Infinite Jest
Okay, this is the big one. Bret Easton Ellis calls it 'the doorstop'. When my friend Dan was reading it on the tram, he called it 'the chick magnet'. Infinite Jest is your 1079-page destiny, so get started and you'll finish it before 2009 draws to its heady conclusion.
So, what's it about? Errr. Look, I'm not going to.
What's Your Poo Telling You?
No longer must we torture our bowels. No longer must we hide away in shame and secrecy. No longer must we wake every morning, look at ourselves in the mirror and try to blatantly deny the one thing that unites us all as humans - you do it, I do it, we all do it: p_ _, actually, I’m not even going to blank it out – poo, poo, poo…
This brown coloured hardcover unleashes the cathartic joys of pooing and all it’s marvellous diversity.
Submarine
"One of the ways I can tell that I am unhappy is if I get squeamish about looking up internet photos of STDs, footballers' broken legs, napalm babies."
In Submarine, Joe Dunthorne's teenage narrator, Oliver Tate, is drawn with the kind of off-kilter charm that makes you want to both be him and get with him, even though you might be ten years his senior.
Worried Noodles
Bean bag, bean bag. Whatcha doin’ sittin’ on that bean bag?
Reading Shrigley’s Worried Noodles!
Tree stump, tree stump. Whatcha doin’ dancin’ round that tree stump?
Dancin’ to the tunes of Shrigley’s Worried Noodles!
Lamp post, lamp post. Whatcha doin’ danglin’ from that lamp post?
Dangling my copy of Shrigley’s Worried Noodles above you.
Ants Have Sex in Your Beer, by David Shrigley
David Shrigley has made a new book.
There is no way to explain
this book
other than to write down various things
that are in it.*
I have sampled the voice
of Charles Manson
and I have used it to make
a dance record.
The record is good and
I am very proud of it.
Spiders hanging from your eyes.
You have very low standards.
The Rant
Sometimes you've just gotta get stuff off your chest. Equally (and except in the case of certain mammary reduction procedures), it can be good to witness others getting stuff off their chests. So in the spirit of purging, why not add The Rant to your reading list? Founded as a ‘side project' by Paul Meats of Was Not Me and ‘Silent G' from Idle 55, this publication is a beautifully illustrated ode to complaint.
Dumbo feather, pass it on
Dumbo feather turns 1! A landmark, a testament to taste, a damn tootin', honky tonkin', whiskey swillin' celebration. A magazine year is far more impressive than a dog-year, especially in Australia, when often all you've got to go on is the sniff of an oily rag and sometimes even that isn't very oily.
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