Finishing “You Can’t Win”/What I am Reading

At the end of the day I decided to finish “You Can’t Win”. It’s fairly rare I get that far in a book and don’t finish; and it wasn’t a very complicated read, so I went through to the end. I didn’t have a big change of heart about it, but there was a wonderful chapter towards the end in which Black vividly describes breaking into a house, both generically and then specifically— it was crisp, tense writing. The ending of the book reminded me a bit of “Drugstore Cowboy”, a film which I loved a lot when I was younger (and haven’t seen for ages. Black’s description of his life after he quits opium and stealing, and lives an honest life reminded me of Bob’s monologue toward the end of the film : 

“..you know, for all the boredom the good life brings, it’s not so bad. Even this crummy little room isn’t so bad. I’m a regular guy. I got my regular job. And my regular room.”

That’s a fine enough thing to remind me of, and it made me smile, so… good on it. 

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I just started reading “Poguemahone” which is ‘marketed’ as a 600 page poem; and it sort of is— it’s laid out like verse, but I don’t find it particularly ‘poetic’ in any sense. It’s more a stream of conscious thing, and it’s pretty good at it. Aside from a number of references to boomer cultural figures (do you know who the lead singer of Mott the Hoople is? I DO NOW), I’ve found it readable and interesting. 

I’ve continued on in “Cyclonopedia: Complicity with Anonymous Materials”. Past the initial framing device, it reads kind of like a series of sinister academic papers; I haven’t read anything like it. 

I will pick the wretched sea back up this week.