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Just finished the Thurston Moore Sonic Life autobiography. Pretty fucking dull recitation of facts and figures. Nothing revelatory about the band's creative process, and surprisingly very few good stories, which is sad considering he knew pretty much everyone who was operating in music during that time. Every story ends with.:

"....then **** got on stage and blasted mystikal sonic flatulance straight through my external auditory meatus."

Still better than the Kim Gordon book.

Summary: Thurston went to about 500 Patti Smith concerts but his band never really got as successful as he had hoped...but pretty close, and he got to hang out with his musical heroes. Also he tried marriage counseling, so cut him a break.

Edit: Oh, and I almost forgot. Despite devoting entire chapters to Nirvana, he writes that In Utero was recorded "at Steve Albini's Chicago studio".

kokorodoko wrote: Thu Feb 29, 2024 12:59 amConstructing Socialism at the Grass Roots: The Transformation of East Germany (Corey Ross, 2000).

As popular as western films were, the greatest threat in the eyes of the SED and FDJ leadership was American ‘beat music’, derided as a prime example of ‘western decadence’ and ‘American lack of culture’ (Unkultur).

Transmitted across most of the GDR by Radio Luxemburg, RIAS and ‘Freies Berlin’, ‘rock and roll’ music quickly became as popular among East German youths as among their western counterparts. Elvis Presley was particularly idolized; fan-clubs sprouted up in numerous towns and cities.

Much of the apprehension felt by functionaries and parents towards this particular aspect of the 1950s youth subculture was similar to that in the West: the hip-shaking was seen as immoral and degrading to young women, and also contradicted the normative ideal of a strictly disciplined and controlled masculinity.

But what made it so dangerous in the eyes of the East German authorities were two other concerns. First, like the influence of the church, its very existence was viewed as a threat to the monopoly position of the FDJ and thus to the political mobilization and education of youth more generally.

Second, western beat-music was regarded as nothing less than a form of ‘psychological warfare’ and ‘moral and spiritual poisoning of our youth’, designations which not only labelled it a political problem along the lines of ‘agitation hostile to the state’, but also aided its conflation with various other forms of youth delinquency and criminality.

kokorodoko wrote: Sat Mar 23, 2024 4:53 am

kokorodoko wrote: Thu Feb 29, 2024 12:59 amConstructing Socialism at the Grass Roots: The Transformation of East Germany (Corey Ross, 2000).

As popular as western films were, the greatest threat in the eyes of the SED and FDJ leadership was American ‘beat music’, derided as a prime example of ‘western decadence’ and ‘American lack of culture’ (Unkultur).

Transmitted across most of the GDR by Radio Luxemburg, RIAS and ‘Freies Berlin’, ‘rock and roll’ music quickly became as popular among East German youths as among their western counterparts. Elvis Presley was particularly idolized; fan-clubs sprouted up in numerous towns and cities.

Much of the apprehension felt by functionaries and parents towards this particular aspect of the 1950s youth subculture was similar to that in the West: the hip-shaking was seen as immoral and degrading to young women, and also contradicted the normative ideal of a strictly disciplined and controlled masculinity.

But what made it so dangerous in the eyes of the East German authorities were two other concerns. First, like the influence of the church, its very existence was viewed as a threat to the monopoly position of the FDJ and thus to the political mobilization and education of youth more generally.

Second, western beat-music was regarded as nothing less than a form of ‘psychological warfare’ and ‘moral and spiritual poisoning of our youth’, designations which not only labelled it a political problem along the lines of ‘agitation hostile to the state’, but also aided its conflation with various other forms of youth delinquency and criminality.

Relevant/interesting in this connection:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dean_Reed

A book of short stories by Kathleen Alcott called Emergency. Really fucking great writer. Need to get a novel from her.

I felt like looking back on the early 21st century and started Thomas Pynchon’s The Bleeding Edge on a whim

The Shards by Bret Easton Ellis.

Reza Negarestani : Cyclonopedia (2008)

Revolves around the idea of oil as a sentient being whose murky intentions have been able to realize themselves by means of capital. Therefore this being is also the driving force behind the wars of the Middle East. The fact that oil itself has its origins in death (organic material buried and compressed over aeons), is significant to this.

The drilling after oil, boring holes in the Earth and so on, is described as a subject-less process, in such a way that it takes a while to realize what is actually being described. Holes appear throughout the Earth without any human actors mentioned.

Intriguing concepts, but the execution falters due to overwroughtness. This is what a typical passage looks like:


"The increase of pore pressure induces dilations of the ( )hole complex and increases poroelasticity (both enhance fluid flow.) While the immediate transition from laminar to turbulent happens in pipes and channels, in porous media the passage from linear to non-linear is always gradual and gradient-wise, offering opportunities to compose new spaces, lines, connections, pores, modes of dynamism and participation — infinite possibilities in terms of flood. The compression of the solid matrix, or any attempt of solidus to keep itself integrated and save its consolidated and molar state (by preventing the fluid from running or escaping from one porous network to another or isolating pores), causes a substantial rise in pore pressure. The abrupt escalation in pore pressure triggers further and radical deformation of the solid matrix, dilation and contraction of pores (comparable to the plateau-engineering mechanism of libidinal spasms addressed by Freud), progressive ungrounding of solidus, regional pore collapse and finally the composition of new worm-ridden spaces or zones of emergence. Nemat-space is an ultimate crawling machine; it is essentially cryptogenic and interconnected with Anonymous-until-Now. Anonymous-until-Now is the model of Time in ( )hole complex, whose probes and lines of itineracy move unpredictably according to both the subsoil and superficial ungrounding machineries that weaken the solidus by perversely exploiting and manipulating it (exhuming solidus)."


There is a glossary which "explains" terms used in the book, like this:

"Fundamental to double-dealing or double-numbering, feedback spirals maintain a self-reinforcing movement by mobilizing Trisons. Correspondingly, they have a triangular vortical structure. Feedback spirals effectuate the communication of Trisons. In a polytical formation, they maintain the autonomy of power formations in the Middle East by engineering a field of interaction between Trisons. Feedback spirals are Tiamaterialistic counterparts of the divine creator. See Double-numbering, Trison and Tiamaterialism."


Every sentence is packed like this and it's kind of exhausting. Don't know if I will finish it.

This piece (https://studio-labour.com/nine-sum-sorcery / https://evelynbencicova.com/mi%E2%80%A0 ... um-sorcery) references that book and had me intrigued, but I never picked it up because I suspected I would potentially hate it for the reason you mention.

kokorodoko wrote: Sun Apr 07, 2024 5:03 am Reza Negarestani : Cyclonopedia (2008)

Revolves around the idea of oil as a sentient being whose murky intentions have been able to realize themselves by means of capital. Therefore this being is also the driving force behind the wars of the Middle East. The fact that oil itself has its origins in death (organic material buried and compressed over aeons), is significant to this.

I have that one. Recommended by a certain MSJ!

llllllllllllllllllll wrote: Thu Apr 11, 2024 6:36 amRecommended by a certain MSJ!

Who?