This is not my Christmas post

[trinityvixen]

I will have an extensive post on how I lost at Christmas--and organized the means by which I failed--at another time. I just had to post this snippet from Matt Taibbi's thoroughly readable (despite the fact that it's almost entirely given over to machinations of the financial industry) Griftopia. I have been reading this book for three straight hours, with hardly a break. Taibbi is a brilliant, acerbic, unforgiving writer, this being not least evident when he is describing why people would suddenly be interested in speculating on commodities futures:

"Why not bet on something that people can't do without--like food or gas or oil? What could be safer than that? As if people will ever stop buying gasoline! Or wheat! Hell, this is America. Motherfuckers be eating pasta and cran muffins by the metric ton for the next ten centuries! Look at the asses on people in this country."

I escaped, hours ago, to read this book outside the interference of TV. Yes, you read that right. I, TrinityVixen, actually ran away from a TV in order to read--to read a book, no less! Because I'm still in Reno for the Christmas break, that meant coming down to the lobby. The people here have been, up until now, very easily ignoring me. My spluttering mirth has upset this peaceful live-and-let-live, alas.

I was planning on going to bed in half an hour. I may have to just finish this book. (It's not long.)

Comments

[kent-allard-jr.livejournal.com]

I, too, really appreciated Griftopia (and thanks to hslayer and viridian for the book, a fantastic present!). I read Taibbi's blog regularly, and I sympathize with this response to his recent Q-and-A entry:

I use profanity less and less as I become more and more a married forty year-old living in the New Jersey suburbs for whom words like “horsefucked” are increasingly like the leather pants on an aging hipster who hasn’t caught on yet that he’s too old for the club. On the other hand, there are times when the only word that makes sense is “asshole” or even “galactic asshole,” particularly with the kind of people I’m writing about. So it’s tough. I’m sure I will learn the answer to this difficult philosophical paradox in the afterlife.

[moonlightalice.livejournal.com]

But... but... horsefucked! There's just no other word you can substitute!

[kent-allard-jr.livejournal.com]

I guess, sometimes, leather pants are proper evening wear, even for 40-year olds in New Jersey.

[kent-allard-jr.livejournal.com]

Sorry, that should be ... thank you for Griftopia. (They gave me Earth: The Book, which I also really enjoyed.) It's been a long week.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

I was gonna say! Hey! I got a pretty good idea for you this year! I want the credit for it!

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

You know, he isn't actually cursing that much in this book versus some of his other writing. I think it might be the difference between blogging and publishing. That, or maturity. If he wants to believe that lie, so be it.

[fairest.livejournal.com]

I borrows?

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

Actually, I have the digital copy. If you have time to read it on my iPad or register a device that can read it to my Amazon account, sure! You could probably read it on my iPad in no time, given how ridiculously fast you read.

[moonlightalice.livejournal.com]

My mom and I re-watched Trading Places over the weekend, which in addition to being a scathing indictment of conservative assumptions, centers on commodities trading/speculation--and is just as cynical about that as Taibbi is.

And that was from 1982.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

Yeah, half the hard part of reading this book is trying to follow the various ways the financial sector invents means of screwing everyone in the name of profit. The other half is in reading it and not wanting to kill yourself.