{"id":162657827,"date":"2025-11-28T07:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-11-28T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lazyandentitled.org\/?p=162657827"},"modified":"2025-11-27T21:38:05","modified_gmt":"2025-11-28T02:38:05","slug":"friday-links-god-help-us-the-moon-happened-to-us","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lazyandentitled.org\/?p=162657827","title":{"rendered":"Friday Links: God Help Us, The Moon Happened To Us"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\u201cMy least favorite part of the day is from 2:34 to 4:56 in the afternoon.\u201d \u2013 Percival Everett, \u2018Dr. No\u2019<\/h6>\n\n\n\n

If you were able to, I hope you took some time to be with loved ones this week. I read two of my favorite books. Next week’s books look promising, too. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

What I’ve Been Reading This Week<\/strong>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Two books I’ve read before! Suppose I said that up there. Give yourself a little present every day<\/a>, Agent Cooper says, so I read two of my favorite authors this week. Two books that, let’s be honest, probably aren’t noir, but get at some dark hopelessness. Something bad is always in the air in these books, a world not so much gone mad as letting you know things are even wilder than you could possibly imagine. “Do not speak to me of the moon,” Samuel Beckett implores us in an epigraph in a book titled moon-study<\/em>. “In my night, there is no moon, and it happens that I speak of the stars, it is by mistake.” Now imagine Humphrey Bogart saying that. Now imagine Lakeith Stanfield. I kept imagining him as the narrator of one of this week’s books, with Daniel Kaluuya getting to ham it up as the villain. That’s the adaptation I want, anyway, with Boots Riley directing. I’m talking, of course, about Dr. No <\/em>by Percival Everett and Selenography <\/em>by Joshua Marie Wilkinson (with Polaroids by Tim Rutili). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Dr.
Dr. No <\/em>by Percival Everett and Selenography <\/em>by Joshua Marie Wilkinson (with Polaroids by Tim Rutili)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Dr. No<\/em> by Percival Everett: <\/strong>how glad I am to re-read this, knowing what happens! The ending is wonderful\u2014Everett writes the best endings\u2014but it was nice this time to read with some expectation. This time around, I tried to read with an eye toward \u201cnothing\u201d as a metaphor for nukes. People going looking for something they shouldn\u2019t be looking for. What results from the search. Would love for someone to syllabus this book, Dr. Strangelove<\/em>, the \u201cGot A Light\u201d episode of Twin Peaks<\/em>, and Oppenheimer<\/em>. Maybe read The Bomb<\/em> by Theodore Taylor in week one of that class, though.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a sense, this is the ultimate dad book. If, like one of my good friends, your dad would punish you by making you read pages from Surely You\u2019re Joking Mr. Feynman<\/em>, that is. Or if your dad is an amateur violinist and clock enthusiast, like mine. The novel spends a lot of time on clever wordplay and Bond villain stuff. It\u2019s one of the funniest books ever written, but only if you have a certain sense of humor. Honesty, this is kind of what I wish campus novels were. It reads like Everett has a couple of mathematician friends he wanted to rib by putting in a spy novel. Elaborate jokes like that are what I like to picture university profs sitting around thinking up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One last thought: Brendan and I like to think of No Country For Old Men<\/em> and Burn After Reading<\/em> as the same movie, just one\u2019s a tragedy and one\u2019s a comedy. Obviously, that\u2019s a simplification, but fun to consider. I sort of think The Trees<\/em> and Dr. No<\/em> have a similar relationship.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Selenography<\/em> by Joshua Marie Wilkinson (with Polaroids by Tim Rutili): <\/strong>some long poems that read as though you are Tom Waits drunk while leading a guided tour through some forests you\u2019ve only seen in dreams, accompanied by some fucked up polaroids by Tim Rutili, aka one of the Califone guys. That should be enough to get you to read this book, yeah? I like to read Josh in November, because I really do feel like vague dread and alienation hangs over his work (complimentary). This might be my favorite poetry book of his, although Swamp Isthmus<\/em> and The Book Of Whispering In The Projection Booth<\/em> might have something to say, and Meadow Slasher<\/em> is an absolute force of nature. Damn, I might need to stop typing and go read Josh books. You should, too.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

LINKS!<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Something to listen to while you browse? Is it Christmas music season already?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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