2025-02-20
Absolutely gorgeous, poesis environments in this comix book. Little beautiful interwoven stories on people and environments. The landscape and the characters are painted in perfectly minimal panels showing movement and space. The stories are abstract enough that while I get interested I never get bogged down. The river characters are compelling. And it's cool to have an afterward but not a forward. More like this! This is a singular book, even in comix.
I really enjoyed this thick anthology of computer-aided text generation, from pomes to stories to twitterbots. It really presents a broad overview of English-language works, and I found them exciting. Probably several hundred examples here, minimum. It's a great learning resource, and a nice way to archive this kind of work that for me often lives on webpages and can be easily lost to history and digital rot. As always, Nick's notes (here with Lillyan-Yvonne Bertram) are well-written and helpful guides to the material.
I loved this one. DeForge's drawings have gotten even more semi-abstract and singular. No one else draws and writes in his signature style. One of my top favorites, and this story is just excellent. About the modern confusion of living with contemporary enshittified technology in our lives. The narrator lives in a world where while one sleeps the apartment, roommates, partner, the streets around them, even their own body could all be "updated" into confusing changes. Themes of love, alienation, confusion, contingent employment, and an ongoing protest. Great story.
This took me a few chapters to get in but then I really got into it. It starts off with a story similar to Huck Finn but then quickly diverges when they get separated. And wow, it is so dark dark and hard to read at times. The abuse the slaves went through is severe, heart-wrenching. The twist in Huck and James' relationship totally caught me off guard: wow. And like Twain's book, this one is a page turner-thriller. You want to find out what happens next. Highly recommended.
Wow did I love this one. A compelling adventure narrative, full of "the west" and unknown challenges - but also the premise of covering the trail over a century after its last demise as a used route of the wagons. I learned so much: about wagons, about oregon trail history, about the ruts and how the trail is really a connection of routes and cut-offs and switchbacks. So many people offer help. The narrator's relationship with his brother is touching even when it's challenging. And the romance is brought down to earth by its many tribulations, and buouyed by the many folks and adventures to be had. And that's aside from the love of the mules that become central to the story as well. I want to read Rinker's next travel narrative, down the mighty Mississipp.
What an incredible book! I read this rapidly in about a week with some breaks when doing a bike trip or my sister was visitng. Within a few chapters we get into the main strange zone, where she's stopped and becomes infatuated with this young man. The redo of the bedroom with $20k in decorations, a manic energy, it's exciting. As her formal partnership unravels and she finds her way to something else, the book is explicity and illicit time and again. So much sex. And sex-talk. And weird sex talk. Kink but not. From a woman. It's exciting and strange and knows no bounds. As it goes on and she's left behind and has to figure out how to adapt to her previous life, she can't, and makes her life anew with everyone around her. I loved it and felt sympathy and excitement and the same personal life confusion. Where next in intimacy and companionship and marriage? Only the final chapter felt out of place - too unbelievable - but how else to end this book? It was still a fine way to end. I'll just minimize that chapter in my mind, as it ends on the right foot. Hopeful, but still everything is on the table.
I must have liked it as I finished it in 3 days! Really short chapters and each one I wondered what would happen next. Unfortunately, Kathleen had a really hard life, with rape, abusive family, and the challenges of being a "celebrity" representing feminism, girl power, and punk ethos. But her audacity, attempts at community and self-awareness and betterment shine through. A compelling story I'd recommend to others.
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