November 5th, 2009 / 2:53 pm
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Thank god, I’ve been waiting for this: Bolaño Inc.: “The market has its landlords, like everything on this infected planet, and it’s the landlords of the market who decide the mambo that you dance, whether it’s selling cheap condoms or Latin American novels in the U.S.” [Via Matt Kirkpatrick.]
Tags: Roberto Bolaño
Thank god indeed. If mean week had lasted any longer, i was going to write about Bolano and Pessoa and the americans who love them. I like how Moya distinguishes between non-conformity and subversion. favorite sick detail: that gael garcia bernal is going to play bolano.
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November 5th, 2009 / 3:13 pmBlake Butler—
don’t let no mean week stop you. there’s always time for truth.
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November 5th, 2009 / 3:18 pmAmy McDaniel—
i’ll get to it. what’s weird is that judging by the interview published in april, Moya really loves Bolano’s novels, just thinks that americans like them for the wrong reason. i’m going to think more about this–i’m not personally terribly interested in Moya’s whole idea of americans getting the wrong idea about south america, yet i do think there other really annoying things about the bolano (and pessoa for a much smaller audience) craze
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November 5th, 2009 / 3:20 pmBlake Butler—
totally. there’s a lot more to say about this, and i think the framing of bolano’s friend writing the article makes it safer than it should be. it’s a nice start, but there’s a much bigger barfplug to be pulled.
November 5th, 2009 / 3:47 pmjames yeh—
i can understand where hoya’s coming from: the self-satisfied people who presume knowledge of another culture just because they’ve just read something are, when it comes down to it, the same people who come up to someone like me and want to talk about buddhism or ask whether i know karate.
and yet, is this not also similar to someone coming up to another person because they’re wearing a pavement shirt or something and then talking to them about pavement? i get that the difference is that you are able to choose what you like, but not where you are from. but, in essence, and maybe i’m being a little naive about this, what all these people are trying to do is communicate a little, to have some sort of conversation with another person about some kind of common knowledge. perhaps they’re being unwittingly (or even willfully) patronizing about this, but a conversation *is* happening.
what hoya seems to be expressing irritation with is the commercialization and reduction of art into commodity, “produce” for the “market.” and in the case of bolano (and previously marquez), that additional glaze of paternalism and ethnocentricity. all in all, however, this is nothing new.
there’s a whole nest of arguments that we can get into about this. but the main thing is (and what seems to be going on here in this thread), i don’t think you can hate on a writer just because you don’t like their fans. this is making a sweeping generalization, a blanket statement, exactly the thing writers are supposed to avoid. to hate based on superficial reasons like an author’s fans is to hate based on same principles you declaim.
i probably can’t stand 95% of the people who like hemingway, kerouac, and now, it seems inevitable, bolano. but does that diminish what those authors have meant, to me, personally?
no.
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November 5th, 2009 / 3:55 pmBlake Butler—
sure, it means something to you. that’s great. but fritos are still fritos.
fritos meant a lot to me in my life.
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November 5th, 2009 / 4:16 pmjames yeh—
what i’m saying is, if you hate fritos, say you hate fritos, not people who eat them
November 5th, 2009 / 4:18 pmjereme—
hating is complete. if you hate fritos, you hate all aspects of fritos.
November 5th, 2009 / 3:56 pmAmy McDaniel—
oh dear, do you think i was hating on his fans? i read the savage detectives based on the recommendation of someone i totally respect. my problems with bolano lie with his writing. my problem with “the americans who love him” who i mention is that i can’t understand why they love him, and why they won’t shut up about it. but that extends from my dislike of the work itself, not the other way around.
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November 5th, 2009 / 4:00 pmBlake Butler—
we need your bolano and pessoa post, amy. break the bank.
November 5th, 2009 / 3:57 pmLincoln—
But pavement sucks
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November 5th, 2009 / 3:59 pmsasha fletcher—
true story.
November 5th, 2009 / 4:00 pmBlake Butler—
so Roithamer
November 5th, 2009 / 4:00 pmBlake Butler—
if i didn’t imagine that you say pavement sucks because you think the silver jews are better, i’d respect you saying that.
November 5th, 2009 / 4:02 pmjames yeh—
YES
November 5th, 2009 / 4:04 pmsasha fletcher—
i don’t see it as one or the other at all. i don’t see why thinking one band sucks and another is good is related. or at least, i like the jews, and i don’t like pavement, but i don’t see there being a causal relationship between the two.
i really think pavement is boring
and i can see how the jews would be boring too
except that they’re not boring to me.
even though this comment was probably directed at lincoln.
