‘Pin Picks: The Ninth Circle

We’re back! There was a tiny hiatus from ‘Pin Picks to accommodate a brief flurry of poetic preoccupation, but nothing could keep me from fulfilling your desires and wishes for more than a week or two. Maybe three, if there was an extinction-level event.

Actually, if there was an extinction-level event pending, I would absolutely have a tremendous themed reading list for the end of the world. A little On the Beach, a little Margaret Atwood, a little Philip K. Dick…

Well, we’ll wait until we’re sure the Earth is falling into the Sun to break the glass on that one. Today, let’s make Liz happy. Liz, WHAT are your favorite books?

1. A Confederacy of Dunces, John Kennedy Toole — Lord knows we’ve had loads to say about Toole, so let’s just stick to what Toole suggests about YOU. You like your books a little on the gonzo side. A bit rococo. Just on the verge. And funny, obviously. You need some funny.

2. Harriet the Spy, Louise Fitzhugh — Hey, let’s get serious. This book is really important. To most of us, probably? Not just the nerdy writers, either. Fitzhugh gets at the ideas of self-loathing and self-reproach in a horrible, horrible way. God, right, and that MOMENT when Harriet sees the faces of all those kids who got their filthy little hands on her journal. And why don’t we have dumbwaiters, anymore? What a great name, too. Think about it! Dumbwaiters. Wow. (Diaries, descriptions, dark humor.)

3. Heavier Than Heaven: A Biography of Kurt Cobain, Charles R. Cross — Yeah, we can handle your needs. Most definitely. Music and wildness and fame. Regret? Yeah.

Okay! We’re getting a reading. It’s gotta be Please Kill Me: The Uncensored Oral History of Punk, by Legs McNeil. UNFFF, this book. Literally everything Iggy Pop says in this book should be on a t-shirt. The Sex Pistols. NICO. Nico.

Please Kill Me is completely, riotously hilarious. And ridiculous. You don’t need to care about punk, I should mention. Or drugs, or sex, or Lou Reed, or elaborately-shredded t-shirts. It might help, but anyone would be entertained by this book. Laura Bush would be entertained by this book. Mitt Romney would chuckle. Trust. Trust me. C’mon.