02/09-03/09

These were for the seminar U.S. in World Politics. Because of time constraints, I either read only portions or skimmed through sections.

"A Problem From Hell": America and the Age of Genocide by Samantha Power

I used images from Power's account to write a song that, by now, my friends are all sick of hearing about. I also wrote an eight-page paper that left a lot to be desired.

Takeover: The Return of the Imperial Presidency and the Subversion of American Democracy by Charlie Savage

Don't be put off by the pundit-friendly title - this is good legal reporting for the layperson. Strange to be reading histories of events I remember. I already knew most of this simply because I've followed the news for the last five years.

The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11 by Lawrence Wright

History-as-novel. Emphasis on narrative and characterization and plot. Accomplished effectively because of the extensive research that undergirds the writing. The sort of book I might like to write some day.

Statecraft: And How to Restore America's Standing in the World by Dennis Ross

Interesting inside view of U.S. statecraft from a high-level practitioner. He comes with all the expected presumptions: the U.S. should continue to support Israel, Iran cannot acquire nuclear weapons, etc. Still a valuable book - the man has nuance. Why does contemporary non-fiction have to sport such banal titles? Ready-made for the Border's bestseller discount table, I suppose.

The Travels of a T-Shirt in the Global Economy by Pietra Rivoli

Basic, straightforward. Will surprise no one who has ever thought about the effects of globalization beyond laissez-faire messianism. Still interesting for its rich storytelling, though. A layperson's anthropological study of the individuals involved in "globalization." God, these little summaries suck. All I can manage at the moment.

Dead As Dreams by Weakling (02/09)

This is not a book, but I haven't been so excited by an album in a long time. Mostly, I'm here to complain about other people who write about metal. They're idiots. I suppose Weakling is brutal, nightmarish, "insane," all that, but that's what's said about every metal band in existence—and not really the point with Weakling, it seems. Ignoring the lyrics (which I haven't read and don't want to), the album is wonderfully universal, expressing common themes of pain, sadness, struggle, loss, and maybe anger. It's very lovely, really. But I'm nowhere near ready to write a review of the music. Just this—metal deserves better listeners.

Ever notice how musicians are uniquely bad at discussing music?

The Sorrows of Young Werther by Goethe (01/09)

Alternate title: Good Riddance to Werther

I was supposed to read this a long time ago, when I was at that unfortunate stage of male adolescence in which one is a Romantic and compulsively rhapsodizes Nature and one's Soul, and maybe also Women.

But really, the world can do without an absurd, childish member of the gentry idolizing the peasants into pastoral totems of Simplicity and Work, or whatever the bullshit is.

Or slathering his pathetic yearnings on others' lives. God, I'd kill the fuck myself. If only they could arrange their suicides so they could fall into an open grave, or trip into the crematory—erase yourself with some self-respect, for God's sake, and don't trouble others. Make it seem an accident and spare your family the rage and betrayal, if not the presumed anguish. But above all, shut the fuck up about it—Werther is a towering, shameful monument to failing that commandment.

Меня бросила. Вертер—пошёл на хуй.

And in a breathtaking feat of projection, I can say: bullshit, that Lotte's "secret heart's desire was to keep [Werther] for herself" (118). Debase yourself so regularly, and receive your just wages: distance and contempt. Only have the decency to off yourself earlier and more discreetly.


The most perfect coda: this should have been the whole of Werther's suicide letter.

'Though sad to say, I must report that Eros was a bust.
I'll seek my peace in bleaker fields—to Thanatos, I must.'

Hitman, Chronicles of Wormwood by Garth Ennis (01/09)

Are you tired of Garth Ennis' war stories yet? Is it possible to be? This run concludes one long, compulsive winter break of comics.

Under the Volcano by Malcolm Lowery (01/09)

This book needs at least three readings: one for the plot, another for the layering, and a third for the lyricism. Nearly all books benefit from multiple readings, but not much popular literature truly demands it. My copy's introduction notes that Lowry uses a sort of statuesque prose style:

This is syntax as architecture, a strained high baroque: it is not to be understood so much as unpacked and paraphrased. It is 'vertical', balanced, stilled in time, not 'horizontal', in flow.

I don't object to that on any grounds - theoretical, aesthetic, whatever - but it makes the reader work for his pleasure. Sometimes the reader wants nothing more than a Philip Roth marital disaster. Straight-forward misery, that is.

Preacher, Hellblazer by Garth Ennis (01/09)

Three days in a cave with well-written ultraviolence, an addict's need for narrative, debasing. Ugh.

Surprising no one, Garth Ennis kills God...

...and then has John Constantine flip off Satan.

Meanwhile, I finish off another Saturday night in typical fashion.

League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, vols. 1 & 2, The Black Dossier by Alan Moore (01/09)

Fucking delightful - the world of the imagination, written for adults. Also, lots and lots of sex - fairy sex, people sex, immortal sex, goddess sex, immortal-goddess sex, Lilliputian sex, giant sex, bear-man-gypsy sex, invisible dude sex, etc. The only bad sex, really, is when James Bond tries to rape an 80-something-year-old woman, only to get bricked in the face. "Gratuitous!" shriek the latter-day Puritans at Amazon.com, who remain exactly what they are despite more fashionable rationalizations.

Moore helped usher in the age of pitch black comics in the 80s. Now he's resurrected adventuring, the way a middle-class "lad" of Victorian England might read Henry Morton Stanley and stare at the blank space on the map of Africa (graci, Conrad; literature supplants my own memories). Only absent the imperial fuckery, you know. The idea that there are places worth discovering, that the getting there will be an adventure, that the destination will be sufficient apotheosis. And once there, you get to have an orgy, which somehow comes off the way we envision these things in our very few moments of optimism. So, yes. Made for me. Can't help but react as expected. There are mountains in Asia.

Samplings:

First page of a Tijuana Bible from Airstrip One.

Sick of this shit happening in stories, man. "tt" indeed.

The best greeting in literature. Alan Moore and I, prurient little fucks—we deserve each other.