November 5th, 2009 / 4:05 pmLincoln—
I definitely disliked pavement before I ever heard the Silver Jews.
November 5th, 2009 / 4:47 pmAdam Robinson—
Really like Pavement.
November 5th, 2009 / 4:48 pmBlake Butler—
wowee zowee is a masterpiece
November 5th, 2009 / 4:49 pmLincoln—
Odd that you don’t like farts in your face, but like them squirted in your ear
November 5th, 2009 / 4:49 pmBlake Butler—
it’s music. you gotta take what you can get with music.
November 5th, 2009 / 6:43 pmGian—
Range Life. Best thing ANY of those faggots ever did.
November 5th, 2009 / 4:04 pmjereme—
“asians”
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November 5th, 2009 / 4:13 pmjames yeh—
this is exactly my point, blake and amy.
no offense, but your take on the essay seems pretty off. hoya’s not hating on the writing, he’s hating on the fans and the marketing.
if you want to hate on the writing, that’s fair. everyone’s entitled to their opinions. but to use an essay of cultural criticism as a way of getting to that point? that’s wack.
just curious, how much have you guys read? as lee says later on in this thread, his work is very similar in spirit, i feel, to bernhard.
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November 5th, 2009 / 4:18 pmBlake Butler—
the writing is the source of my disdain. if i liked the writing, they can sell it up all year and that’s a good thing. and yes, the article supports his writing, but i was just happy to see someone crack the marketing point open to such a degree. but the real criticism is to come. i’ve read as much of Savage D as i could take until i thought i was going to throw up in my mouth from boredom. trite. blank. petty. i tried bits of other random parts, nazi lit in americas, and one other, not sure which. i’m sorry, if i try 3 of your books and they all make my balls hurt in anger, i’m not going to keep trying very often w/o fantastic cause to do so. especially with something as clearly hyped as this guy is. i’m sorry, if he were alive, you would not be reading him, james. that’s not yr fault. it would not even be in your hands.
November 5th, 2009 / 4:20 pmLincoln—
I must say that I do not get the Bernhard comparisons. However, you are totally correct that the essay is hating on Bolano’s fans and/or marketing in the US, not the writing, which dude is supposed to be a fan of.
November 5th, 2009 / 4:21 pmAmy McDaniel—
no offense taken. i would direct you to my second comment on this thread, where i point out that hoya loves bolano’s work, and that i’m not really interested in his main cultural critique. though i also feel perfectly entitled to have opinions about the critical and popular response to bolano, and indeed to relate that to my own reading of his work.
November 5th, 2009 / 4:30 pm+!O0o(o)o0O!+—
the bernhard comparison is valid in terms of relentlessness and audacity and glorious bleakness.
November 5th, 2009 / 4:31 pmBlake Butler—
jesus christ
no.
November 5th, 2009 / 4:41 pmLincoln—
“the bernhard comparison is valid in terms of relentlessness and audacity and glorious bleakness.”
man I dont’ see this at all… but I haven’t read 2666
November 5th, 2009 / 4:46 pmBlake Butler—
not to mention that bernhard is a master craftsman who didn’t fart in his readers’ faces relentlessly, forcing them to search through poo for something shiny
November 5th, 2009 / 7:36 pm+!O0o(o)o0O!+—
Blake, Lincoln – please read 26 fucking 66 and shut the shit talk till you do. Your opinion re: Bolano means zilch til you’ve read it — there aren’t so many masterpieces that are able to overcome all the blurbs on the back about how they’re masterpieces.
what is this shitting on pessoa? i have seen it before. i don’t get it.
i like pessoa. it is not a craze. i like his poetry.
what is the problem.
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There is plenty to say about Bolano, but I can’t say I was horribly impressed with the claims or implications in this essay. Yeah, there is a total myth about Bolano that isn’t totally accurate, especially contrasted with his later life, but the same is true of a billion authors. Moya acts like it is some unique thing.
I also am surprised that Moya is surprised that Americans are talking about the wild crazy youthful Bolano instead of the old family man when Bolano himself wrote about the wild crazy youthful Bolano and not the old family man. You read the Savage Detectives and of course what you are going to think about is youthful rebellion and not family life… that’s what the book is about.
