Snake America: Number Nine
Errata: Reader Chris (and Reader Rob) noted my highlighting of the most ancillary/dumbest Sonny Sharrock contributions (Space Ghost) and not the good stuff (Black Woman (USA, 1992)) in the last one. This is true. I also should have mentioned his Les Paul and how dank it was. He could've been in Bulldoze.
Errata 2: Reader Aaron notes that in the one before that I had Ulysses as (Ireland, 1922), which wasn't good enough, and here's why: While Ireland is certainly where Ulysses (?, 1922) is set, it was not where it was published. Joyce wrote it when he was living in Trieste, Zurich, and then Paris. (I don't think he spent time in Dublin while writing Ulysses.) There are some great letters from Joyce to his aunt in which he asks her to do recon and make certain parts of the novel would be accurate. One example is when he asked her to measure the drop from the sidewalk to the basement entrance at 7 Eccles Street so he could describe exactly how far Leopold Bloom needed to lower himself after forgetting his keys (which also reveals that Bloom was actually quite tall for fin de siecle Dublin). But, I think what you're looking for is the place Ulysses was first published in the proper format, and that would be Paris, where Joyce lived with his family pre-occupation. This may be more info than you ever wanted or need about the publication of Ulysses*. The last thing I want to say is that if one wants to engage in a truly perfect year of reading, all they need is Finnegans Wake (Ireland, 1939), a nice variety of colored pens, and internet access. Well said, and thanks.
Snake is a regular email covering eBay auctions, Craigslist items, music videos and videos of music, ephemera, errata, people who have sex with peanut brittle, Egg Foo Young aficionados...
http://www.ebay.com/itm/151411941414 - Is the sneaker dead, or should it be put to bed? It's certainly not worth the attention it's given. Building a tasteful sneaker collection can hurt a wardrobe. Once someone gets to a certain point in their sneaker collection, they have prohibitively more sneakers than, say, light-fall-appropriate clothing. Just as light travels at 299,792,458 meters per second, owning 25 pairs of the same Air Jordan is actually a very cool thing. But having 25 pairs of deadstock Air Jordan Is** but, like, 511 Levi's in a light grey wash just isn't good enough. Moderation is awful, except when in completing a wardrobe. Maybe have more than two or three shirts... But there are also moments when one wonders if any item of clothing, as dank or refrained as it might be, can compare to a pair of butt-beating American Nike sneakers. Wearing these sneakers, the Sock Racers linked above, will set off whatever outfit you wear, wherever you go, whatever you do, whenever you do it. If you're wearing these and jeans that aren't True Religions, you'll still look good. If you have the misfortune of not being obese, and you wear these, you can still inspire fear/lust/jealousy in the hearts of men, women and miscellany***. These look like a cross between the muscular bumblebee Transformer and an off-brand Hudson Bay coat/cape Coco Chanel may have worn in Rive Gauche in the fall of 1922.
****
I have yet to discuss the socks. They are worth the price of purchase themselves. I'm surprised the auction's still up. The socks look even more like the bumblebee, but also like Princess of Wales's [sic] Royal Regiment Fine Gauge Striped Socks or the Nike Rift come-with socks. These Sock Racers may be a precursor to the Nike Rift*****, whose socks are the best part of the shoe. The socks here, which are not in any ads, any Nike books (to my knowledge) or anywhere else on the internet outside the above auction and this Facebook post (same pair), are like ice sculptures or the Hugo Boss paper suit, disintegrating and dying a little bit every time you wear them, like that Dorothy Parker quote or whatever. (The sole here is cracked, and the shoe is unwearable, but I'm talking cotton socks here.) The proof increases each day that sneaker collecting is not worth any time or attention, that the product is no good and that attempts, by either weird dustheads or bad magazines to justify a regular purchase schedule of sneakers leads to a drift into poor dress or worse. Sneaker collecting as an identity is lazy consumerism and, worse, bad style built on pale imitations. But the pale imitations are, to their credit, descended from something, and not all that.
http://hudsonvalley.craigslist.org/mcy/4669188301.html - A year out of college I was convinced I was going to make a lot of money somehow, though I had no idea how I'd make it or what I'd be doing--I assumed I wouldn't be working. Eventually I got a job and my goals adjusted to getting a gold tooth by 25 if I made a million dollars. That day came and went. The subsequent goal, adjusted to a $2,000 1989 BMW, was not met, either. I'm probably just going to buy my friend "Fat" Rich's Honda Fit when he sells it and I doubt I'll feel a thing for turning my back on a life lived with balls. But there are other ways of keeping up with the standards youth sets. This motorcycle might be the cheapest one. The economics of vehicle ownership being what they are, a purple motorcycle-sidecar combo is less a waste of money than a Honda. This, the California 1986 Friendship Sidecar is probably what Zoyd Wheeler rode down the Pacific Coast Highway when the sea air went through his grey beard******... That said, there are wrong ways to do this and sometimes you just have to drive a Honda Fit.
Hate mail, requests, corrections, tips, etc can be sent via reply. Thank you forever for reading.
Snake
* I assure you, Aaron--and everyone else--this is no such thing.
** Check his crap out, I mean, damn.
*** E.G., baby's
****Look at his fat face.
***** Beyond the broad etc. of both being light weirdo shoes, etc.
****** what's up with this photo