devil is so engrained into our cultural unconscious that we all know he arrives a flurry of dust from his rapid spinning.

But. What happens if I write this phrase in a certain post postmodern work of fiction, which I believe will be more closely aligned with classical styles of writing and postmodern styles of narrative than a continuation of postmodern stylization, then what will people who read it in two hundred years think? Will the image of Taz resonate as loudly with them? Or will they view it as an arcane 21st century allusion? And we all know Daniel Adler, the unpretentious does not want to seem arcane nor esoteric. 

So I will continue to use my poetic license however I deem necessary, and if an allusion to popular culture strikes me, you can bet your tootsie that people in a couple of hundred years will be able to identify. What do you think?

Wednesday, March 23, 2011

War: What It Is Good For

For thousands of years young men entered battle as a rite of passage. Those who lived had tempted fate and prevailed. Those who died didn’t want it badly enough.

But after WWII, in Vietnam for example, modern society made war out to be background noise, unwanted, (gasp!) dishonorable. And so today we don’t have wars, at least the way we used to. That’s why so many soldiers return with post-traumatic stress disorder – their experience is out of place with our world of Whole Foods and text messages. And this is to be lamented. In a way.

How I wish I could go to war, to fight for my country and myself and prevail and be honored. Alas, war has changed so that it is rarely face to face combat, and the horror of watching your best friend’s leg blown off by a nameless opponent is not the same as striking down a man who attempts to kill you with a lance.

The best thing about war is that it makes you happy to be alive; it allows you to further enjoy peace. And when peace is constant, or at least relatively so, in post postmodernism, many become malcontent.

Which is why I say to myself, even on rainy days, in the language of a quondam enemy: Ich bin glücklich.

Tuesday, March 22, 2011

Union Pool and the Reverend

Union Pool is arguably the best bar in Brooklyn. It is too crowded to really enjoy on the weekends, but every Monday the Reverend and his Love Choir break it down. Here's a little sample:

Saturday, March 19, 2011

Daniel Adler's Survival Project

The smell of campfires is pleasant and if I were a woman, Matthew said, I'd be attracted to that natural smell. I agree.

Last night we went to 3rd Ward for Steven Brahms' The Survival Project. My favorites, and the centerpiece of the show were the 21 interesting photographs of all different long haired Asian men running away. I met Masa, Steven's friend, whose favorite was the one of him.

Fire is elemental to our survival. We watch it and we focus and appreciate it. Like a drug it acts on us. Immediate and instinctual, atavistic.

In the vein of the avant garde art theme, fire is survival and the warmth it provides is part of what allows humans to live, so we watch it and feel that it is a part of us and we a part of it. And toss in some corned beef with mustard and cabbage and boiled carrots and turnips and Italian sausage with red peppers over pasta with St. Andre cheese and spinach. And Jameson 12 year.  

Thursday, March 17, 2011

London Recap

Daniel Adler in Claridge's Hotel.
I just created my London album on Facebook which is supposed to give you an idea of what we saw and did. Overall I was ambivalent about being home when I returned last night and saw the rats in the sewer and the loud rude Americans. On one hand this is what makes America Amurrica - the high culture and the low, but London is simply more refined. Let me try to describe it another way: in London people pass by, in New York they are next to you. Everyone wants to stand out here, there they want to be recognized. The difference is subtle and plays out in our country's love for individualism and theirs for class.

We saw an interesting play about race called Clyborne Park. It was two acts. The first was about a Chicago family that sells their house to a black family in the late '50s. The next act was about a white family moving back into the now black neighborhood and wanting to build a big house. It was uproarious. This was the climax, told by the black woman, when all the Brits, three thousand miles safe from slavery's remnants were able to think about what it means to be politically correct w/r/t blacks: What do white women and tampons have in common?
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They're both stuck up cunts.

Of course, the white male was the one saying that he's not offended by any of it, privileged bastard that he is. But then his experience may be the most relatable, because it hasn't been clouded with the experience of prejudice. Relatable, boring. Make it interesting and universal, something even the Brits can relate to.

Tuesday, March 15, 2011

JMW Turner and Walkabout

The Tate Britain is often overshadowed by its younger brother the Tate Modern, but JMW Turner, arguably the best British painter of the 19th century bequeathed his entire collection to this neoclassical building, which gives the Modern a run for its money.

Turner was a true Romantic. He wrote verses to accompany his paintings, didn't care  much for public opinion and ultimately prefigured modern painting with his impressionistic style. Monet was an ardent admirer, and even Cezanne's achievement of textural depth likely found its roots in the work of JMW.

I would say that if we're talking about avant-garde artists of the 19th century, Turner would have to be in the top five.

Then we biked home to our blue-doored hostel beside the British Museum to freshen up. And walked down High Holborn St. and asked where we could find good Indian. And it was.