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November 5th, 2009 / 3:50 pmjames yeh—
yup, bolano himself is the creator of that myth! so much of what he’s writing about being a young man, and the experiences and urges that entails, not the family man.
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November 5th, 2009 / 3:52 pmBlake Butler—
bolano is not the creator of bolano
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November 5th, 2009 / 3:59 pmLincoln—
I’m not really commenting on the quality of his writing, but Moya’s arguments seems not to far removed from someone being like “Why do all the Pynchon lovers talk about his conspiracy theories and use of paranoia? I know Pynchon in real life and he isn’t paranoid at all!”
November 5th, 2009 / 4:06 pmjames yeh—
in a way, actually, he is. bolano is the creator of the myth of bolano, or at least the originator. if a writer writes something that seems to be based in autobiography, or thinly-veiled autobiography, he has a hand in the creation of the myth of himself.
November 5th, 2009 / 4:06 pmBlake Butler—
not buyin it
November 5th, 2009 / 4:07 pmBlake Butler—
writers try to mythologize themselves all the time. it takes someone mythologizing their mythologizing to make the b/s turn to gravy the kids are pouring on their postgrad degree sandwiches
November 5th, 2009 / 3:54 pmjereme—
life is a myth.
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moya’s critique is about marketing and exoticism, not bolano’s value as a writer, hence the marquez anecdote toward the beginning. i appreciate his point, but it strikes me as pretty close to the kind of cultural analysis of lit that you seem to dislike, blake.
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November 5th, 2009 / 3:51 pmBlake Butler—
i don’t see bolano as lit
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November 5th, 2009 / 3:52 pmBlake Butler—
that essay is an essay on flavored water
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November 5th, 2009 / 4:01 pmsasha fletcher—
i mean, me, i’d say it was more flavored water as essay than essay as flavor water, but then again, i just don’t care.
November 5th, 2009 / 4:04 pmBlake Butler—
my favorite comments are comments by people saying they dont care about what they are commenting about. so silver jews.
November 5th, 2009 / 4:04 pmsasha fletcher—
i’m glad i could make your day, blake.
November 5th, 2009 / 4:05 pmBlake Butler—
actually, it only makes my day when you tell me to listen before you say something
rib rib
November 5th, 2009 / 4:06 pmsasha fletcher—
baby i’ll try harder next time i swear i will
November 5th, 2009 / 5:07 pmdavidpeak—
hot ham water
November 5th, 2009 / 7:51 pm+!O0o(o)o0O!+—
read his books
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November 5th, 2009 / 3:53 pmLincoln—
I just wonder how much Bolano was really marketed that way, at least at the start. I mean, was he even really marketed at all? He seemed like a surprise hit yet Moya makes it sound like the Illuminati drafted a marketing plan with the Bliderberg group to use a literary novel to destroy South American.
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November 5th, 2009 / 3:56 pmMatthew Simmons—
You’re through the looking glass, Lincoln.
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November 5th, 2009 / 4:02 pmsasha fletcher—
you’re darkly, matthew
Blake, if i may offer some advice: quit blogging for a few weeks and read 2666 (and maybe Distant Star) . . . if you like Vollmann’s first novel and Bernhard etc, you’re in for a HUGE treat.
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November 5th, 2009 / 4:02 pmBlake Butler—
2666 is on my try it out table. but i must say, even if that things oils my bean hard, it’s not going to make up for the fart he laid in my face on the savage detectives. it just won’t.
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November 5th, 2009 / 4:03 pmBlake Butler—
still, i’m going to give it a swing
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November 5th, 2009 / 4:14 pmjames yeh—
damn, sorry you felt that way about the savage detectives
November 5th, 2009 / 4:15 pmjames yeh—
how far did you get
November 5th, 2009 / 4:17 pm+!O0o(o)o0O!+—
i agree with you about Savage Detectives’ not-so-awesomeness – but promise you’ll read 400 pages before quitting 2666, which delivers so substantially it’s made me forgive all those smaller, semi-average, yet totally unique novels of his I read without much relish.
Wait, why is everyone calling this dude “Hoya” in this thread? I thought it was Moya?
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November 5th, 2009 / 4:25 pmAmy McDaniel—
shit, i started out saying moya, but then i just started referring to the comment above.
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November 5th, 2009 / 4:34 pmjames yeh—
oops, i think i started that
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dat’s a wild deuce!
