May 15th, 2011 / 5:56 pm
Web Hype

Seems like you should ‘read more’

i read canonical literature with my family when i was twenty-five

when i was twenty-five
i read canonical literature with my family
my dad read lolita
my mom read the bell jar
my brother read portnoy’s complaint
i read infinite jest

that night we read nabokov
the next night we read plath
the next night we read roth
the next night we read wallace

the next night we read wallace
the next night we read wallace
the next night we read wallace
the next night we read wallace
the next night we read wallace
the next night we read wallace
the next night we read wallace
the next night we read wallace
the next night we read wallace
the next night we read wallace
the next night we read wallace
the next night we read wallace
the next night we read wallace
the next night we read wallace
the next night we read wallace
the next night we read wallace
the next night we read wallace
the next night we read wallace
the next night we read wallace
the next night we read wallace
the next night we read wallace
the next night we read wallace
the next night we read wallace
the next night we read wallace
the next night we read wallace
the next night we read wallace
the next night we read wallace
the next night we read wallace
the next night we read wallace
the next night we read wallace
the next night we read wallace
the next night we read wallace
the next night we read wallace
the next night we read wallace
the next night we read wallace
the next night we read wallace
the next night we read wallace
the next night we read wallace
the next night we read wallace
the next night we read wallace
the next night we read wallace
the next night we read wallace
the next night we read wallace
the next night we read wallace
the next night we read wallace
the next night we read wallace
the next night we read wallace
the next night we read wallace
the next night we read wallace
the next night we read wallace
the next night we read wallace
the next night we read wallace
the next night we read wallace
the next night we read wallace
the next night we read wallace
the next night we read wallace
the next night we read wallace
the next night we read wallace
the next night we read wallace
the next night we read wallace
the next night we read wallace
the next night we read wallace
the next night we read wallace
the next night we read wallace
the next night we read wallace
the next night we read wallace
the next night we read wallace
the next night we read wallace
the next night we read wallace
the next night we read wallace
the next night we read wallace
the next night we read wallace
the next night we read wallace
the next night we read wallace
the next night we read wallace
the next night we read wallace
the next night we read wallace
the next night we read wallace
the next night we read wallace
the next night we read wallace
the next night we read wallace
the next night we read wallace
the next night we read wallace
the next night we read wallace
the next night we read wallace
the next night we read wallace
the next night we read wallace
the next night we read wallace
the next night we read wallace
the next night we read wallace
the next night we read wallace
the next night we read wallace
the next night we read wallace
the next night we read wallace
the next night we read wallace
the next night we read wallace
the next night we read wallace
the next night we read wallace
the next night we read wallace
the next night we read wallace
the next night we read wallace
the next night we read wallace
the next night we read wallace
the next night we read wallace
the next night we read wallace
the next night we read wallace
the next night we read wallace
the next night we read wallace
the next night we read wallace
the next night we read wallace

[Originally self-published, in slightly different form, on my now defunct blogspot, approximately two weeks prior to D.F. Wallace’s death, and was hence removed.]

31 Comments

  1. Frank Hinton

       http://soundcloud.com/jimmychenchen/tao-lin-revolution

  2. marshall

      “prior to” or “before”

  3. Timothy Willis Sanders

      lol

  4. Timothy Willis Sanders

      lol

  5. Timothy Willis Sanders

      lol

  6. Samuel

      Your family is awesome.  Nice post

  7. gustavo.rivera

      clonez.

  8. Omar De Col

      lol

  9. deadgod

      hence removed

      do tell

      (if your family had read ada, it would have taken this [hand][arms stretched out][hand] many “next night[s]”

  10. lorian long

      the next night we ate whale
      the next night we ate whale
      the next night we ate whale
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      the next night we ate whale
      the next night we ate whale
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      the next night we ate whale
      the next night we ate whale
      the next night we ate whale
      the next night we ate whale
      the next night we ate whale
      the next night we ate whale
      the next night we ate whale
      the next night we ate whale
      the next night we ate whale
      the next night we ate whale
      the next night we ate whale
      the next night we ate whale
      the next night we ate whale
      the next night we ate whale
      the next night we ate whale
      the next night we ate whale
      the next night we ate whale

  11. Omar De Col

       um.. yea i think we all get the reference lorian lol

  12. lorian long

       HAHA IVE HAD 4 CUPS OF COFFEE I JUST COULDN’T HELP IT

  13. Omar De Col

       lol bb i hope it was fair trade! hehe :D

  14. shaun gannon

      this is a thing i laughed at

  15. Kent Johnson

       I’m mightily surprised no one at HTML Giant has posted yet on what may well be THE magnificent, jaw-dropping English-language work (for both the fields of poetry and fiction) of the century so far:
       
      The Tragedy of Arthur, by Arthur Phillips (Random House, released last month, on Shakespeare’s birthday, which is, apropos, the birthday of Phillips, too). The second half of the book reproduces, with extensive footnotes, a complete play by WS, from an original 16th century quarto discovered in a Minnesota safe deposit box. As is explained by Phillips in the long, strange, enthralling introduction… Also included are fraught emails between Phillips and real-life executives at Random House, when personal and legal tensions come to burden the whole astonishing matter.
       
