Deleteduserrc

yeahh. but I feel like there's some supplementary aspect missing. To take a graphic example: Bimbofication, a fetish subculture involving plastic surg...

That's what I mean tho

I agree though. 'Not knowing what you want to do' is just common usage. What I mean is: not committing to doing. A problem of life through and through...

OP: Philosophy, like math, subsists on choices (decisions.) It follows: The philosophy of choices is itself an example of the thing the philosophy of ...

I guess it's finally time for me to reveal who I truly am *takes off mask* I'm Friedrich Engels/Meghan Markle (value pak). And I would have gotten awa...

As my Dad always said whenever I criticized an ad- "well, we're talking about it, aren't we?"

Who cares if people like the royal wedding? Liking the royal wedding could be bourgeois escapism, but not-liking the royal wedding is also bourgeois e...

ha, yeah! I'd passed over those passages without really registering them, but you're right - penis envy with the twist that the phallus is kind of a s...

ok, sorry you are dead

[ Interesting read. What's your username mean by the way?

Not sure if you’re willfully ignorant or just ignorant and willful but it seems to me that it’s just very obvious that I’m rubber and you’re glue and ...

I've been a little whatever recently on some posts, but I think a muted version of that approach is appropriate here, given the subject matter. Imagin...

sorry, flippant. My stance is . I'm pretty mad about this, but don't know what I can actually do. I hate this shit, and how its legitimized.

here's my take what if the israelis and palestinians were friends? going to email the middle-east president and try to get this going. seems like a go...

My reading of the story, much in line with ?????????????'s, I think, is that he is as sheltered by his mother's fantasies as she is. He hasn't thought...

Here’s a thing: does this story correspond to a particular stance on 60s civil rights?

Also interesting that of the four stories recently talked about here, two (the other is the Oates) involve domineering mothers and a “be careful what ...

but that’s what makes it funny (in a pitch black way.)

Missed that, so good. I think I understand what Baden's saying. I think it might harmonize with what you're saying, if I understand what you're saying...

That's fair. Thank you for setting me up for that rant tho. I do want to read Something Happened. My ex-roomate had a copy and I flipped through it a ...

I haven't read Something Happened. I did reach Catch-22, a long time ago (13 years?). Catch-22, if I recall, does the Mark Twain thing of 'common sens...

yeah, but Schop was a misogynist of the 'don't know em, so i know i dont need to know em' stripe. And on top of that: schop wasn't a bad looking guy, ...

@"TimeLine" How would you feel about this story if the genders were reversed? Like: Robert was a confident college-anchored guy, hot, working a part-t...

I was gonna object, but then remembered I also wrote a paper in college about how Joyce's The Dead was about female butter fantasies, butter coded as ...

I've only read Creation, I'll admit. I'll give Julian a look. I'm no lawyer but I admire that stuff too. I objected (overruled! I object nonetheless!)...

@"Moliiere" whats your take?

Lynch comparison is spot on. I can totally see this as a twin peaks episode (I mean in a lot of ways Laura is the babysitter if she were an actual sel...

I finished it. Really liked it. Still thinking it over. I think it's probably significant that the final section takes the wife's viewpoint. Not only ...

ah, thank you, that makes a lot of sense. Everything you say about the 'given' that characterizes the dating world sounds right. I want to say that I ...

I’m not familiar with what you’ve said on the given - it may have been in a thread i missed. I feel like i might have a sense what youre talking about...

He's really good and fun (lots of juicy historical details that he tells entertainingly) - tho, if you've read Sam[]zdat's 'Uruk Machines' series, you...

The oates story kinda reminds me, thematically, of Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came, but in a very different setting and register. I. My first tho...

@"Baden" So I read the Oates at work, which was a bad idea, because I got a kind of minor Stendhal Syndrome thing from the end. Less pretentiously: go...

Halfway through, but enjoying it so far. Very curious to see how he wraps things up. Btw, I've had Pricksongs and Descants kicking around on my shelve...

Well, the first draft ended with him texting the cat 'ur a sult' but I've grown a lot in the past four years. Now it's just implied that he thinks the...

Creation is one of my all times favorites. it’s fantastic - but its also about how ruling classes are able to indulge in leisurely speculation while i...

bullshit, three saddest words to Gore Vidal are: "Not Quite Elite."

It's not that either, tho sometimes it is. It's more like a cultural wasteland patrolled by hit-squads of various stripes. People get mad about the le...

@"StreetlightX" Have you read any James C Scott? Interestingly, he's referenced Deleuze in a few more recent books, though his approach is generally s...

I’m with you on friendship. Almost all of my long-term relationships have begun from within a group of friends, with someone I’ve known for a while. T...

The thread about Cat Person reminded me I wrote my own (very) short story about a Cat Person a few years ago. Figured I'd share it here Cat Story At n...

I did a ctrl-f on the story for “fear” to try to find a passage. The word fear comes up four times. Twice in reference to Margot’s fears, twice in ref...

In some ways, I think Cat Person has the function of a gun pointed to produce displays of goodness, and so kind of perpetuates the cycle of fear and f...

Thinking some more about this: I think the formula of the story is Mumblecore + texting/internet + Nice Guy Cautionary Tale/Affirmed Beast. If you tak...

I agree that the ending turns in into something like this, but I think, before that, it does something more interesting - all those tropes are there, ...

I read an interview with the author and she did say the inspiration was a real bad date that began with text-flirting. No hints about whether somethin...

:up: Right now for me: Self Portrait in a Convex Mirror - John Ashbery (really really good) & just starting: Against the Grain: a deep history of the ...

Gonna give the carol oates a read once I’m back home

(1) youre a monster (2) I agree that it fails aesthetically, tho I’m torn on the quality of the writing. I think its quite in good in places. I think ...

Yeah, I do think she intended to portray Robert like that from the start, and I think you're right that Robert ties rejection and clumsiness (like whe...