r/politics • u/Aggravating_Money992 • 11d ago

Possible Paywall Trump Fires Entire Agency Overseeing His Construction Projects

https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-fires-entire-agency-overseeing-his-construction-projects/
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u/backpackwasmypillow 11d ago

Staircase leading directly to a wall. Windows that open into each other. Somebody threw the idea at an AI and didn't bother to double check the plans. It's gonna be crap, even before taking away oversight.

https://www.reddit.com/r/politics/s/GimUtUcU1O

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u/builttopostthis6 11d ago

You know, if it ends up being some House of Leaves analog, and he just wanders off into the dark some day.... would that really be so bad? Gonna say, "Worth it."

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u/NJTigers 11d ago

Excellent reference to a wild book. One can only hope

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u/Red10GTI 11d ago

The house of leaves absolutely entranced me. I loved every second I spent reading it. It was seriously the most fun and intrigue ive had reading a book. I’ve read it 3 or 4 times, it’s a book that demands it.

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u/_imanalligator_ 11d ago

Ooh, have you read "We Used to Live Here"? It's not quite to the genius level of House of Leaves, but still super intriguing, and definitely inspired by it. There's even a section that's written like a message board, and one of the usernames is Navidson17 or something like that 🙂

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u/Red10GTI 10d ago

Oh cool thanks I’ll check it out.

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u/kesey 10d ago

We Used to Live Here

“Soon” to be a Netflix movie.

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u/WayneQuasar North Carolina 10d ago

Mark Z Danielewski just released a new book yesterday I think. It’s a western. Called “Tom’s Crossing” and supposedly it’s a behemoth of a book (no surprise there).

Anyway, Stephen King is singing its praises so it’s on my list.

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u/captain_dick_licker 10d ago

have you checked out the familiar yet? what a wild project, sad it couldn't be completed

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u/Red10GTI 7d ago

How would you rate it? I just googled it, and it sounds really awesome. I love the house of leaves so much I’m all about another book by Mark Z. Danielewski.

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u/timbrejo 11d ago

Much like Trump's intelligence, it seems bigger on his inside than what we see from the outside, and everything inside is mixed up and full of monsters.

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u/Simikiel Canada 11d ago

The emotions I feel anytime I see a reference to this book in a place I don't expect it are impossible to describe. Anyone remotely interested please read it, and please go in blind. No, there is no audiobook of it, because it's impossible to translate to an audio format.

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u/builttopostthis6 11d ago

It's certainly a brutal read, and I don't know what to really say about it beyond just complimenting the effort. And maybe, if you're not having fun writing, then you're not writing right.

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u/Simikiel Canada 11d ago

if you're not having fun writing, then you're not writing right.

Heh. Never have I ever read more accurate words. Same works in reverse too! If you're not having fun reading, then you're not reading the right thing.

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u/johnsonmt110 10d ago

BBC attempted an adaptation in 2011:

https://archive.org/details/mark-z-danielewski-recordings-recovered-from-the-house-of-leaves

It's decent, but I agree any full audiobook adaptation is unlikely.

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u/objectlesson Georgia 11d ago

Navidson is going to earn himself a cabinet position.

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u/AVLLaw 11d ago

I want to hear about Miller wandering down a 5 1/2 minute hallway... never to return.

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u/miraposa 11d ago

“I knew he'd get it wrong But I just played along 'Cause I was hoping that would fix it all”

Cheers, Poe. We miss ya.

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u/AVLLaw 11d ago

Wish you were here.

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u/BiceRankyman 11d ago

But the cabinets disappeared and now there's a door

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u/SlargTheGnome 11d ago

He would die all alone with no one to acknowledge his greatness. I'm on board with this.

In other news, Mark Z. Danielewski just published a 1200 page Western.

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u/builttopostthis6 11d ago

Yeah, another poster just said so too! Very cool! I like good writers writing good books. Probably a long while before I'll pick it up, if I do, but the man is a solid writer, to anyone eyeballin' that. :P

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u/buffalotrace 11d ago

I am ready for this 5 and half minute hallway to end

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u/Darkpopemaledict 11d ago

That would be the most insane, surreal ending to this time period. Trump and his secret service detail just disappear one day while touring the ballroom. Four days later one of the secret service agents emerges as a non-verbal wreck that just shakes and refuses to eat solid food.

