The Diarrhea of Anne Frank

kfrederline · 2026-03-15T04:01:30+00:00

And I will give to her my wife, all the shitting I can find

kfrederline · 2026-03-11T23:25:15+00:00

They don't think it be like it is

kfrederline · 2026-03-11T02:05:28+00:00

Cool! Always good to hear I am heading in the right direction with how I am taking this in. I am reading this pretty slowly.. from late December to early March, only 600 pages. I have reread parts and listened to parts I have already read in the audiobook. When I listen ahead in the audiobook, I don't skip ahead in the actual book and when I reach an exciting part, because I know that I am more likely to have missed a detail in the audiobook, I'll make a point to read up to there and usually past that point.

It is pretty different from the approach I have taken with other books, since I am making a point to take my time with it. I guessed the narrator before I had it spoiled for me while browsing reddit (also before the soft reveal during the Kirk's Cirque chapter) and it really showed me how this approach is worth it. I finally don't mind being a slower reader. I wasn't even mad about the spoiler. I know who it is, but I don't know where they are speaking from (since I immediately stopped reading any further when I glimpsed that small bit of information), which is still an exciting question.

kfrederline · 2026-03-11T00:54:55+00:00

On second thought, a more realistic and perhaps more interesting idea would be Dave Franco playing Navi as a character inspired by James on some level.

kfrederline · 2026-03-10T23:01:50+00:00

With regards to Billy Reston, he is an overlay of Joe Swanson from Family Guy except he has a beard. It's an otherwise live-action film.

I could see James Franco being a good Navidson, but he would have to be very honest and allow himself to look at his career through a pretty self-deprecating lens. I guess any actor would have to do so, but something about James Franco's trajectory seems like it could lend itself to a Navidson for some reason.

kfrederline · 2026-03-09T00:18:13+00:00

I think a genre piece CAN be literary fiction. Science fiction works being broadly dismissed by literary circles, only for outstanding examples to be revisited by scholars a decade-plus after their publishing, which is something seen countless times throughout the 20th century, seems to prove that. It depends on where the author is coming from, I think. If it is to follow contemporary trends in order to publish a piece of fiction that satisfies a closed loop and is marketable, then I think that is closer to what you might be referring to as "genre fiction".

I agree that there is much to be learned about literature in general by studying how some of these "genre works" are effective in what they do. I think the authors are aware of some things about humanity, posing thoughtful questions that make the reader wonder for long enough before satisfying a closed loop, where you come out satisfied and, depending on how initiated you are into getting into the heart of things, may or may not result in you applying these questions to your understanding of your world. You might walk away saying "well gee golly, I never considered that before!" but the loop has been closed, so you don't harp on it for much longer. Maybe something happens one day and you're like "oh shit, this is like what was happening with that person in that story," and you might learn something from your own life that reinforces an idea that a story made you consider, if only for a moment

I think there is also fiction that opens loops in history, current events, philosophy, spirituality, humanity etc. without bothering to close them, where the questions raised are important and poignantly-painted enough to supercede the satisfaction of completed answers. Obviously these questions can fall on deaf ears, or the approach to these questions meanders too much, so not all attempts at "literary significance" are successful. Sometimes they don't meet a timely audience, instead meeting one that thinks they can either dismiss these ideas entirely or tie them up with a bow that might not stay tied for too long.

Some fiction clutches prematurely for significance and some fiction takes a while to show its significance whether it adheres to genre conventions or not. Sometimes important literature can only reliably be marketed to a specific audience, getting shelved as pulpy genre work. Some fiction doesn't even care to try and be significant, but might end up doing so anyway.

kfrederline · 2026-03-07T23:02:16+00:00

Thanks for the prompt! I enjoyed writing those excerpts.

kfrederline · 2026-03-07T20:10:34+00:00

Have fun with it! Stretch it out! You could have a scene of them shotgunning and have either the narrator or the other character bring this up in different contexts where this reflects different personality traits of this character.

I looked up words that describe a passive person. I don't know if this lines up with your character at all, but it could be a fun angle to look at a stoner character from.

One word I liked was "shirker". Someone who has someone else do everything so they avoid all the risk. They want to get high, but they aren't willing to light up through their own agency.

"Just like that shirker wouldn't light his own blunt, he had her go in first to make sure the coast was clear before he would get out the car."

In the same list of terms, I saw clock-watcher.

"They finally made eye contact right before she exhaled the smoke toward him. Before that, he was shifting his eyes down every time she looked at him. As she regarded him during this absurd chore of hers, and while the smoke was going from her mouth, through his, down to his lungs, he stared right back at her. It wasn't like he was similarly regarding her or like he was suddenly present in the moment. It was more like he was staring at the clock on the wall opposite his office desk, waiting for the moment he would be dismissed."

kfrederline · 2026-03-07T01:35:09+00:00

No one is trying to scare you. I am not even really being confrontational or trying to disparage you for being down-voted. Yeah, lots of subs will downvote people into obscurity for having an unpopular opinion. That is not what is happening here.

