I'm all for this trend of undesirability and cynicism in writing; a lot of what I've been writing lately is ugly, angry, bleak, generally negative. Not sure if I've got handle on the sardonic, witty angle, but I can work on that.

Hilarious account of the worst reading ever (via Cancult).

Watched the Ramones movie last weekend: so, so good, they were such pathetic freaks, now I love them even more. The movie sparked an interesting discussion about originality and failure, how the Ramones were seminal but never successful. As usual, in my opinion, Gertrude Stein has the best insight into the issue:

No one is ahead of his time, it is only that the particular variety of creating his time is the one that his contemporaries who also are creating their own time refuse to accept. ... Those who are creating the modern composition authentically are naturally only of importance when they are dead because by that time the modern composition having become past is classified and the description of it is classical. That is the reason why the creator of the new composition in the arts is an outlaw until he is a classic, there is hardly a moment in between and it is really too bad very much too bad naturally for the creator but also very much too bad for the enjoyer, they all really would enjoy the created so much better just after it has been made than when it is already a classic, but it is perfectly simple that there is no reason why the contemporary should see, because it would not make any difference as they lead their lives in the new composition anyway, and as every one is naturally indolent why naturally they don't see. ...

For a very long time everybody refuses and then almost without a pause almost everybody accepts. In the history of the refused in the arts and literature the rapidity of the change is always startling. Now the only difficulty with the volte-face concerning the arts is this. When the acceptance comes, by that acceptance the thing created becomes a classic. It is a natural phenomena a rather extraordinary natural phenomena that a thing accepted becomes a classic. And what is the characteristic quality of a classic. The characteristic quality of a classic is that it is beautiful. ...

Of course it is beautiful but first all beauty in it is denied and then all the beauty of it is accepted. If every one were not so indolent they would realize that beauty is beauty even when it is irritating and stimulating not only when it is accepted and classic. ...

- Gertrude Stein, "Composition as Explanation"