Firecrackers!! It's July and I'm reading...

Almost done with The Game Of Thrones. Don't really want to read that part.

Should I move this to the book club?

Currently reading Damned.

Sure.

Still reading Freedom by Jonathan Franzen and I'm really enjoying it!

Bricka bracka firecracker sis boom bah! Bugs Bunny! Bugs Bunny! RAH RAH RAH!

Uh, couldn't resist.

Reading This Won't Take But A Minute Honey by Steve Almond.

Short and Sweet and Self-Pubbed.

BOMB Magazine #116/Summer 2011.
Tobacco-Stained Mountain Goat by Andrez Bergen.
And starting July 12th: The Devil All The Time by Donald Ray Pollock.

I'm reading ALL YOUR MAMAS.

My mother is soooo fat, you'll be reading her until christmas.

wait... crap.

Also (The closest Amazon title-match to "All Your Mamas":

That's a classic.

Zero History, and The Red Market.

YUM.

Crash JG Bullard

I'm reading your minds. No, not really, still struggling with Damned.

Currently on:

The Informers - BEE
Kiss Me Judas - WCB
The Samaritan.

The Never Enders by Michael Sonbert. Yeah, I'm going at his work all back to front.

Next up will be likely The Samaritan by Venturini as I got my copy today and I've heard nothing but good things.

Haha... Ballard is an exceptional writer, Crash is one of his most beautiful works. So strangely perverse, but weirdly convincing at the same time.

About a third of the way through 'The Great Gatsby', and aren't really enjoying it so far.

The Great Gatsby is one of my favorite books. It's about as perfect as a book can get, in my opinion at least.

Hmmmmm, it is getting more interesting as i get into it... the start just seems rather directionless, but maybe i'm judging to hastily.

And i'm glad i did finish it, it is a very good book. It's left me in one of those contemplative, melancholy moods that are weirdly enjoyable.

Clint, yo llama!

I knew something transcendental was going on around here.

Mindreaders. I should have taken Cultology at University.

Maybe this *is* what's going on.

Reading Tweak by Nic Sheff, Stranger then Fiction by Palahniuk and Tobacco stained mountain goat.

going to start Steve Erickson's Tours of the Black Clock today

The Chuck kick continues with Haunted.

The Morgan Trilogy by Anderson Pindar. A classic. Having a lot of fun.

Of course, it's a masterpiece.

It should be taught in schools. Such a pity the author's dead, could've become the greatest writer EVER!

Good luck trying to use 'and' in public, everyone!

Deliverance by James Dickey

Started Roald Dahl's 'Going Solo', which is one of his autobiographical books. I'm reading it because a friend recommended it and i always greatly admired his work when i was younger. It seems like it's going to be very light reading, but amusing enough.

I'm reading The Forest of Hands and Teeth by Carrie Ryan. The premise sounded interesting. A girl living in a enclosed village surrounded by a world devastated by a zombie apocalypse, but as I'm reading further along, it's starting to sound like Twilight with zombies. Here's a quote:

Even though it's dead of winter she still smells like sunshine.

Oh well, I guess I'll read it anyway since I don't like to start a book and not finish it.

I'd really like to know what this is, since I respect both of your opinions on literature, but I can't find any information about it at all. Is this some kind of in-joke I missed?

Haha. A few years ago my friend Jack and I took up the challenge of seeing who could write the worst detective novel ever. We each ended up writing three novels. And those two trilogies were really, really, hilariously bad.

Mine was called The Morgan Trilogy. I still have the document on my computer so here's a sample chapter:

