Mom and Pishi the Cat.

This entire chapter in Ohler’s Blitzed reminded me so much of Iran today. The poorer we get and the more isolated, the more drugs and hedonism take the place of everything else. The dance of death.

Another round of Panahi's impeccable brand of self-mythologizing dressed up for Oscar season.

All the art and literature that inspired you being half-CIA psy-op is the most dejecting goddamn realization in the world. We were better off not knowing anything.

In 1930, Dos Passos began deconstructing the very idea of capitalist America from the bottom-up. A difficult, sometimes downright tiring, but utterly brilliant masterpiece.

Publishing has changed so much since during my young/idealistic years. Email pitches were responded to; on social media you could find new friends and peers; there was always a chance you might get read. Now, it seems, we just scream into the void, and more often than not, there’s not even an echo.

Didn't expect a Letterboxd rant after Panahi's latest, but here we are. Selling the West a mirror reflecting exactly what they want to see of Iran isn't art; it's artfulness. I appreciate the hustle, but can never appreciate the result and consequences.

t.co/nB3PV1n8Vw

Joseph Brodsky, from AGNI (Issue 43, 1996).

John Dos Passos, from New Masses (1927).

Betty White; the treasure she is.

John Berryman, from His Toy, His Dream, His Rest (1968).

Thomas Pynchon knew.

The best book I’ve read this year. Structurally, it sets the standard every historian should aspire to. Out of his glut of detail, Caro doesn’t just recount Robert Moses’s rise and fall; he shows what power is and, more importantly, why it grips people.

Nick Flynn, from Some Ether (2000).

Started the day with Pynchon’s Vineland, ended with Weir’s The Mosquito Coast. Both circle the same truth: you can flee, you can dream up Eden, but the rot comes with you. Read one, watched the other. Now left with the rotten knowledge that every escape builds another trap. That trap is man.