Of late: Lyotard and Cats

Going through a wholesale re-evaluation of Lyotard: I hated what I read of Postmodern Condition, but The Postmodern Explained (to children, in the original French version) is great, and the beginning of The Inhuman is actually kind of gorgeous. I read that he said Postmodern Condition was his worst book. Learning about his political activity is also intriguing and endearing, in a way. He and Raymond Williams have a lot to say to each other about the "emergent."

Currently reading Jameson's Postmodernism (fun but I don't always trust him - some of his minor claims feel more rhetorical than rigorous, and his tendency of making haphazard unmarked references to philosophers rubs me a little wrong) and the poetry collection In the American Tree, which currently seems a little hit-or-miss (which, for a collection based entirely on the wide range of its contemporary practice, isn't a surprise). "The New Sentence," I suppose, has its own logic and its own differential of success and relative failure. So I'm trying to think through the standards and horizons of success for poetry that fights coherence at every corner...stay tuned.

Today's links: I saw a meme I liked, H. P. Lovecat, and thinking about Lovecraft brought me to look into any possible connection between him and Ballard (there isn't one unless it's via Burroughs), but nonetheless found this cool website Ballardian.