Morgan lights a cigarette for the last time and says:
—Listen, hombre, I just want to know where the nearest abortion clinic is.
—Porque? asks the little Mexican dude who’s been trying to sell him a shitty little lighter for the past fifteen minutes.
—That’s none of your damned business. Where is it?
—Pero, señor, I no believe in abortion.
—You kiddin me? That’s all you Mexicans are good for, is trinkets, hard labour and cheap abortions.
—You buy lighter and I tell you.
—I don’t need your damned lighter. This is my last cigarette.
—I sell you more.
—I’m tryin to quit smokin, you little greasy bastard. If I buy a lighter, I’ll feel tempted to smoke again.
—Then adios, señor.
The little Mexican dude walks away and disappears into the throng of little Mexican dudes all walking around trying to sell each other things that they don’t need. Women with babies in their arms wail under cheap and colourful parasols for money; chubby pickpockets wearing conspicuously heavy raincoats for this tropical weather run from passerby to passerby attempting to stick their hands into their preys’ pockets, only to grab an odd penis or two and recoil in horror; opaline kites manipulated by smelly little children cut through the sky like barracudas in water so blue you could piss in it and it would not turn green, at least not the way it did when I last peed into a river on a beautiful Sunday morning after making love to the household maid; and so on, and so on.
—God damn it!
He realises he’s been standing in front of an abortion clinic the whole time. Perfect. He puts his cigarette out on his kneecap and winces, suddenly aware of the pointlessness of existence, then reads the sign on the door of the clinic: CHEAP ABORTIONS WHILE U WAIT. The place appears to belong to a chain of abortion clinics called ShouldaGuzzled©. A brief history of ShouldaGuzzled© is printed on a bunch of leaflets flying around, one of which lands smack in Morgan’s face. Seems ShouldaGuzzled© was first introduced to the abortion-oriented public in 1983, to great acclaim. Its affordable rates and customer-friendly staff set a new precedent in the abortion industry. Women of all backgrounds migrated en masse to the nearest ShouldaGuzzled© centre, booking months in advance of their pregnancies to ensure the best possible service. Soon the CEO of ShouldaGuzzled© Enterprises, one Vince “Ghetto” Rodriguez, expanded his franchise and opened three hundred new ShouldaGuzzled© centres in Mexico, France and Outer Bangolia. It is a remarkable story of hard work, overcoming personal obstacles and ruthless big bizniz.
So now Morgan is walking into the clinic, already trembling from the lack of nicotine in his body. A cute receptionist with the kind of tits you just want to slap with a giant salmon greets him:
—Hello, señor! How can I help? Here at ShouldaGuzzled©, we are committed to helping you dispose of your unborn children in as unproblematic a fashion as possible. Whether you’re just too lazy to take care of a kid or you’re a slutty teenager who’s fucked one horny college student too many, we’re here to improve your life without the dangers of coat hangers… Always gotta watch out for that rust!
—Yeah, says Morgan. Look, my girlfriend, she, uh, she’s pregnant with my steed. I mean, seed.
—That’s what we’re here for, señor!
—Yeah, but here’s the thing. Ever since they illegalised abortions in America, she’s been reluctant to have an abortion anywhere else, since, you know, American abortions are usually the best and all that.
—A common misconception, señor. Here at ShouldaGuzzled©, we take great care to provide the kind of experience that you’d have found in any clinic in America before the great ban. We offer a wide range of different abortions, from the French Kiss Abortion, in which a highly skilled prostitute licks the foetus out with her pierced tongue, to the Thai Massage Abortion, where a fat lady stands on your back and squeezes the baby out.
—So what about a, uh, normal abortion? You know, something not involving hookers or fatties.
—Ah, the Abortion “Classique”. Always a good choice.
The attractive receptionist with the type of boobies you’d simply love to paint black and pretend they’re shrunken heads takes a pad of paper and draws a cat.
—This is a euphemised vagina, she says.
—No shit.
—During the procedure, our specialists will insert our trademark friendly suction tube into the womb…
She draws a straw going into the cat’s mouth.
—… and suck out the foetus faster than your girlfriend can say, “Oops, I should have guzzled.”
She draws a smile on the cat’s face.
—Okay, how much? says Morgan, who really didn’t need a visual demonstration, no matter how censored. He doesn’t wait for an answer, but takes out his cellphone and dials Tanya’s number. He’s the type of guy who’ll type in the entire number instead of just putting people on speed-dial. Just that kind of guy. —Hello, babe? Hey, you can come out of the car, I found a place that’ll do cheap abortions of various sorts. Lock the car, though. I don’t trust those Mexicans (no offense, lady). And yeah, padlock the steering wheel. Meet me at ShouldaGuzzled©, near the bar where they served us tequila without the worm. Those bastards. Okay, see you soon.
To the girl with the hot tits, he says:
—Now I need you to use your charm and convince my girlfriend to go through with this. We can’t have this baby, baby.

Brilliance! So horrendous it's genius.

Booked months in advance of their pregnancies, haha! so whose trilogy was deemed the worst?

