Tuesday, September 27, 2011

Thirty days of suck XIII: thirteen is the loneliest number that you'll ever do

Being male, an American, married with children, & with nearly four decades of living existence under his belt, I've got enough crap to choose thirteen things from. As usual, I try & hide the fugly for not just my benefit, but yours. Being the Chuck Mosley of the Towering Slab, I care a lot.

So, after threatening to steal homie's sunset, I contemplated the ramifications of such a crime against the fabric of society or something, & stole an idea instead.























From the top of the mountain of paradise to the deepest circle of hell, stuff I dig with a muchness,

one & two, Lord & Master of HPL scholarship S.T. Joshi's two-volume final word, barring a Shadow Out of Time-style interloper, on the high priest of squishy cosmic indifference.

three, the newest volume of The Blizzard, the quarterly footie mag, edited by

four, the writer of this book, the bible of tactics porn, Inverting the Pyramid by Jonathan Wilson.

five, an infamous tome, criticized for being overly sensationalist, most notably by disciples of Varg, or fans of balance, I suppose (true, at times), but hey, when you take two of my favorite things, metal & weird, & toss 'em in a bubbly cauldron of evil fuckery, I'm so there.

six, a lovely, lovely book, Rohan Kriwaczek's deadpan An Incomplete History of The Art of Funerary Violin. Enchanting, thorough (musical examples included) & one-hundred percent fictional.

seven, Big Edgar.

eight, The Decadent Reader, edited by Asti Hustvedt, a collection of bonkers French aesthete-writers, the nineteenth century equivalent of scholar-athletes, minus the hand-wringing capitalist exploitation.

nine, a flâneur's handbook.

ten, John Donne's The Complete English Poems.

eleven, an imaginary place that, if the cosmos weren't so indifferent, would totally exist, at least as a theme park with rides, souvenir t-shirts, & spicy human dogs.

twelve, ♪ my love for you is like a truck, berserker ♫

thirteen, damn, that's grainy. 'tis The Annotated Alice.
Don't believe me? Down the rabbit hole with yours truly.


Tomorrow, the eyes have it.

8 comments:

ifthethunderdontgetya™³²®© said...

Books?

You commie.
~

that girl said...

A student from the bibliotheque at a more swanky school than ours says that ours is way better because we still have books. Go figure.

Also, you're making me look bad, being all motivated and stuff.

Randal Graves said...

if, books are manufactured by capitalist enterprises whose only goal isn't the expansion of the mind but the bottom line, viva, um, Molotovs or something.

thatgirl, what's wrong with that person, not demanding instant e-access? Paper's as dead as Tocharian B, dammit.

Taking a picture, uploading it & churning out vaguely descriptive prose is motivated? Dude, I AM James Brown.

Tom Harper said...

Eleven does exist. All you have to do is eat a large pepperoni pizza right before going to sleep, and your twisted dreams will take you there.

susan said...

Does this mean you had to stand on your copy of the OED to take a level picture of this collection?

Randal Graves said...

tom, now why would I want to dream about endless lines of dumb questions at work, you sadistic bastard.

susan, can I substitute the OCD, or a stack of ph - do they even print up those anymore?

lisahgolden said...

I knew you were of the smarty pants ilk, but now I also know that you pack books that you could kill with. The heft! The heft!

Randal Graves said...

Guns aren't my gig, so one must resort to unorthodox methods of combat.