What a Fool Believes

May 25

On Sergio De La Pava’s A Naked Singularity

After reluctantly putting down Sergio De La Pava’s A Naked Singularity for the night, about a hundred pages into the novel, I thought, This could be one of my favorite books. Two hundreds pages in I thought, I think this is one of my favorite books. After finishing it last night I thought, This is definitely one of my favorite books. Holy fuck, I love this book.

I first came across A Naked Singularity in 2010 thanks to a post on The Millions. Here was a self-published tome that was garnering attention not from some savvy self-marketing campaign but by the far more exciting word of mouth. In the post was a link to a review in The Quarterly Conversation. I didn’t read it. Around this time I ceased reading book and film reviews until after reading or watching the work reviewed so as not to spoil anything. (Music reviews were fine though.) I added the book to my reading list.

And it sat there until earlier this year when the University of Chicago Press picked up the novel and published it in April. Along with UCP’s publishing, I saw posts from a pair of respectable gentlemen, and thought the time was right. (Especially with that new, optical illusion cover. You can’t judge a book by its cover but you can certainly pass over it for a time.)

I could tear my own head off for waiting.

This ridiculously-awesome book is about Casi, a twenty-four-year-old guy of Colombian descent, living in Brooklyn, working in Manhattan as a public defender, and “what happens when his sense of justice and even his sense of self begin to crack—and how his world then slowly devolves.” It’s a lot funnier than that sounds. A Naked Singularity is hilarious. And not hilarious in the traditional literary sense where you acknowledge the humor but don’t actually laugh. You will laugh out loud when reading this book. It is the coveted fucking hilarious. Just check the passage that Miles Klee excerpted in the link above. That’s what sealed the deal for me, when I read that passage.

But this isn’t strictly a work of humor. De La Pava’s book is also astoundingly erudite, joyfully digressive, and surprisingly compassionate. There’s a reason why “DFW” gets thrown around in reviews.

And speaking of influences, you’ll also hear “Pynchon”, “Coover”, and “Gaddis”. I’ve only read “The Babysitter” by Robert Coover thus far—which was stunning—so I can’t say much about that comparison. I have read those other jokers though and I can say De La Pava’s got dialogue and intelligence like William Gaddis and expanse and comedy like Thomas Pynchon. Like David Foster Wallace, he’s learned from these post-modern titans and used that knowledge to construct his own excitingly-modern voice and create a novel that is big with ideas yet entertaining as hell. Whether philosophical workplace dialogue, fascinating biographical sections about boxer Wilfred Benitez, comically-nightmarish court hearings, a thrilling heist, or empathetic exchanges between Casi and a death row inmate with the mind of an eight-year-old, De La Pava crushes it.

I’ve recommended things here before. I don’t think I could recommend A Naked Singularity enough. I think this novel gets to something important about us and our times—like White Noise and Infinite Jest before it. I think it’s going to be a Classic. You should read this fucking thing. Seriously. Shit will alter your space-time.

[Buy A Naked Singularity here.]

May 22

Fun Facts: Dentists

• 
• Dentists patch up their own wounds using metal fillings. This is just one of the many reasons why Dentists have issues with metal detectors.
• Dentists have ceased to complain about the lack of a dentist television show by creating their own: Dentistry. Dentistry is a heavily-improvised comedy series which uses real patients—unbeknownst to them. A recent episode contained a hilarious sequence where an eight-year-old was unable to rinse with fluoride for the prescribed thirty seconds and so had to do three rinses at ten seconds each. Dentistry is produced by the American Dental Association and episodes are distributed at national, as well as, regional functions.
• Dentists believe vagina dentata would not be such a bad thing if brushed twice a day and treated with a monthly fluoride regimen.
• A Dentist certainly would not like a sugar-riddled soda, thankyouverymuch.
• Saint Apollonia, the Patron Saint of Dentistry, was blessed with this honor after having been persecuted and tortured. Her torture consisted of having all her teeth torn from her mouth. Those “suffering” a toothache from too much cotton candy never seem to hear her response to their prayers: “Oh, fuck off!”
• Another of the many reasons why Dentists have issues with metal detectors is because they’re illegally carrying concealed Micro-Uzis. “Plaque is serious, Officer,” being the standard excuse issued to the Police.
• Every time a bell rings, a Dentist gets its teeth. This is because the tooth they are pulling from a patient’s mouth is tied with fishing line to the clapper of a bell which, when rung, yanks the tooth free from the gums.
• 1 out of 25 Dental Hygienists die from halitosis exposure each year.
• For the past century, Dentists from across the globe have been collecting wisdom teeth and piecing them together, much like a rubber band ball, to create The Great Wisdom Tooth. Dentists believe that any day now The Great Wisdom Tooth will present them with the knowledge of how to eradicate non-Dentists tooth decay from the world forever.

