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[afterannabel]

You may or may not be familiar with (former?) Wellesley professor Peggy McIntosh's article "White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack."
If you are not, go read it, right now. It's very good, and this will make a bit more sense.
I came across this recently, and wanted to share it. I am not posting this to start a discussion or an argument. The

Comments

[prettyvacunt]

I did not read it, but I bookmarked it so I can check it out later. Jim Shepard's book is keeping me pretty occupied, though if the Chuck Palahniuk book I ordered comes in tomorrow than fuck it. Fuck it allllllll.

[afterannabel]

Which Palahniuk book? I don't know Jim Shepard.
And why won't my damn lj-cut work?

[prettyvacunt]

Are there italics included in the cut? That could be interfering. If it's not that, I have no idea what really. It looks spiffy to me.

I ordered Fugitives and Refugees: A Walk in Portland. Also ordered Don DeLillo's The Body Artist, but Chuck's coming first. As for Jim Shepard, I saw the name on a friend's interests and did some research. I'm reading his collection of short stories called "Love and Hydrogen". So far, I am impressed.

[mattamatics]

i love don delillo

[prettyvacunt]

This will be the first book of his I will read. I am excited!

[afterannabel]

The Body Artist ROCKS.

[afterannabel]

I've never heard of that Palahniuk book. I looked up Jim Shepard on Amazon and they quoted Booklist as saying:
"Although Shepard's mordantly funny, unsettling, yet immensely gratifying short stories race off in unforeseeable directions, they always veer into the crimson glare of trauma or death. As the ludicrous collides with the profound, the two axes of the human condition, the reader experiences a weird elation because Shepard, shrewdly deadpan and witty, gets it exactly right as he riffs on historical events and raids the junkyard of pop culture."
Obviously, I have to read his work.
Have you read any Sam Shepard or George Saunders?

[prettyvacunt]

No, I haven't! Should I? I love when people introduce/recommend new authors/books to me!

[afterannabel]

Yes, you definitely should. If you lived nearby, I would lend you my Sam Shepard collections. My Saunders book is on loan already right now. Shepard is my favorite contemporary playwright. Start with "The Curse of the Starving Class." Then "Buried Child." He reminds me of Flannery O'Connor sometimes. Do you like her? Except his focus is the Midwest, not the South. Saunders is less skilled, I feel, a bit more brutal in an obvious sort of way. They're both quite dark and can be rather absurd but Saunders is definitely sharper, satirical whereas Shepard can make me weep. Nonetheless I also feel most of his work carries a subtle message of mercy, forgiveness- I would go so far as to call it spirital-which is not present in Shepard's plays. I don't know. Read them, talk to me about them.

[prettyvacunt]

I haven't read much Flannery O'Conner unfortunately, but from what I've read I liked. I'll try to get them soon. I have a huge TO READ list right now, but those two are definitely on there now.

[afterannabel]

Don't you have, like, classes and shit to be busy with?

[prettyvacunt]

Oh yeah, and add onto my dynamic mood swings lately my schedule can be a pain in the ass. When I have free time though I am usually reading, knitting, or here online. I haven't watched much TV lately (fucking Olympics cancelling out Conan), and if I am, I'm doing one of the other things along with it.

By the way, George Saunders was already on my list! Someone in the past must have mentioned him to me.

[afterannabel]

Ahh. Just curious. I mean, I have my own work I'm ignoring. The Olympics don't interfere with Bill Maher, thank the good Lord.

I wonder if it was me.