‘Every time someone mentions the word “market,” [Fianelli] reaches for his revolver.’
lol
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I think it’s funny that this article about the Bolan(y)o market turns the titles of his books into Amazon.com links.
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baggin on bolano is one thing. but pessoa…not on my watch!
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it’s incredibly hipster and silly to backlash bolano and people who like bolano SIMPLY BECAUSE too many people like him, too many of the “wrong people” like him for the “wrong reasons.” it is exciting and wonderful that a great, a great writer is being read all over the world. and that’s it. in an age of illiteracy, when people don’t read let alone get excited about an author’s body of work, even if there are misperceptions or media distortions of his life, even if there are things to argue about, it is still thrilling for a bolano to come along. he is the heir to julio cortazar and jorge luis borges. and it’s great that the promotion machine, artificial machine that it is, has led to more people reading him. that cannot be a bad thing, even if people don’t perceive and enjoy bolano in the same precious, holy way you do. if you still want to piss and moan about it, it’s a free country, but you’re being a cultural elitist snob. oh, and pavement sucks. their songwriting, singing, and production are subpar, and they’re nothing special.
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November 5th, 2009 / 6:32 pmBlake Butler—
clearly you did not read the thread.
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November 5th, 2009 / 6:33 pmdavidpeak—
how is bolano the heir to borges? i’m asking this seriously, not in a snarky way.
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November 5th, 2009 / 7:53 pm+!O0o(o)o0O!+—
labyrinthine libraries, books about books about books, worldwide scope
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November 5th, 2009 / 7:56 pmdavidpeak—
see, now that’s the sort of answer i was looking for.
November 5th, 2009 / 6:36 pmKen Baumann—
‘but you’re being a cultural elitist snob. oh, and pavement sucks. their songwriting, singing, and production are subpar, and they’re nothing special.’
the human brain at logical fault
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November 5th, 2009 / 7:11 pmstephen—
there’s nothing illogical about thinking pavement sucks. my critique of them is based on my listening to them. it’s not based on culture or elitism or snobbery. the people who like pavement are often cultural elitist snobs. i would think pavement sucks regardless of who liked them, that is the honest to god truth. so where’s the elitism or the snobbery then? it’s a value judgement. i think they suck and here are the musical reasons why.
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oh, and “the savage detectives” was a delight. one of the more enjoyable reading experiences i’ve had in ages. unless one had outside baggage and hang-ups, i don’t see what’s not to like about the book. the first thing that struck me about it, as it was my first bolano read, is how brilliantly he closes each section of the book, and even the small sections within each larger one. he has this way of giving a final fulfilling shape to each part of the book (a feat that he performs again and again, at greater length, in 2666). the form is inspiring and perfect to the themes and the plot. it provided this would-be writer with a lot of food for thought re: form, structure, voice, characterization, and any number of other things. i’d like to know what was farty about it.
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November 5th, 2009 / 6:41 pmdavidpeak—
“inspiring,” “perfect,” “fulfilling,” “food-for-thought” — to you.
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November 5th, 2009 / 7:14 pmstephen—
nowhere does it say that everyone should like this book and that this is the only opinion anyone can have. i do say that i don’t know what’s not to like about it. that doesn’t constitute a rejection of other points of view, it’s just an admission of how strongly my views are held. what it does is calls for people to give me their reasons why they didn’t like it.
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November 5th, 2009 / 7:19 pmdavidpeak—
i pulled those words from what you said because as a defense, or explanation of why you liked the book, they’re just as empty and meaningless as some of the negative stuff that’s being thrown around on this thread.
i’d just like a little specificity. you mention form, structure, voice, characterization. what about them?
personally, i haven’t read savage detectives. i read last evenings on earth and was underwhelmed by it. i probably won’t read any of his other books, but am genuinely curious as to why people either love/hate him. i fall somewhere in between.
specificity. that’s all i want.
