It's not much, I know. My other gimmick is reluctant self-deprecation.

My gimmick
is that I'm always first.

Good post, sir. Especially:

Seriously Joel, NICE CATCH. I did not get that Lauren Bacall bit at all, and then totally forgot about it. Wow, that's good. This book is apparently as cerebral and satisfying a puzzle as SYNECDOCHE, NEW YORK. Excellent work.

Sure, it's okay for a book to be nothing but funny—but I think you do this book injustice if you think that's all it is. It's way too smart and full of ideas and things to say for that.

That's kind of how I've felt to a degree after all of these books. Discussing them with intelligent people has elevated every one of them for me, though I've only been on board with this for 2010.

The detached tone as part of the Gimmick Onion. I like that. Also, I thought the narrative voice and much of the tone was almost IDENTICAL to those of Roland Barthes' wrestling essay. For what that's worth.

Yes. And that minor character woman in psychotherapy would probably have been his mother. It seems.

The literal meaning is just that Michael was the child of two members of the leaf sex cult. What it meant figuratively, I have no idea. Maybe that he was owned by hedonism and nonsense, no matter what he might think to the contrary. Or maybe that he comes from the same dark-woods traditions as the rest of the cast…

I really like fairy tales and folkloric stories. I grew up on Andrew Lang's Color Fairy books, and those elements of repetition just really didn't bother me here. Also, I thought they lent some structure and dynamic suspense to the story, all while placing this strange reality and all these bizarre beliefs in the…

I think the payoff came earlier with the reveal that the wrestling league was actually the result of the disputants' endless theologizing. That was exciting to me. And, a bit more subtly, there was some resolution with Marduk's rescue of, and loss of his virginity to, the new-and-arguably-improved Rose White.

I don't really think that the message is that all arguments are equal and equally absurd—though I would say that's the general idea behind postmodernism, because there are some glaring alternate possibilities that don't really get much play here. Sure, you have most of the major Gnostic sects represented here, but…

Postmodernism has its place, but I agree with Sokal that postmodern academics have an often-retarded grasp of science and abuse it horribly. In the skeptics vs. postmoderns debate, I am very much on the side of the skeptics, but if it were only what this book (TWCS) presents, I would be a much bigger proponent of it.

The pacing of this book was fairly slow
but it was also very engaging, so I didn't mind. In that way it was a bit like the pulp novels referenced in its final quarter or so. Also, I liked the tone that the fairy tales and mythic context contributed to it, though I couldn't always determine WHY all those elements…

Cancer-AIDS, all right!
"I smoke [and use dirty needles] because I'm hoping for an early death, and I need to cling to something," as the song says.

The reports of his alleged return are anecdotal, but there are enough of them that they deserve some attention. His presence in South America is fairly indisputable, though.

Also, I just found Dobyn's contact information. I suppose I could ask him.

MAYBE Rose was eaten by the Troll, but I'd bet money that she made off with Phillip Kyd.

I really wish people wouldn't call postmodernism "pomo." That just kind of makes me hate the world and everything on it.

This sounds like a great companion to LAST NIGHT A DJ SAVED MY LIFE.
And frankly, electronica deserves all the write-ups it can get.