Comments | them_apples: Curtis White, you wimpy little bastard

them_apples

Curtis White, you wimpy little bastard

Nov 08, 2005 10:19

well, don't get too excited. i haven't really gotten anywhere with this crazy kid, yet. but i did spend about three hours reading his fuck-you fest the middle mind last night when i couldn't fall asleep.

but this is a blog, after all, and blogs are meant to be digestible little tidbits, not the three-page tomes i usually post. just little ( Read more... )

Comments 5

today benbazooka November 9 2005, 03:59:39 UTC

today i heard a story on NPR about some group of men in some land, probabbly the near east, who play some game, similar to hacky sack, but without scoring, its an ancient tradition, and they play not for points, but to keep the tratdition alive. I yelled at my radio "fuck you NPR"

I think this sentiment is pretty much what white wrote a book about here.

by the way andy, i liked this review

Re: today them_apples November 9 2005, 15:33:36 UTC

hahaha... oh, NPR, you do lapse almost into self-parody sometimes.

i can remember one "science friday" on talk of the nation where they had two scientists talking about global warming. the debate got pretty lively, since one scientist held the stance that "global warming is a problem now" and the other held the stance that "global warming is probably a problem now."

not that opposing viewpoints always makes for entertaining conversation, but, you know.

i basically listen to NPR for that quiz show on saturday. that and "this american life" when they're not talking about something like proms.

but: i'm still guilty of succumbing to something that is replacing thought, according to white. his problem is that these things are not thought-provoking. not challenging. and he's lucky he's got a sense of humor because this book would be boring as shit if he didn't.

Further reading (of course) anonymous November 13 2005, 15:34:12 UTC

In 'Monstrous Possibility' - an earlier collection of polemics, more focused on literature and politics, which builds the groundwork of what would be coined as middle mind - white does an amazing turn around in one of the essays, leveling the playing field on the left/right commie/yuppie argument. I don't have the book here, but in a wonderful Marcuse moment the text opens up and he admits 'Balsamic Vinegar tastes good!'. There's also a much more direct (and I think the fists might feel a bit bigger here than in MM) 'fuck-you', a paragraph that includes 'fuck you, connie chung ( ... )

Re: Further reading (of course) them_apples November 13 2005, 17:28:49 UTC

well, i think i like his non-fiction better than the americana-pastiche fiction i've read so far. unfortunately, i think the one i have a chance of actually genuine liking is america's magic mountain, which sounds promising despite being a straight-up transplant like i was saying earlier didn't work. and i know you've been dying to get me to read requiem, which i'll be starting probably today, since i left middle mind in the back of someone's car, but the first few pages, along with the overt structure seem a bit disheartening. smart people aren't always smart artists, and white even directly addresses this at some point in MM. there's a world of difference between just flaunting your smattering of modern-day culture in with a requiem structure, and say what joyce did, or eco does in foucault's pendulum ( ... )

Re: Further reading (of course) them_apples November 13 2005, 17:37:08 UTC

he also does the balsamic vinegar thing in MM. sort of. but that's sort of laughable, because all i could think of when he did it was "wait... does he mean balsamic vinegar, made from distilled white vinegar with caramel coloring, or does he mean true 'aceto balsamico'?" and then i had this vision of mario batalli close-reading white's conflict with american culture through a culinary lens ( ... )