November 6th, 2009 / 2:22 amstephen—
it’s not a defense, but it was intended as an explanation of why i liked the book. bolano’s prose style isn’t for everyone; in the case of savage detectives, the book consists of diary entries and many different voices that read as if they are talking about their interactions with the two central characters, who are, crucially and interestingly enough, never front and center as narrators themselves. therefore, the prose need only be true to their voices while somehow conveying what the author is trying to convey. the diary entries are the excitement and banality and eagerness and casualness of a youthful, would-be literrateur, embodied. the chorus of voices that follow constitute an oral history of the adventures of the two central figures, who are based on bolano and his friend. this narrative choice allows the distortion and point-of-view and myth-making that are always common to fiction and to life to be stretched and expanded to include the assorted voices of all the strange and wonderful souls one encounters in life, however fleetingly. it was intended as a love letter to an idealistic, wayward generation that hit the road in search of a glory and truth that were ultimately nowhere to be found. it succeeds as that. it also succeeds in being both true to life (everyone is preoccupied with eating and drinking and fucking and pettiness) and well-shaped as literature (consider the end of the diary section and the end of the novel; i don’t want to ruin it, but both utilize a window, which is a point of view, which is what the bulk of the novel consists of, points of view, which is a crucial aspect of fiction and life, and is the way we try to shape meaning or express ourselves, which is what the characters try and fail to do, and what bolano tries and fails and succeeds in doing) hopefully that’s specific enough for here
ah, i read back the comments and see blake’s justification for it being farty. you don’t like the prose. was it not pretentiously faux-poetic enough for you?
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November 5th, 2009 / 6:43 pmKen Baumann—
describe ‘faux-poetic’ without tautologies and i’ll paypal you a dollar
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November 5th, 2009 / 6:47 pmstephen—
is your point that there is no such as “real poetic,” or is your point that poetry or poetic writing necessarily involves fakery, as in artifice? or am i missing your point
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November 6th, 2009 / 1:37 amstephen—
you know, i’m being a big arrogant blowhard. i do believe what i’m writing, but i don’t like how i’m presenting it, so i’ll dial it down. sorry html’ers! mean week is over anyway, right
November 5th, 2009 / 6:50 pmKen Baumann—
‘describe ‘faux-poetic’ without tautologies and i’ll paypal you a dollar’
that is a declarative sentence
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November 5th, 2009 / 6:51 pmstephen—
thanks for the clarification, big boy
November 5th, 2009 / 6:52 pmKen Baumann—
$5
November 5th, 2009 / 6:54 pmstephen—
“faux-poetic” is an adjective that describes any prose whose pretentiousness exceeds its beauty
November 5th, 2009 / 7:07 pmKen Baumann—
worth it
where should i send $?
November 5th, 2009 / 7:11 pmdavidpeak—
i don’t know.
i don’t buy it.
pretense exceeding beauty? what does that even mean?
what if the prose is purposefully ugly, plain, flat, bombastic?
who is to judge whether or not something is pretentious? whether or not something contains pretentiousness?
i think i hate the word pretentious almost as much as i hate the word hipster.
and you’ve used both of those on this thread.
i just don’t buy it.
November 5th, 2009 / 7:16 pmstephen—
i don’t have a paypal account, so consider your offer waived. thanks, though, for the challenge.
November 5th, 2009 / 7:41 pmjereme—
a real poet is never pretentious
or considers himself a poet.
i give you “daniel johnston” as evidence.
and shit on your adjective.
November 6th, 2009 / 1:20 amstephen—
pretentious = making claim to or creating an appearance of (often undeserved) importance or distinction; intended to attract notice and impress others
beauty = An assemblage of graces or properties pleasing to the eye, the ear, the intellect, the [ae]sthetic faculty, or the moral sense.
So if your prose could be described as having more of the former than of the latter, than your prose could be called “faux-poetic.” Admittedly it may be an ugly adjective; perhaps there’s a better way to criticize someone’s lousy, overwrought prose. And the definition of beauty is sufficiently broad to cover those who write purposefully “ugly” prose or whatever. Furthermore, just because such ugly prose exists doesn’t mean the word “faux-poetic” must therefore cease existing. Faux-poetic can be applied to some prose, and that doesn’t mean it will then automatically have to be applied to your intentionally ugly prose. Unless your point is, my prose is purposefully ugly and so therefore it is critic-proof and you can’t call it faux-poetic and you can’t call it anything, because you just don’t get me and there are no value judgments…
Are you asking who’s qualified to call something pretentious? Are you saying no one should claim anything is pretentious, or that i shouldn’t call anything pretentious, or that only real qualified people should make such claims? If the first one, which i suspect, should one rather say, “This author uses prose effects that don’t do it for me,” and leave it at that? That would be more charitable, it’s true, than calling it pretentious. And as for you not liking that I used pretentious and hipster in the same thread, why does that need to be called out? why exactly do you prefer i not use those words? are they words that don’t mean anything, or are they words that bother you for some other reason? i think pretentious is a useful word for discouraging writers from writing shitty prose that they know is shitty but which they write anyway in hopes of hoodwinking people. and hipster is a useful word for describing people who judge music, books, and other assorted aspects of culture not by criteria that would make sense to judge it by (how does this music i’m judging sound, is it well-written or well-performed, does it make me feel a certain way; is this prose effective, why is it effective, what is the message or point or formal structure of this book, etc.) but rather judge these things based on who the person associated with the culture item is, are they cool or zany or otherwise exalted in my head, maybe because they were suicidal or depressed a lot or misanthropic as shit, do cool people like this piece of culture, are the “right” people and things and ideas associated with this piece of culture, or does it bear the taint of lesser people with lesser culture stains on them, those bandwagoners and simpletons and philistines that i’ve been trying all my life to get away from and not associate with and if possible just eradicate from my cultural head-space.
