Category: CORPSE-GREEN CAT SHIT

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EFFDAT: A REPRINT

Steven Augustine

[Ed.’s note: This is just a quickie as I prepare a more voluminous post] It was the summer of ’14 and I was in a dark, dark place when I first posted about this. I wanted to punch the virtual blob of “public opinion,” which hadn’t had decent taste, admittedly, in decades (should I blame Madonna or Torture Porn?)… but this was a devastatingly low new low:  upon what planet of tasteless, hype-governed nitwits had I been shipwrecked? All I wanted to do was go home, to the Cultural ’70s, wherewhen Experimental Lit was reviewed in the glossies and John … Continue reading EFFDAT: A REPRINT

CORPSE-GREEN CAT SHIT, DUMB AS A RUBBER LADDER, ELEPHANT IN THE ELEVATOR6 Comments

THIS IS WHY OUR REVOLUTION CAN’T HAVE NICE THINGS

Steven Augustine

So, as some of you know, luminary of the Skeptical Fringe, CJ Hopkins, just came out with a book of essays… and had it blurbed by (among others) the blatant liar/ huckster/ counter-resistance shill Catherine Austin Fitts, who sells the most disturbingly ridiculous nonsense, like balls of fresh catshit in a box of very old Milk Duds. One of her shticks: the US, you see, uses reverse-engineered tech from UFOS and also… uh… the US, okay, the US secretly purchased The Moon from Aliens. Yep. What did the US pay for that purchase with, a Dilithium Crystal credit card? Better … Continue reading THIS IS WHY OUR REVOLUTION CAN’T HAVE NICE THINGS

CORPSE-GREEN CAT SHIT, CRUSH THIS MEME, DUMB AS A RUBBER LADDER, FIGHT THE STUPID, PHILOSOPHICAL MINUTE3 Comments

DOES THIS TINFOIL MAKE YOU LOOK FAT?

Steven Augustine

  In the summer of 2001 I had crossed the Baltic (in the sleeping car of an old Mitropa train, on a ferry) to leave Stockholm and return to Berlin. I had been away from Berlin, but for one or two visits, since 1995, when I’d fled the black diamond city (exasperation) to live in sun-stunned San Diego for a few years. When Dubya was running for Prezertainer I made the grandiose announcement that I would leave the country if the simp was elected and, unlike 99% of the Lefties who said the same thing, I really did it… though, … Continue reading DOES THIS TINFOIL MAKE YOU LOOK FAT?

CORPSE-GREEN CAT SHIT, the lash or the cuddle: reviews4 Comments

KILLING THE RARA AVIS (with a catshit trap)

Steven Augustine

Yesterday I read a story, by Haruki Murakami, in the New Yorker, that was so bad that it offended me. It’s by no means certain where in the story’s chain of custody (the writer, the translator,  or the editorial staff of the New Yorker)  the bulk of the blame should fall, but to argue that the story, as it comes to us in English, is anything other than shitty, is to make the strongly implicit claim that all standards are purely subjective,  if not meaningless and random: what’s the point? Why not publish more stories, in the New Yorker,  by … Continue reading KILLING THE RARA AVIS (with a catshit trap)

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HOW IS IT THAT YOU READ THESE THINGS? A Quick Little Rip on Murakami’s Latest

Steven Augustine

I keep waiting for the day to arrive that I’ve become so old that reading a shitty short story by Haruki Murakami, in the New Yorker, won’t irritate me. I suppose the good news, by that measure (and only that measure),  is that I am still extremely young. Not that Murakami isn’t admirable. He’s fearless about committing thick lacquers of cliché to print and lavishing those clichés on the dreariest, least-imaginative language possible. Fearless also about pumping it out  like a ’70s screenwriting hack,  trying to sound timelessly “Oriental,”  for the rubes of the heartland,  while dictating from a hot … Continue reading HOW IS IT THAT YOU READ THESE THINGS? A Quick Little Rip on Murakami’s Latest

CORPSE-GREEN CAT SHIT, FIGHT THE STUPID, it's okay, kids, i'm black, SATIRIZING the UNSATIRIZABLE54 Comments

SUPRA-NATIONAL INSENSITIVE CULTURAL APPROPRIATION DAY

Steven Augustine

The third annual SNICAD (Supra-National Insensitive Cultural Appropriation Day) went off with barely a glitch, yesterday, in an undisclosed location, with well over three dozen-ish anonymous participants indulging in hurtful fun. The secrecy is because of our fear of deadly (Twitter) reprisals. Which explains, as well, why I’ll have to use heavily filtered snapshots to illustrate the big event. But it was grand. Everyone appeared to have an illicitly good time and the clean-up, in the wee hours (wrangling the odd sombrero or stray Afro wig,  from various corners of the sticky floor, in the dark,  with a broken litter … Continue reading SUPRA-NATIONAL INSENSITIVE CULTURAL APPROPRIATION DAY

