- Skynoise tribute to Nam June Paik (noted by Jace Clayton).
- Thomas Jones on shipping containers at the LRB (also Theo Tait on Houellebecq).
- George Legrady on Daniel Spoerri (among other things), and a partial image-map version of Spoerri’s Anecdoted Topography of Chance (looks to be based on the Atlas Press edition).
(also)
- Aviva Shemesh on Manderlay.
I’ve only read The Elementary Particles, which I read in, hmmm, Winter 2001. It struck me at the time as being a very European book – roughly their version of Jimmy Corrigan the Smartest Kid on Earth, with which I was reading it in tandem. Looking at it now, it seems a very Clinton-era book – the political critique it’s trying to make is based on assumptions that seem a long way away from Bush’s America.
I haven’t read any of the other ones mainly because the American editions are so staggeringly ugly (and I include the McSwys thing in that). Vaguely tempted to read the Lovecraft biog but I’m not sure that I see the need; I remember reading somewhere about ten years ago that his politics were reactionary & a lot of his writing suddenly snapped into place for me.
have you read much houellebecq? i did get through the lovecraft piece that mcsys/blvr put out last year and that was pretty nice (they kindly include a couple of lovecraft stories, which is a nice touch—the intro by s.king is bizarre enough to justify its inclusion as well), but i’m assuming quite different from the fiction, which has always sounded intriguing but also fraught with danger.