And the funniest part about it...
I really don't do drugs.
"I was not born a novelist (if anyone is). I had to grow into novelhood.
-Don DeLillo in a letter to David Foster Wallace
People who are real. I'm not into bullshit, and I'm not into 40 year old hair fettishists prettending to be 21 year old hot car saleswomen.
I'm definately into meeting new people, awesome people, wanders, lovers, dreamers. I am incredibly social. I don't even like going to the grocery store by myself. So see if you can't track me down. I'd definately be up for coffee. I drink a lot of coffee. Damn fine cups of coffee. And pie.
Oh, and I guess this is important too-- It is more likely than not that if you just send me a friend request, nothing will happen. I'm not around enough, and when I am I'm just struggling to catch up to any conversations I already have running. If you've got something to say, even if it's just "hi", you're far more likely to get my attention. Those default messages... I just skip them, pretty much always.
Last thing. Looking for someone to teach me to sing and play bass. Will trade music lessons for beer. And entertaining company. But be warned-- I know _nothing_ about music.
I love the italians. Ellio Vittorini, Italo Calvino, Umberto Eco. I didn't so much care for Il sipario ducale in Pedroni's translation, but the Volponi poetry I've read in the original I liked. The prose of Il fuoco is very good, but one can't go around claiming to like D'Annunzio without getting lumped in with neo-fascists, and they're a bunch of creepy mo'fos.
I loved In the Skin of a Lion but never read The English Patient and didn't much care for Coming Through Slaughter. Okay, that's mostly a lie, but if I give the man too much respect, I may never write again. And that's Canada for you.
In americans, I have soft spots of course for the Beats and the Lost Generation, as any good writer/intellectual should. I prefer Fitzgerald over Hemmingway. My favorate Beat is Gregory Corso ("that's what you get for naming your kid gregory") but everyone I know went to Ginsberg's funeral except me. At the moment, I think what Eggers and Chabon are doing is a fascinating critique of the downfalls of modern literature due to postmodernism, but I see it definately as a critique rather than something new. Yes, stories need plot. But throwing everything the past two decades have learned about character development and subtlety out the window in favour of pulp is definately a reaction against rather than a movement towards.
That was probably more than you ever wanted to know.