just finished, topping off my George Saunders binge, his novella/fable The Brief and Frightening Reign of Phil, a geo-political parable peopled by misfit toys bickering over their microcosmic boundaries. as always, instantly compelling textual landscape, a style unique to the needs of the piece, satire of the darkest stripe. a great voice of our time.
just finished reading George Saunders’ first published story collection, Civilwarland in Bad Decline, including the novellette, Bounty, a post-apocalyptic road-novel of which Cormac McCarthy’s THE ROAD (not that i don’t admire all his work)is a faint shadow. where The Road was a philosophic work on par with his Blood Meridian, the mise end scene of …
in the midst of my George Saunders binge, having reconnected with him after years ago reading his essay collection, The Braindead Megaphone and his more recent story collection Tenth of December, i just finished reading another of his darkly comedic tales of a not-so-distant dystopia, In Persuasion Nation, this one a bit more media/advertising-centred. i …
just finished Stephen Graham Jones‘ superb paper-view slasher, THE LAST FINAL GIRL. can’t imagine anyone else coming up with the perfect balance of pacing, rapid-fire references only a horror devotee of world class could muster, homage and send-up, and pushing all the perfect slasher buttons along the way. a labour of love. a joy to …
just finished reading Stephen Graham Jones‘s antic paper-view wrestling event, ZOMBIE BAKE-OFF. the title says it all; though it doesn’t credit SGJ’s infallible comic/cinematic timing and his caricature/characterizations left me indelibly hearing the voice of wrangler/promoter Johnny T. as none other than Christoph Waltz. a very enjoyable and bloody romp
“(as in the picture where the eye perceives a white vase or an hourglass or a chalice, until the mind–or is it the will?–discovers that this vase is an empty space, negative, hence an illusion, and there is only one positive, that is, real thing in the picture, is the two profiles turned toward each …