We bought Indian beer and drank it as we walked and discovered the neoclassical Somerset house that used to house all the births and deaths and now looks good and is home to the galleries that I will blog about tomorrow.

The Spaniards at Walkabout were plenty and we danced and drank and smoked and took the tube back. I told a young man from Birmingham that I'm a writer and he said 'fair fucks' which means 'well played.'

Monday, March 14, 2011

Stonehenge, Bath, Shakespeare's Home

The cottage at Stratford-upon-Avon.
Matthew and I bought paninis and he bought a cheese and onion pasty at Victoria station. Paul the hairy-eared Irish tour guide took the head count and yelled at us for having "malodorous" food and was stern about speaking loudly but he was pleased that we were attentive to his Stonehenge and Bath lectures and softened and befriended us by day's end.

Stonehenge's sky was low and the rolling green plain spread before the north wind. There was a sense of the sacred and the artistic and the epic and the journeying nature of primitive man in the 5,000 year old megaton stones. The audio guide had a quote from the last lines of classic literature master Thomas Hardy's Tess of the D'Urbervilles describing the sullen stones. It is silly to go to world famous sites and pose in front of them so I decided to turn this idea on its head - literally (photos on Facebook to come).

The Georgian architecture of Bath surrounded us as we spotted the locals. Matthew sought out dogs and an old couple warned him that their grey Jack Russell bit but he thought it would not and we all had a laugh when the animal snapped at his too-close fingers.

Then the Bard's home and O my brothers it was like a Meccan pilgrimmage. The Tudor cottage was still intact after years of refurbishment and Matty asked a young blonde guide whether Shakespeare had written all his plays. She said we know that he didn't write all of the later stuff including Henry VIII and I interjected - but no one reads that play anyway - and she said but we know he wrote all of the major works, i.e. Hamlet, of which the soliloquies alone are enough to guarantee a man eternal fame. And she mentioned how he took these stories from sources and reinvented them and we said yes, interesting how art is all about borrowing and reinvention and this reminds me of a certain post postmodern blog.

Friday, March 11, 2011

London and Avant Garde Art

Yesterday was our first full day in London. We took the Tube, which is very convenient and indeed rivals its New York counterpart to the South Bank. One thing about Londoners is that momentary subterranean delays don't seem to cause as much agitation as for New Yorkers.

Bourough Market gave us lunch: we shared Thai seafood green curry from one stand  and fresh arugula salad, prosciutto, tomato and bufalo muzzarella for our greens. Down the South Bank the Tate Modern holds representative works from most of the famous avant garde artists of the 20th century, including the $106 million Picasso Nude, Green Leaves, and Bust, Braque, Twombly, Bacon, Serra and many more.

We rode bikes to the hep Shoreditch neighborhood after crossing the Thames on the Millennium Bridge. Our country is late on adopting this program of park and ride, unfortunately. At Brick Lane I had lamb vindaloo and almond cream naan (pleasure shudder). Then we walked and drank, walked and drank.

Thing is London sleeps. And that changes the energy of the city slightly. But today after the National Gallery, Friday night will be crazy.

Tuesday, March 8, 2011

Boat Shoes Are One Step Closer

So because I'm on that grown man train, I need to ditch my Nike Dunks and get some boat shoes for the summer. That's cool, especially because not only do I not want to wear heavy black sneakers in mid-July but I don't want to wear sandals either and expose my feet to the filth of New York City streets. To achieve these boat shoes I am blogging about a company that offered them to me at a discounted rate. Now because I am young and poor and need to look good, I must do everything I can to get what I want, including selling blog posts for shoes. This helped me clean up my room back in December with a new bureau, upon which currently rests my classic literature.

I've also been thinking about track lighting which will provide me with more light in my bedroom because if you don't have sufficient lighting while reading classic literature you can strain your eyes which eventually may mean glasses.

Here's another site you can follow if you want to be in on deals about furnishings and whatnot that will allow you to live less like a starving artist and more like the normal people in society: http://www.jossandmain.com/store/myinvite/bil

Monday, March 7, 2011

I'm Going to London, Classic Literature, Etc.

Richard III, ugliest of British Kings.
Reinvest in yourself I like to say. So I bought this trip to London and tomorrow I'm leaving. In the meanwhile I've been trying to learn as much as possible about this quondam world capital, from the history of Robin Hood to Richard III, and everything in between. Late medieval English history is fascinating, especially because it is so neglected. My preparations wouldn't be complete without some classic literature so I'm reading Shakespeare's Richard III, of which I'll give you a quick coffee high history.

