“Too much talent colliding with ambition can’t help,” Standard Schaefer writes in his debut book of poems, Nova. And it’s these moments of wry humor that coax the reader, in little starts, into entering Standard’s own intense word-logic.

In Nova, more often than not, you’re responsible for your own meaning-making. Yet the poems also have their own internal logic, created by an odd scientific language—complete with footnotes and an pseudo-narrative of recurring characters, images, and action, an obsession with the gist and grit of things. And again, humor. The footnote for the word “foam”: “Our lather who is in curved and thick space, hollow is the sequential advance echoing through your name.”

—More of my thoughts here.

At times the book seems dated; at other times, still timely and very much relevant. Interesting mix of theory, history, psychology, etc.

“Paths in the shadow-break
of your hand.

From the four-finger-furrow
I root up the
petrified blessing.”

One of Celan’s later books, lovingly translated by Pierre Joris. Joris’ intro’s a beautiful read too—

“How more tidy had it been to have been born old and have aged into a child, brought finally to the brink, not of the grave, but of the womb; in our age bred up into infants searching for a womb to crawl into, not be made to walk loth the gingerly dust of death, but to find a moist, gillflirted way.”

Nightwood has its moments - interesting to read from a literary history perspective -

Some moments when the dialogue gets awkward and clunky, but an overall imaginative and entertainig story.

As a grad student I have mixed feelings about this book. On the one hand, it tries to find a space to talk more seriously about cultural studies in the current academic scene where the dissolution of identity is taken as a given. On the other, its “success” depends on the fact that it references and relies on the works of all the same authors: Freud, Lacan, Zizek, etc. etc. Must we always give lip service to the same people to be considered seriously?

That said, I learned a lot about the history of the way communism in China has been theorized - a history I have been - and still largely am - ignorant about. I learned about some of the difficulties of cultural studies, especially when dealing with Chinese and Chinese-American politics and history in conjunction with the current definitions of “cultural studies” - and all its attendant practices and limitations - popular in western academia. I like the book’s awareness - which posits that “We need to remember as intellectuals that the battles we fight are battles of words.” But that awareness also sometimes leads me to question the efficacy and utility of the way cultural studies - including this book - is done.

My review’s here

My review’s here.

If you took Freud at his word, you’d be led to believe Dora wants to screw anything that moves. Dora says she remembers smelling cigarettes when she wakes up. This, according to Freud, means that Dora has erotic feelings for her father and Herr K., her father’s friend, both of who smoke. And of course, Freud thinks Dora wants a kiss from him, since Freud too is a smoker. Influential guy, but v. full of himself, and largely confused about female desire.

Do good by drinking beer! My full review here.