When I opened my Goodreads account a few years ago, I went out of my way to give it one star.  Admittedly, this was in part to piss off die hard Pynchonites, the sort of people who claim GR as their favorite book (What does it say about me that I also gave one star to One Hundred Years of Solitude, another oft-named favorite book?).  And yet I still think about Gravity’s Rainbow seven or eight years later.  I wouldn’t consider it a favorite of mine, but to deny that it made an impression would be wrong.

Most of the time, I read for leisure.  If I don’t think I’ll enjoy a book, I won’t read it; life’s too short.  But at the same time, it’s good to remember that wrestling with difficult prose and navigating an unconventional narrative has its rewards.  Tomorrow, when Pynchon’s new book comes out, use it as an opportunity to take a moment to think about the last work of art that actually challenged you.  What was it?  Did it upset you?  Did it piss you off?  How have your feelings about it changed over the years?

Click here to view the embedded video.

Read a couple of reviews of Pynchon’s Inherent Vice here and here.

Aiming for the jugular of the American unconscious, the photographs of Los Angeles-based artist Charlie White inspect the culture’s fictions through staged artifice, reminiscent of, say, Jeff Wall or Gregory Crewdson. American Minor delves into an important and ongoing theme in White’s work—the American teen, and all that goes into its manufacture.

Having approached this theme with an earlier project whose protagonist was a hairy, fragile doll named Joshua, here White tackles the taboos of nascent sexuality in the American teen girl—both the vulnerability of that sexuality as a topic and the ruthlessness with which it is exploited when it goes unexamined.

If you haven’t seen White’s new book American Minor please do click through and check it out.  It’s a beautiful edition and thought-provoking to say the least.  The signing is Saturday, April 18, from 5 – 7 p.m. at Printed Matter (195 Tenth Avenue New York, NY 10011). For those attending the event, White has a limited edition poster for a forthcoming exhibition in Norway that he will be signing and giving away with purchased copies.

As an added bonus, here are  some link to White’s cartoon OMG BFF LOL. Mall Bathroom Bedroom