Rampant Media Consumption #4

Here’s how we’re rolling with reality this week. 

Tim

I have the (bad?) habit of just kind of flying through books of poetry. I know it’s usually the style of writing that demands the most attention, with each word or line-break having a very deliberate and specific meaning, but I often approach it like a song and go for the overall emotional impact. That’s what happened the other day when I sat down with If I Really Wanted to Feel Happy I’d Feel Happy Already by Jordan Castro…one pint of coffee and 160 pages of minimalist prose later, it was back on the bookshelf and I was slumped in my chair. The title is probably enough to know why. RIYL: All those other sad sacks (Mira Gonzalez, Spencer Madsen, Ellen Kennedy, Sam Pink, etc.). But you really can’t go wrong with anything from Civil Coping Mechanisms.

But to be honest, I’ve spent most of my life lately catching up on Bob’s Burgers. It’s its own sort of poetry.  

Jeff

I’ve been reading Humor by Stanley Donwood. He’s one of my favorite artists, he did the covers for all of the Radiohead albums (except Pablo Honey). This isn’t an artbook though… this is a collection of his nightmares. Which is surprisingly entertaining. Some of it is pretty gruesome, but most of it is oddly funny.

Also, I’ve been skimming through How to Stay Alive in the Woods. It’s pretty good, once you get passed the killing-small-animals part.

And of course the new Tape Op magazine…which is always great. Especially while listening to lots of Portishead.

Elly

I started using Facebook in earnest again last week, after months away. In part, this was for awesome reasons like creating pages for the Crate Digger book and Feminists Against Freeways. But from there things got out of hand and I was right back to the glazed-eyed clicking and scrolling that I’ve sworn off so many times. That ate up every moment that I’d normally give to pleasure reading. On Thursday I wasn’t feeling well and intended to rest all day, but there was social media, gnawing at my brain. Today I’m using Self Control again and my brain is once more my own.

Nathan

I went to yet another book reading last night at Powell’s, this time on Hawthorne. Which might work into some of our many parenting titles.