I'm just curious as to what writers you would name as talented.

That's usually how it goes in my head.  Faulkner's a crazy wild-card.  For a hilarious anecdote about famous authors and their drinking, Hemingway and James Joyce used to get drunk together and whenever guys around the bar started fights, Joyce would cower in the back and yell, "DEAL WITH HIM, HEMINGWAY!!"  Which is…

I found the soundtrack online, downloaded it.  I used to listen to it on long bus rides at night.  Felt like everyone on the bus had some dark and horrible secret and the whole city was hiding something.  I probably listened to that soundtrack more than any other kinda music in those days.  Good times.

Maybe The Conversation?  Or is that less full blown craziness than it is paranoia?  Every time I hear that soundtrack I get super paranoid.  Man, I love that goddamn soundtrack.

Mayyyn I feel like the characters this season are starting to… lose definition or something.  Like Ron and Leslie and April are all just kind of fading back into archetypes.  Ron Swanson's way more idiosyncratic than the last few episodes have given him credit for and so are the other characters.  I don't know.  Also…

Yeah I knew a guy who claimed he was a Navy SEAL and he got a purple heart after saving his buddies from after a bomb that went off in Iraq.  Eventually we found out he was just in the regular Navy and got dishonorably discharged for getting drunk and fighting an officer.  Never was in the war and admitted it though…

Anyone have any book recommendations?  I mean a collection of her short stories… I mean, my first response was "WHAT? SHE WON AND *THIS PERSON* DIDN'T?" but I realize I've maybe only ever read a few lines of her in my life, so I can't really say with any authority that she does or doesn't deserve it.  Although…

You're a pretty impressive guy.  Got a lot of big, important stuff on the table.  Lotta things to do.  Lotta impressive things.  I'm fucking impressed, let me tell you, buddy.  You're a big fuckin impressive guy, that's pretty clear.

Faulkner has moments that rival some of the best writing around.  I'm thinking specifically of the middle portion of The Sound and the Fury, and the novella The Bear.  But on the whole I'd rather read dumb-dumb Uncle Hemingway if we're talking about the Big Drunk Trifecta of him, Faulkner, and Fitzgerald (who are…

He's like the Norman Mailer of filmmaking.  There might be a few good bits sprinkled in there, but for the most part I just want him to shut the fuck up.

The most offensive thing about this is that GY!BE beat METZ and couldn't even be entertainingly dismissive about it.  At least when the Sex Pistols wrote that letter about the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame being a "piss-stain" it was with characteristic adorable lil wit.

I love the idea of people "Going Galt".  Like "YEAH!  What would you do if WE weren't around, you goddamn moochers?"  Like, people in the finance sector have the most NECESSARY jobs in the fucking world.  What would happen if, I don't know… doctors "went Galt"?  Or policemen?  EMTs?  Firemen?  The goddamn people that…

I actually read some Ayn Rand essays a few months ago out of a desire to try and be articulate as to why I think she's an absurd, pathetic writer.  Needless to say there was a shit ton of ammunition.  Some of my favorite points of hers included the assertion that 1) All criminals are eventually caught.  2)…

That Throbbing Gristle song is creepy as fuck. Especially listening to it alone in the dark. I could make out just enough of the lyrics to be disturbed and interested, so I looked up the story of it on google. Apparently about an actual burn victim, inspired by a letter one of the doctors wrote about her. I'm in…

I found this episode weirdly life-affirming.  Maybe because I'm a sucker for the idea of a bunch of unrepentant dirtbags spitting on and harassing a group of fancy-dressin' politey-tighties.  Also, Charlie's Randy Newman song made me incredibly happy.  His face-paint fuck-you song made me even happier.

That Solo Monk album really is pretty amazing.  I don't listen to much jazz, but I love Monk.

Granted you are, or were, at work, but Pynchon aside I'm actually much more fascinated as to why you would characterize Journey as "emotionally, spiritually, and intellectually disgusting."  I find that statement incredibly intriguing, and I somewhat doubt that Celine would have been dissatisfied with it.

I can understand somebody finding Pynchon's characters uninteresting and his humor ineffective, and I would in certain cases agree, although for the most part not.  What do you mean by "unearned ambiguity"?  Also, I don't really understand the characterization of 90% of Pynchon being a "sludge of data and…

Eh, along with Vineland, V is probably my least favorite of his books.  I just thought it didn't really cohere into anything interesting.  Although that caper plot-line involving the painting was really cool.  But I agree with your "ultra-intellectual" description.  I remember reading Against the Day and just getting…

Yeah, the worst is when people refer to Thomas Pynchon, specifically "Gravity's Rainbow" as "unreadable".  It doesn't make sense to me.  Thomas Pynchon's style is very dense, but it's dense with fascinating anecdotes and stories.  Like, hundreds of stories within each novel.  Hundreds of awesomely entertaining…