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Use or lose Mg dreams of corona mandala tattoos + the finite jest of culling the slush pile

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846

1/27/2021> We were sposed to drive these folks we din't know from S.F. to L.A. today + as designated driver we wanted to get a good night's sleep last night. It was like 3:30 in the afternoon + they were itching to "do something" + had never been to wherever we were, which evidently was now D.C. cuz we told 'em maybe they'd dig Georgetown (they were European) + in our mind there was some castle/mountain there they could climb. They pointed out we had made an appointment earlier to get a tattoo (we'd all but forgotten), we had the design (a small round mandala-like thing) that were planning on getting that we kept in our wallet for safe-keeping + the appointment was 4–6 pm (or 4–8 in case the tattoo artist needed more time) + we figured it was still early enough + the design was small + wouldn't take long, tho we were slightly concerned about it hurting our arm + whether we'd be okay to drive the next day (we don't know why no 1 else was able to drive). We were waiting for the tattoo artist in ½-broken lounge chairs on the street + trying to figure out where the tattoo would go... we was thinking the upper arm but didn't know which + in the end desided our right sholder (the spot where u get shots (relevant cuz the mandala design sort of looked like a corona virus)). We aksed these strangers we were with where they were moving to + they didn't know + we was tripping out on how we would be able to move them if they didn't know where they were moving to + they said don't worry about it, that we'd figure it out when we got there. The tattoo artist came + we figured maybe we shd go to the bathroom before sitting down for 2 hours + the bathroom was this elaborate large dark velvety lounge + we couldn't really find a urinal. Sum woman was in there holding a metal cup over her breast + tenderly kissing the cup + we realized she was pumping + treating this metal cup like it was her baby + it tripped us out how far removed humuns are from their natural habitat.

After posting Magnesium Dreams by G. Lish (our alternate suggestion (cuz Gordon has been none to read Sleepingfish + we wouldn't want him to take it the wrong way) was "Lord Sinhog," but then figured G. could be Gary or Greg + was ambiguous enough) we got to reading about magnesium + sure enough, it's known to inkgrease dream function + help 1 sleep bedder so we took 1 before bed + maybe that's why what happened happend last night. (Docs last year also recommended magnesium for our mineareyes d-zzz so might also x-plane the heavy dream activity that went into Residue.) Not that we slept so well last night... we had heavy indian (dahl makani, baigan barta, palaak paneer, etc.) cuz evidently we have all these mileage + AMEX points to burn + get crazy discounts on Uber Eats (1st time we've bothered to use them), etc. American Airlines sent us an email yesterday telling us our miles will expire in 6 months... how fucked is that? Bullying people into flying in the middle of a pandemic. The hole idea of freakwind flyer miles is fucked, specially when they're use it or lose it... they can all expire for all we care.

Despite our occasional culling efforts, our to-read pile seems to burgeon faster then we can get thru it to the extent that books we've bin meaning to read get buried deep down in a slushpile. This is in large part cuz in our book box wanderings to keep our one liebury boox well-curated, we tend to horde books that look intresting + add to our to-read pile instead of the pile by the door to re-up our liebury boox. So we're thinking we'll do a monthly round-up of notable books we peruse + decide it ain't worth the effort... not cuz they ain't good but just cuz life is too short + we got so many other books to get thru.

  • The Grammarians by Cathleen Schine—sum 1 put this in our boox after we blogged about Poto and Cabengo + put The Gotham Grammarian in our boox (which was snatched up right away) so made us wonder if people who freakwind our liebury boox (witch are numerous) read this hear blog. We're intrigued by twins + the grammar they use + the creepy Diane Arbusesque cover, but once we cracked the spine the language was too stilted + typical that we didn't get too far into it. But thanks anyway if sum did leave that for us. What's weirder is that as we type this our screen is visible to those looking @ our book box + we can sort of see perusing passersby in the corner of our eye. Spose we could turn + face the street, but that would we weirder to make eye contact w/ people.
  • Role Models by John Waters—we love John Waters but he's not such a good writer + these are essays about people he fawns over inkluding the Manson girls, which is kind of unsettling cuz it almost felt like he was glamorizing them (that's where we stopped reading)
  • On Aggression by Konrad Lorenz—we picked this book up a few months ago when tensions were high + we wanted to understand the aggressive tendencies of Amerikins but now we're thinking we'd rather just put this all behind us
  • Religion and Science by Bertrand Russell—picked this 1 up for perhaps the same reason as above but to understand the religious tendonseas (@ the expense of sighence) of Amerikins, but this seems rather dumbed down (specially for Russell) + maybe sum things we'd rather not know
  • The Counterfeiters by André Gide—we may have tried to read this before, or tried his poetry for sure, but his world (Paris in 1926) just seems so far removed that we just can't enter it
  • Methland by Nicke Reding—maybe if this landed in our lap last year when we were working on Textiloma we might have read it, but seems we've read enough books + seen enough movies/
    shows/documentaries on the subject
  • After Dark by Haruki Murakami—we've liked other Murakami we've read (but not loved)... there's sumthing just sorta randum about him like he just happend to be in the right place @ the right time + found himself mindlessly cranking out all these books that people seem to love just cuz they are benign + there ain't much not to like
  • Census by Jesse Ball—1 of the things we often do when we peruse books is we go on GoodReads to see what our "friends" think about a book + Joe Sacksteder gave this ★★★ w/ a link to a review he wrote for it, so thx Joe for freeing up a day of our life to read another book (intresting as the premise of the book sounds + from what we member we did dig another Jesse Ball book we read)
  • A Very Large Expanse of Sea by Tahereh Mafi—seems a bit mainstream for our tastes, b-sides apparently it's being turned into a movie so maybe we'll try watching that (tho it also feels very Disney/young adult)
  • Tree of Smoke by Denis Johnson—we've tried to read this before + we've dug other stuff by Denis Johnson, just don't know if were that intrested in Vietnam to invest in this

Not all the 1s in this slushy pile that we were on the fence about end up in our liebury boox re-up pile. For eggsample, we were about to put Infinite Jest in this pile (which of course we snatched when we saw it in another boox (as always in exchange for another in kind))... but although we abandoned it 300 or 400 pages into it before (we were reading it when DFW died), we ain't quite ready to give up on it just yet, specially if these variants keep mutating + we're stuck in homebound isolation for another year. We also was skimming (c)opyrights and (ɔ)opywrongs by Siva Vaidhyanthan + it seems worthy enough to keep reading (we're certainly intrested in the subject). We're also ½-way into Alice Knott by Blake Butler (not that this was @ all teetering on the edge of our slush pile, this 1 he hand-delivered it to us when he came to visit a month or 2 ago)... digging it so far, seems his best yet + bordering on epic, maybe we wouldn't go so far as to say he's maturing to a DFW level, but @ times the writing reminds us of Bernhard or Delillo.

845 <(current)> 847> Gaudí-tiled sky i-lands rapped in blackened butternut + riot grrrl barbed-wire
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