whenever I see a lost cat flyer I go into a hyperalert fugue state (is that a contradiction in terms? well it isn’t for me) for several blocks because I want so badly to be a cat-finding savant, a little saint francis of the district. however, of all the talents I lack I might lack this one the most

this is amazing to nobody but me. still, to me it is amazing I know why I don’t like hans bellmer, I know why I do love hans christian andersen. clever hans & hans brinker have no secrets from me. but my problem with hans fallada? simply did not remember colin wilson to blame! wouldn’t you know it

I hit the very bottom of the bad books barrel & am looking to tunnel my way back out to human dignity via the magic mountain or some dostoyevsky or whatever else I can think of. recommend me a classic if you want but it has to be both good and serious. high art for the high-minded

the loathly machines think they have figured out my demographic weakness & serve me nothing but this class of advertisement morning noon & night too bad they are 20 yrs too late to convince me it is a problem I need to buy something about. or 30 more like

well now I don't know if it’s fair to expect better behavior from someone whose parents named them Hantavirus Brit. only natural really. when they got sick it must have felt like their destiny had finally come calling like hannibal lecter upon first looking into a rhyming dictionary

don’t know what this might mean about entering a new & unwanted stage of mental maturity, but I have been noticing some persistent desires to own a pack of hounds

(because of their short little legs, esp. when in a hurry. same quality as corgis & a couple of overbred kinds of cat, you feel a longing to grab one & give it a hug, mixed with an awful guilt for your humanity. though as far as crocodiles are concerned I don’t think the leg situation is our fault)

I care for crocodiles and their well-being (mostly because the pink crocodile was the most memorable of madam mim’s transformations—but I still mean it) but seeing the news of a depraved youth arrested for firing a gun at one, I had to ask myself: is this viral marketing for the latest catriona ward

do you ever want to read a flaming denunciation of everybody who over the past decade wrote identical blank filler about having an “email job,“ which served the sole purpose of walling out the wrong classes of people from jobs that pay money, by refusing to ever tell outsiders what they are

struggling through to the end of a. espach’s the wedding people first I thought I was going to throw up from the relationship flashbacks (complimentary) as they were altogether too real, but by the time all the reality fell out the bottom, the novel was a room I was happy to storm out of in a huff

there was a kid with a highly amplified electric violin outside the grocery store & then a guy in “special police” combat gear & some kind of face cowl skulking around by the doors. or sulking? no he was skulking I’m sure because by the time I came out again he was grooving (to the electric viol)

literature is a poison & the proof is I’d lay odds these two are in love or will be in love within the next 40 pages. I’d wager my left arm on it whereas if I overheard such a conversation in life, would I think the same? I would not

my beautiful cat almost never fully stands or reclines upon me; every time she does it‘s a big event & everybody has to hear about it. in her mind she is playing a complicated game where I am a tall ship & as long as she keeps 1 foot on solid ground, passengers are still boarding & I can‘t sail away

Caroline & I would get along so well because what I enjoy is to slightly shock people with my denunciations of whatever, at the moment, happens to be the special annoyance

the author here is not one I think that highly of, but when he’s right he’s right. being right two footnotes in a row is a rare gift christ how “inexplicably amusing“ some people do find that whole business oh the stories I could tell naturally I won‘t. but could

hardest part of right rotator cuff surgery recovery was learning to catch myself with my left arm every time I fell down or was taken by surprise. by the time I got my reflexes right it didn’t matter anymore bc I fell down some wet stairs right onto the afflicted arm the very first week

edith wharton's THE CHILDREN is a nasty, nasty, nasty, nasty piece of work sort of a little bit like all the julian f. thompsons I got so into not long ago, with an interlude like the tirades against Experiment House in the narnia books, with a main guy who is one of not one but two humberts humbert

there’s a bus stop advertisement I walked by today whose visible-to-me part said ANXIOUS JESUS CAN HELP and I am sorry but anxious jesus can help nobody until he gets his own jitters under control. put on thine own oxygen mask & take thine own pharmaceuticals first, & all that

how dare you all make your callow jokes about the pierce brosnan versailles lesbian mermaid movie without mentioning it’s based on that vonda mcintyre book!! don't think I ever read it, I think it came out like a year after the era when I would read anything of that kind, no questions asked, ended

can’t even tell you how many lower-level grants & residencies & contests I have been pushed towards by well-meaning people & known in seconds of starting to read the requirements there was no point in applying bc I would never, ever, ever agree to do these things.

my favorite book descriptions are always the ones I write myself. probably because when I look back over them, at best they give me the pleasing sensation of looking in the mirror & at worst they give me the displeasing sensation of looking in the mirror. but this one is better than any of mine:

fresh off finding out that the premium birthday party location for (pre-)tweens when I was one is (or is said to be) the world’s largest roller rink, I now find out that its attached tween nightclub CLOSED IN 2020 they paved paradise & put up an ice cream shop everything good & pure is gone

little did I know when i spoke so cavalierly about them a month ago that I would soon be hate-reading a diabolical sub-ansteyan fantasie myself has a half-decent beginning but then christ it gets so bad I know not all horror novels are bad. I have read good ones!!! haven’t I? did I only dream it

again speaking of lawrence of arabia (but not with reference to any geopolitical atrocities depicted & predicted therein, which is a neat trick only I can do) do you think I could just condense my resume to quoting the bit allenby reads out loud from his file

just finished watching the new jenny nicholson (it’s terrific, I have adopted all her thoughts on some new bullshit as if they were my own) but my soul cries out to know over how & why she went into every detail of a twilight knockoff set in “spoon river” with nary a mention of edgar lee masters

lot of people running their mouths about susan cooper with absolutely no acknowledgement of how deep into robert graves she’ll get you if you don’t watch it do you want to spend the most embarrassing tween years in that one section at the bookstore that’s just half a shelf, being confused abt trees

