Through Other Lenses: American Robotnik Readings for November 2012

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Nov 172012
 
Through Other Lenses: American Robotnik Readings for November 2012

From the RSS Feed “My American Lemonade,” kottke.org, November 15, 2012 – A Bulgarian writes about his immigration struggles. “Last Call” by Tim Heffernan, Washington Monthly, November/December 2012 – America is about to start drinking more. “Can’t a guy just make some friends around here? Maybe.” by Matt Pearce, Kansas City Pitch, November 6, 2012 – If you’ve had a hard time finding and making friends in your new homeland, be comforted in knowing the natives have the same problem, Craigslist notwithstanding. “How Millennials Leaving Their Parents’ Basements Could […] Continue reading >

Head-Spinning in America

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Mar 272012
 
Head-Spinning in America

The title of Bertrand-Henri Lévy’s "American Vertigo: Traveling America in the Footsteps of de Tocqueville" is both accurate and deceiving. Lévy’s prison tours are a thin pretext for his travels through the United States in 2004, an afterthought in the dizzy-inducing whirlwind of a trip.  Whereas Jean Beaudrillard spun, in "America," his account in terms of space (the desert), Lévy narrates the country as movement (the road). The result reflects the approach: Lévy breezes through the land in fragments and enumerations. Similar to any lengthy road trip, as soon as I settled into the book […] Continue reading >

America the Hyperreal

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Feb 172012
 
America the Hyperreal

Visiting and then writing about the U.S. has a solid tradition among the French, but it’s safe to say the late Jean Beaudrillard‘s 1986 work"America" hasn’t made the list of books covering their country that Americans would showcase. Even the most cynical among my new compatriots would hesitate to call their country "a giant hologram", a "blank solitude," or a "narcissistic refraction." Abstract hyperbole defines Beaudrillard’s "America". On the ground, it is the desert that defines Beaudrillard’s America. He can’t get enough of it because "you are delivered from all depth […] Continue reading >

When the Birds Confer to Tell the Tale

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Nov 222011
 
When the Birds Confer to Tell the Tale

Whether it’s a testimony to my cultural isolation or Penguin Press’s marketing prowess, I learned about “The Conference of the Birds”, the new book by Petr Sís (Peter Sis), on All Things Considered during last Wednesday’s evening commute. By a stroke of luck, I met Petr, a Czech émigré living in the U.S. since 1982, only five days later during his book-tour stop here in Portland, Oregon. In his presentation Monday at Powell’s City of Books, Peter gave a whirlwind tour of the book’s origins and story, of his life/career […] Continue reading >