"Sorry. He's got stink-d---."

"I smell guacamole. You gotta smell this and tell me what you smell!"

So we finally watched The Interview. I didn't think it was bad as the critics who dismissed it after the whole hacking-debacle. It had it's moments.

What I'm really trying to say is: you need to check out "Freaks and Geeks" like I need to check out "Breaking Bad"---in the words of Barry the Baptist: "SHARPISH!"

Something I Missed that Could Have Meaning

I saw a fantastic bumper sticker that I hunted down on the interwebs and am going to purchase in the next six months, one for each of us, but not necessarily for our cars (you may do whatever you wish with yours, but I go easy with the stickers for Goldie...). During the interwebs hunting I came across a wild article from 1966 titled A Journey into the Mind of Watts.

With such a title and time period---less than a year after the race riots---it seems reasonable that it could have been written by our late (for a decade soon enough) pal Hunter S Thompson. Turns out, if you've already followed that link, you'll see: that's our boy Pynchon.

Pynchon's life has been a little less publicized, you might say, than Hunter's, but it is established that he lived in the Los Angeles area and in Mexico during that time period, and when you read that article you can tell that he's been to the neighborhoods he mentions. Hell, shit hasn't changed that much in the 'Hood, and the availability of LSD in Hollywood is probably less widespread now than when Pynchon wrote his piece, but hen mentioned it with an air of authority on the matter.

Reading the piece itself is certainly reminiscent of Hunter's prose: the anti-brutality point-of-view; the knowledgeable drug references; the unblinking first person voice of a brave whack-job person who's spent time on the street in the neighborhood talking to folks.

That got me thinking. Both guys could have been in LA at the same time, surely, but during that specific time, Hunter was in San Francisco rolling with the Hell's Angels. Moreover, Hunter went to East LA to write a piece about the police gunning down a Latino reporter at the request of an acquaintance he befriended in Colorado, Oscar Acosta, the fiery Chicano lawyer and activist from East LA. (That piece is very good and serious, without the Gonzo panache: "Strange Rumblings in Aztlan".)

Anyway, I got kinda off the tracks there for a second. Birthdates. That's what I wanted to look up. That what I was interested in---how two of my writer heroes stack up in the cosmic birthday scheme.

May 8th is Thomas Pynchon Day---it's his birthday. Makes sense. The year was 1937. So, 5/8/37 for TP.

July 18th is the day that Hunter joined the air-breathers. What year? 1937. So 7/18/37 for HST.

Seventy-one days separate the birthdays of Thomas Pynchon and Hunter Thompson.

Done with Tsukuru, Starting with Ximen Nao

So...

We've all been busy. That's life. I've been getting holiday newsletters and had a crazy idea about making a newsletter that would be entertaining and fictitious, but I've been too busy to get around to doing anything with the idea, barely even breaching the topic with Corrie, who thought it more amusing than practical.

Anyway, because Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki... is relatively slim, I was able to finish it in random moments here and there (giving a test; sitting on the can; etc) whereas, had I been riding the train everyday like last year, it would have taken a week. Maybe two.

I couldn't get the picture I wanted last time to show the relative size differences of Murakami's last two books, so I tried again:

That one is not so bad, but it is kinda weird. 1Q84 tops 900 pages if I remember, and while CTTaHYoP is just over a third of that, it feels like had it been produced at the dimensions of 1Q84, it would be maybe 150.

I tried one more picture with my hand:

What I really wanted to do with these pictures is relay the weird sense I had holding both of these books. That's mostly unrealistic.

Colorless Tsukuru... starts out more sexually charged than it finishes, seems like it has three entwined time spans spiraling to a conclusion when it's really more like one-and-a-half, and leaves more loose ends than Pynchon on a bad day. It's good and more emotional than Murakami usually attempts, and the Haida's father's anecdote about the "death-coin" is a nice red-herring. You find yourself trying to piece how the Ruke-man will connect it all, only to find there to be two millimeters left of pages, and that's way not enough for a wrap-up effect to be slapped on. Maybe Murakami's getting a little more comfortable letting somethings remain unsettled.

Moving on...

A while back I ordered the Mo Yan book I'd wanted from the first time I learned about him, back before I discovered The Garlic Ballads:

I got a chance to read the first few pages today...

In the first TWO PAGES the main character, Ximen Nao, is in hell being tortured by frying in huge vat of oil like a tempura landlord. He refuses to confess to dastardly deeds. He's pulled out, all crispy and brittle, and begins to defend himself and his honor and has half his face blasted off by a large musket full of grape-sized shot. Fried in oil until brittle and shot in the face by a shotgun.

In the first two pages.

He convinces the judges of hell that he has honor and should be allowed to confront his still-living accusers, and the story follows his repeated reincarnations: first a donkey, then an ox, then a pig, then a dog, then monkey, and finally, as "Big Head Baby Lan", a progression seen on the cover in that makeshift zodiac.

Good stuff. Vacation is coming up fast...

So...I forgot about this...

I haven't finished Murakami's newest book yet, but it is small, swift, and engrossing, like he mixed his style with, eh, Denis Johnson's short-fiction density.

Anyway, two years back when I was laid up on the couch I started many blogs. This particular forum is one of the results of that time, as is "Sherwood and Sons." I'm pretty sure if anyone knew about all of them it would be you.

There was one particular spot, though, that I don't think I told anybody about.

I started a Tumblr site in addition to all of the Blogger sites, but it was where I showcased new fiction.

One of the things about my Blogger-hosted blogs was that they are all non-fiction---either artsy discussions, observational motivations, adventure summations, or random brainal verbal diarrhea---but they were all certainly and purposefully NON-fiction.

My fiction was always too special for me to post for the world to consume for free.

But then...I was laid up on the couch and I had a brain bursting at the seams with things to say. I had a character and a setting and a rambling premise that could have, I thought at the time, been milked easily each week for a tiny bit more, getting towards my final goal. Actually, all that's still the case.

But that's beyond me at this current juncture.

As it is, there are only two chapters. There are specific references throughout both of them: the city, the hostel, the bar, the protagonist's name and look, the bartender...almost too much stuff.

Ask Dan about a little project we each wrote for together back in the day---it was part of the unspoken and mysterious background to the intrigue in the second chapter.

I stumbled upon the link and was reminded of the two parts the other day. I read through them for the first time in more than two years, and, well, I was mostly happily surprised.

I think if you get to them, you may like 'em.

So, here're the links for the first two chapters of "Searching for Daniel Traf:"

Chapter 1: Talking About His Hair
Chapter 2: Bike Accessible

Been waiting for this...maybe a bit more...

I'll be getting to this sometime in the future, but time is tight...

The team that Murakami has at his American publishing house is simply phenomenal. This dust cover has cellophane windows that show the colors and subway map design underneath:

This is a beautiful artifact and Murakami's most sexually charged and possibly most complex narrative structure to date. I'm not done, but it is actually quite small. It isn't a normal size, especially for a hard-back book, but I don't have a good enough comparison picture yet.

Coming Soon...

December 12th, 2014...

Too, too excited...check me out!

Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage: A novel

Just thought I'd leave this here.

Released today, but I've been stuck in Portola.  Plan on picking it up tomorrow.