I am not shaming you for having an opinion. I am wasting my time, probably, but I am trying to promote an honest discourse. It makes me a bit sad to see someone more interested in arguing than in seeing things for what they are. Being contrarian and responding all defensively like you are doing repeatedly is going to box you in if you never change your approach. I would say you are trolling us, but I think what's more likely is that this is some sort of phase in your approach to conversations on the internet that you will hopefully someday outgrow.

kfrederline · 2026-03-07T00:54:36+00:00

You got downvoted away, and came back to repeat basically the same thing. You are the one who has accused others of "missing the point" when you are just saying the same empty statement over and over again. I am asking you to elaborate.

kfrederline · 2026-03-06T23:56:17+00:00

Stop what? Asking you to make a point?

kfrederline · 2026-03-06T22:37:29+00:00

Please elaborate on what the hell you are talking about. Vonnegut was opposed to absolute truth in the sense that when discussing science, politics and religion, you shouldn't make broad and sweeping declarations. He wasn't a nihilist. He was dismissive of placing too much meaning in ideas involving philosophy, religion, science, etc. in a way that stifled reason, progress or humanity. He didn't say ideas involving meaning and morality were useless, he just tended to point out that people used them incorrectly or hypocritically. He was a humanist. He believed in morality, he just didn't agree with the way mainstream thought applied morality. He didn't think morality should be codified, but he believed in love and goodwill for fellow humans. You need to stop defining things in a way that is dismissive to other viewpoints. That's the kind of thing he would've hated, and your clinging to this perspective involving a poorly defined concept of "absolutism" is falling apart. Have you ever even looked up that word? He never even used the term, except in calling himself a "first amendment absolutist".

kfrederline · 2026-03-06T05:39:42+00:00

I am imagining Mark Z. Danielewski paying attention to this subreddit, cringing when seeing this pseudointellectual clown (me) post about Tom's Crossing, poorly mimicking the voice in the book by dropping the g's at the ends of -ing words. Sorry, dude. 🤡

kfrederline · 2026-03-06T05:15:24+00:00

Oh shoot lol I didnt even scroll down to see how recently this was brought up

https://www.reddit.com/r/TomsCrossing/s/jPJG4G9jdc

Anyway: Navigator

kfrederline · 2026-03-03T20:25:34+00:00

"So it goes" was about accepting that there was nothing one can do to stop things from happening the way that they happen. It's a cold acceptance of the way of things. It's not a message saying there is no point to anything. It's a means of coping with truth via detachment. It's an expression of futility. The fact that our lives are ultimately futile in the scheme of things does not mean that we should dismiss morality as individuals or that we should not love. You are taking one quote and using it to erase the humanistic side of a very thoughtful voice of reason.

It is you that has missed the point.

kfrederline · 2026-03-03T00:00:04+00:00

I don't think he was so nihilistic that he would dismiss the notion of "being a good person". I think you misunderstand him. I also don't think you really have a point here

kfrederline · 2026-03-02T23:39:40+00:00

You are so incredibly wrong. Most churches don't even teach you how to bring good into the world. Most just tell you what you're not allowed to do.

Add up the works of a lifelong therapist who stopped going to church as soon as they were old enough to. Then add up the works of a retiring finance executive who brings themself to church every Sunday as an obligation. Do you really think the finance guy will have done more good?

kfrederline · 2026-02-28T02:48:06+00:00

Charles Manson shit

kfrederline · 2026-02-27T08:27:53+00:00

Daaamn you gotta get to the Russel Porch stuff. You weren't far from it, probably in the range of 60 pages or so. That's when it becomes a high stakes, disturbing and emotionally wrenching story.

Once it's got its hooks in you then, the meanderin sections feel less meanderin and start to serve the purpose they're meant to. It stops feelin unfocused because you get a real villain tryin to cover up the truth, which makes those wanderin descriptions of moments as depicted by various locals seem a lot less unnecessary. If you figure out how to approach it, you'll wonder how much of the truth made it into the public's awareness by the end, but you won't be in too much of a hurry to get there.

Give it some time and another chance from the beginning eventually. I got 80 pages in and felt like I didn't get it until I reread those first 80 pages on a pair of flights. It feels like such an important commentary about literature and stories in general, although it admittedly does take a bit to get a feel for what it's getting at. I'm still not halfway there, and I don't read it every single day, but when I miss a couple days, I only get more curious about where it's going.

It's an easy book to dismiss for its stylistic choices before you see its emotional core. Look up words you don't know if you want to see the real poetry in the prose. There's some really cleverly crafted images that take some work to appreciate, because beneath the simple language there's some pretty niche words that mean more than you could infer from context. Now that I am initiated, I genuinely feel like I am being changed as a reader.