May 18

After much finagling with the manager over a coupon for quarter rates, Jan was able to procure the conference room at the Days Inn in Lakewood, Ohio. Her trip to the Cleveland area had been just short of a complete disaster. First, her luggage was lost by Delta. Luckily she had placed Quimby and an outfit—though calling her yoga clothes in outfit was stretching it—into her carry-on. Everything else was gone. Candles, crystals, tarot cards, shawls, oils, runes, mat, planchette, ouija board, trumpet, bowls, and pendulum—all of it. Then her rental car got egged by a trio of imps. She would’ve placed a hex on the middle-schoolers but, without her runes and trumpet, she had to let them escape unpunished. Lastly, there wasn’t one psychic, astrology, or divination shop in all of Cleveland. The list she had found online was full of lies. Each shop had been possessed by some incubus—demons like Ace Hardware and Taco Bell. After picking up what supplies she could in the little time before the séance, she prayed in her yolk-covered rental to Gaia for her trials to cease.

Jan unrolled the gauze bandages for her summoning mat on the conference room carpet. The event had been going well thus far. The twelve attendees seemed fairly interested in her teachings, making Jan believe the behind-the-wheel prayers to Gaia were working. They now sat patiently in the metal fold-out chairs as she prepared for the séance portion of the program. It was 2:30 so she was going to have to speed things up—she only had the room rented until 3:00 when preparation for a local seniors dance that evening was to begin.

“Would someone please dim the lights?” Jan asked, removing Quimby, the skull of her mentor, which she used to connect with the spirit realm.

The attendees looked around at one another before a tall man with stringy red hair and painted nails got up and went to the lights.

“There’s no dimmer switch.”

“Ok. How about lights off?”

The man turned off the conference room lights. It was pitch black. Jan tripped over her CVS bag of supplies and crashed down on the carpet.

“Shit. On, please!”

Jan collected herself. She requested the attendees assemble their chairs in a circle around her, hold hands, and close their eyes. She got down on the floor and into position. The gauze mat clung to the sweat on her back. She made a silent prayer to Gaia. With Quimby on her Sacral Chakra, she closed her eyes and began the séance.

“If there is anyone from the spirit realm who would like to contact the land of the living, the window is open for you,” Jan said, the fluorescent lights burning through her lids and beginning to give her a migraine. The attendees sat quietly.

Minutes passed before Jan heard a swish. From the same corner of the room, a wavering voice said, “Hello?”

“Hello, Spirit,” Jan said, relieved that things were working for once. “What would you like to communicate to the land of the living?”

“Am I early?”

“No, Spirit, the time is perfect.”

There was jingling and shuffling. The Spirit was approaching, Jan could feel it.

The Spirit stopped before Jan’s feet. She heard it take a deep breath.

“Are you sure I’m not too early for the dance?”

“The dance…?” Jan said, opening her eyes. Before her was not a spirit—well, maybe a soon-to-be—but a stout elderly woman in a lavender dress, bracelets lining her wrists.

“Oh, dear,” the woman said, staring at Quimby in Jan’s lap. “I am early.” The woman shuffled back out of the conference room.

Jan sighed, tried to pull it back together. “Ok, everyone. Let’s try this—”

“Mam?” It was the hotel manager now, from the same location the woman had first spoken from: by the door. “It’s three o’clock.”

The attendees looked down at Jan, showing, for the first time that afternoon, the awe of revelation.

“You heard the spirit,” Jan said. She unlatched Quimby’s dome and gazed inside his empty skull. “It doesn’t want me here.”

May 17

Fist Communion

I remember my Fist Communion like it was yesterday.

Because it was yesterday.

There was no papal stooge in a frosted nightgown to feed me spoiled table wine and stale crackers. No stained glass celebrating sheep. No martyrs frozen in agony.

What I got was a punch in the face by each cast member of The Expendables.

Just like Jesus intended.

My face is battered and bruised and sloshes around like a beanbag chair but I am closer to that which is Holy.

And I got a cake! Dolph Lundgren held my face in it, of course, while I was ordered by Sylvester Stallone to eat my way out or suffocate. It was red velvet—Sorry, BLOOD VELVET—so there was no problem. Mickey Rourke was the one who selected the delicious flavor. So I thanked him.

With a smack in the mouth.

FIST COMMUNION! 

May 14

vintageanchor:

“The heart of a mother is a deep abyss at the bottom of which you will always find forgiveness”
– Honore de Balzac

Remember when Dennis Franz showed off his rump on NYPD Blue?

Talk about The Wild Ass’s Skin, AM I RIGHT?

—Yohh-ee-yay-ee-HIIIIIIIII-OHH-AYYYYYYY-YAAAY-YAAAY-ohh-hiiiiiiih-hun-oh-OH-yun-huh-un-oh-huh-YAAAAAA-YAA! Ohh-oh-ee-ee-ohh-ohh-ay-uh-un! Oh-OH-oh-ohuh-eh-ayyyyyynnnnnnnnnnnn.