CORPSE-GREEN CAT SHIT, ELEPHANT IN THE ELEVATOR, from the DEPT of I SHIT YOU NOT, the lash or the cuddle: reviews, THINKING TO THE NTH ON THE TOPIC12 Comments

REVIEWS, POLEMICS, PANEGYRICS & TINGLY FANCIES of the SCHADENFREUDE GAZETTE

Steven Augustine

  1. UPSTATE, by JAMES WOOD: a GLOATING REVIEW from a LONG TIME HATER   With the doggedly cheeky defiance that often passes for self-belief,  Yuppie Book Club Bouncer James Wood has submitted his second completed assignment toward earning his certificate as a Fledgling Novelist. Wood’s first effort, the meticulously soporific The Book Against God, was a forgivable failure which left unanswered the question of whether this unnecessary book was a novelist’s first failure, in essence,  or that of an overreaching critic’s. Was James Wood’s first completed long-form fiction assignment, The Book Against God,  the inevitable dud of a dabbler? … Continue reading REVIEWS, POLEMICS, PANEGYRICS & TINGLY FANCIES of the SCHADENFREUDE GAZETTE

BITTER LAUGHS, CORPSE-GREEN CAT SHIT, CRUSH THIS MEME, DUMB AS A RUBBER LADDER, ELEPHANT IN THE ELEVATOR, REQUIRED READINGLeave a comment

SNAILS in the COFFIN: SUNDRY ICKY, DISTURBING and/or BLASPHEMOUS THINGS

Steven Augustine

Take the case of the cultural jingoist and editor of The New Yorker David Remnick, who noted in his letter nominating TV critic Emily Nussbaum for a Pulitzer Prize (which she won in 2016), that “television has become the dominant cultural product of our age—it reaches us everywhere, and has replaced movies and books as the thing we talk about with our friends, families and colleagues.” Remnick did not stop there; to emphasize the untrammeled authority of TV, and literature’s ongoing uselessness, he casts it in military terms as a feeble enemy, now defeated. “Those of us who love TV,” he writes, … Continue reading SNAILS in the COFFIN: SUNDRY ICKY, DISTURBING and/or BLASPHEMOUS THINGS

CORPSE-GREEN CAT SHIT, CRUSH THIS MEME, DUMB AS A RUBBER LADDER, from the DEPT of I SHIT YOU NOT, FUCKING SHIT I REALLY REALLY HATE, HUXLEY ORWELL INC, MURKKA, THINKING TO THE NTH ON THE TOPIC, WEBBY TITTERSLeave a comment

ANOTHER PICTURE FORMS in the CRACKLING FLAMES of these LITERARY ENDTIMES

Steven Augustine

Every Age has its signature follies: from 15th century Europe’s infatuation with the codpiece to the early-20th century radium craze (radium-filled chocolate bars, toothpastes and suppositories were once quite in), historical hindsight eventually makes a fool of every decade, dynasty, century and/or reign. What will “we” be known and mocked for by the super-sophisticates of the 23rd century? It’s always difficult to know as it’s happening  (eg, I’m quite sure I felt that elephant-bells and cork-heeled platforms  were fundamentally sound, at the time), but some trends are so fucking jaw-droppingly moronic that they sort of… stand out. Sticking, for the … Continue reading ANOTHER PICTURE FORMS in the CRACKLING FLAMES of these LITERARY ENDTIMES

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A POX OF BOURGEOIS CULTURAL REFUGEES on ALL OUR HOUSES

Steven Augustine

  Forty years of sinisterly-manipulated recessions have thrown wave upon wave of not-very-talented “singers”, “poets”, “novelists”, “filmmakers”, Marxist academics and performance artists against us, where we would otherwise have had an extra few tens of thousands of lawyers instead…  had “The West’s” economy remained as munificent as it was in the late 1950s. Middle and Upper Middle Class families bereft of the wherewithal and connections to ferry their kids into cushy, self-sustaining professions can now only afford the second-rate luxury of supporting their baffled offspring through and after college. After college is when the crisis comes to a head and … Continue reading A POX OF BOURGEOIS CULTURAL REFUGEES on ALL OUR HOUSES

CORPSE-GREEN CAT SHIT, CRUSH THIS MEME, DUMB AS A RUBBER LADDER, ELEPHANT IN THE ELEVATOR, GET OFF MY GRUMPY OLD LAWN, HIGH QUACKERY, HUXWELLIAN, IDIOCIES OF A PREVIOUS ME, NO LOGIC NO JUSTICE, REQUIRED READING7 Comments

THREE MINI-ESSAYS on GOURMET VARIETIES of ABSOLUTELY PREPOSTEROUS BULLSHIT

Steven Augustine

1. GENDER BULLSHIT Solidly-mediocre purveyor of Normative Pap, Hollywood asset Matt Damon, recently took the risky step of addressing the hot topic of sexual servitude in Hollywood with what he obviously thought was a carefully-calibrated non-statement that nobody could reasonably take exception to. However, an article at The Guardian (and what exactly are they guarding, I’ve often wondered, beyond the obvious?) now  informs us: Damon said there was “a difference between patting someone on the butt and rape or child molestation. Both of those behaviours need to be confronted and eradicated without question, but they shouldn’t be conflated.” He added … Continue reading THREE MINI-ESSAYS on GOURMET VARIETIES of ABSOLUTELY PREPOSTEROUS BULLSHIT

