Jarvis Slacks
The Reads: Paul Auster’s Invisible
Paul Auster might be my favorite author. It happens slow. You read work and you write and you work and you think about stuff and you wonder who your favorite author is. Who connects with me? Who writes work that matches me, that speaks to me? Paul Auster speaks to me. His writing is very … Read more
The Reads: The Communist Manifesto
Every semester, I try to teach The Communist Manifesto to my students. I do this for two reasons. First, it is an important piece of Rhetoric that deserves examination. Second, most students have no clue what it is, what it means, or what is in it. Here is a section from my response to the … Read more
Me and the Communist Manifesto
This is a section of a much longer piece on my thoughts on the Communist Manifesto. I’m teaching the text in my EN 102 classes and I wrote a 18 page response to prove to them that their little 2 page responses are not only manageable, but a little lame. Here for your reading pleasure. Capitalism … Read more
“What have you been reading, Jarvis?”
Since I teach English and I write stuff, people always ask me what I read. I find that question amazingly invasive. It is like asking me what I watch or what I listen to. I spend so much time doing these things that I sometimes want to keep them personal, keep them to myself. However, … Read more
How the Apple Tablet will Screw over Poor People
So, apparently, the amazing and most important company that was ever created by human beings is releasing the often rumored and much desired Apple Tablet! It is the Apple Tablet! It is made by Apple and, uh, it is a Tablet! I mean, think of it like the iPhone, but, you know, bigger and more … Read more
Life After The MFA: The Imperfect Art of Revision
The worst part about being a writer is telling people that you’re a writer AND that you work two jobs and you are, currently, thirty-two and living with roommates, car-less, and that you have no real 401K or retirement plan to speak of. It is the constant struggle of all writers to justify calling themselves … Read more
The Horrible Mistake which was Spider-man’s “UnMarrying…”
It was only a couple of years ago, but I remember it like it was a few seconds ago, with the comic still in my hand. And io9 had to remind me of it this morning as I did my morning vacation ritual of blog reading-coffee drinking-emailing. It was Amazing Spider-man. In the comic, the … Read more
The Reads: The Prestige
I’m not a big fan of Science Fiction/Fantasy stuff. I don’t like it. It makes my body hurt in ways that only a car can do. However, Christopher Priest’s The Prestige is a gem, a hunk of writing that has some true, fundamental problems but that achieves mystery, suspense and interest by not telling the … Read more
John Updike is Dead. Long Live John Updike.
Mr. Updike passed away. Cancer was the cause. This is what the New York Times had to say: John Updike, the kaleidoscopically gifted writer whose quartet of Rabbit Angstrom novels highlighted so vast and protean a body of fiction, verse, essays and criticism as to place him in the first rank of among American men … Read more
