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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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!

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.

Gerundizing in Post Postmodernism

The latest trend in post postmodern language is gerundizing, or making a noun a verb. Julie's example was, "Hey are you guys Bostoning this weekend?"

But you don't have to gerundize necessarily - the larger trend is that nouns are becoming verbs. Take the word "reference."  It is gaining momentum as a verb instead of a noun. How often do you hear people talk about the reference section in the library. Forget the word "cite."

Indeed, gerundizing makes English that much easier. As Thomas Jefferson said, why use two words when one will do?

It is also popular to shuffle between tenses and styles, not necessarily incorporating and alluding to different brands, people and ideas, but instead to different styles in order to express different trains of thought. Let's say a character wants to experiment with drugs. It's very effective for a post postmodern writer to imitate the exploration of subjectivity used by modernist writers to simulate his experience while high.

Or perhaps the protagonist is remembering his youth: a self-conscious remembrance in the postmodern style would do well in such an occasion. Post postmodern writers have all this history from which to borrow, and as such, can move fluidly from one style to the other.  

-Prophetically,
Daniel Adler

Adventures in Post Postmodernism

An excerpt from the first great novel of post postmodernism:

The West for desire, the East for home. American adventure smells like gasoline and cheap perfume. Adventure is an event that is out of the ordinary, without necessarily being extraordinary, according to Sartre. I like this definition. Travel is the easiest way to obtain adventure. The experience is undoubtedly out of the ordinary - you are paying for a break from the ordinary, and when you take the trip it is a story, always a story.

But then, when you're on the way home, you get that feeling, maybe anxiousness, maybe homesickness, and you don't want to be in between home and travel; you want to be either/or. And when you arrive home you are different because you have had a new adventure, an experience that you have never had before. That allows you to understand that every experience is new, every fucking second is a variation, not a repetition, and that in each life-glimmer there is potential, however minute, for adventure.

You glimpse this upon your return, and you tell your friends your stories, and you feel proud to have had such daring experiences, such startling breaks from reality, and everyone enjoys hearing about these adventures, because they allow us to move away from the monotony of our forgetfulness. But pretty soon you get back to work, and the routine takes hold of you by the neck, and tucks you tightly so that you forget about possibility. And even though work is a kind of adventure, it quickly becomes the routine we crave.

Bushwick and Swallow Cafe

This is where I do a lot of writing. I watch Gio flirt with Sam(antha), who clearly likes him. She is pretty popular in the community, being a barista and all. But there's something about the way she smiles when she talks to him that makes it clear.

I once saw her at the Post bike shop. Her wheel was badly out of true, and the dredded dudes rejected her; to fix the wheel wouldn't be worth it.

This is my bohemia, where they will remember the seedlings of post postmodernism, or metamodernism, sprouted. Out of the nine laptop users in the badly named Swallow Cafe (Sam said that there's no chance they'll change the name), seven have Macs; there is some throbbing-beated lo-fi jangly female singing music playing; and the dishwasher whirs soothingly.

If the Halsey stop is the newest edge of gentrification, then Morgantown will soon be Bedford. Once they build those condos that are slated to go up, just north of McKibbin on Bogart, this place is going to be prime real estate. It would be nice to be able to afford to live there by the time they're built.

Bushwick rats. I should get back to reading some classic literature.

Moliere's Don Juan

To read this play as anything more than a moral lesson is tempting, though improper. What is to be examined, instead, is its incorporation of genres and themes; its use of wit, paradox, and repartee. The comedy of manners, the morality play, and the opera buffa all funciton together to create a character who is comical in his naivete. We wait for his hypocrisy to be condemned to hellfire and damnation, and ultimately, are rewarded.

But Sganarelle's question at the end of the play ("But who will pay my wages?) when lamenting the loss of his master suggests that the harm has already been done. Dona Elvira turns to the convent, her family never exacts revenge, and Sganarelle is left to brave the world without hiding behind his master.  The remaining characters are urged closer to God through Don Juan's damnation.

In the 17th century, Louis XIV's Paris had seen the influence of the church wane, and the possibility for social satire emerge. Here is where Moliere's true genius shines, for as Don Juan says, "It's only commonsense to take advantages of the weaknesses of mankind, and adjust one's behavior to fit in with the vices of one's age." Moliere's ability to condemn the traits most prevalent in an age (namely, hypocrisy and pretentiousness) is worthy of emulation. My question is what are the vices inherent in post postmodernism?

Metamodernism in Literature

My friend Thomas Gibney knows the meaning of post postmodernism. He's living in Hong Kong right now, and has just launched his website. He has written four short stories that allow you, the reader, to guide him to the story's ends.