So there's the Lancastrian line and the York line and they're both descendants of Edward III, the famous Plantagenet, who's like the big King of the 14th century. And his spawn gets all the way through the Hundred Years War and then there's Edward IV who comes after Henry VI, who Shakespeare wrote three plays about. And Richard III was really disliked by Elizabethan England cuz he's a bad guy who murders his eloquent brothers Clarence and Edward IV. And Edward has this 12 year old son who's about to assume the throne, but Rich is like hold up, you're actually a bastard and your mom's not good enough to make you king and all his supporters are like hear hear and then he rules for two years before dying in battle on English soil (the only Brit-king to do so and the last to die in battle). Thus the tragedy.

So I'll be blogging from Londontown and if any of you have tips or want me to mention anything specifically just shout.

-Preparing for travel,
Daniel Adler

Friday, March 4, 2011

Get Meta, It's Friday

Men need sympathy from women. Like them, men are creatures of feeling and are governed by a sense of hierarchy. They don’t want to feel low so they need reassurance and if that doesn’t help then they need sympathy. I don't want love or hate, pity or anger. Sympathy is another matter. There is never enough of that.
      

She felt his look. Then he rolled on top of her cunningly and used his hands to caress the sides of her body and then lightly he kissed her neck. She remained distant, but he felt her warming. Encouraged, he pressed harder. He rolled on top of her and their mouths locked and then he rolled her on top of him. That was it.

Do you ever have thoughts that float into your mind and aren’t sure if they were dreams or reality? Or catch glimpses of your unconscious from the night before and can’t align it with what your consciousness believes? Or are you ever embarrassed by the dreams you had last night? Good. That means you’re thinking.

Maybe I’ll just write my book like this. In short paragraphs. Like tweets. That would be so original, it would have to become classic literature one day. God you’re conceited, but at least the recognition provides a nice glance into the meta nature of post postmodernism.

Wednesday, March 2, 2011

If That Ain't Country

There were Cadillacs and Waffle Houses and signs for the best bar-b-q and folks walking arm in arm and ten-gallon hats and  buttery grits. Johnny Cash, Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis, the heart of the blues and gospel music and country music began in the American South. Is Nashville the Vienna of the 20th century? In terms of musical production, the '50s and '60s, even the '70s, were the most prolific era of music in hundreds of years. Our grandkids will know about Michael Jackson and Elvis.

Was it the nostalgia for Civil War? The lead-up to the hundredth anniversary in everyone's unconscious triggered something - hey, look how far we've come, how American we are and look what we can produce. To draw on black music was to apologize and share culture in the same way the sesquicentennial anniversary of Civil War inaugurated the first black president. Little did they know how much more they had to apologize for.

Still there is pervasive hatred here. It fires in the eyes of bourbon drinkers and diesel-burning pickups and the pell-mell of a prison yard and the slow chuff of a locomotive hiking up a mountainside and a blonde blue-eyed honey leaving for another man and the slow-roasting smoky smell of mama's brisket. That's country. The adventurous Yankee yearns to see the sweet expanse of cotton fields and rosedale blue skies and know the slow malaise of sweet tea and aristocratic white country porches and the Southern Gulf and he wants to meld his hard-poached honk into the relaxed gentlemanly whiskey-red drawl of country.

Tuesday, March 1, 2011

Why Hemingway is Classic Literature

I've argued elsewhere that Ernest Hemingway is among one of the best writers of classic literature. Let's take a look at why.

It was obvious that he wrote a lot. His experiences in WWI as an ambulance driver provided him with much material. His style had been crafted into a specific form, light on punctuation and heavy on conjunctions. This tendency is called polysyndeton. It is found in the King James Bible.

An example of Hemingway's usage:

"The dog kept close behind him and when David stopped the dog pressed his muzzle into the back of his knee."-An African Story

The use of the many conjunctions changes the rhythm and in this case heightens tension. Instead of pauses commanded by commas we are forced to keep reading. Hemingway reserves his punctuation for emphasis, such as in this sentence:

"But I never knew anyone else that could shoot better at ten than this boy could; not just show-off shooting, but shooting in competition with grown men and professionals."
–I Guess Everything Reminds You of Something

His semicolon is usually reserved to discuss matters of serious importance, such as violence or life and death. Commas emphasize a clause.These are good tools to remember when you are writing.

Thursday, February 24, 2011

The Best American Writer-Ever

In the realm of classic literature, there are a few American names that spring to mind. Let us proceed chronologically.

19th Century: Poe, Twain or Melville are the only ones who stand a chance of being called the greatest American writer. Huck Finn is one of the most influential books in our history. Moby Dick alone means the latter has a pretty good shot.

20th Century: Modernists: Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Faulkner. I am partial to Hemingway. And although Fitzgerald wrote the best American novel of the 20th century (The Great Gatsby), Tender is the Night is his only other work that can be called truly excellent. Both Faulkner and Hemingway won the Nobel Prize in Literature, but I would argue that Hemingway did more to change the face of the American novel. His lapidary style in The Old Man and the Sea is Biblical. We could also mention Salinger and Bellow in this discussion.

