Classic Books Re-packaged

[kent mueller]

I sent this out yesterday, thought to the whole group, but it turned out I
only sent to it to Joel Katz, who must have been confused to get it.

Kent Mueller


Sympathies, Joe. Growing up in a lower-middle class household (but with
pretensions -- none literary however) in Milwaukee, my whole journey in
literature began in a not dissimilar way. From an older brother's copy of
the old National Lampoon Magazine I was intrigued by a humor piece titled
"Kerouac's Postcards to His Mother", complete with snapshots of a Neal
Cassidy look-alike stealing silverware from a diner, etc.

This led me to a local bookstore on Milwaukee's hip eastside, where my 13
year old self asked about any books by this guy "Ka-Roak". It took a moment
for the clerk to say, "Oh, you mean Kare-oh-whack?" and sell me a paperback
of On The Road. That led to the Beats, Burroughs (the same mag soon after
featured a centerfold of "The Complete Works of William Burroughs" which was
a two-page close-up photo of an open desk drawer complete with hypodermic
needles, KY jelly, and various drug paraphernalia), and from there to
Pynchon, Gaddis, Barth, etc.

We can dis these low-brow, diluted, demeaned forms of literature all we
want, but it can and does lead the rare, off-beat receptive individual to
the real thing sooner or later. There is a value to that.

Kent Mueller       
-- 

Visit KM art's web site at http://my.execpc.com/~artkm/
-- 

Visit KM art's web site at http://www.execpc.com/~artkm/

> From: "Joel Katz" <mittelwerk at hotmail.com>
> Date: Thu, 22 Sep 2005 19:58:34 -0400
> To: pynchon-l at waste.org
> Subject: Re: Classic Books Re-packaged
> 
> this is disgusting.  you should never have been allowed to read.  now look
> at you.
> 
> 
> 
>> From: Joe Allonby <joeallonby at gmail.com>
>> Reply-To: Joe Allonby <joeallonby at gmail.com>
>> To: Dave Monroe <monropolitan at yahoo.com>
>> CC: oilymicro at gmail.com, wmacfarl at gmail.com, pynchon-l at waste.org
>> Subject: Re: Classic Books Re-packaged
>> Date: Thu, 22 Sep 2005 17:32:35 -0400
>> 
>> OK, now a politically incorrect response to all of this. I'm sure that you
>> will all hate me.
>> 
>> When I was a young child in a working class home with both parents working
>> full time jobs, hard-cover editions of the classics were expensive. We ate
>> macaroni and cheese and I'm allergic to dairy products for
>> chrissfuckingsake.I had a library card and I was (with my sisters) not just
>> encouraged but required to go to the library and withdraw at least one book
>> per week. Still, it was important to have books actually in the home that
>> we
>> owned. So my parents mail-ordered the Readers Digest Condensed Classics.
>> Yes, they were inferior. I got to read works to which I would not have been
>> exposed otherwise. I'm sure that they were in my public library, but I wuld
>> not have taken it upon myself to look for them if I were unaware of their
>> existence.
>> 
>> So, there is a place for this sort of thing.
>> 
>> You may trash and flame me now.
>> 
>> Peace,
>> Joe
> 
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