November 6th, 2009 / 11:06 amdavidpeak—
It’s not that people shouldn’t be allowed to use certain words (hipster, pretentious, beauty). It’s that those words are often used as a crutch, and read as being glib. “Hipster,” particularly, has lost all meaning. That word was dead five years ago. Now it’s like something undead that shuffles around looking gross. How is that word possibly “useful?” Especially when it looks like you’re using it as a personal twist on “snob.”
My point is that those words are meaningless–especially when we’re talking about the “quality” of something. I honestly haven’t heard the word “pretentious” bandied about so readily since I was in high school lit comp. It’s an unoriginal take, and as soon as it’s used (by anyone) I immediately stop listening.
On a personal note, beauty to me has nothing to do with whether or not something is pleasing. In terms of music, the definition of beauty you cite wouldn’t encompass anything I assign value to: atonality, lack of melody, discordance. I suppose you could subvert the meaning of the word “pleasing” and say that I find atonality pleasant, and therefore see it as beautiful–but that’s not the point.
And to bring everything back to where this whole thing started: I disagree that Blake’s writing is faux-poetic. I disagree with your definition of the term “faux-poetic.” But I do like and respect your willingness to clarify what you mean and might even give Savage Detectives a shot after your explanation of its merits.
November 6th, 2009 / 12:31 pmstephen—
you make very good points. i will think about them. however, i did not literally say blake’s writing is faux-poetic. kind of funny you assumed that’s what i was referring to. i’ve never even read his writing. the sentence you are referring to was designed to mock anyone who didn’t like bolano. it was definitely calibrated to annoy. very childish, very high school. regrets. oh, and glad you might give savage detectives a shot. it’s not for everybody, i guess, but it has made a lot of people happy.
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November 6th, 2009 / 12:36 pmdavidpeak—
let’s never fight again.
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I think the L magazine post hits the nail on the head
http://www.thelmagazine.com/TheMeasure/archives/2009/11/05/dude-liked-roberto-bolao-before-you-did-says-you-are-waaay-lame
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Clarice Lispector is the best thing to come out of South America. After cocaine.
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November 5th, 2009 / 7:18 pmstephen—
“Do you know that hope sometimes consists only of a question without an answer?” —Clarice
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I love “mean” month!
Meanwhile Amy McDonalds and her children were presented to Block Butler, who held Ken Blowman and said, “She certainly is a wonderful girl.” Photos were taken. The future Fuhrer of the Independent Publishing Scene made a great impression on the Fast-Food poet. Before leaving, McDonalds presented him with several of her own comments about really important stuff–like marketing strategies, popularity and the arts, and Mexicans–and a deluxe edition of How To Make Your Own Fanzines. Butler thanked her warmly, beseeching her to translate any one of several items from a menu into “Academia” on the spot, a task which, with the help of Ken Blowman (now a “grown-up”), she managed to accomplish. Butler was clearly delighted. The words “Big-Mac” and “Quarter-pounder-with-cheese” were resounding and looked to the future. In high spirits, Amy McDonalds asked for Block Butler’s advice: which would be the most appropriate thing to write on the next HTMLGIANT comment thread? Block Butler recommended something Swiss–because that’s in Europe, right?–but added that the best comments were those that provoked more comments (i.e. that maintained the status quo). By the end of the audience, Amy McDonalds and Ken Blowman (now a “grown-up”) were committed Block-heads.
Um, may I be leader of the Block-head Youth?
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November 5th, 2009 / 11:11 pmBlake Butler—
u stupid
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