October 2009
1 post
New Yorker, Oct 5, 2009.
I often find myself wondering why I read the New Yorker. Yes, the reporting is nonpareil, and there are very few (print) magazines left that allow their writers the column space to deeply explore their subject matter. When I was younger, I would read the magazine complete — the Talk of the Town, the humor, the poetry, the fiction, all the criticism, even the little media...
July 2009
1 post
The Resurrection
Well, since I now have a disgraceful amount of time on my hands, I’ve decided to revive this little old blog here. I’ll be writing about the same stuff as before: books, art, culture in its myriad and mysterious forms; I might even post some fiction, should I ever finish anything.
I’ve also sworn to myself that, in the spirit of Stendhal by way of Harry Mathews, I will write at...
September 2008
4 posts
Liar! Infidel! →
Turns out that McCain, in addition to not knowing the difference between a Sunni and Shiite, and on which continent Spain is located, also doesn’t know anything about the people working for him! Go figure.
And now, something not for the ladies... →
Esquire has cobbled together a 75-strong list of books every man should read. The “Great Male Narcissists” are all represented, included among a slew of middling novels by, well, hacks. As I recall, Flannery O’ Connor was the only woman to make the grade, and that only by dint of a single, Al Bundy-type quote. In fact, the whole thing reads like the He-Man-Woman-Haters Club...
Speaking of my man DFW →
Benjamin Kunkel, of n+1 and Indecision fame, has written a heartfelt, eloquent eulogy of David Foster Wallace. In reading the incredible outpouring of affection and admiration for the man, at the McSweeney’s website especially, I’ve realized I am far from alone in considering him a stone cold genius, and the best writer of our generation. (I’ve co-opted him for us!) Sad,...
Funniest Novel Ever? →
Where’s DFW? And they almost unanimously vote for Kingsley without mentioning little Nepotiz (Martin)!? Both London Fields and The Rachel Papers made me laugh out loud, a rarity for novels. So too does Wodehouse — glad to see he’s right up there.
August 2008
3 posts
For those who watch political commentary on...
At the risk of beating a long dead horse, I’d once again like to point out the almost laughable partisanship of the news channels, MSNBC and Fox in particular. Last night, after Obama’s speech, I found myself flipping back and forth between the two aforementioned networks, comparing their post-speech commentary (which, by the way, is absolutely endless, and I end up paying attention...
A Farewell To A Farewell To Arms
One of the most fun things about “reading like a writer” (as Francine Prose put it) is recognizing tics in a writer’s style. When I say “reading like a writer,” I mean the technique of stepping back from the text and consciously imagining what the writer was trying to do. When I do this, and I often forget to, I actually imagine the writer sitting at his desk,...
For my readers, if and when you ever arrive
Unfortunately I don’t know how to enable comments on tumblr, so if you wish to comment on any facet of the blog, don’t hesitate to drop me an email (theintentionalfallacyblog@gmail.com). I eagerly await any contact whatsover, as writing on this blog for no one is kind of like me talking to myself, at length.
July 2008
5 posts
Jews!
So yesterday I went to see Action/Abstraction: Pollack, De Kooning, and American Art 1940-1976 at the Jewish Museum. It was my first time there — clearly I am a reprobate Jew — and I was really impressed both with the museum itself and the curation and design of this particular exhibit.
The premise of Action/Abstraction is as far as I can tell sui generis: while the exhibit touts the...
Papa was a rolling stone
As many of you know, I have been a designated hater of Hemingway for some time now. I had read In Our Time and The Sun Also Rises, the latter probably his most lauded novel, and was not greatly impressed with either of them. I objected at the level of style, that often unquantifiable aspect of fiction. I preferred (and still do) a fancy prose style, like Nabokov’s Humbert Humbert, and...
Ah, James Wood, Let Me Count The Ways
Well, since I’ve moved to a different site, and thereby have disavowed what was or wasn’t said on Enfield, I am calling off the moratorium on Mr. Wood, as I have just finished his new book, and since it’s all about fiction, I feel obligated to write a little something on it.
How Fiction Works, Wood’s new book length essay, attempts to break down fiction into its...
2 tags
New!
Hey all,
So I’ve decided to say farewell to Enfield, and begin anew here at tumblr. I think the prefab design scheme looks a little better — simpler, cleaner — and maybe it will inspire me to newer, greater rhetorical heights! (Though I doubt it.) At any rate, I recently posted on Enfield the gameplan for the coming weeks/months, so I’ll repeat that stuff here, and...
“I’m too drunk to taste this chicken.”
– Colonel Sanders