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April 24, 2008

Comments

EL CHAVO!

That's a good quote to use. What I find peculiar is that often people that didn't grow up in a rough neighborhood think you are "glorifying the ghetto" when you are just telling real stories, as if to be honest about poverty and hardship can only mean you want something for it; pity, empathy, cred, whatever. And these people are also often the ones that can't talk about wealth and privilege honestly either! Que cosas.

Caro

Right on, Chavo. For people who live in Woody Allen or "Friends" land, city brown experience = ghetto. Totalizing, and as if that's the only coin of the realm we can offer. And it metastasizes. Hence, you end up with "Love and Consequences." Why didn't Margaret B. Jones write about her privilege and fascination with gangsta culture honestly? That would have been worth reading.

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¡A la lucha!

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Heavy rotation

Subway reading

  • Kazuo Ishiguro: Never Let Me Go

    Kazuo Ishiguro: Never Let Me Go
    So many friends raved about this. But I realized I get impatient with gothics. Must be the obligatory genteel reticence of it all.

  • Ed Park: Personal Days: A Novel

    Ed Park: Personal Days: A Novel
    A comedy of social manners for the cubicle age. Nicely plotted even when it dips into the absurd. But I could'a done without the tour-de-force punctuation-less email that ties all loose ends.

  • Hanif Kureishi: Something to Tell You: A Novel

    Hanif Kureishi: Something to Tell You: A Novel
    A bittersweet sequel of sorts to Buddha of Suburbia and Beautiful Launderette: What happened to all of us old brown punks now that we're middle aged.

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