PUT THAT DICK IN MY MOUTH!

Cool title tho

Counterpoint: This was the first DFW I ever read and I had absolutely no problems with it. It's long, obviously, but I think it's actually more immediately "digestible" than either Brief Interviews... or Oblivion, due in large part to how insanely insular and self-reflexive many of the stories in those two are.

I mean, they obviously sound different, but I find myself incapable of judging the quality of one in relation to the other. But then the only metal I've ever been able to really get into is old Black Sabbath and stoner/doom stuff, so I'm pretty out of my depth here.

I really hope you're familiar with some other Cryptopsy. That would put it in perspective just how bad that really is. Man, I listened to the songs on their MySpace and then looked up some of their older stuff on YouTube and I really couldn't discern much of an obv. difference in quality. I guess I just don't have an ear for this stuff.

Sleeper, Love & Death, Manhattan and Crimes & Misdemeanors are all fantastic. I think Hannah & Her Sisters is supposed to be really good too but I've never seen it. If you're looking for slapsticky stuff then start with the first two as Manhattan, C&M and Hannah... are all from his more "serious" period (they're still great though and you should def. watch them at some point). EDIT: Also artists are sometimes the absolute worst judges of their own work so don't pay attention to that thing bob quoted up there.

For anyone who's interested, Harper's has posted free .pdf files of every piece he wrote for the magazine. Good stuff.

Yeah, it's sad because so much of dude's work deals with the (maybe impossible ) search for authentic connections w/ other people in an increasingly atomized/desensitized/ironicized society and his suicide would seem to indicate that he never managed to really make any such connections in his own life and basically decided to stop trying. It's doubly sad because of quotes like this:

I think you guys need to tailor yr reccs to our friend here's situation a little better. The chasm between Linkin Park and, like, Another Green World or fucking Xiu Xiu is a little too wide to cross in one leap. Baby steps and all. Anyway, instead of recommending whole albums I'm just going to post some 'Tubes of "entry level" "good songs". If you like them then explore the groups and their influences/followers on yr own (since that's really the best way to find new music). Note: These are all from the late 80s/early 90s because that is objectively the best era for music. Peace./ Fugazi - "Waiting Room" Pixies - "Debaser" Sonic Youth - "Teen Age Riot" Pavement - "Range Life" Pulp - "Common People"

As awful as this is, it's not completely shocking. I'm somewhat wary of reading fiction as a direct extension of its creator, but I think it's really, really hard to look at some of the stories in Brief Interviews... and Oblivion and not take them as cries of personal psychic despair.

Well that's a bummer

This seems like kind of a false dichotomy or whatever. I really don't think there's a lot of crossover between Vampire Weekend listeners and Paris Hilton listeners. Not like it really matters though, since they're equally mediocre. EDIT: Also, the argument that Vampire Weekend are somehow inherently better than Paris Hilton simply because they play their own instruments and shit is pretty dumb and also super-rockist.

Irony as defense mechanism duh. Hard to contemplate all the awful shit that happens in the world. Peeps can't deal so they mak jokes about it. Hahaha look how funny 9/11 is! (inside I am dying).

The worst part is that the points he belabors in those 30 pages were all quite well-drawn out and illustrated within the actual narrative itself, rendering the whole thing not only mind-numbingly dull but also incredibly pointless.

After she regains her footing she actually outlines a policy (using military strikes only to prevent immanent threats) that's really quite a bit more sensible than McCain's. I wonder if the two of them have even actually had a discussion about this stuff?

Just post about what you like man. That place is in dire need of fresh voices & new perspectives.

I love Parklife, but it's kinda poorly sequenced, ya know? The four best songs are all put right up front and after the title track it just sort of meanders around though weird one-off genre experiments and pointless interludes with actual good songs scattered about seemingly at random.

To commemorate this occasion I'd like to quote the best bit of lyric poetry yet written about 9/11 NVR 4GET

re Britpop: Blur's really good (duh) but Pulp was clearly the best thing to come out of that whole mess. Different Class is like the best album of the whole 1990s probably. And Jarvis Cocker is def. the best/hottest wry British waif guy.

Heheheh good one

Jin Gus

Uhm, how about the fact that they boast a catalog filled with supersmart pop songs spanning a fairly wide variety of genres/styles? Or perhaps the fact they they're one of the few bands who's just as good at ironic social commentary as they are at real pathos? Or maybe the fact that they own??? Really a lot of reasons here bro.

Uhhhhhhhh Blur is about a thousand times better than Oasis and if you honestly think otherwise you have truly terrible taste. hth

I won't deny that the democrats are at least partially to blame here, but let's not exculpate the media entirely. I mean, look at this The problem here, as is almost always the case, is the media's insistence on focusing on these big campaign meta-narratives instead of on things like, I don't know, actual facts. And so you get shit like, "McCain is trying to position himself as a maverick who fights against the big-shots in his own party" but then instead of looking into that claim and seeing if it's actually true or not (hint: it's not) they bring in a couple Campaign Strategists or whatever to debate whether this tactic is going to "work" or not.

Why?

gay marriage