pompadoured
Noah Cicero is the #1 explicator of Youngstown, Ohio:
August 18, 2008
I'm not sure what I should say about Noah. He is, best of all, a good honest person. I have been reading his things for a few years now, and his writing has become a big part of my life.
Noah Cicero writes from a place of evil. It's not the "Evil" of Republican flair, but rather, it's the evil that exist as humanity. Evil isn't trying to hurt people, it is a place of consumption, a place where people can derive joy from a deconstruction of reality, and the reconfiguring of it into a place of true human darkness and insight, if only for self-knowledge.
Most writers and artists get excited about being Writers or Artists, what that means, and how they can 'make their place' in a big world full of 'cool people' who should respect them for how 'special' they are.
Evil is the best reality a human can live with. When you see the world as an all-consuming clusterfuck of selfish pride and apathetic poor decisions, you start to enjoy not trying to be the 'most important thing,' and instead focus on your immediate relationships and the tiny moments of significance in your own life.
I think the best way to describe the way most writers and artists feel about their work is to say they look at the product of art like it's money-- Something to exert force on those around them in a subversive and highly powerful way. But Noah, at least from what I've been able to put together from his blog, books, and work that I've read, uses writing to exert force on his self.
Noah's writing isn't something that exists completely for other people, or to be the 'most important thing.' Instead, it is writing from a place of darkness and evil we all live in, but more importantly, Noah lives in. It's not trying to change you or manipulate you, it's just a man trying to piece together the fucked-up shit around him and a way that makes logical sense for him, in a way that's readable by others. And the result is work that is more honest than most, and more real than most.
The best work from the people I know and respect comes from a place of self-knowledge. We are all given a setting-- an amount of knowledge that comes with our surroundings and our family and circumstance, and it's not as important as writers or as people to manipulate those things for personal 'awesomeness,' as it is to record that setting for ourselves and maybe a few other people.
Other bloggers blogging about bloggers on blogging about other bloggers day:
Tao Lin blogs about Gene Morgan
Noah Cicero blogs about Shane Jones
Blake Butler blogs about Mike Bushnell
Jillian Clark blogs about Kathryn Regina
Zachary German blogs about Ryan Manning
Jereme Dean blogs about Blake Butler
Justin Rands blogs about Matthew Savoca
Kathryn Regina blogs about Ryan Manning
Ken Baumann blogs about Jereme Dean
Kendra Grant Malone blogs about Brandon Scott Gorrell
Matthew Savoca blogs about Gena Mohowish
Shane Jones blogs about Jillian Clark
Stephen Daniel Lewis blogs about TTB
Ryan Manning blogs about Tao Lin, Noah Cicero, and Brandon Scott Gorrell
Connor O'Brien blogs about Tao Lin
Mike Bushnell blogs about Zachary German
Colin Bassett Blogs about Chris Killen, Zachary German, Connor O'Brien, The Mississippi Review, and has a contest running about the 'most powerful writers of serious literature'
Chris Killen blogs about Ken Baumann
Kathryn Regina blogs about Kendra Grant Malone
Sam Pink blogs about everyone
Harness the Blood of Mountain Dew and Disney:
July 4, 2008
Some old Jack Kerouac audio came on my iPod yesterday, and I got so fucking angry I pulled my car over into a Domino's Pizza parking lot.
You know that Royal can't get a free sticker at the doctor's office without a Disney character on it?
America is an ugly and worn-out asshole.
No amount of descriptive rambling and bullshit adjectives will make us a healthier heap of ass.
We're fucked-up, and need to stop looking for the kind of knowledge that comes with 'beauty' and 'creativity'.
The type of knowledge we can gain now comes from the darkness of how we've arrived at our current position.
I'm content with darkness.
There are very few 'beautiful' and 'creative' things in Houston, but I like living here, because there is enough darkness to maintain a realistic perspective.
When you contrast an ugly place like Houston with a city like Austin, a good-looking city that prides itself on being "weird", you see how out-of-touch 'beautiful' and 'creative' people have become.
They forget that we are a whole, and that even people you do not like are important to your existence and well-being.
People who drive new hybrids in Austin should go down to the Houston ship channel, and look at what they really are.
They should go up the coast, to the refineries, and look at what they really are.
People move to places like New York, Austin, San Francisco, and they never look back to the piece-of-shit places they left.
I worship the Great Beast of America. I drink it's blood and walk in its shadow.
You are all of these things if you live in America. You are the sum.
You can say that you're not like the mass, you can make small positive changes like eating grass-fed beef or using a recycled-plastic toothbrush, but you cannot escape responsibility.
Who among us doesn't like a good Disney movie?
the big electron:
June 24, 2008
Carlin was the best at proving how stupid humans are.
Also, fuck Earth Day.
Noah Cicero, Gardener:
June 22, 2008
If you work to un-fuck your own mental environment in a realistic and honest way, and also help make the same avenues to un-fuckedness available to other people, you are a good person.
People are not bound to the failures of culture any more than they're forced to watch MTV or love buffalo wing flavored Doritos.