—Wow.

—Impressive, right?

—Yes, but that’s “Return To Innocence”.

—Yeah, I know.

—By Enigma.

—Huh?

—That song is by Enigma, not Enya.

—Not…Enya…?

—Nope.

—Are you kidding?

—Nope.

—Do you know how many times I listened to that song so I could transcribe it just so?

—Sorry.

—…I’ve made a huge mistake.

(Source: markrichardson)

May 10

On Loveless [Remastered]

It’s a subtle touch—one you feel as the album swells. You notice sounds being fresher than before, as if the tapes were cleaned like an archaeologist brushing bones—only the find’s not bones but vibrant, undulating flesh. Each syllable of guitar growl is heard, the whirling layers above and the swirling layers below more defined. The vocals, though still blurred, are no longer a specter somewhere in the room but one looming in your personal space. It sounds like it was recorded today. It’s hungrier. It’s lustier. Soon it will consume you.

[Stream currently available via The Guardian]

May 04

We were assigned to write a story in my seventh grade English class. It could be about anything. I was pumped. All writing up to that point had come with strict parameters, restraints—shit that bored me. This assignment destroyed all the rules in my mind. This was fiction—boundless, imaginative. The teacher’s idea was for us to learn not so much how to write fiction but the draft process, revisions, editing. I ignored that.

What I decided to write was a story based upon one of my favorite videos of the time (and all-time), the Spike Jonze-directed 70s cop movie homage, “Sabotage” by the Beastie Boys. I was obsessed with the video (and the song), just as I was, at the time, with NYPD Blue and Serpico. I had thoughts about becoming a detective then but I think my fascination was more of a general interest in investigation—though, investigating art and life more than murder. Also, it just looked really cool. (Have you seen Al Pacino in Serpico? The hair, the shades, the beard, the beads, the bike? He looks awesome. And that’s how the real Frank Serpico was!) But unlike NYPD Blue, which I could see on network television, and Serpico, which I could rent for free from the public library, my exposure to the thoroughly cool “Sabotage” was far less—I didn’t have MTV. So when I decided to write a story about the video, it wasn’t one of those literary adaptations of a movie, me playing the video over and over again to meticulously capture every moment in prose. I was going by memory. Plus, I was expanding, indulging. The video was really a trailer to the story I had planned.

I was up to twenty-two pages on “Sabotage” when the story was due. Of my first draft. The other kids in my class had written stories of a few pages, revised them on the second and third, and were ready to turn in the final. I was just getting warmed up. The scene I recall being on was the one where Cochese was tied to a chair, a bomb ticking down on a table before him. His partners are about to bust down the door with some karate kicks. They free him and the three rush out of the building, across the street, sliding over the hood of their car, just before the building explodes. Later, they track down the bad guys and put them down. But I had to turn in what I had. I think I got a B—the teacher wrote something about how creative it was but couldn’t go higher because, well, I hadn’t completed my assignment. I wish I could’ve finished it. There was a lot more of the story to tell.

May 03

[video]

May 02

HULK BLARF!

What happens to the undigested food in Dr. Bruce Banner’s stomach when he flips the fuck out and all that ingrained gamma transforms him into that massive green mammoth of rage, the Hulk?

My knowledge of the comic world is subatomic so I don’t know if an issue has ever been devoted to this. Probably? Some goofy issue in the late 70s/early 80s where the current scribes were like,
-What the hell do we do with Hulk this week?
-Well, he just beat the shit out of the Toad Men so…
-We need to come down from that epicness.
-Yeah, a little respite for Hulk.
-What if he tells kids not to do drugs?
-Thor just did that.
-Thor? Really?
-Yeah, he smashed a junkie’s kit with his war hammer.
-Hmm… You know, what I’ve always wondered is what happens—
-To Bruce Banner’s undigested food when he changes to the Hulk?
-Holy shit! Yes!
-That’s our issue!

Or maybe none of that happened.

But don’t you wonder?

Like, if Bruce Banner gets angry, does the beef burrito he just finished at the lab get angry, too? Is there an enlarged, green beef burrito trying to smash its way out of Hulk’s guts? So he pukes, right? And the bile and the stomach fluids and the beef burrito all battle one another on their way out, only to perish on the busted-up street where Hulk just landed for a showdown with Mephisto. Sounds reasonable, right?

Or is this like the pants thing?

Am I supposed to suspend my disbelief about that gigantic Chipotle—you know Hulk loves some Chipotle—barbacoa burrito getting insanely angry in his tummy just as I am about those pants of his that somehow tolerate the rage that shirts, shoes, and the portion of the pants from the knees down cannot?

I want answers about this, Stan Lee!

[Image from Avengers #1 1/2 (October 1999)]