Reviews and Comments

christa

christa@bookwyrm.social

Joined 3 years, 5 months ago

I know how to read, probably

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Cookie Mueller, Olivia Laing, Chris Kraus: Walking Through Clear Water in a Pool Painted Black, new edition (Paperback, 2022, Semiotext(e)) 4 stars

little germs are probably always happy

4 stars

I really enjoyed this collection, in large part because it's hard for me to imagine her life and what being with her would actually be like. I don't know how someone would get into these situations so seemingly easily, and shares kind of horrifying things as normal happenings, which I guess they just are. and with humor and ease.

this review in Lux resonated with me; I need to find the story mentioned where she rails against bourgeois living that didn't get included in the collection: lux-magazine.com/article/cookie-mueller/

I think the collection dragged a bit for me at the end, but there were some gems - especially the cuts from ask dr mueller. I always find it hard when collections get choppier in format toward the end - attention wanes and find it hard to get back to, even when enjoying. should treat it instead as something to sit aside and …

A lazy desert vacay read

3 stars

The author seems to print runs of these in 25-100 copies, each edition with a different cover, which seems like a cool way to run a small press publication. I read the 37th, picked up at the Wine and Rock Shop in Yucca Valley (referenced, fittingly, in the book). I think the main audience of this book is folks visiting who want to nod along with the surface social dynamics described and be able to say “hey I know that place!” while reading. So, me, in this specific moment. It’s fun, would recommend if you see it in a shop while visiting Joshua Tree, but pick up Desert Oracle, too.

Ron Cooper, Chantal Martineau: Finding Mezcal (Penguin Randomhouse) 4 stars

In 1990, artist Ron Cooper was collaborating with craftspeople in Oaxaca, Mexico, when he found …

70s LA + commercialization of mezcal

4 stars

LA art world in the 70s -> life crisis -> drinking mezcal in small towns in Oaxaca -> growing del maguey mezcal. a brand promo book for sure, but I also learned a lot about mezcal production and some about small town Mexico across the years. plus has a real LA / artist freewheeling memoir feel that I'm a sucker for

Michael DeForge: Heaven No Hell (2021, Drawn and Quarterly) 5 stars

"One of the most inventive and prolific cartoonists working today."—Vulture

In the past ten years, …

a very deforge collection of shorts

5 stars

like everything michael deforge writes I love it. this one’s a collection of shorts, all delightful. I want to share the last one with my team at work (at some point protagonist falls in and out of love with “the public”) but I’ll probably not

Ashley Mears: Very Important People (2020, Princeton University Press) 4 stars

Million-dollar birthday parties, megayachts on the French Riviera, and $40,000 bottles of champagne. In today’s …

exploitation works best when it feels good

4 stars

interesting and multifaceted sociological study of the social dynamics and labor that goes into NYC VIP clubs, including motivations of each of the actors (girls/models, promoters, and to a more limited extent clients). reminds me of tressie mcmillan cottom’s writing on the hustle economy, in that it digs into why “girls” would want to participate in such a clearly exploitative system, which I think is both more satisfying and says something about all of our lives under late capitalism. four stars because it gets a little repetitive in that common academic way, but recommend

Elissa Washuta: White Magic (Hardcover, 2021, Tin House Books) 5 stars

Throughout her life, Elissa Washuta has been surrounded by cheap facsimiles of Native spiritual tools …

yes

5 stars

a collection of essays weaving together magic, whiteness, indigeneity and colonization, the pacific northwest, domestic violence and living and loving through ptsd, alcohol and sobriety, red dead redemption 2. beautiful, excited to dig into some of the footnotes (esp about indigenous stories and their relationship to natural phenomena, like the Salish stories of historic Seattle earthquakes along a fault caused by serpent a'yahos: www.nature.com/articles/news050711-7)