Language makes us human, Derek Bickerton asserts in “Adam’s Tongue”, not the other way around. Humans simply could not have taken the evolutionary leap out of the savannas without it. However, contrary to common belief, language isn’t as simple as a straight line evolution from the myriad of animal calls exhibited by our genealogical [...]
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By joshuacitrak, on February 10th, 2009 |
 This is not a cheery, feel good book regardless of what the back cover blurbs say. Being hungry and getting fed is serious business for everyone—the starving farmer, GMO seed companies, the multi-national distributors and the end consumer. Raj Patel gets right down to the meaty heart of the most under reported and least understood of all the vital services—food—its production, transportation and [...] By joshuacitrak, on January 16th, 2009 |
“The Elephant Vanishes” is a collection of subtly odd, twisting stories where the quirks and kinks of life aren’t looked upon as burdens, rather as just another way of being. A young couple, aching with hunger, decide to rob a McDonald’s of burgers and Cokes to assuage their conscience—and appetite. Reduced people deliver Sony TV’s into apartments and offices—uninvited—but yet people refuse to acknowledge them or their televisions. A dancing dwarf is wanted by the leaders of a revolution, for crimes no one remembers or understands. [...] By joshuacitrak, on December 16th, 2008 |
“Always Outnumbered, Always Outgunned,” Walter Mosley’s novel told in short stories about the post-penitentiary existence of the conflicted and haunted Socrates Fortlow. Socrates is a living paradox, a man of esteemed principles yet he did 27 years for murder and rape, someone quick to offer another a helping hand and just as quick to use those hands to knock the living shit out of a person should he be [...] By joshuacitrak, on December 12th, 2008 |
With his last book, “Tree of Smoke,” Denis Johnson won the National Book Award. So what better to follow up that serious literary work than a pulpish noir crime [...] By admin, on October 10th, 2008 |
Though I’m only two stories into Well Tower’s first collection, “Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned”, the book is turning into a delightful find. Towers spins his prose with a quirky matter-of-factness making the odd and strange seem at home amongst the norm of everyday [...] By admin, on September 23rd, 2008 |
Don DeLillo’s hefty thome of the last half of the American 20th century. From “The Shot Heard ‘Round the World”, the Cold War, the Texas Highway Killer and toxic waste, DeLillo chronicles it all through the eyes of a Bronx family and their neighbors, lovers and [...] By admin, on September 16th, 2008 |
ODB, the clownish MC of the Wu-Tang Clan, lived an unhinged, raucous life that ended too early. While he was a vital member of the ground breaking and widely influential hip hop group, Dirty is better known now for the impressive list of vices and fuck ups. He was father to nine children by numerous women, had a national rap sheet, did time in Clinton Correctional, abused crack, was an un-treated manic depressive, and died virtually broke after two solo gold records and a platinum Wu record. [...] By admin, on September 9th, 2008 |
Dark. Sparse. Brutal. Cormac McCarthy’s Pulitzer Prize winning classic is the story of a father and son wandering a forgotten road in post-apocalyptic America. Everyone they know is dead, wife, mother, friends. Burned by the fires that have ravaged the planet for decades or murdered in the violent world that is the fire’s aftermath. [...] By admin, on August 18th, 2008 |
A beautifully written mediation on waste and how it interrelates and even defines our world, our society and ourselves. Essayist John Scalan dissects the makings and meanings of garbage from the literal (plastic bottles, shit) to the figurative (sloth, inefficiency) and reveals the basis’ and philosophies behind relegating garbage to one of the most reviled words in our [...] |
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all materials copyright © 2010 slouch. for reproduction or reuse contact joshua citrak at editor[at]slouchmag[dot]com |
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