      The book is a deep homage to Pale Fire, and exceeds it, conceptually, in certain ways–even if Nabokov (also born on the same day as Shakespeare and Phillips) as stylist, is singular, of course. And the new play by Shakespeare leaves Shade’s somewhat pale poem in the dust, really.
       
      Read it and be amazed. It is a major tour de force, if that overused phrase has meaning. Our parlor-game Conceptualists of the moment should take note and reflect on some things.

  16. Kent Johnson

       I’m mightily surprised no one at HTML Giant has posted yet on what may well be THE magnificent, jaw-dropping English-language work (for both the fields of poetry and fiction) of the century so far:
       
      The Tragedy of Arthur, by Arthur Phillips (Random House, released last month, on Shakespeare’s birthday, which is, apropos, the birthday of Phillips, too). The second half of the book reproduces, with extensive footnotes, a complete play by WS, from an original 16th century quarto discovered in a Minnesota safe deposit box. As is explained by Phillips in the long, strange, enthralling introduction… Also included are fraught emails between Phillips and real-life executives at Random House, when personal and legal tensions come to burden the whole astonishing matter.
       
      The book is a deep homage to Pale Fire, and exceeds it, conceptually, in certain ways–even if Nabokov (also born on the same day as Shakespeare and Phillips) as stylist, is singular, of course. And the new play by Shakespeare leaves Shade’s somewhat pale poem in the dust, really.
       
      Read it and be amazed. It is a major tour de force, if that overused phrase has meaning. Our parlor-game Conceptualists of the moment should take note and reflect on some things.

  17. Kent Johnson

       The funny stray comma after “stylist” notwithstanding!

  18. Kent Johnson

       The funny stray comma after “stylist” notwithstanding!

  19. Whatisinevidence

      The always-original Phillips has outdone
      himself in this clever literary romp. Successfully blending and bending
      genres, he positions himself as a character in a novel that skewers
      Shakespearean scholarship, the publishing industry, and his own life to
      rollicking effect. Poised on the brink of literary history, Random House
      is about to publish a recently discovered Shakespearean play that had
      languished for centuries until unearthed by Phillips’ own father, also
      named Arthur Phillips. As literary executor of his father’s estate, the
      younger Arthur is invited to provide a brief introduction to this
      masterpiece, detailing the often questioned provenance of the play and
      his own eccentrically dysfunctional family in the process. Oh, by the
      way, the play, complete with scholarly notes, is also appended. Who
      wrote the play? Was it Arthur Phillips or William Shakespeare? How much
      truth does an author actually reveal in a fictional memoir? How low will
      a publishing company sink in pursuit of a literary coup? Does a play
      within a novel ever make sense? For the answers to these and other
      burning questions, you simply must read the book. High-Demand
      Backstory: Phillips, who has been on everyone’s radar since the
      publication of Prague (2007), continues to intrigue and
      amaze.–Flanagan, Margaret Copyright 2010 BooklistCLEVER LITERARY ROMPROLLICKINGBLENDING AND BENDINGSIMPLY MUST READ

  20. deadgod

      You could have (and still could) put a comma after the close-parenthesis mark, setting off the adverbial phrase “as stylist” (= ‘in the manner or category of his being a stylist’). – so maybe it was the earlier comma that strayed away.

  21. deadgod

      Ha ha ha – the other mention I’ve seen of this book is also blurbful:  The New Yorker “briefly noted” the novel a couple of weeks ago (May 2; royal-wedding gag on the cover).  “[…] this exuberant chimera of a novel […] his best trick is to balance a moving story of familial and romantic love on a deliberately unsteady fictional edifice.”

      The microreview is fair and balanced by “the full five-act play itself, a virtuosic counterfeit” being called “something of a bore”.  You might wonder how electrifying the microreviewer would find, say, Love’s Labours Lost.

  22. deadgod

      ack – apostrophe astray

  23. Kent Johnson

       I know, deadgod. But it seems better without. 
       
      Wish we still had Elizabethan punctuation.
       
      On your stray apostrophe above: I keep doing that with Finnegans Wake.

  24. Kevin

       the next night i lol’d the next night i lol’d
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  25. Kevin

       the next night i lol’d the next night i lol’d
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  26. ryan chang

       hehehe

  27. Oh, man

      It’s like when someone says “that’s embarassing” and misspells “embarrassing.” That’s how I felt about this comment.  Just painful.

  28. Tao Lin

      Bro . . . 

  29. Sean

      That was a record for time-with-no Tao Lin posts for this site, but I’ll give Jimmy a pass since it’s Jimmy (one pass)

  30. deadgod

      lolcathouse

  31. lzr

      wallace is canonical? is that the joke? :D