MONDAY

The day I was told about my first job, could you believe it, was my first day, as I smoked my third BigWig cigarette in a row. The filters were infused with extract of syrup, and so tasted even sweeter than most sweets would taste.
Tarrigan was his, the detective, which is to say my name, which is Tarrigan. Arthur Tarrigan. A rookie, working his way up the ranks and not yet cut my teeth on a really meaty case. This was all about to change in just a few minutes. But in that short space of time, a sense of complete ease was established, and my troubles all tumbled in at once.
Howards came in, smelling a little like onions that were a day or two bad. He looked like a walrus, something that would describe him even better if a lost walrus got into an onion patch. Furthermore, he looked very much like an uncle that gives all his inheritance to your little sister despite the fact that she’s clearly a whore, and actually you had some very big ideas for that money but that’s the kind of guy Jacob was, always putting you down and saying you were a queer in front of your father, and your father took this literally and would call you it as he lashed you with his belt, and Clara sits in the corner giggling the whole time, and it all got worse from there, that’s when you became washed up and oh just when Jacob doesn’t leave you that money your wife leaves you for some chink from Korea even though they apparently have small pricks which just rubs salt in the wound, doesn’t it?
Howards was eating a food. He ate the rest and threw the rubbish on the floor even though a bin was right next to him.
“TARRIGAN!” he screamed.
“Yes, sir?” I asked, eager for my first assignment.
“Tarrigan, you have a murder to solve. That restaurant critic who writes for The Daily Archangel has been found dead. Same as all the others.”
“Oh no!” I cried. It was him again. The Easter Bunny took people and killed them, but in a way that is different from other crimes. Tarrigan could use a BigWig right now and remembered they were cheaper than most cigarettes on the market, and had a good roast of tobacco in each glorious stick.
Tarrigan had an office, generally very brown. He had a typewriter because pens got lost easily. So like a human life, he thought poetically, because he was very intellectual. Most detectives are plain hard-boiled, but he had an artistic side, and that’s what made him irresistible to the opposite sex of women.
Tarrigan looked at the floor and saw Howards’ rubbish. “Bastard,” he said in anger, but Howards did not hear this because he had left the room eight minutes before.

Tarrigan arrived at the crime scene, where yellow tape had been used so that ordinary people wouldn’t come and mess things around. The corpse was there.
The face was spongy and his yellow hair looked like a little poodle lying on a bald man’s head, but he knew that was ridiculous. With a slight bit of amusement, he noticed the victim had turned the colour of prawns.
Incidentally, the murdered man was named Vladimir Flossie, the local homosexual who worked for the newspaper, the one who writes about restaurants and how good the foods they make is. Or at least he did. He’s died now.
“Okay boys, what ya got for me?” asked Tarrigan. He didn’t want to seem too fresh-faced, and so had put a BigWig in his mouth for an appearance of manliness. The evening sunlight was warm but was beginning to go cold instead.

The cop answered him. “Looks like the Easter Bunny strikes again, sir, just like all the others.”
Tarrigan must break the ice. “What, you mean the actual Easter Bunny did this?” All the boys cracked up and laughed hard, as he knew they would. He was funny, and this one had really convinced them that he was an okay sort of guy (because the Easter Bunny is actually the name of the killer).
The Easter Bunny was actually the name of the killer. Not his real name probably, Tarrigan had deduced, but his alias. He called himself that and would capture a victim, and spend the next seven days holding them prisoner. Someone would disappear on Monday, and be found dead that very Sunday. And next to the dead corpse? An Easter egg, which the policemen had eaten half of on this occasion.
“Any leads, guys?” asked Tarrigan.
“No, we haven’t got any leads, very sorry,” said a different policeman this time; the other had gone to the toilet.
Tarrigan wore a hat, and he reached up to adjust it, because it was beginning to slip. Flossie was an okay guy…why him? Why anybody? It was all very deep. He had not been briefed for this kind of thing at detective school, and was an inexperienced rookie, but somehow knew he was the only one who could solve the case. And it might change him more than he knew. Alternatively it might not affect him at all, or only a small amount. These were three possibilities.
Tarrigan had another BigWig, and instantly felt better. He had always approved of a smoking lifestyle, and approved of the approaching vote on whether the age should be lowered, and decided that he could make a difference by writing to his elected senator.
“Detector Tarrigan!” a young fresh-behind-the-eyebrows kid ran up and spoke more words.
“A young boy has been kidnapped; his name is Buckley Fibonacci.”
Tarrigan wasn’t happy, but instead grew angry. This time the Easter Bunny had gone too far. Everyone’s killed an adult, but children are another matter.
He turned into the sunset and shouted into the streets of Palmeida.
“Easter Bunny, your days are almost finished! Tarrigan’s on the case!”

It takes some kind of genius to write something that terrible. Bravo, Jack.

Last Exit to Brooklyn - Hubert Selby, Jr

I finished Freedom and loved it! Not sure if I should start another book now, or if I should wait until we leave for France and then read tons. OH LIFE IS TOUGH.

Model Bahaviour by Jay McInerney

The Never Enders was really good. Creeped me out though because the Perry character kept reminding me of somebody I know. The way he talks is very similar.

Shall start The Samaritan later today.

The Plot Against America by Philip Roth.