Holidays mean everything and nothing to me. I am grateful for the any excuse to get together with my loved ones and eat a ton of good food, but I feel weird logging on to the internet to say I\u2019m excited about Thanksgiving. We must reflect, though\u2014be grateful for our loved ones, and remember the narrative of this holiday is bullshit. This Thanksgiving, work to kill the colonizer in your head. <\/p>
What I\u2019ve Been Reading This Week:<\/strong><\/p> Noir week is moving out of the 1930s-40s and into territory I, a person who unashamed claims The Big Lebowski<\/em> as his favorite movie, am thrilled about. But this isn\u2019t hippies in the 90s wandering aimlessly through speeches about Kuwait. No, we\u2019re going to the belly of the beast\u2014a post-Charles Manson, Nixon-in-office, Knicks-winning-championships<\/em> dark era for the United States. Do drugs and get paranoid, this week, we\u2019re reading Inherent Vice<\/em> by Thomas Pynchon. <\/p> I\u2019ve never read Pynchon before\u2014I\u2019ve got Crying Of Lot 49 <\/em>on the shelf, please don\u2019t recommend me Pynchon\u2014but man I really enjoyed this novel. Do I want more Pynchon or do I want more paranoid stoner narrators? It\u2019s such a tricky narrator to pull off. This book should be read in a group or class\u2014I know the analysis I can provide zipping through this thing during Thanksgiving break is going to be shallow. You\u2019re not quite sure what\u2019s going on, and you\u2019re not quite sure it matters. It\u2019s a lot like Chandler that way, except Doc Sportello is having acid flashbacks on top of daily marijuana use on top of untreated concussion symptoms on top of\u2014and this becomes important when Doc eats a whole chocolate cream pie for the dinner\u2014the diet of the 70s<\/em>. It\u2019s not Sam Spade eating pickled pigs feet with a police detective, though, so maybe things do improve through the generations. <\/p> The book made me laugh a good deal. It\u2019s also got loads and loads of very descriptive sex in it, so maybe I\u2019m not recommending for my parents\u2019 book club. But I love it for L.A. reasons, especially L.A. in the 70s reasons, and the breezy, unreliable, and confused journey the narration takes you on. I read fast and didn\u2019t think about it much, and it feels like I missed out, but also feels like that\u2019s what the book wanted me to do. Also, totally killer last line. <\/p> LINKS!<\/strong><\/p> Something to listen to? I made a mistake for the last five years and forgot Minus The Bear existed. My favorite track of theirs is \u201cSecret Country,\u201d which might be a weird choice, but whatever. <\/p>![\"book:](\"https:\/\/substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com\/public\/images\/e4259d2e-5a6d-4b04-9178-86005d81bae9.heic\")
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