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AMZN incent:
dazzle you with such treasure,
the likes of which you've
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tellmewhy : The First 24 Months of a New York Design Company
More depressing than (being in the company of) Dostoyevsky
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Botany of Desire by Michael Pollan
What do apples, potatoes, marijuana, and tulips?
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New York Minute
...
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Blind Shaft
Read boring articles on post-millenial capitalism in
The Economist or you can watch this movie!
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Bulletproof Monk
...
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Fancies and Goodnights by John Collier
Don't let Michael Chabon's patronizing endorsement
ruin yet another perfectly reasonable reading
experience! Buy this now!
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Close Up by Abbas Kiarostami
Along with Penelope Spheeris' Suburbia,
a seminal document of the LA punk scene, circa 1982.
WHAT, YOU DON'T BELIEVE ME?
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Close Up by Abbas Kiarostami
Along with Penelope Spheeris' Suburbia,
a seminal document of the LA punk scene, circa 1982.
WHAT, YOU DON'T BELIEVE ME?
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Zatoichi Versus the Chess Master
What's next?
Zatoichi versus the Insurance Claims Adjuster?
We can only hope!
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Home Movie
Mark Borchard is nowhere to be found in this movie, save the liner notes. For SHAME!
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Lord of the Rings
Watching a great tennis match can be exhilarating
but we don't call it an artistic masterpiece, unless
the players are Truffaut and Fritz Lang, and the
ball boy is Kubrick.
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Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
The film is a metaphysical chase movie
-- the villain we flee from is
the gentrification of Jim Carrey.
You have been warned, Will Farell.
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Spiderman 2
Spiderman 2 is the most immoral movie I've seen this year.
Or is that amoral?
Wait, is one supposed to be like...
"I don't care if I'm a prick" and the other like,
"I do care, but I'm a prick anyway?"
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Tsai Ming Liang
His characters seem like strangers even to themselves not necessarily
because they're alienated, but because we have access to their bodies,
rather than their selves. We are omniscient rather than intimate, the distinction blurred by prescription-strength deodorant!
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House of Flying Daggers
We never learn the outcome of this climatic fight scene and leave unsure
who are the ambushers and who are the ambushees. Any subplot larger than
the lovers is left astray, unleashed and elliptical, so that the entire
sociopolitical world of House of Flying Daggers is a decoy... A decoy for Fab 5 Freddy beat down!
Uh! Uh! Uh! Uh!
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Sideways
Satire is the narrative of critique, but its critique is like Hulk Hogan
telling us he could knock out Andre the Giant.
This is something Hulk could never do without Andre's express consent; he ways 720 pounds!
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Amor es Perros
It would be unfair to label this a
Mexican Pulp Fiction but then again,
this is an unfair world we live in.
It's got dog fights, yo!
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Playing Right Field A Jew Grows in Greenwich by George Tabb
The jacket says Tabb is a "punk rock David Sedaris" but don't let that stop you from reading hilarious tales of perpetual beatings and anti-semitism.
Sure to replace "Diary of Anne Frank" as mandatory reading.
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Exegesis by Astro Teller
This guy's dad is Manhattan Project luminary
Edward Teller!!!!! Plus, he is 50 times better
a writer than Martin Amis.
Damning with faint praise, are we?
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Blowing My Cover: My Life as a CIA Spy by Lindsay Moran
The psych screens described here are identical
to the ones administered to Robert McNamara
during the 50s. I'm not making this up.
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A Million Little Pieces
Overweight know-it-all abuses self in multitude of ways, sells rights to publisher, calls self "motherfucker" in 20/20 interview.
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Hellboy (Two-Disc Special Edition) (2004)
Selma Blair's ennui-laden introduction on
the second disc is practically performance-art!
A postmodern commentary on the banality of
DVD-extra features or tryptophan/xanax cocktail?
You be the judge.
(But if you chose pharmaceutically enhanced
lethargy, you would be wrong!)
Don't miss the antics of Gerald McBoingboing!
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Moby Dick by Herman Melville
Herman Melville was a notorious tightwad.