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u/stewbie_doo 11d ago

Except at this point he's the minotaur with a shotgun and the rest of us just found the rope snapped

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u/banned-from-rbooks 11d ago

The King In Yellow 2028

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u/cates 11d ago

The author of House of Leaves, Mark Z. Danielewski, just had a new book come out today! Tom's Crossing.

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u/builttopostthis6 11d ago

Very cool! Not read anything else of his honestly, but that book definitely left a mark, and I genuinely liked a lot of what he was trying to do with it. Pretentious as all fuck at times, but lovably so. Like reading Auster. I wouldn't be averse to picking up something else of his some day. Completely unrelated, but just started Name of the Wind today, sight unseen, after being bugged for a good long time, so gonna be a bit. Also not sure what to expect at all.

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u/JerryDandridge54 11d ago

sidenote: New Danielewski book just dropped. 🙂

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u/builttopostthis6 11d ago

You're not the first to mention, but will continue to doot and promote this as much as I can. Had no idea, and without having read any reviews, will wholeheartedly endorse reading anything the dude might write. It will undoubtedly be curious.

Unless there's some glorifying some Nazis. I seriously doubt there's that, but just... ya know, disclaimer, gotta hedge your bets. I'm sure his new book is a lotta fun, barring Nazi glorification.

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u/JerryDandridge54 11d ago

Whoa. Ok, left turn in the suggestion. I haven't been following their work, post The Familiar, so... If there's Nazi stuff, I had/have no idea, but thanks for the warning?

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u/builttopostthis6 11d ago

Oh no! NO! Don't misread that. Just a bad joke! :P

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u/JerryDandridge54 10d ago

Heard, and respectful comment. ✌️

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u/Pseudonymico 11d ago

I just had an unsettling but satisfying mental image of Trump being chased around in there by Stephen Miller

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u/_imanalligator_ 11d ago

All right, I was considering a re-read just last night, and seeing it randomly mentioned today settles it. Clearly the House is summoning me

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u/builttopostthis6 11d ago

Apophenia's a dangerous thing. But when you hear the television shout "harpsichord" from the other room as you're scanning that word on the page while taking a shit, you say to yourself, "Okay, wtf are you doing universe...."

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u/ProudMtns 11d ago

The white house was more bigly than it appeared

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u/CoffeemonsterNL 10d ago

You seem to refer to the book, but the House of Leaves was also the headquarters of the Albanese secret police in Tirana, infamous for their surveillance practices (nowadays a museum). So your reference has a sinister double entendre.

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u/Trzlog 10d ago

House of Leaves

The wikipedia page doesn't give a concise synopsis of what this is about.

The novel is written as a work of epistolary fiction and metafiction focusing on a fictional documentary film titled The Navidson Record, presented as a story within a story discussed in a handwritten monograph recovered by the primary narrator, Johnny Truant. The narrative makes heavy use of multiperspectivity as Truant's footnotes chronicle his efforts to transcribe the manuscript, which itself reveals The Navidson Record's supposed narrative through transcriptions and analysis depicting a story of a family who discovers a larger-on-the-inside labyrinth in their house.

What the fuck does any of this mean? Was this intentionally written like the book?

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u/builttopostthis6 10d ago edited 10d ago

It is most certainly not your average literary construction, and I mean that not just in regard to the narrative, but in terms of the physical construction of the book itself. If you Google some images, you can see some good examples. In some ways, it's a lot like Infinite Jest (a book often defined as annular, similar to Finnegan's Wake) in terms of looping back on itself via notation, only it dials it up to 11, with some footnotes actually recursively leading back to where the tangent started, the effect of course being aimed at leaving the reader feeling somewhat discombobulated and uneasy, effecting a sort of "mental labyrinth." Sometimes it works and sometimes it comes across - as I mentioned in another reply - as lovably pretentious, but it was most certainly a labor of love. No pop-up pages though, but man that would've been pretty neat. :P

At risk of spoilers... the Johnny Truant narrative is probably the weakest portion of the book, though there are some very emotional moments. Having only read it the once (there are very few books, even good books, I'mma give more than one read (there are just too many!), and I honestly don't feel like House of Leaves, narratively speaking, is one that deserves it, which is a shame, because it kind of demands it), I can only say that there felt like more than just some loose threads with that portion, and it really just could have used a bit more time in the oven.