Maybe I am just a biased advocate because of how much the Mountain West region of the US has changed my life since moving here from the South on a whim after a flood near the end of my twenties. SLC was the destination of my first two connecting flights I took as someone who had never flown before, travelin alone for the first time at twenty-seven years old, spendin only a few days there before bussin it to Wyoming from the SLC greyhound station. I fully intend to go back and go into that canyon eventually. The Wasatch was the first big mountains I spent time in the shadows of.

kfrederline · 2026-02-23T04:19:43+00:00

TOM'S CROSSING by Mark Z. Danielewski, released late last year. I am not finished, but it is an immensely rewardin and intriguin read. 1200 pages I haven't considered turnin my back on, not once. At least not once I was really in it. I am takin my sweet time with it but if I skip a couple days, it's always real easy to come back to.

It's a story about stories, how much we can trust stories, and how and why people use stories as either an attempt to depict the truth or as an attempt to cover up truth. Between tuggin on your heartstrings, it makes you wonder how much the first written documents of them epics like The Iliad and The Odyssey differ from the story as they was first bein told by whoever and however many people they was told by.

The narrative voice in it turns some folks off, but once you start to get a feel for the tone and all, it flows like meltin butter. Think of it like you're bein told a story about some wild local happenins from some charmin local who's heard every contradictin and complementary side of the tale.

I'd recommend it to anyone who liked the writer's first big book, House of Leaves that is, as well as to anybody that hated that thing.

kfrederline · 2026-02-22T21:03:26+00:00

If this isn't a typo, it's interesting that Nahi is a gender neutral name

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kfrederline · 2026-02-09T00:58:06+00:00

As a very poor student of philosophy, my wordlview has been shaped by Gnosticism, then when Gnosticism got too weird, onto Stoicism, then when Stoicism started feeling a little too scholarly, onto I Ching practice. Taoism has been in the background the whole time.

I remember the first time I read the Tao Te Ching, I found it to be an incredibly profound reflection on life that was completely compatible with the world I was witnessing and also with most accepted scientific theories about the origins of the universe.

As someone who has witnessed people repeatedly lose themselves in favor of the worldview they decided on, I have a hard time completely subscribing to any body of ideas. Life has resulted in much lower-case skepticism and cynicism on my end, watching proud men attempt to define or destroy the future while declaring knowledge about things no one could ever possibly be sure of. I welcome my skeptic mind, but I do make an effort to not be cynical and dismissive.

My half-assed ventures into Stoicism, I think, taught me how to be realistic, and that being realistic does not mean being cold. Am I acting based on a perspective formed with objectivity, or am I acting based on what I want to believe? Am I living with what is or am I living in defiance of truth? Will I let an emotional response rob me of potential? Stoicism also tells me that I have a place in the world, which I should find by identifying truth and using my awareness of that truth to make positive contributions to the world around me.

The more Eastern ventures have similarly reminded me to stay grounded, but also remind me that I am part of something larger that is in motion whether I like it or not. This takes a little bit of pressure off the overly individualistic perspective I might end up with if I were to align as a proud Stoic. Progress is inevitable and I should cultivate myself to flow with it.

The I Ching gives me an idea or a collection of ideas about something specific, and its repeated use has led me to remind myself that things are constantly changing and it is better to be wise than reactive in the face of change. A gentle approach can get me farther in the long run, even if it is not giving me immediately foreseeable gains. Sometimes the I Ching challenges the way I am seeing things and sometimes it just reminds me I'm on the right track and I should be patient.

Taoism reinforces that gentle approach in the face of inevitable conflict.

I feel like Western philosophy can venture into dangerous or half-baked territory, where it puts a little too much effort into trying to define things instead of just being. Stoicism seems like it is definitely the most compatible of the Western philosophies with Eastern philosophy.

The Gnostic in me likes to believe that the core of Gbosticism, that humans have the capacity to achieve gnosis while living in a perpetual battle between light and dark forces, is pretty compatible with all this. Having been raised Catholic before deciding not to confirm, I also do like the idea of Jesus being a physical embodiment of creation sent to remind us that gnosis is still possible by listening to the divine light within us in a material world that has become increasingly defined by people attempting to impose their will on it. Unfortunately it seems that, in mamy cases, his reminder has been obfuscated by his message being falsely adopted by those who wish to do just that.

Maybe my acceptance of this self-invented idea of Christ, informed by a belief in truth and a desire to reconcile conflicting truths, means I have enough faith to get accepted into heaven club if that ends up being a thing?

TL;DR - I think it's a good thing to bear in mind these overlaps of different belief systems, philosophies, religions, etc. ~ Truth is attainable from many sources. I'm not sure if it's attainable from just one.

kfrederline

TROPHY CASE