Assorted Thoughts On Beauty Was the Case that They Gave Me
-Mark Leidner is intensely clever. This book is so dense with new ideas, so full of surprising juxtapositions that it puts many of the other books on my shelves to shame.
-Mark Leidner is intensely clever. This book is so dense with new ideas, so full of surprising juxtapositions that it puts many of the other books on my shelves to shame.
-These poems appreciate eloquence, but they understand that miscommunication is inevitable.
-The town I grew up in had woods and streams and swamps. Reading this book reminds me of all the exploring I did as a little kid, mostly alone.
-While this book is, in many ways, a reflection of modern America, I’m sure that I’ll reread it in twenty years and love it just as much.
-These poems aren’t afraid of offending us. They reflect the full spectrum of the real world; why can’t the most gentle man on the whole planet have a pedophile for a neighbor?
-Can a poem be socially awkward? Awkwardly social?
-A sympathetic narrator ought to have doubts, regrets, shortcomings, etc. I’m not looking for poems that claim to have all the answers.
-How many poets can write about sex without it feeling gratuitous or melodramatic?
-If I wanted to prove to a non-poetry reader that poetry is alive and well, I’d feel confident that this book could get the job done.
-It’s not easy to be funny. Poetry that tries to be funny usually falls flat. Leidner has a real gift, an effortless deadpan that makes his poems uncomfortable to read at times. He’s got to be kidding. He says he’s not kidding.
-Is it possible that someone could be content after reading the following two excerpts from “Romantic Comedies” and not feel the urge to read the rest of the poem, the rest of the book?
Everyone in his life has drowned and he hates dogs and she’s a collegiate swimming coach with a thousand dogs.
He is Norway but she is holding out for infinite fjords.
Mark Leidner Is the Boss of Me
Mark Leidner does a boss non sequitur. He is the boss of boss non sequiturs. I am pretty sure adding an S to a Latin word doesn’t actually make it plural? If you need boss proof, please go away and read “The Awesomest Bagel,” which I read in the shower of an old apartment and read every day for two years, except for the days when I didn’t shower. Then come back and keep reading this page here. Oops, you’re already gone. That’s okay, I am pretty sure plenty of the other people can’t read instructions like you can.
Mark Leidner does a boss non sequitur. He is the boss of boss non sequiturs. I am pretty sure adding an S to a Latin word doesn't actually make it plural? If you need boss proof, please go away and read "The Awesomest Bagel," which I read in the shower of an old apartment and read every day for two years, except for the days when I didn't shower. Then come back and keep reading this page here. Oops, you're already gone. That's okay, I am pretty sure plenty of the other people can't read instructions like you can.
Real talk: I have been in love with Mark Leidner since I was 16 years old and had a LiveJournal and discovered his LiveJournal and had vigorous marriage-based fantasies about him. That is seven years of love and counting. He was a member of a poetry community where, to get in, you had to submit three poems and the members would critique them and vote on whether you should be allowed to join. Mark Leidner voted "yes" on my application and that is still the best part of my life so far.
So the aphorisms in The Angel in the Dream of Our Hangover kind of feel like Mark hair I've been collecting from a Mark brush, and I do mean that in the best way possible. They are precious and mysterious, which probably a lot of things in Harry Potter are too? If you liked Harry Potter, you’ll love The Angel in the Dream of Our Hangover, I am pretty sure.
Check out just one of these bad boys: “aphorism pithily opens a window between the known and the not; nevermind it is winter.” Does it immediately remind me of Game of Thrones and how they really need to get rid of that excruciatingly boring Night’s Watch storyline because I can no longer stand to watch Jon Snow and his dumb boring sad face? Yes. Is it also really freaking “beautiful, like putting on a gold suit and going to sleep in it”? Yes. Do I watch too much TV? Absolutely. There's no hope left for me, but if you are interested in delaying the decay of your own brain, I hear that books are good for that. This one is even small and easy to read, which is a plus if your brain is half decayed, or three quarters.
Praise Mark Leidner's Twitter account.
That’s why this book exists. I followed and really enjoyed his contributions to HTMLGiant for a while — videos like this or this — and then somehow found his Twitter account. Every tweet of his contained something salient, and I’d often stare at some for a long time, figuring and refiguring their beauty, their doomed solutions, on and on.
That's why this book exists. I followed and really enjoyed his contributions to HTMLGiant for a while — videos like this or this — and then somehow found his Twitter account. Every tweet of his contained something salient, and I'd often stare at some for a long time, figuring and refiguring their beauty, their doomed solutions, on and on.
I eventually realized: this is a book. These aphorisms need to be collected and presented in the form I love to hold. Mark and I worked on the book for a year and a half.
The design of the book seemed self-evident: a dictum: give each truth its deserved space. One aphorism per page. No page numbers. A perfect square, 5x5; five letters in the Sator square, too. The cover is the first idea I had for it; yes, a paradox, but can't we fit most paradoxes into a box?
Following Chris's book is a tough act, but The Angel in The Dream of Our Hangover contains enough wisdom and imaginative leaps, sprent across so many domains, to last a lifetime. I believe that. I love this book.