jonathan franzen's book on karl krauss. likening feuilletons to blogs. krauss was a newspaper-blogger decrying the vapidity of his arena, of the masquerades of culture, high low, low high. i thought of bloggage as contemporarily unique but it has been going on in newspapers for hundreds of years, and even in books. it's just the technology that changes. i don't think people ever do. we're mostly vapid souls in a vapid arena. some can find a way to talk about it. some more could but are too tired. i'm too tired, and my feeling is tempered by living in proximity to thugs and mice in a decrepit dwelling and getting old fast with no provision for the present let alone the future. is this the lens i train on the world, am i a convoluted receptor. but this is not a benign place. this is not a light place. this a place of thievery and war.