If he were alive, he would visit
stuffies
to buy synthesizers and minoxidil
for his grandson, Moby.
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In the Miso Soup by Ryu Murakami
Hey didn't this guy write Norwegian Wood?
Nope. That was John Lennon.
AAHAHAHAHAHAHHAH HAHAAHAHHAHAHAHA!
No, seriously, this is a good book.
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Branded: The Buying and Selling of Teenagers by Alissa Quart
Maintain the thin veneer of moral indignation
while you secretly ravage this book for Gen-Y
marketing secrets! Watch the author recoil in
horror as her expose becomes so much lubricant
for the evil machine she sought to destroy.
Triumph!
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Candy Freak by Steve Almond
Thinly disguised gen-X confessional disguised
as a anti-conspicuous consumption screed disguised
as a thinly disguised gen-X confessional.
Peel back one layer and out pops another!
How many are there? Three, exactly.
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Men and Cartoons by Jonathan Lethem
Be on the vanguard of the New Fanboyulists.
Now you can condescend to participating in
America's most potent printed medium without
the embarrassment of walking into a comic
boutique where all manner of nerds abound.
(Sc)avengers assemble!
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Broken Angels by Richard K. Morgan
Priceless jacket copy:
"Cynical, quick-on-the-trigger Takeshi Kovacs,
the ex-UN envoy turned private eye, has changed
careers--and bodies--once more...
trading sleuthing for soldiering as a warrior-
for-hire, and helping a far-flung planet's
government put down a bloody revolution."
no wait it gets better:
"But when it comes to taking sides, the only one
Kovacs is ever really on is his own. So
when a rogue pilot and a sleazy corporate fat cat offer him a lucrative role in a
treacherous treasure hunt, he's only too happy to go AWOL with a band of resurrected soldiers of fortune.
All that stands between them and the ancient alien
spacecraft they mean to salvage are a massacred
city bathed in deadly radiation, unleashed
nanotechnology with a million ways to kill,
and whatever surprises the highly advanced
Martian race may have in store. But armed
with his genetically engineered instincts
and his trusty twin Kalashnikovs, Takeshi
is ready to take on anything--and let the devil
take whoever's behind."
Fuck me, I'm sold!
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28 Days Later
Revives the criminally underutilized trope of
POST-APOCALYPSE SHOPPING SPREE to joyous effect.
Godspeed you black emperor, indeed!
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Following by Christopher Nolan
Everyone who deserves to be punished is
punished be to deserves who everyone!
Watch Nick Cave get framed for murder by Joe Strummer.
Oh crap, give it way did I? I did way it give, crap. OH!
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Media Virus by Douglas Rushkoff
Douglas Rushkoff's signal achievement isn't media analysis,
but the quick land-grab of that territory before anyone
else got to it. This book of "cultural critique" reads
basically like something written by a sophomore (and sophomoric)
mass com major whose taken a critical theory class or two.
His most interesting observation? Michael Jackson wants to be a white guy.
Okay, maybe not so innovative. The most disappointing comparison?
He's often called the Generation X Marshall McLuhan. But Mcluhan
never analyzed content, just the formal mechanisms of media, like Freud for consciousness;
Whereas Rushkoff = Suck.com - intelligence = TV guide + banal critique = a wonderful use of your post-holidy shopping budget!
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Sock by Penn Jilette
Nearly every paragraph in this book is capped with
a pop song lyric. Can you identify them all?
MAKE THAT YOUR LIFE'S AMBITION!
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Adventures of Cavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon
So there was this writer colony, and you stay there
for the weekend and get workshopped by a lot of
famous writers. And this girl I know was there, and
this other girl turned in a story and it was really
good, so Michael Chabon felt threatened by it, so he
spent the whole workshop ripping it apart in front
of everyone, and by the end of the day, she was in
tears, as you will be moved to when reading this
book!
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Adventures of Cavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon
So there was this writer colony, and you stay there for the weekend and get workshopped by a lot of famous writers. And this girl I know was there, and this other girl turned in a story and it was really good, so Michael Chabon felt threatened by it, so he spent the whole workshop ripping it apart in front of everyone, and by the end of the day, she was in tears, as you will be moved to when reading this book!
