Autoblogography

A blogfriend recommends a novel, translated from the French, not a novel, not a memoir, a melange of a novel about thinking about thinking about thinking about observing oneself thinking, and Ki-Yee! not this boy. I work with people who think about thinking about thinking about observing oneself thinking, they sit in University Chairs and live in houses paid for by the University, and they're thinking about lunch.

I go to the stacks and find the book.

Here's a paragraph, chosen at random:

The story relaying, at interval and in its own way, news of the project's past; the prose, the prose of memory, the salmagundi, the prose's tale of Babel (Babel monogatari) of the prose; the plurality of the stories' dispersion "in the ten styles"; the constraints, with their corpuscular collisions in the pool of black ink, blackening further, the black lines clearing a path with fire, by hand.

Ki-Yee! I'd rather take out my own wisdom teeth with a screwdriver.

I'm in full precautionary mode against the reading slump that would surely descend if I tried reading another novel until I've finished thinking about 2666 (not thinking about thinking about 2666, mind you). I'd argue, though not so seriously as to require handbags, that 2666 probably investigates the very issues the French novel/memoir does with the significant difference that 2666 is fun to read, my point being, what has always disqualified me as a serious thinker is my willful refusal to think about thinking about thinking about observing myself taking out my own wisdom teeth with a screwdriver as a good time.

Escaping a reading slump? Happiness is serendipity, as this crossed my desk last week:

I'd heard of Spicer, but oh my.

SOCRATES

Because they accused me of poems
That did not disturb the young
They gave me a pair of glasses
Filled with tincture of hemlock.
Because the young accused me
Of piles, horseradish, and bad dreams
They gave me three days
To burn down the city. What dialogues
(If they had let me)
Could I have held with both of my enemies.

See? Fun! Slump busted before it starts.

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More Elric photos from Cambodia

• Another way of putting it is, the fight isn't to make Obama less shitty, it's to keep him from being more shitty.
• Respectfully, duh.
• Worst persons in the world.
• More on the dick-pastor from Seattle.
• Reading about Gaza.
• Evil, deluded, presidential.
• Washington Grove Elementary School?
• You should be reading wood s lot daily, and not only because of the permanent link joke.

UPDATE!

I was mistaken. I had been trying to link for a couple of weeks to particular wood s lot posts, but every time I clicked on permanent link, it flashed out to page not found. I assumed a joke. They're working now. My apologies.

• Ed's tease.

Updates later, hopefully, probably not.

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The Feelies?