BAD TASTE, CORPSE-GREEN CAT SHIT, ELEPHANT IN THE ELEVATOR, FAILED STATE OF THE ART, FUCKING SHIT I REALLY REALLY HATE, SHIT LIT, the lash or the cuddle: reviews, THE WAR ON TALENT, THINKING TO THE NTH ON THE TOPIC2 Comments

THE CLOAK ‘N DAGGER PENTAMETER: a review of Paul Beatty’s THE SELLOUT and a look at several other shitty books and why they’re Hyped

Steven Augustine

The well of culture has been poisoned with propaganda. It may not be as lethal as a literal well-poisoning but it is as sickening. Culture, in century 21,  has become whatever endless mass of fungible content that happens to be flowing through the pipes of The Media. It is no longer grounded in, or determined by, local conditions (via community gatherings, bands, local art movements, word of mouth, samizdat and any other low-budget repositories or propagators of Culture).  It is no longer measured by any unit subtler than the barrel or judged by any instrument finer than whichever meters clock  … Continue reading THE CLOAK ‘N DAGGER PENTAMETER: a review of Paul Beatty’s THE SELLOUT and a look at several other shitty books and why they’re Hyped

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MILLENNIALS, PUH-LEASE

Steven Augustine

You’re kidding again, right? Right? You’re joking…. you’re pulling my leg… I know when I’m being pranked!  The good old Gaslight, eh? Eh?  Eh? Yep! Har! Good one!  Gooooood one. Hilarious, in fact. You really had me… uh… you really had me going there for… uh… for…. uh… hahaha….. [… chews hand off… ] No, but, seriously…. what sort of Era is this….? Continue reading MILLENNIALS, PUH-LEASE

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And You Trust These People with the Hydrogen Bomb?

Steven Augustine

There’s an unlikely New Repressed Minority deserving of our sympathetic, even scandalized, attention. Where is Gloria Allred? Where is Greta van Susteren? Where is RT? The BBC? Chomsky? America’s Puritanical roots are never more visible than when yet another attractive White female teacher or college student runs afoul of the bizarre single-standard in American Sex Laws. These desirable (youngish) women get in big trouble by seducing White teenaged males; you’d think that with the famous shortage of marriageable Black males, hot Black females would be getting in on this craze, but the Media have nothing to say on that. These Barbie … Continue reading And You Trust These People with the Hydrogen Bomb?

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TRYING TO SCRAPE THE BOTTOM OF A BOTTOMLESS BARREL AND DROWNING IN CAT SHIT INSTEAD

Steven Augustine

  Today I checked Soundcloud. Everyday  I check Soundcloud, I see a new track with thousands of “likes” and hundreds of thousands of listens and I assume these blockbusters are sappy-sweet and/or pornographic auto-pop with metronome beats , so I ignore them. Today I was curious. I clicked the first one I saw. I couldn’t believe how repulsively talent-free and idiotic it was. It made me want to spit blood-soaked chunks of my tongue at the screen. It was bad on a level I  wasn’t prepared for and couldn’t have predicted… and I’m usually pretty good at predicting how bad … Continue reading TRYING TO SCRAPE THE BOTTOM OF A BOTTOMLESS BARREL AND DROWNING IN CAT SHIT INSTEAD

CORPSE-GREEN CAT SHIT, CRUSH THIS MEME, FUCKING SHIT I REALLY REALLY HATE, INSECTS MASQUERADING AS HUMANITY, LIZARD BRAIN, THE STENCH OF THE NORMAL, THINKING TO THE NTH ON THE TOPIC2 Comments

ALL THINGS IN MODERATION

Steven Augustine

I’ve been leaving carefully-crafted (vetted for cogency and style) comments, online, since a few years before 2000, when online comments were essentially digital “letters to the editor” (appearing in the section called Letters to the Editor) and only the best handful of comments could expect to be published. I started my commenting history at places like Salon.com when Salon.com was still a dinky little 8-bit novelty. Blogs didn’t yet exist (not in their current, user-friendly form). Because of the “letters to the editor” feel of comments back then, I learned to make my comments short and interesting, in order to … Continue reading ALL THINGS IN MODERATION

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The Smell of That Prize-Winning Pig

Steven Augustine

I get lots of nonsense in the in-box of my email and some of it is my own damn fault. There’s a zine that seems to be a front for a scheme for separating would-be Hemingways from their lunch money (the old modelling-school con, you know: in which people who are coaxed into fantasizing beyond the harsh reality that models are born, not schooled, pay good money to pretend to be born models for a year or two) and it does a good job of showing how many bad writers are crawling around out there with nice headshots and official … Continue reading The Smell of That Prize-Winning Pig