Jake > Recent Status Updates

Wow, people hated this huh? Have I fallen for another Lethem blurb when I should have known better by now? Am I here out of displaced loyalty to Douglas Lain's Zero Books YouTube series that they wiped out of existence when management changed? We'll see. Off to a good start at least. The aliens are here. And they are lame

The bubo slicing scene is making me feel faint. Pretty impressive, Connie

Here's a part that hit home for me about teenagers mental health being *privatized*: "By privatizing these problems – treating them as if they were caused only by chemical imbalances in the individual’s neurology and/or by their family background – any question of social systemic causation is ruled out."

What I get: its unthinkable to change our economy to prevent this on a large scale. We must suffer individually.

The most compelling thing I've read lately does not have an ISBN and can't be marked on Goodreads. So, I'm giving it a post to itself.

"Amazon's Stranglehold: How the Company’s Tightening Grip Is
Stifling Competition, Eroding Jobs, and
Threatening Communities",

a 79-page pdf available for free from the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, paints a damning picture of their practices and a grim picture of outcomes.

I wonder what else Geoff Nicholson has stuck his blurb on. I knew he was realiable. This is a funny book.

The dialogue is fun, it's eventful and set in an interesting time and place, but the campiness is out of control. Ironically, it's excesses, while irritating are what keeps it entertaining and fast paced.

"Until now we have mainly been concerned with conservatism as a private sector operation, as a constellation of cynical theorists, amateur red baiters and libertarian ideologues for hire. More significant by far, however, was its public sector correlative, the conservative state. This was where the rubber hit the road-or rather, where the buzz saw met the flesh." Here comes a preview of our times.

Up to this point we're mostly engaged with the bizzare history of campus republicans, especially Abramoff, Howard Phillips and Grover Norquist as they tear away from the Republican establishment, start their own fundraising projects and lend themselves to industry as mercenaries for hire in the quest to fight environmental regulations and smash Nader's PIRGS. Thus the creation of the political entrepreneur.

Christmas eve dreams of the 68 Chicago DNC riots for me tonight. Vicious nightsticks, orange clouds of tear gas and crushing crowds of trapped, panicking hippies.

" She had the naturalist's lack of attention to outward appearances, an indifference towards things like cosmetics and grooming that read not as apathy but rather as transcendence."

There have been a lot good lines in this book, and this may not be the most poweful or witty of them but I liked it as a character sketch.

The science is proving harder to understand than I'd expected. Will definitely be needing some supplemental material if I wanna keep reading this book.

Almost done. Really excited that Miranda July will be doing a Q and A on Facebook. See her if page there if you want the date.

I had this marked for an easy read but it's not to be. Condon has a madcap

Forget it. Maybe I will have someone else get me through this disgusting stuff that grandma is doing to Francis, but I really just think I could be doing better. What's good in Young Adult lately, hmmm?

I miss the weirdness of those first five amazing Lethem books. Great writing, but not the transporting read I've come to expect. Then again I've been away for 3 novels. A lot character history, a lot of telling, but I'd be happier to have their personalities shown through plot more often. It's as much portrait as story. The momentum is in his style and the emotional grip of his observations.