Crumps’ latest scene report contains a section in which I argue about America with another attendee of the Mars Review of Books launch party. I was trying, and perhaps failing, to persuade my interlocutor that there are ways to think about America that fall neither under the umbrella of self-hatred nor of self-exaltation.
I’m reading Baudrillard’s book on America—from Verso, in this weird wide format, riddled with typos (“Tupunga Canyon [sic]”). Some of the pages of the book are falling out as I read it. There are a lot of striking observations of the kind only Frenchmen seem to be able to make about America. I like his observations about Southern California.
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