Postmodernists: I have ranked the following authors in tiers since not enough time has passed to truly measure their greatness:

In the top tier: Pynchon, Updike, Roth. Gravity's Rainbow is arguably as devastating to fiction as was Moby Dick. Updike wrote a lot, but he will always be remembered for the wonderful Rabbit Tetralogy. And Roth is similarly masterful, and has a number of novels that could be called masterpieces. Toni Morrison is also a contender, she won the Nobel Prize in 1993.

Second Tier: McCarthy, DeLillo, Mailer. These guys have all written great novels, but The Naked and the Dead is a war novel and too limited in scope. White Noise is a contender. And I'm reading Blood Meridian right now. It's hard to assess authors who are still producing, but if I missed anyone, let me know. And feel free to make your case for your favorite.

Wednesday, February 23, 2011

Nipple and Ass Hair

We are so conditioned to fear hair. Nipple hair for example, is hard to hide. Even when freshly shaved, you can taste tiny stubbly pricks that remind you that even the most beautiful women have long black nipple hairs. Is this wrong? They existed to protected the mammary glands from cold, so that your baby can have a fresh teat to suckle. And now you want them to be shaved and cleaned. But they are kind of gross, like ass hair.

Remember when that girl used to shave her pussy in the shower and then she’d make light of shaving her asshole by noting the difficulty of reaching it. You laughed along with her. Ass hair. How absurd. On one hand it’s easy to improve your hygiene by trimming or shaving it, on the other, leave that shit alone and don’t fuck with it. It’s for shitting, not sexual penetration. But in our pornographic culture, it’s more acceptable to practice butt sex than to have an asshole full of fuzziness.

So you were at first repulsed by the nipple hair, then you grew up and realized it was natural, now you are still kind of repulsed by it and view it as a cultural norm that should be obeyed: thou shalt shave thy nipple hair.

Tuesday, February 22, 2011

The Chicago Mayoral Election in Post Postmodernism

Trending, I'm going to write a book with Tweets and Facebook status updates. And a dream chapter.

So Rahm Emanuel is going to win the Chicago mayoral election, which is cool. Chicago's mayor is a big deal because Chicago is one of our finest cities. There is always the possibility though, that Houston has grown so much that it is now the 3rd largest city in the country, which would be sad. But I like Rahm because he wears Timberland boots when campaigning, in the same distinct post postmodern fashion as Obama's open shirt collar (yo, I'm a boss, and I'm bucking convention). By the way, did anyone else know Emanuel is a Jew? which would make him Chicago's first Jewish mayor. And it will mark an end to the Daley reign, which is a good thing, because as Americans we just don't like that aristocratic noise of transferring power within families.

I'm just reading at the cafe, writing, trying to make my book more intimate, like you reading it are my confidant/e, O my brothers.Wanted a break, that's all. Back to work.

Monday, February 21, 2011

Coriolanus, Lemon Chicken Recipe, Jimmy Stewart

 How do you lose a sixteen-inch screw?
I gotta run money, gotta get up, it's the first of the month.
Throwing a hot dog in a hallway, you don't know where it goes.
Gorilla snot with a stitched catty backseam, but it's all about stockings.

Jimmy Stewart, in The Naked Spur, is how I want my son to be. He is a tragihero, but he gets the girl at the end, bullet-legged and all.

My lemon chicken has reached perfection. The secret, my friends, is to add the chopped dill and rosemary when the chicken has a small pink spot in its middle. Then you flip it and let it fry for, say, two minutes.

Sometimes Daniel Adler just don’t feel like biking seven mile, especially when he wake up real dehydrated, and it’s lightly snowing. Better to just read on the subway,
Why did you wish me milder? Would you have me false to my nature? Rather say I play the man I am, Coriolanus, III.ii.14-16.
Shaw said that this tragedy is Shakespeare’s best comedy. I did a Drunk History of it last night.

Saturday, February 19, 2011

1 Year Edit On Williamsburg Skate Rounds

    But the Williamsburg bridge Buckley and I skated best. Ride red and blue: steel mesh caging smears uptown Manhattan. Until the river is directly below you skate uphill, a drag worth it for the ride down. The grade steepens, you close in to the shore and shadows play catch up, running over each other. On a skateboard you must carve a path back and forth so the board doesn't speed wobble and throw you off.  Should that happen you reflexively use your palms for protection, even though they will gash and bleed and raspberries form on knees and elbows after rolling facefirst– no, instead dig heels into and toes over the board-edge to allow you more lateral mobility. Boardsporters know this. The original phrase 'hang ten' comes from ten toes off the surfboard to shred the wave. You gain speed, while weaving to slow down, though eventually you see the end of the path and a solid cement wall three hundred meters down the 8% grade, and you feel imminent wobble. A flying board is dangerous and each second you feel less invincible. Reason kicks in and you jump off to send the board careening off bridge-walls until it falls supine, wheels violently a-spin in stasis. Adrenaline pumps, chest heaves, lactic acid builds in quads and calves. You are glad you bailed because another second or two you'd be bloodied.
   