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Visitor Q by Takashi Miike
Exactly like Mary Poppins but half as disturbing!
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Ficciones by Jorge Luis Borges
Borges is obsessed with Leibnitz.
Snoop Dogg is obsessed with Deez Nutz.
Or is it the other way around?
Read this book and FIND OUT.
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Positively Fifth Street
Recipe for Positively Fifth Street by James Mcmanus
1 Part Erotica
3 Parts Poker
3 Parts Murder Mystery
1 seemingingly out of place quote from David Sedaris.
MUAH! IT IS DONE.
and it is good.
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Positively Fifth Street
Recipe for Positively Fifth Street by James Mcmanus
1 Part Erotica
3 Parts Poker
3 Parts Murder Mystery
1 seemingingly out of place quote from David Sedaris.
MUAH! IT IS DONE.
and it is good.
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Alternator Transformers
Transformers aren't just for kids anymore! They're for developmentally arrested college graduates, too! YOU GOT THE TOUCH!
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Ugly Americans : The True Story of the Ivy League Cowboys Who Raided the Asian Markets for Millions
Gangsters! Forbidden Love! International Equities Trading!
A virtual how-to guide. Throw away The Art of War. This is your bible now!
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Suspiria
Hey, isn't that the old lady from Dark Shadows?
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Afterglow: A Last Conversation with Pauline Kael
What would it be like to sleep over and watch
Sex in the City with America's most beloved critic of the last century?
YOUR MOST SECRET DESIRE FULFILLED!
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Planet Simpson: How A Cartoon Masterpiece Defined a Generation
The experience of vicariously watching TV through the manic
gushings of your office mate rendered in book form!
References Radiohead, WIRED magazine, David Foster Wallace,
and Thomas Frank no less than 5000 times, any zeitgeistmeister
would be remiss not to!
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Edward Scissorhands
Vincent Price's swan song as robotics genius creator of Johnny Depp,
eclipsed only by gravitas of Orson Welles' ultimate performance as
giant planet-eating robot planet in Transformers: The Movie.
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Batman: The Dark Knight Returns
New era of super-hero grit ushered in by death of Messrs. David
Endocrine (nee Letterman) and Paul Schaeffer by the Joker, signifying
death of irony by criminal pathology!
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The Captain is Out to Lunch and the Sailors Have Taken Over the Ship
"America's greatest poet" cannot stop heaving accolades upon
his Apple Macintosh personal computer! Oh, the novelty of modern word-processing!
Some good horse-betting tips, too!
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Our Band Could Be Your Life: Scenes from the American Indie Underground 1981-1991
Repeated listens to Double Nickels on the Dime may fail to convince
you of the Greatness of The Minutemen, but rest assured, this book will not!
The authority of rock journalism compels you!
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The Tenacity of the Cockroach : Conversations with Entertainment's Most Enduring Outsiders
Nerrrrrrdddddss! Huzzah! Transcends its own inanity, sublimates to
insight! Weird Al Yankovic!
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Mega Bloks 600-piece Red Bucket
Fully lego-compatible clones fall short of advertised 600 pieces,
and have rubbery, chalky texture, but per piece price
voxiterates miserly 500-piece Lego Bucket.
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The Substance of Style: How the Rise of Aesthetic Value Is Remaking Commerce, Culture, and Consciousness
Ugly book cover! How this happen?
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Tietam Brown
Mick Foley eviscerates bildungsroman in situ, rules by fiat.
Watch out, James Joyce! There is new Ulysses: Tietam Brown be thy
name.
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Bringing Down the House: The Inside Story of Six M.I.T. Students Who Took Vegas for Millions
Binds to so many archestereotype receptor sites, you will flush with
guilt and joy, reading this! Mezrich losing journalistic objectivity,
so what!
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Old School (Widescreen Unrated Edition)
Saved by virile presence of Will Ferrell, his sweat proscribed by
IOC, yet Eastern Bloc teams persist in abusing, causing permanent
thyroid damage!