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Books, Comics5 Comments

Great Moments in Literature

Dan Seeger

“Anyway, the fascinating thing was that I read in National Geographic that there are more people alive now than have died in all of human history. In other words, if everyone wanted to play Hamlet at once, they couldn’t, because there aren’t enough skulls!” –Jonathan Safran Foer, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, 2005 “GUESS I’M JEST GONNA HAFTA SNEAK UP BEHIND ‘IM WHILE HIS BACK IS TURNED–AN’ CLOBBER ‘IM A GOOD ONE! THIS SORT’A MOVE AINT EXAC’LY KOSHER IN THE SUPER-HERO’S HANDBOOK–BUT I CAN TURN IN MY GOOD CONDUCT MEDAL—AFTER I SAVE THE FLIPPIN’ WORLD!” –Len Wein, MARVEL FEATURE, Vol. … Continue reading Great Moments in Literature

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Great Moments in Literature

Dan Seeger

“I snuck in between some boats that were being repaired and lit a cigarette; I had no idea what time it was, but I felt relaxed. From my hideout I could watch her at my leisure, without risk: she seemed terribly sad, like a tree that had suddenly sprouted from the seawall, a mystery of nature. And yet, when some precise spring-loaded mechanism set her in motion again, that impression disappeared, leaving only a trace like a photo and one thing for sure: solitude.” –Roberto Bolaño (as translated by Chris Andrews), The Skating Rink, 1993 “NEXT, AMID SNOW-PEAKED GRANDEUR: A … Continue reading Great Moments in Literature

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Spectrum Check

Dan Seeger

The first thing I had go up on the site this week was a book review. Embarrassingly enough, this was something I could have and should have written months ago. Yes, that’s months. There was just always other material that was more pressing and it stayed simmering on the back burner until the bottom of the pan was covered with a crusty blackness as impenetrable as concrete. Needless to type, I’ve been very reluctant to sign up for further book reviews. Movie reviews, though…I’m all over that. This week I got the chance to review the new documentary from Errol … Continue reading Spectrum Check

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Great Moments in Literature

Dan Seeger

“I straightened up, took some more air, bent down, touched it, and pulled on the part that was showing. It came up without any trouble, and I sat down and went over it, brushing off the dirt. It was a bone, a human pelvis, and there was not any doubt about it. That’s a damn strange thing to be inside of somebody, I said to myself. And it was, and it is. What I know about skeletons has to do with animals and fish, and I had never seen anything like this except in the medical and first-aid books my … Continue reading Great Moments in Literature

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Spectrum Check

Dan Seeger

I didn’t have much up on the Spectrum Culture site this week, which seemed weirdly appropriated since I was preoccupied for most of the days. There was no corollary between the two–most things that would have posted this week would have been written before my chores pulled me away from the laptop–but it was sort of nice for the cyber-version of me to be fairly absent in all respects simultaneously. The one full-length effort of mine was a reviews of the new album from White Denim. The pull quote they used what the review was up on the main page … Continue reading Spectrum Check

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Great Moments in Literature

Dan Seeger

“She sits, sweeping aside gelled strands of her black hair, revealing a rakish grin. ‘So,’ she asks, ‘you enjoying Cairo?’ “‘Oh, yeah. It’s really interesting,’ he says. ‘I have a couple of gripes, but they’re pretty minor.’ “‘Like?’ “‘Nothing serious.’ “‘Tell me one.’ “Well, the air is kind of hard to breathe, with all this pollution. Sort of like inhaling from an exhaust pipe. The heat makes me faint sometimes. And the food isn’t all that edible. Or maybe I’ve just been unlucky. Also, it’s a police state, which I don’t love. And I get the impression that the locals … Continue reading Great Moments in Literature

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Great Moments in Literature

Dan Seeger

“‘No, I am not a man who harbors romantic ideas about the extension of the spirit. It’s something I’d like to think I taught my sons, to partake of the physical world while it is yours to take, because that is one meaning of life with which no one can argue. To taste, to touch, to breathe in, to eat and stuff yourself–all the rest, all that takes place in the heart and mind lives in the shadow of uncertainty. But the lesson didn’t come easily to you, and you never accepted it in the end. You shot yourself in … Continue reading Great Moments in Literature

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Great Moments in Literature

Dan Seeger

“‘He had always been appalled at the fast hysterical pace with which businessmen marched toward death and the end of time. And yet he didn’t honestly know how a man, how he, personally, Victor Norman, should use his time. He had only the sense of thus far being a spendthrift with it, and the unexpressed urge not to fling it away so extravagantly, not to tip, as it were, employers with it. How in this brief life, this life that had been gadgeted and gimmicked half to death, could a man use time? Where could he hunt and savor time … Continue reading Great Moments in Literature

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Spectrum Check

Dan Seeger

This week, I made my usual contribution to the movie review section, offering up an assessment of Putty Hill, a film that has, in my opinion, some clear forefathers. It’s the sort of lo-fi cinema wonder that gets extra credit when it’s discovered at a film festival, where its unassuming nature always feels a little fresher. It’s very good, but has some of the hard-to-dodge flaws built into its understated methodology. Then there were a couple pile-on pieces that included my humble contribution. The first was the latest List Inconsequential, which focused on books that elicited tears. I’m not sure … Continue reading Spectrum Check

Books, Comics2 Comments

Great Moments in Literature

Dan Seeger

“‘Katz, as he endured this bombardment, was feeling sad and remote. Walter and the girl seemed to have snapped under the pressure of thinking in too much detail about the fuckedness of the world. They’d been seized by a notion and talked each other into believing in it. Had blown a bubble that had then broken free of reality and carried them away. They didn’t seem to realize that they were dwelling in a world with a population of two.” –Jonathan Franzen, Freedom, 2010 “A YOUNG NURSE WALKS FEVERISHLY THRU THE CITY’S STREETS AFTER HER SWING SHIFT DUTY…RESTLESS, LONELY…HOPING THAT … Continue reading Great Moments in Literature