Williamsburg has more grafitti and fewer people. They can't afford Manhattan luxury or weren't lucky enough to be passed down a rent-controlled apartment, and instead commute or are artists who enjoy the quiet and cheap lofts, or have parents who immigrated here last generation and haven't moved because it's home, are the kinds who live in Williamsburg.

Friday, February 18, 2011

A Post Postmodern Moment

 Mr. Quinn had grown up in small-town Pennsylvania. His father was a coal-miner and worked hard all day. After their shift he and the boys went to the local watering hole before heading home. Three times out of four, Davy's father came home to hear his weak wife complain about something Davy had done, while she nursed two other young children, Davy the oldest by five years. After a few shots of whiskey, Mr. Quinn Sr. hated to hear from his wife that Davy had been evil during the day. And as tired as the soot-faced man was, he took his belt to the boy and made him sleep in the toolshed. 
    Davy had done his Ph.D at Penn State in English after spending most of his youth reading classics and avoiding his father's wrath. He had never married, was a philanderer. He presently dated the school nurse, Ms. Pillary, a tall, thin woman clear blue eyes and thin red lips. He lived alone with a Staffordshire Terrier, and spent most weekends upstate, sometimes with Ms. Pillary. He fished on Sundays.
    You don't even know that happened with certainty, do you? That stuff about his father beating him and keeping him in a shed, that was all bullshit wasn't it?
    No, of course not.
    Well how do you know it happened?
    I remember the way he looked, older Gabriel. That glimmer in his eye when I turned in that villanelle and no one else did, and he said keep it, and I asked if we're going to get graded on it and he said no, but you didn't do it for nothing, and he nodded slowly, with his big Staffordshire head convincing you that your efforts weren’t for naught. His gimlet eyes were enough to tell me some of his own pain. So whether or not his father was a coal miner or a printer doesn't matter, but what does is  how he influenced us. Without him you would probably wouldn't be writing this right now.
    Yeah, you're probably right about that.
    I know I am. Why do you always argue with me? You think that your youth was simply idealistic prattle, but it was the purest you've ever been, the most passionate about writing. All of the stuff you're writing now is pablum compared to what you did when you were eighteen, nineteen.
    But I was so young, inexperienced.
    No one said you were Hemingway. But if you try to channel me a little more often, older self, you might actually find some readers. They will listen to you, through me. Why? Because I am your inner child. I am raw. I am not cultivated by society's expectations. Listen to me! Don't ignore me because you've grown wiser. I was wise, but inexperienced. Together we can be great. You need to recognize me.
    Maybe you're right. I have been taking a lot of criticism about the lack of passion in this book. We were so ubermenschian when we were younger.
    I know. That's what I'm trying to tell you. Once you hit twenty-five you became jaded and realistic.
    You're right.
    Okay, you're boring them. Get back to our story.  

Wednesday, February 16, 2011

Help: A Post Postmodern Dilemma

Bernini's "Apollo and Daphne"
Dear Gorgeous,

So far this has been my blog. I'm totally willing to publish anything you guys think is relevant. I mean, it is an internet warehouse after all, it's supposed to store a lot of different stuff.

Anyway I've been thinking about my book lately, the ol' Hot Love On The Wing. I've been trying to delve deep into the character of my female protagonist, Daphne. I've two main ways of approaching it:

1. Show Don't Tell: The way most good writing works. I show a scene where Daphne gets frustrated by the way menfolk don't take her seriously, even though she has good things to say, and you guys get an idea of what kind of woman she is.

2. Post Postmodernist: I point out to you that I can't truly know what Daphne is thinking, but based on the fact that I, the narrator and protagonist, have lived with and known Daphne for years, I have a good idea of what she might be thinking. While this can give you insight into the protagonist's psychology and his relationship with Daphne, it is a potential trap: I'm telling without showing.

Can you see my dilemma? If there are any ideas on how to solve this, or if any writers wanting to step up and suggest what I ought to do, please feel free.

All my love,
Daniel Adler

Tuesday, February 15, 2011

The Friendship Garden

Social class and similar interests are the most important fertilizers in the friendship garden, and sowing requires effort. From there, the sunlight of frequency and the water of luck bring forth agape flowers.

 Some people are grounded. You can tell this immediately from the flash in their eyes and their first words. But then they may be working on a different wavelength, which can be hard to negotiate. Others are attractive, and you think they may be okay, but you feel obliged to laugh at their jokes. Will this get in the way, you ask yourself? Perhaps it can change once you get to know them better? But eventually, the false laughter produce a friendship that lies like a fallen apple with sweetness clustered in one spot, bitter and rotten around. And so you go taking bites from all the apples, trying to eat your fill, but wishing that you might find one entirely ripe, sweet.

