It’s my 49th post, so time for a little retrospective.
A few favorite posts:
GG Allin/“Naked Lunch”/‘Extreme’ art : My first really good piece of writing for this blog. There was originally a section on a book called “Ass Goblins of Auschwitz” and the fact you can get it at Walmart, but it got cut because I did not want to actually *read* it.
“Necroscope”/Cannibal Corpse/fuckin’ br00tal as Criticism : An attempt to explain the weirdly dense “Necroscope” and create a framework for a type of criticism I do here.
“The Warriors” vs “The Warriors” : a comparison of the book vs the film, a discussion of the book — I didn’t even know that the book existed until this year, for some reason. It was actually a fairly interesting exercise.
More “Moby Dick”/Ambient Novels/Sunn O)))/Drone Novels : The entry right before this one; I like the writing, and the way the ideas hang together.
Stuff I don’t like:
I wish I had spent a little less time figuring out what my role is as the writer of the blog. I dislike the entry I did on “You’ve Lost a Lot of Blood”, mostly because I didn’t have much to say about it other than “I didn’t like it”, and I’d like to do more than that, but sometimes the deadline catches you.
Stuff I’m neutral on:
This blog has, for better or worse, shaped my reading. I almost exclusively read things that I will be interested in writing about. This means that most non-fiction is off the table. I have yet to finish Kim Kelly’s “Fight Like Hell”, for example, because I don’t have the time to read it in addition to the things I am reading for the blog. This isn’t bad, and keeping the blog keeps me reading, and reading more complex/challenging things, for the most part.
A reminder or two:
I keep track of what I have finished in this twitter thread.
You can also follow me on Storygraph.
What I am reading:
“A Billion Years” -Mike Rinder’s account of his time in Scientology. I went through a big phase of reading about Scientology, and thought I was burned out on the subject, but Rinder was one of the highest ranking members, so his story is of interest to me.
“Cyclonopedia: Complicity with Anonymous Materials” now that I finished “Pougemahone” this will be my main focus.
“Moby Dick” as always.
The Lithole 