Trust me, by disclosing my current whereabouts I don’t intend to make you feel jealous, but whatevs.

David Lodge and the unanswerable question.
(From his book ‘The Modes of Modern Writing: Metaphor, Metonymy, and the Typology of Modern Literature.’)

The book I’m reading / My reaction

The book mail to end all book mails!

Kafka gets angry mail from Mr. Ph.D.

When I mentioned that I had not seen the original I was booed, almost slapped. So, a double feature tonight with a couple of friends is what’s up.

I’d like to nominate Héctor A. Murena’s novel Folisofía as the official “Spanish-language” counterpart to James Joyce’s Finnegans Wake. I get the impression that I’m reading a text by Antonio de Nebrija with a touch of many Romance Languages on every page. Absolutely wild.

Woke up & found out that one of my favorite writers started following me! (if you visit my profile & search “Baker” you’ll see many mentions throughout the years). Coincidentally (spoiler alert), a few months ago I added his name to a certain list that I like to share every year.

R.I.P. John Barth. A most original and challenging author, creator of the quote embedded in a quote embedded in a quote embedded in a quote embedded in a quote embedded in a quote embedded in a quote (see his story Menelaiad, collected in his magnificent Lost in the Funhouse).

Useful tip: on the day you’re preparing and filing your annual tax return read random passages of David Foster Wallace’s The Pale King every now and then and everything will be OK.

Yesterday’s post made me think about the books I’ve read the most (when it comes to Kafka’s The Metamorphosis I always choose a translation that I have not read).

Woke up and wrote this. Don't know why. Too long to share as a single post and I am not a fan of threads. Sartre's Nausea has been with me the longest (also a compendium of Greek Mythology). One of my favorite novels. Bought it when I was 13 & I never get tired of re-reading it.

Went to see the John Waters exhibition at the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures with a couple of friends. This was their subtle way of letting me know that I was the trashiest member of the posse.

Today, 83 years ago, Virginia Woolf drowned. 22 days went by before her body was recovered from the River Ouse. It’s always good to remember her incredible literary output, particularly during a 7-year period. I’m convinced that I will never read a better novel than The Waves.

R.I.P. Richard Serra, who made us feel space by compressing it and expanding it, by taking ownership of the air surrounding his works. Each one of his sculptures is borderless, it engulfs you, it devours you with its disorienting gravitational pull. You become part of it.

It is heartbreaking to learn how many relatives of Franz Kafka were killed in the Holocaust (all 3 of his sisters). Here's a brief/lighthearted passage from his diary about the birth of Felix Hermann, his first nephew, who died in 1940, at the age of 28, in a concentration camp.

R.I.P. Marjorie Perloff, whose books have helped me understand my love of poetry. Personal favorites: Unoriginal Genius and Wittgenstein’s Ladder.

Today, in the mail: the quotidian and intimate ramblings of a modernist whose unfinished magnum opus is furniture for the mind and a masterclass in observational acuteness.