You scour the orchards, move into the vegetable garden. Hey, there, look at that ripe vegetation. You take a bite, revolted with its bitterness. Maybe the bitterness becomes tasty when cooked with the herbs of time. You watch outer layers wilt sweetly like the blackened leaves of a buttery baked brussel sprout. Covered in garlic and butter delicious, those crispy, tasty layers fall off and leave a greener core still tasty, more substantial.
 
-A post postmodern excerpt, by Daniel Adler

Sunday, February 13, 2011

Postmodern Classic Literature: Bright Lights, Big City

The second person is a fine technique to use. It is adjuratory and precise. The first person is confessional. The two effects are distinct. In Jay McInerney's classic literature roman a clef, the second person is exhortatory, nearly allowing us as readers to tell the protagonist how best to deal with his sexual abandonment and job loss.

I dreamed about Bolivian Marching Powder last night. Not doing it, just the metaphor of the marching armies, brigades tramping through the forests of a brain. Well done. "Her voice was like gravel spread with honey." Voices are hard to describe, and McInerney's imagery is beautifully suggestive, though not necessarily illuminating. The protagonist is pathetic enough to sympathize with. Goosebumps for the last line, when he must learn to live again, the way we all must, in every single moment.

Constantly we revert to habit and routine. Despite the expectation of cocaine, sex, and high pleasures, luxuries lose importance, a notion exemplified by the '80s me-generation of fast-money and its repudiation in this great read. Our generation is a tad more in touch with what matters, maybe because of the Great Recession, maybe because of the physically-distancing nature of the internet. So I'm working on how to convey that in my writing.

Friday, February 11, 2011

Back in the Soup Kitchen

The days became shorter, slowly. When the heat peaked, people did not like to exert themselves, their tempers flared, and they had little patience. Even the homeless folks in the kitchen were slow to move, eager to take their time. 
Eventually he could not bear it any longer. He had to say something to this man who felt so entitled to peace and escape.  While he swept around the man, who was eating his thirds, he nearly stuttered. The thin clunky sunglasses prevented eye contact but Gabriel Arnold was resilient. "What did you do today?" he asked.
The man looked at him warily. Gabriel watched his spoon-hand hover in midair.
"I lived."
"But what do you do?"
"I existed." He sipped his spoon.
"Well I always hear you talking about highfalutin (here he felt good about himself for using a polysyllabic word) ideas and the Man, and I just want to know what you do." His obsequious tone undermined the haughtiness of his words. 
"Listen, kid. When you see what I've seen, then we can talk. Until then, you have no idea what makes the world tock."
"Money." The man looked up at him after quickly slurping some soup, his mouth ajar. "Exactly. And how do you make money? You pour your eyes out until you become fecal and defunct. What did I do today? I stayed alive kid. I lived."
"Do you work?"
"Of course I work. He works, you work, I work. We all fucking work. Don't you see that's how it happens?"
"What happens?
"Jeezus hailmary fucking Christ. I'm not your fucking mentor. Go home, kid."
"No, seriously. If you live then you work. But you don't buy your own food. Why do you think you've got it all figured out?"
    The man threw his spoon into his empty bowl. He rose quickly and left without looking back.

Thursday, February 10, 2011

Color Theory, By Daniel Adler

    He looked like a turtle. Through the square framed glasses that rested on his chubby cheeks, he blinked slowly. His wide body and enormous back resembled a shell. And his favorite color was green, which made sense, according to my color theory.
   
Everyone has a favorite color. It happens back in pre-school, when everyone learns the the spectrum. Sure, maybe there are a couple of them that appeal to you now. But there's one you always really loved. Mine is red. Yours is probably blue. Buckley's was green - quirky, realistic, and intelligent.
   
When I went into his apartment and sheepishly greeted his mother, who looked if anything like a bird rather than a reptile, I was very queer. Parents made me uncomfortable as a child, especially fathers who came home in suits after selling bonds all day. Although they were welcoming and kind in the way parents of friends are when you are in their home, I couldn't help but compare them to the way my father came home in faded blue jeans and a toolbelt, and how much warmer and fluid my mother was than the avian woman with pearls.        

-Hot Love on the Wing, Daniel Adler

Tuesday, February 8, 2011

Ode to Marble

I wrote this for Amsum & Ash, a countertop company. I hope they like it.

Sweet marble. You are the saddest stone. Your icy-soft purity beckons us to watch. You resist time in a way we cannot. You harden, grow colder, but never coarser. You  last a thousand lifetimes, while we will die all too fast. Under the mountain sky your rest is soft. You are resilient and perfect for daily use. To counter you is to appreciate you, use you. Marble countertop, you are strong.

Before you were quarried, to how many storms were you witness? Aching-hot days? You felt nothing, you simply were. In the kitchen how many spills can you withstand, you luxurious stone, ancient and weathered with your dark veins of prescience?

