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Ishmael Reed's masterpiece
a review of Mumbo Jumbo by Ishmael Reed

A comic, highly entertaining and heavily researched trip down the annals of conspiracy insanity, Mumbo Jumbo is a masterpiece of American literature. Tying together jazz culture, polytheistic mysticism/voodoo, and good ol' fashioned black militarism, the narrative lurches in multiple directions but is held together by Reed's singular voice. 

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Subtle Knife, The by Philip Pullman
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trade edition paperback, fine
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After Henry by Joan Didion
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In her latest forays into the American scene, Joan Didion covers ground from Washington to Los Angeles, from a TV producer's gargantuan "manor" to the racial battlefields of New York's criminal courts. At each stop she uncovers the mythic narratives that elude other observers: Didion tells us about the fantasies …
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Slothrop's Screaming Sky

Episode 1: The Cardinal Dinner Party Sin

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Subscribe in iTunes! | Direct download

Binx Bolling, Dave Hollins and Hy Grynszpan discuss false marijuana, the New Yorker, excommunication, Walker Percy, serial killing, hobo culture, William Gaddis, class contradictions, political hotdogs, quitting smoking, the challenge of sincerity, bravery and blackface, the vague remains of the abstract idea of 'adventure' in Estonia, passport hacking, and verisimilitude in the inaugural episode of Slothrop's Screaming Sky.

Footnotes, references, and other marginalia:
* Harry Belafonte rocks it
The original version of 'Jamaica Farewell'.
* How to Renounce Your American Citizenship
* Statelessness
From Wikipedia.
* How to get excommunicated
from the Catholic Church, that is.
* Walker Percy - 'The Moviegoer'
This guy doesn't love the book as much as we do.
* Modern hobo code
Referenced at 12:25 before we even knew it existed.
* Roscoe Vernon 'Gadabout' Gaddis
"Having only a bare bones formal education and having given up a chance at a career as a major league baseball player, he took to the rails and traveled about the country on freight trains, fishing whenever he got the chance."
* The Great Defender of William Gaddis
The Times on jack green and 'fire the bastards!', a wonderful tome.
* Duke loses in round 1
Just hours after we recorded this, Duke shockingly blew it against Lehigh.
* Recent British newspaper circulation statistics
As wondered about, 18 minutes into this podcast.
* Mormons in the UK
There's apparently 190,000 of them.
* Heaven in stationary orbit
* Cor Anglais
The funny English instrument with the French name.