Dreamt I stood in a china shop so crowded from floor to far-off ceiling with shelves of porcelain antiquities etc. David Mitchell, Cloud Atlas, p.43
William Gaddis, for the uninitiated, is a fine writer, and my edition of The Recognitions has a far less elaborate jacket, a lamination of white green yellow blue, like an atheist Christmas card, but the novel, while a precursor to the genius of David Mitchell, is a ponderous effort, a hell on earth labor to actually finish, living as I did, on the edge of the badlands, 1500 W. Page Street, closing a tome about frauds, fakes, originals, with the final phrase "rarely played." reverberating with the stark imprint of an epitaph. Perhaps Gaddis's publisher believed Gaddis was a modern James Joyce, but no. Whatever one feels about the author who murdered the novel, Joyce is a lively labor. Gaddis is a dissertation down the rabbit hole, with a density somewhat thicker than the later Gravity's Rainbow, if my imprint dates are in alignment. and following on the heels of my first nominee, you can still appreciate what literary movements like Modernism have to offer without adding The Recognitions as a very long spooling funnel to your archives. I started the first chapter again approximately six months ago, and if I wind up as a most unfortunate casualty of this youthfully old birth city of American independence, I may never get to fully reengage with William's game theory.
Ali darlin, I have absolutely no idea who you are, and I almost have absolutely not a creative word to post about the fact you've followed me. I do not stream much. Don't have a playlist, and don't use my 5c like an iPod, though I am sure Apple and ATT and Google would be ecstatic if I grasped at the straws of my zealous turning thirteen obsession with Elton John and went back to the British sound of my era as opposed to being part of the problem, as tommyturbo asserted, but what I can convey is the amazing ability of language, to create a word like amanuensis, a word I never knew until Mitchell gave me a visceral existential crisis. If Modernism killed the novel, Mitchell destroyed the aspiration of any ambition I ever had, and yet, I did not expire on the table when this revelation sucker punched me after I finished his profound display of virtuosity. I passed on my battered and stained copy to young Lance, who patiently waltzed this spastic through Ulysses in 2013. I kindly offered Lance my edition and he said no he had to give it back because he needed to buy Cloud Atlas in hard cover. I cannot guarantee you I'll trudge on at this softer pace, as my intention to vacate this unfortunate studio apartment I've inhabited since 1994 by the end of July is not, in fact, particularly salient to the imagination. Disabled writers on entitlements simply do not vacate section 202 housing. It is not done, but I cannot stay. My ability to cope with Presbyterian corporate methodology, beating and beating at me as long as it has, because I was a naive 23 year old who saw this way of life as a mere stepping stone toward a fulfilling literary adventure-- I do not know what I thought. I thought I could become like my mentor Jerry, whose name I weary of typing, but anyway, what was I saying? Oh.
Even though I do not stream all that much, as I am sorting all of this out, listening to your work is on my list, but Tony's radio show comes first. If you have, oh, I do not know, access to writer's studio digs where I could bring my cats. I love the feline children, one cannot help that, well, let me know. If you're interested in what I have to say, well, I've reached across the generation then. Now I need to rest a bit, but I had to log on and dissect this. Compulsion must be satisfied.
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