prismotron's reviews
45 reviews

The Velvet Underground & Nico by Joe Harvard

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2.0

great excerpts and well researched but not a lot to add to upon that. snzzzz oh sorry zzzzz wait hold on i'm up 🛌snooork mimimi sn
Transformer: The Complete Lou Reed Story by Victor Bockris

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5.0

my summer with lou reed was so incredibly tumultuous writing anything would feel like taking an acid shower. i don't have nothing to say i have far too much to say. ew. anyways

this is a tragedy of someone who refuses to decentralize their suffering from their identity. i see him. the wounded part of me can't let go of the idea that i could have saved him. in lou i see myself. i see men of situations past where i was deluded of the same fixer-upper project. i see patriarchal cruelty. senseless, but it makes him feel big. i'm terrified of him. i'm afraid of everything. lou is a mirror.
Lou Reed's Transformer by Ezra Furman

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4.5

can't figure out anything better to say than something i should not have written drunk and alone crying and writhing happy lou reed summer 

at its core a rumination on failure; failure to achieve, failure to conform, failure to ...be. but what is power if not declaring no, i decided this? my definition of failure is triumph? am i left empty handed in loss? why am i wrong for living in-between? maybe i can stop hurling the word nothing at the mirror like a swear and find comfort in indecision. maybe transforming.
Master of Reality by John Darnielle

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5.0

crying about the mental hospital in the seattle airport sensory room
Penpal by Dathan Auerbach

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2.0

the fool has read the r/nosleep book thinking it would be anything other than fine
A Certain Hunger by Chelsea G. Summers

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1.0

been craving(sorry) cannibalism fiction since catching up on yellowjackets, i was stoked to have this in my arsenal of impulse purchases but my fucking god what a slog it turned out to be. do you genuinely have nothing more to say about feminism other than "anything a man can do a woman can do too...but BETTER!" bored of the ""commentary."" bored of the defanged descriptions of her butcherings. bored of this flat narrator that hardly serves her designated purpose in her own story. genuinely i could not tell you her name if i tried. some of the flowery writing did strike a chord, but ultimately was few and far between. the girlboss literature canon is not for me + i should have just rewatched hannibal again.
Cut by Catherine Lacey

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3.75

running thru the streets frenzied and wailing grabbing strangers by the shoulders IF YOU ARE RAISED WITH AN ANGRY MAN IN YOUR HOUSE THERE WILL ALWAYS BE AN ANGRY MAN IN YOUR HOUSE YOU WILL FIND HIM EVEN WHEN HE IS NOT THERE new stranger AND IF ONE DAY YOU FIND THAT THERE IS NO ANGRY MAN IN YOUR HOUSE on all fours screaming at their dog now YOU WILL GO FIND ONE AND INVITE HIM IN
Universal Harvester by John Darnielle

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3.0

finally got me to read something from work! yes i have other books to get to but i'm weak-willed and can't resist the thrall of john darnielle's prose
Our Band Could Be Your Life: Scenes from the American Indie Underground, 1981-1991 by Michael Azerrad

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4.5

some of these people i did not need to know anything about in retrospect (j mascis you are public enemy number 1) but the beat happening chapter was so important it is affecting me on a cellular level
I Wished by Dennis Cooper

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dark emotional sad

5.0

"drawings can only hope to nail a character's resemblance, and they're just distractions from whatever wish was dying in the writer when he typed it."

i read 4/5 of the george miles cycle last year, but the absolute State i was put into was enough to require an indefinite hiatus from his work until i was stable enough to finish. not stable. maybe more eager to be shaken. pairing this with period was perfect, it heartwrenchingly expands on the most compelling aspect of the meta-narrative in the final book of the cycle: having to capture someone who is a memory. subjecting your devotion to an audience that can't fathom its depth. i don't remember where i read that grief is just love with nowhere to go. when it becomes so massive a weight it needs to live in art. my optimism poisons me to believe it can die there, too. maybe not. worth a shot.
this book is a gutting. i'll be thinking of the titular chapter and thialh for a while, probably weeping about them even longer. luv you dennis.