Favorite Delillo Books

Okay, I confess: this list is intended to replace actual thought. It’s a substitute for a well-constructed argument, it’s a distraction to divert attention away from the lack of substantive ideas. But here it is: my Favorite DeLillo Books

  1. Underworld;
    The Names;
    White Noise
  2. Americana
  3. Libra
  4. Mao II
  5. Players
  6. End Zone
  7. Running Dog
  8. The Body Artist

There is little rhyme or reason to it. Body Artist is my least favorite DeLillo book, relegating it to the bottom of this wretched excuse for a list, but it’s still good. Running Dog comes next. It’s not spectacular. It’s not epic. How I initially stumbled on DeLillo is, I was reading the dust jacket of a book. It may have been Chuck Palahniuk’s Lullaby, but I wouldn’t bet more than $5 on that. The dust jacket told me that Chuck is the next generation’s DeLillo. I had no idea who DeLillo was. An author, I assumed. For no apparent reason and without any background to guide me, I dove into Running Dog. I liked it. I sought out other books by this ‘DeLillo’ and continued to be pleased by them. And now I am able to fill up space with a list such as this one: my favorite books by DeLillo. So there you have it. Are you distracted yet?

How you cackle

I know it’s going to sound unbelievably cheesy and trite, but I’ve fallen in love with your smile. That thin sliver of spite and bitterness that fluoresces into sudden brilliance under the proper provocation.

I know that’s one of the first things you’re taught, that and the steely glare and the ascerbic laughter (can laughter even be ascerbic?) and the monologue of criminal genius. Those are things you share with all your nefarious brethren. But in you they somehow come together in a combination that can’t be found elsewhere.

I know it’s your own unique brand of affection that you’ll be showing as I’m lowered into the shark-infested waters, bound and (inexplicably) gagged.

places

  • 44n06, 70w13
  • 40n11, 76w11
  • 40n34, 78w03
  • 40n48, 77w52
  • 40n11, 76w11
  • 44n03, 71w03
  • 44n06, 70w13

Macroassassins (Paragraph)

We?re walking down the hallway. It?s never really dirty, but no one ever seems to clean it. Deirdre says that maybe they clean it after we leave and go home. But I say that there?s never even a chance for it to get dirty. If anything, it looks cleaner at the end of the day than at the beginning. Marty says maybe you?re projecting again. I say maybe I am.

Fictionalizing Apocalypse

Kirkpatrick Sale in the Ecologist:

FICTIONALISING APOCALYPSE
And the heart of the matter is that second question: `Is there a way we can prevent environmental injuries from happening again?’

I am not especially optimistic about answering that question in the affirmative. We don’t realise it, any more than fish realise they are swimming in water, but we are immersed in a culture, a way of seeing and living, that has erected a protective psychological shield that enables our society to go on doing what it does even though it knows apocalypse is pending. It is something that psychologists call `cognitive dissonance’: the ability to hold in your heart, in your mind, two contradictory beliefs or ideas – in this case, desire for the continuance of the capitalist system and the health of the planet.

Read the full post »

um, underworld, anybody?

So Underworld, the movie, is a kind of werewolf-vampire flick that’s loosely (says allmovie guide) based on Franco Zeffirelli‘s 1968 version of Romeo e Giulietta, but it’s not based on the eponymous novel by Don Delillo? What gives?

boat metaphor, pt. 1

Imagine culture as a sinking boat. It’s sinking, but most people don’t realize it. they claim the turbulence is just normal, from the waves slamming into the sides of the boat. or maybe they’ll nod at mention of the fact that, yes, the waters are, as of right now, relatively choppy. they’ll say: of course they are, what do you expect, but, good heavens, the boat certainly isn’t sinking.

For just a second, though, assume it is. Imagine that it is sinking.

The Question at hand is: can you re-build the boat on the water, without it sinking completely? Can you rip up boards (pretend it’s a wooden boat) and reposition them to fix the boat? will other people let you do it, or will they stop you from ripping up boards, call you crazy, and say you’re going to make us sink? And if they do stop you, what do you say?

Dyou try to convince them that the boat is, in fact, sinking? Do you try to at least get them to concede the possibility of sinking? like it could, maybe, under certain circumstances, be possible?

or do you tell them, hey, nothing going on here, I just need to rip up a few boards, fix a little leak (divert their attention) nothing much, no, nothing happening here

or do you tell them nothing and just rip up the boards yourself

jump overboard, maybe?

Convenience is something

Convenience is something, a concept that becomes warped in our minds through our strange way of living on top of the planet. And, opposite convenience (we imagine) is this creature called inconvenience. Like day and night, or night and day. There’s also this thing called necessity, but it’s more often than not conflated with convenience, such that any situation bordering on inconvenience is perceived as an affront to our very existence. After all, it’s an obstacle to the necessities of life, like access to constant routes of (mental) escape, like cold and hot food, like cold and hot water, like constant routes of escape from cold and hot weather.

all of this is related

The only reason to act is to change the paradigm within which you think, therefore enabling you to change the minds of other people. Don?t recycle to save trees–recycle because it makes sense. Don?t buy organic because you want to be healthy or because you want to support organic farmers–buy organic because it makes sense. Don?t carpool because it saves gasoline–carpool because it makes sense. Do not act to bring about a certain concrete action–act because in acting you can change minds. Don?t oppose war because you?re against violence, because you?re a pacifist–oppose war because peace makes sense. Or better yet, don?t oppose war, demand peace. Act to change minds.

but most importantly, act to change minds and not things;
[do this] because you don?t matter.

How far would you go? To save people four, five generations from now? If you could live your life with the knowledge that your luxuries would damn (doom) your distant kin of the future, would you? Oh, sorry, you already do.

You?re living off a loan based on guarantee of future payments.

Sometimes thinking outside the box still means that your thoughts are framed by the boundaries of the box.

Common addiction

Even the most basic of realizations must be based on an understanding that?

?what we understand as ordinary mundane daily life is only made ordinary through repetition.

so today I went to the store, and they had a sale on
[product name here]
, so I got six of them

“?what’s a seven letter word for delusion?”

repetition (repeat)

what we understand as ordinary is only made ordinary through repetition

“?and I was driving down the road and didn’t need to think where the fuel for my car came from”

made ordinary

even the most basic

through repetition

(repetition=addiction?)

what we understand as ordinary and experience as understandable and reasonable expectation is only made ordinary and reasonable through addiction

even the most basic of realizations must be based on an understanding of that.