This example of avant-garde art, especially the interactivity, is what our moment is all about. The internet allows us to access a much vaster amount of information than we ever previously have. Not to make our moment sound so important, but it shares many similarities to the time when the printing press changed the world. The repercussions from this groundswell are just beginning to be felt, mostly in the business world (Facebook's alignment with Goldman Sachs) but also in the poliltical arena (the Obama grassroots youth movement that helped him win office two years ago).

We are all so preoccupied with updates and ways to stay connected that literature has inevitably begun to feel it too. The blog, for one, is a great example. The best blogs are pitstops on the internet highway. Jump here, answer some idiot's response about global warming; go here, drop a link to this funny site you found; retweet it and like it on Facebook, check out your friend's post of a viral video, etc.

So the metamodernism is everywhere. Thomas' work is a good way to understand it.

Post Postmodernism Manifesto

If all movements are reactions, then it's clear that post postmodernism is a reaction to postmodernism. As such it will move away from the banal, the free form, and the ironic. It will relish the sublime, the subjectively universal, and the English Poets.  In short, it will participate in the tradition of classic literature.

My friend L.N. is working on his dissertation at Harvard, and in the meanwhile is creating a book of poems entitled "The Cold Wisdom of Northern Europe." It will be a collection of imaginative translations and adaptations from Old English and Old Norse, with poems expanding upon scenes in Beowulf, Bede, the Edda, etc (a companion volume, entitled "The Hot Blood of the Mediterranean," with poems from Latin and Greek, will come out in 2012). Here's a taste.

THUS SPOKE ODIN:

Deigning one day to descend from above
Odin came before the Folk.
The people pressed him for wisdom pure
And this is what he spoke:

“Your dearest friends will dearly die
Your cattle will die too.
Your crops, your crown, all will crumble
All will die, even you.

I know one thing that does not die
One thing not doomed by death;
One thing alone that will live
As long as men have breath:

The reputation of the renowned dead!
This will perish never.
Strong through song and saga long
A man’s fame lives forever.

He who holds this in his head
Will sure live wise and well;
But the fool who fast forgets it
Will be consigned to hell.”

This poem is based, by the way, on four lines from the Old Norse poem Havamal, which is a wisdom poem put into the mouth of Odin. The four lines are as follows:

"Friends die, cattle die,
You yourself will die.
I know one thing that does not die,
The reputation of the dead."

2010 Classic Literature Round Up

One of my more rececnt posts about George Bernard Shaw has caused a bit of a maelstrom. Indeed, I was wrong, or at least misreading the quotation. It seems as though experience is not valuable for its capacity or breadth, but for its quality. This goes back to Nietszche. The Superman stands on the subway platform and feels the rush of wind whip his hair, he knows the pulse of the city, paces the heartbeats of the individuals in the cramped cars. The ordinary man waits for the doors to open.

Anyway, enough of my metamodernist rehashings. Post postmodernism has been very good to me this year. Some notes I'd like to make on the close of 2010.

As much as I hate Sarah Palin, refudiate is a cool word.

Here are my top three books of classic literature that I read this year:

1. Sentimental Education: A superb bildungsroman in the French style. Flaubert's masterpiece.
2. White Noise: Talk about post postmodernism. This book is entertaining, funny, and profound. A must read for anyone who enjoys classic literature.
3. War and Peace: A sprawling masterpiece, this book is a great way to learn about the Napoleonic wars, but it's clear that Tolstoy's best moments are domestic descriptions. That's why Anna Karenina is better.

That's it guys! Hope you have fun tonight, and I'll write you next year.

Daniel Adler's Room in Post Postmodernism

So remember Christmas in Post Postmodernism? I'm getting a $40 gift certificate for pretty much anything I need.

I need a dresser. The two small endtables I have in my room in which I store my undergarments are literally overflowing with clothing, especially after having visited my Uncle Jacques and receiving a number of cashmere items.

So I'm going to get a dresser. This will be good for a couple of reasons. 1. It will organize my clothing and 2. it will prevent me from owning another pair of shoes (boat). In the meanwhile, boxers pile high on top of my open drawers, and turtlenecks are drowning under t-shirts and sweaters.

I'll also be able to store more books on top of my new dresser, which will be a boon. I'm starting Thomas Wolfe's (not to be confused with the asshole in white pants) Look Homeward, Angel. It is a serious American bildungsroman that takes place in North Carolina and Harvard. You can look forward to many posts about post postmodernist examples from this book.

