An English sentence can expand and expand and it can do it with conjunctions (or clauses) — also qualifiers like adjectives and adverbs — but a greatly expanded English sentence is not so different from an English sentence that hasn’t been greatly expanded.
An Interview with Andy Devine
by
Josh Maday
(in the newest installment of elimae)
I’m a little late on this, but if you’ve not already seen it, Fellner’s “Final Words About the ‘Firm'” has been posted.
Abramson posted another long response, saying of HTMLGIANT
(unfortunately it may be the least constructive, on the whole, of the dialogues out there, largely because at least one recipient is continuing to insist that I threatened to sue Steve Fellner; I guess Steve and I will have to agree–jointly–to disagree with her on that)
I’ll also update the original HTMLGIANT post with links to other discussions as I find them.
I was standing in front of the living room window, my reflection half transparent, drinking a gin and tonic. My family had left me alone for the holidays; I just didn’t feel up for the motions and devotions necessary to complete the season. That was the thing with years: there were always more. My face through the window seemed lakelike; each squint, as I tried to make myself out, a little ripple moving outwards towards the world at large. The failed hail of snow had fallen. Two men knocked on the door and I started to run away.
That was mine, yah, sorry. Now it’s your turn to give it a go in the comments section — nothing too long, just a couple of sentences. Others are welcome to critique entrees; why is it or isn’t it Carver? Let’s try to find out what it was he* did, and how he* did it. (*Yah, Lish, I know.) For me, Carver is romantic without being romantic. It’s reticent emotional hyperbole, which is like, uh, really difficult. Good luck!
I love maps. I like to travel. I don't generally like The Atlantic, though.
I feel like a piece of shit today. Self hatred is an interesting thing in that it allows oneself to feel a sort of disproportionate amount of self importance and partake in self involvement, albeit one of loathing. From this thought, I’ll segue into the issue of liking or not liking, hating or loving, characters in stories. READ MORE >
I’ve already read a lot this year, maybe even more than most other years. Though lately, in the past few weeks, I’ve found my attention kind of skewed up, which I guess is part of the pattern of reading: it comes and goes.
When I get out of the dire want to spend hours on my back looking at sentences, certain moods will come where I can’t get more than a page into something, no matter how strong, and it will take something of really strong aura, a riveter, to get me excited again. Something visceral, that grabs me by the throat and says, Bitch, you are going to read this.
This week, for me, it was Dennis Cooper’s The Sluts. I picked this up randomly, realizing it was I think the only title of DC’s that I hadn’t read for some reason. I brought it home in the rain and, having put down the last 8 or 9 books I’d tried to start in weeks beforehand, picked it open just to get a taste.
Wouldn’t it be awesome if Hank Williams III [Update: Turns out it was junior in the picture. My bust.] turned out to not actually be related to the legendary Hank Williams I and instead turned out to be the illegitimate son of Marge Schott and dog shit? Because I think that would be awesome.
Wow, this might actually be the absolute nexus of things I don’t care about. Who among you dares gaze into the Borgesian Aleph of nobody-gives-a-shit?
#140, "Rods from God"
Slate offers up their top 144 US-centric Armageddon scenarios. (I assume that’s one scenario for every thousand Jehovah’s Witnesses admitted to Heaven.) I am especially fond of #69, “Vermont Independence,” because I’ve actually read Thomas H. Naylor‘s bat-shit crazy book, Secession. I also dig #87, “Opt-in Government,” a scenario wherein “government becomes divorced from geography. People who live in the United States can choose to be governed by the laws of Sweden and vice-versa.” And honorable mention to #107, “Climate Wars,” wherein certain countries conduct experiments to try and stop global warming, some of which trigger (or we suspect they trigger) bizarre and possibly disastrous weather, which causes all the nations of the earth to start attacking each other because everyone thinks everyone else made the weather. Please vote for your favorite or suggest your own in the comments section. Also, a big hat tip to my friend Alice Townes, who by the time she sees this post will have forgotten she ever sent me the link.
More Slate-pocalypse:
Josh Levin introduces Apocalypse Week at Slate
The world’s leading futurologists have four main theories about the demise of the US.
“Choose Your Own Apocalypse” interactive feature
PS- some of you might recall that I edited a little book about the apocalypse. Just throwin’ that out there.
Kudos, Electric Literature.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OUClJFjFEgk