I see the professional reacher commentators are at it again dare I hope more seasons will come before the poor actor gets so tall & top-heavy he is mathematically incapable of standing up again if you tip him over, & in anxious fear takes to sleeping standing up, in a stall or out in pastures green

I was in grad school in Seattle when lindy west was writing for the stranger, which we all read, as was the style at the time. this was long ago, my memory is bad, but I thought of her then as a good general critic. it was weird when she got famous & simultaneously her areas of interest dwindled

damn it she’s doing it again (going into the magic flowerpot & coming out the far side of the mirror) she’s not allowed and she won’t even tell me how she does it

people are again quoting the many times gene roddenberry said, to anybody who happened to have a notebook or tape recorder on them, "I'm sorry that I have never had a homosexual relationship." now, I understand that he phrased it as a regret, all the many times he brought it up. but--

reading the margeries sharp that aren't about mouses. I tried once before & couldn't do it but they give me no trouble now. I have plenty of complaints about this one (the nutmeg tree) in particular but as a brave experiment I will try keeping them to myself. for the moment

gave up looking for coats to buy due to diabolical dreams & the advent of spring. but I am still looking for a dress that will make me look, not exactly like a third-stage guild navigator, but will give the same effect when I enter a room wearing it as being wheeled in in a spice tank would

oh my god do you want to hear something else awful actually two things, this time

tears in my eyes (from exquisite mirth) induced by watching the very serious forgery exposé brought to me by the rare book list I am STILL ON (don't ask why) (masochism) the trained eye instantly & instinctively spots a fake hemingway signature rendered as "ernest hemmmmmmingway" (approximately)

in my considerable bookselling experience, the larger the beast, the easier it is to evict. the smaller ones can hide in tiny forgotten places you would never think to look. the poetry section, and so on. this is true of customers as well

no matter how awful things get there are always insane opera posters to sustain & enthrall them that have ears to hear nobody’s written titles/headlines like this since clickhole’s best years. but opera monomaniacs really mean it

had a distressing dream last night about buying a vintage anne klein II trench coat that had an owl in it the owl wasn't distressing on its own, I made friends with it & it went through airplane security on my shoulder. no trouble. but there were complications we were pursued into the mountains

remember in a swiftly tilting planet when the special american children had to avert global thermonuclear war with, I want to say, patagonia? by going back in time & being nice at strategic moments to the welsh & also to meg's mother-in-law

I built her a whole fake orange tree with my own two hands and all she wants to do is make out with her snake theodora you break my heart

six years I've spent with my beautiful cat & before today I never once played her a single album or song I was sure meant anything to her. it was like she had no feeling for music at all and now by god she's stretched out next to me listening like she's never listened before (to Pure Moods)

next time I want to make someone's eyebrows stand on end due to the static electricity coming out of their brains, I will show you what it was like to be pushing 40 in 1963. or what people thought of you. but a lot of what life is like is determined by what people think of you

for a full week and a half I was captivated by a nurse novel I thought existed (the greater mass of nurse novels as you must know are the dullest things in the world) "accursed nurse" it was called & I would whisper it to myself - ACCURSED NURSE! imagine it echoing down the stone walls of an abbey

if I can be very dull for a minute I got my beautiful cat some of those pumpkin & wheatgrass packets you are supposed to feed to your beautiful cat now and then for the good of her health. but it doesn't say on the packets how you are supposed to explain this to your beautiful cat

read another julian thompson that I will not name because I can't implicitly recommend it even with reservations & disclaimers. language & some of the ideas not what you would call redeemable for the youth of today, even large-minded, history-conscious youth. still, it had moments

I get a good warm glow from reading a deprecation of "sub-Ansteyan fantasies" by a cataloger who thinks it his business to mention them but not to define them. he was right in that.

I think I have been buying some extremely stupid books in my sleep this is an experience I wish everyone could have at least once in their lives. it teaches you things about yourself you could learn in no other way. or so I believe

oh my god do you want to see something awful I am always looking at sketchy therapeutic devices for the neck & spine, the faker & weirder the better. only rarely do I buy one; the effects are best felt by looking at them through a computer. it's a complex medical mechanism, you wouldn't understand

it’s goddamn 1981, why do I have to listen to this same old shit again, I am hardly even alive yet to speak of put away the machines & tell me more about rowan’s mean little clone psychopath sister, that’s what I came to this book for

boy, I hope nobody who's been happily letting c. doctorow put repulsive words & dingdong concepts into their mouths & brains for years now is going to get mad at him for loving repulsive computer programs! that is an activity & a judgment reserved for those of us with standards

ok I am trying to learn the g minor organ prelude on the fake piano & the very beginning before what I will call the "organ part" starts going tweedle tweedle tweedle forever is so beautiful, but it's so funny I can't handle this I am going to hurt myself. it's not too hard but I can't stop laughing