How base of you to discount desire, temptation! Would you trade your centuries of plenitude for one of our chance-filled lifetimes? Would you understand love if you could? Alas, you are stone ideal for the bathroom vanity. You counter our concupiscence, and give us firm ground on which to lean. And I have not a qualm against you for it, dear marble. Should I have chosen one of the granite varieties, I'd be no happier. i surround myself with tokens of immortality; it reduces my arrogance and humbles my being.

-Daniel Adler

Saturday, February 5, 2011

Irony's Dead in Post Postmodernism

Times were, person with the messiest hair or the biggest glasses was the coolest. That was so 2007. If we look at fashion these days, we can note the reversion to the Mad Men era of style and panache. Hats are back. Two-button nondescript suits are classic. Jeans should be worn with room enough for your balls not to be squashed if you cross your legs.

Postmodernism was all about irony, viewing things from high above to make reality look absurd. Take Seinfeld for example. We can laugh at the idea of a woman's man hands or man on man massage action because we're watching it in the safe removal of our homes.

In contrast, take the close-up documentary style of The Office. We like being right there with the characters, understanding how they feel. And it's funny because they're characters, weirdos, just like us, we like to think. We get them just as easily as they would get us, if they could. The same idea translates into post postmodernist literature. We want to be right there with the protagonist, understanding his every thought and desire. And to make this original, distinct, it would be great if he could attempt to provide perspective from a removal of, oh say, ten years. This wouldn't exculpate his younger self, however; it would give the reader further insight into his embedded delinquencies. That's what my shitty post postmodern novel will attempt to do.

Friday, February 4, 2011

The Way I Shoot

When they weren't skating they were cultivating their espresso connoisseurship. Among the many cafes in downtown Manhattan, Gimme! Coffee in quiet SoHo attracted him with its red banner. The two boys entered the slender espresso bar, placed their orders, and waited patiently at the end of the granite counter in front of the beautiful red Marzocco espresso machine. They balanced their skateboards with index fingers, watching the hipsters and the pretty girls, and the artistic photographs over the black wainscoting. The baristas were red haired girls and mustachioed young men with bicycle caps and tight t shirts and chains that held their wallets snugly in the pockets of their tight pants.
  
The first espresso was delivered on a plate with a spoon and a glass of water. It was always his ever since the first time he lunged on it as soon as it was offered.  If you don’t drink the espresso within the first ten seconds it’s made, it will spoil and bitter. You can prevent this by adding sugar or milk, but he was a purist. The shot landed on the plate and he hurried it into his mouth eagerly savoring the flavors, eyes-shut, consciously feeling people watching him. He closed his eyes tighter and lolled the chocolate-sweet piquancy on his tongue back and forth, over the divots in his molars, feeling the hints of cinnamon, burgundy, ochre, all so good and the perfect temperature so his tongue didn't burn and he swallowed it. And it was over. The last brown pearl he poured onto the espresso spoon and touched it to his palate, complimenting the barista afterwards.

Tuesday, February 1, 2011

Postmodernism Revisited

Okay, enough is enough. I’ve read most classic literature, and I’ll get back to it. But it’s time to flex my postmodernism muscles.

I started American Psycho last year and put it down after a hundred fifty pages. I picked it up again this morn and remembered the wave of disgust that it left me with. The violence, crudity and pornography all make for a page-turner, but the true skill of Ellis is when he describes men’s fashion; when he delves into the psycho’s mind as he wonders about whether his lover would love him more if she weren’t cheating on her boyfriend; and when he notes the evasive eye contact of enemies.

Generally, however, I feel sick after reading it, and I wonder whether it’s a testament to the power of the work. Does good art inspire visceral disgust? Or is that a symptom of entertaining middle-brow work? I touched on this in my Black Swan post, and want to suggest the latter.

This is termed the grotesque. We continue reading to see if the grotesque can be conquered, but in this case, it is the reader who has been conquered, fooled. Thus the postmodernism. But something tells me that the best works of art do not invite reaction by appealing to the most basic human emotions, but rather, to the loftiest. 

Saturday, January 29, 2011

The Problem With David Copperfield

It's tied up too neatly. David starts out as an autobiographical character for Dickens, a revolt against his archetypal heroes, but by the end of the book becomes the packaged "everything's okay-I'm happy despite all life's shortcomings" kind of romantic 19th century character. Keep in mind that it took Dickens another ten years to write Great Expectations, a story which ends up not nearly as well tied together, which is arguably why it's better.

We are able to envision characters like Mr. Micawber, the unctious Uriah Heep, and Little Dora all too well, but by the end of the story we hardly feel like we know David. As Shaw noted, we know nothing of his political leanings, his unconscious desires or anything that is not universal. For the particular we must turn to secondary characters.