The Life Force: Post Postmodernism

The setting of the scene is a good example of post postmodernism: This after shoveling a long driveway for thirty bucks. The excercise made me really sore and really sweaty, like a sewer rat. I felt powerfully alive as I saw the wind kick up the top layer of the snow dunes, from behind winter glass:

The Life Force. It blows through the trees, and whips up the snow dust-like. It ricochets through the ages, through Siberia and Assyria, Boston and Normandy. Now I sit in the kitchen, watched the pines sway and I feel it in the lactic acid buildup in my forearms and the soreness of my quadriceps as I breathe in the blue skies: that there is untapped life.

I shiver and get goosebumps from thinking about a woman, who will one day rear my children and show them that there is life to be lived. But even before then when we go to London and Los Angeles and feel the warm sun or cold mist, we will experience as much as the world can offer.

And when it comes time and we feel there must be a pathway to more resistance, we will follow and change accordingly. And we may depict the soft golden light on a red country silo, or it may be in the dark shadows cast by looming skyscrapers, but either way we will feel it and love it.

Christmas in Post Postmodernism

For Christmas this year, I received an e-mail from a company offering a $40 gift certificate and the chance for you to have a tv stand, if I blogged about it on my site.

During the process of my decision, I vacillated between the notion of selling out, and remaining true to my cause. Maybe my followers will scorn me for a truer blogger, more dedicated? But this is also a sign of how big your blog has become in the course of a year – that this post which took ten minutes to write, is itself worth $40.

 I decided that the mention of the decision I had to make would be an excellent example of postmodernism (due to the self-consciousness of this post), and that the sentiments of guilt and resultant intrigue in being able to choose a material item from the site, which I have no doubt I will not need – although an attractive pair of boat shoes caught my eye – will be a good example of modernism and will ultimately be overshadowed by my greed and covetousness.

In any event, this is my Santa tracker. And I hope the expression of my fears and ideas about the process provides a good example of postmodernism; my attempt at relaying said feelings has succeeded, and that the vacillation between these two styles is a good example of post postmodernism.

Merry Christmas!

The Cockroach Knows

    How often have you walked down the street, completely tuned out to your surroundings, focused on what's ahead, or worried about some arcane blasphemy that will never pass? That is the opposite of philosophizing.

The philosopher admires the wind blowing the tree limbs, the orange clouds of sunset floating across an azure sky, and thinks to himself that this is life. He remembers death, and understands life. This is what it means to be in the now, and the birds know it, and the dogs know it, and even that three inch long cockroach that sat on top of the manhole, waving its antennae around in the air, breathing in all the beauty of the midsummer - he knows it too.
 
That's why I couldn't kill him. Oh boy was I tempted, as he perched there fluttering his tentacular antenae, and I looked at the older man sitting on the stoop, a cigarette hanging from his lips, his salt and pepper hair whiting from the roots, to see if he saw this creature, this enormous confident creature. He didn't, but he looked at me and nodded. And I looked back at the cockroach, staring at him, and I said to him, "You can stay. You have the right." And I walked on down the street, with my hands in my pockets, admiring the night and examining the people, my neighbors.

-Welcome to Post Postmodernism, or maybe Metamodernism. This will be addressed tomorrow,
 Love,
Daniel Adler

Lamb and Mouthfeel

 I always get the purple wine lips. We like pinot noir best. I ask her what she detects and we don't look at the label. Sometimes chocolate, a hint of vanilla, blackberry, and usually cherry. We playfully talk about mouthfeel and the tannic nature of the grapes. But every joke is half serious.

Perhaps with a lamb shank, with ripples of flaky meat in a white bean Cassolet Toulousain and a bed of leafy greens with a balsamic vinagrette, the pinot is ideal.

What is it about lamb? Maybe it’s something in the cultural unconscious that takes us back to the days of animal sacrifice. Every time you eat lamb it’s like you play god.

Moment of post postmodernism: I always write about food. I love food. It is one of the three most carnal urges, along with sex and sleep. And although sometimes you don’t have the best meal, you know that you still need it and it is gratifying in itself. It just helps when it’s especially dank. Like lamb shank with pinot noir.

Daniel Adler's 100th Blog Post

Hey Guys and Gals,
This is my 100th blog post, and it has been nearly a year since I started this thing. I want to thank y'all for staying tuned, and I want to reassure you that there's a lot more good stuff to come. I hope you've enjoyed reading excerpts from my forthcoming novel, Hot Love on the Wing (which believe me, still needs about a year of work). My ideas and thoughts on our moment of late postmodernism, post postmodernism, metamodernism, or whatever you want to call it, are always subject to interpretation based on our the definitive quality of our interaction. And my hopes and love for Brooklyn and New York can always be enhanced with more information.

If you have any ideas for me as to what I should blog about, feel free to drop a comment. To all you new viewers, don't be scared to follow me. I'm working hard to make my blog the most interesting one on the internet, and with your help and my hard work, it will be.
All my love,
Daniel Adler