Comments on How to Swear Like an African-American Teenage Male, Circa 1985

Why do I have a sinking feeling that this isn't the last time we'll see someone use the phrase "with your monkey ass" on Slog.

Dear Paul Constant:

Please post more on Slog.

With much admiration,

Aislinn

I'm gratified that I'm not the only person who wishes she'd stopped reading Fortress of Solitude halfway through. Way to make the moral of your complex coming-of-age narrative "You're allowed to sleep with white girls," Lethem.

Wait, I thought the moral was that he was allowed to sleep with black girls. Now I'm all kinds of confused. Do I have to read the second half again?!

I grew up in Philadelphia during this era. I know all about this form of language. Fuck this shit.

I liked the story about his friend whom they called "activator".

I didn't think the second half of "Fortress of Solitude" was so terrible. And I don't think the moral was about who he gets to sleep with. To me, it was sort of a Proustian meditation on memory and transformation through time. Plus that business with the neighborhood asshole plummeting to his death while trying to escape prison was a nice twist. Maybe I'm missing something...

Wish I could have been there. I'm currently passing the slow work days listening to him read from "The Colussus of New York City: A City in Thirteen Parts" over and over again.