Random Thoughts

This is the last issue if the Paris Review I have from this era — I just forgot to read it, I guess. I’ve been reading it over lunch the past few weeks, and it reminded me just how good the magazine was around this time — the issue is just one banger after another.

One of the things I like best about the Paris Review is how silent it is. That is, there are no editorials, and there are no author introductions. (There’s a couple pages in the back where you can read more about them, but it’s terse to the point of parody — like, “Angus McGuirwirth has published several novels”, and that’s it.) So unlike, say, McSweeney’s Quarterly, which sometimes seems to carry pieces as an excuse to have editorial matter before and after the material, the Paris Review is just the texts.

So I have no idea who the editor(s) are, really. I mean, there’s a colophon that lists everybody, but who reads that? But it’s obvious that the editor(s) during this era had strong vision — they redesigned the magazine, making the format slightly larger. And they also made the pages ultra clean.

Most American book designers feel compelled to put the author’s name on every other page, and then the title of the book on the other half of the pages. Especially in novels, this just seems insane to me. Are they afraid that the readers will forget what they’re reading? But I think the explanation is much simpler: Americans are basically noise insensitive. Visual clutter doesn’t register at all.

Which reminds me — I was “watching” House Hunters while tidying up yesterday, and basically all the kitchens looked like this. Just a jumble of different sized things, and this is the standard — no appliance has the same depth as any cupboard, and in addition there’s just random heights to everything.

OK, I had to look it up — the editor for this beautiful issue is Emily Nemens, design by Strick & Williams. She left a bit after this, and the magazine is back to the old design.

(The only thing that I don’t enjoy here are the overly white paper used.)

Anyway! Fantastic issue. Like most issues from this period, it also reads very well as a book — the sequencing is perfect.

The Paris Review #236 (2021) (buy new, 3.67 on Goodreads)

I bought this book (in 2015) because I liked Pallasvuo’s comics — but this turned out to not be comics, so I forgot to read it.

Some of these quotes may not be real!

Hey, I’ve got copy 22/100 of this national bestseller.

It’s a series of short text, and they’re really interesting. They seem immediate and compelling.

And amusing.

One of the longest texts in the book is about not being let into a Wolfgang Tillmans party — Tillmans refuses him entry himself.

I really enjoyed the book.

The afterword explains what the book is — it’s a collection of texts from Pallasvuo’s Tumblr account, and now it all makes sense. Looks like it was shut down in 2016, but he’s still on Instagram.

Heh, while googling, I found Jaakko Pallasvuo School of Arts and Crafts — is that him? Is that site an art project? Or is it a common Finnish name?

Anyway, the book is very enjoyable, which makes me wonder whether there’s other Tumblrs out there that should have been collected into book form.

Scorched Earth (2015) by Jaakko Pallasvuo (buy used, 4.31 on Goodreads)

I think perhaps this is the final book I’ll be reading in this series.

Not that it’s bad or anything — it’s got some fun characters and scenes, but it’s mostly just kinda plodding. It’s a seemingly interminable series of conversations, and while we constantly learn new stuff about the mystery, it’s just not very exciting.

And while some of the earlier books were pleasantly absurd, this is more like “er, that doesn’t make sense, does it?” Which is very different.

But I don’t know. Spending this evening with this book has been pleasant and not annoying in any way, so perhaps I’ll give the next one a go, too. Finding mysteries that aren’t annoying isn’t easy.

Chain of Fools (2023) by Richard Stevenson (buy new, buy used, 3.85 on Goodreads)