The masterpiece David Copperfield is imperfect, similar in the imperfections of Great Expectations: how it takes too long to dissuade Pip to leave Estella. But can we fault Dickens for this? I laughed, cried, learned new words, and generally enjoyed David Copperfield. The only faults I find I must try to correct in my own work. That's why I read all these works of classic literature.

Here's to post postmodernism!

Thursday, January 27, 2011

Rumi, Negative Capability and Eastern Classic Literature

I'm reading Rumi's "The Book of Love," a classic literature text worth reading. It isn't so much about the sexual love you immediately thought of upon reading the title, but rather the love for life, on which I pride myself for having.

Not to sound like an arrogant asshole, but you know, the channeling of emotion, the appreciation of highs, lows, ups, downs, all that goodness and beauty.

The Eastern and Western notions of love are different. The former is based on sobriety, receptiveness and clarity; the latter, longing, desire and drunkenness. We need both, but in Western classic literature, the drunk-with-longing is more heavily emphasized. When the Eastern makes an appearance, it's love for a flower or a bumble-bee. I'd say that Keats comes closest to achieving them both simultaneously in terms of sexual love, which makes sense if you think about his definition of negative capability.

So I'm going to try to follow in his footsteps and write about a new love beyond all as I write my kunstlerroman. The key is not to sound so damn self-absorbed. Or maybe to sound self-absorbed but alleviate it with a time-gap perspective, of say, ten years. Good luck you 22-year old snot nose. Yeah, like that.

Tuesday, January 25, 2011

On the Road Again


In that time the road smelled like gasoline and french fries at the gas stations and Circle K's. When you rolled your window down and stuck your head out beside the cars whooshed past, it was hard to get a whiff.  The speed made breathing difficult. Your nostrils couldn't accept all the air at once.

 Slower, on a scenic route, it smelled of heather and pine, trampled needles and early summer sun; open expanses and vast prairie, corn and that wide blue air scent unfound in metropolitan avenues; hot macadam and brown grasses, hay casks and descending evening. It smelled like youth, life and everything that mattered.

When you saw the green signs with white pimply lettering that read Sioux City 364 and you longed to be there already, find your room and settle down for the night, you tempered it by remembering that you still have to stop for lunch. Hundreds of miles of open grassland, red rim-rocks, striated purples, a propitious hawk overhead - so different from yesterday's scenery. What's next?

    The chickenscratchy sound of distance-drowned radio led to the seek button and when they heard a good classic country or rock'n'roll song, they'd press it again to let it stop and play. It was a good station and they'd sing along:
   
"On the road again
    Goin places that I've never been
    Seein' things that I may never see again
    And I can't wait to get on the road again"

Until it ended sadly and they hoped to recognize another. They kept it there until a commercial break, when they seeked again, and remembered that one, in case there were only three or four radio stations within a hundred square miles. If there were no other songs they recognized, they returned abashedly, and prayed for another good one.

Monday, January 24, 2011

Love and Neil Young

In life we all just want to be loved. There are times when we think we love someone more than anyone else, although it is the eros doing this. (Funny, how Cupid the messenger of love and the word cupidity, meaning avarice, have the same root). We love our parents and our siblings and our friends just as much, if not more. Try to quantify your love, puny human.

But when we find the eros, it burns brighter and faster and so we want to love harder, more than the agape or the storge. In the end, it only dies faster. Suspend your thought. Let go. Live it fully. This will be the truest love you can express. And everyone will feel it.

Why is Neil Young so good? He combines aspects of folk and rock that make him soft and melodic, yet rugged and hard. He balances extremes well, though he is best when he's in the middle. He is like the lovechild of Bob Dylan and Led Zeppelin, especially in his Crazy Horse days.



Play the mouth harp, if you want to take up an instrument and can't dedicate the time to the guitar.

Free Associative Post Postmodern Descriptions

 My friends are naming their dog Prince Chicken Sandwich Can't Be Asked Jackson and that's the condensed version. But this allows you to call the dog any of the above, or whatever the fuck you want.

So you can basically call anything you want, anything you want. Let me provide an example:

"Morning moved like a pearl-gray tide across the fields and up the hill-flanks, flowing rapidly down into the soluble dark." (Look Homeward, Angel, 144).

How great is that? Soluble means able to be dissolved, and yes dark is able to be dissolved. But you know this dude had this word shoot into his head and was like, "That dark is soluble. The morning is pearl-gray." And it was so.

We've reached the height of postmodernism, when you can incorporate whatever you want to achieve absurdity or high seriousness. So if you want to describe your dog, the first thing that comes to mind is as good as any.

You can call the dawn whatever you want. Let's try. The orchid blue morning broke suddenly like a storm-washed crescent over the slop-bricked town. Pretty shitty, right? But at least you get a vague idea of what I'm talking about, the reality I'm trying to define. Outdo me, please. That is the beauty of this post postmodernism thing.