Joshua Cohen
Joshua Cohen
time
Most literature everywhere and of every time is bad.
believe convince israel qualified though time took
What qualified me to write about Israel was that I wanted to; it took no time to convince myself. The only reservation I had was about eaven: I wanted to write about the Jewish heaven but did not feel qualified because I did not and do not believe in 'it,' though I should.
becoming demands enslaved entirely feeling forced general life machine prevents rage resentful technology time victimized
I don't like being victimized by a machine or by other people's demands on my time. I become resentful by feeling forced or incentivized to live a life I don't want to live. That rage in general prevents me from entirely becoming enslaved by technology.
alive basic engines fairly jewish jews kept life machines outsource qualities regard seems
To outsource your memory to machines - which is what many of us do with regard to our use of search engines - seems to me to be fairly antithetical to the basic qualities of Jewish life that have kept the Jews alive for so long.
Writing is a conviction before it is a craft.
life meaning others religion
'Religion,' I should note, has a disputed etymology in Latin: some say it's from 'relegere,' meaning 'to reread', while others say it's from religare, meaning 'to connect' or 'link.' Literature is life's fastener.
god happening hear power since technology
I think that technology is essentially a continuation of a divestment of theological power that's been happening since The Enlightenment. It's the idea that God can see and hear everything.
german russian
I think if German literature could survive the '40s and Russian literature could survive Sovietism, American literature can survive Google.
fit
Most novelists are narcissistic egomaniacs who would probably fit somewhere on the CEO spectrum.
cannot interested manner puns understood
Metaphors, similes, puns - all manner of metonymy - I'm interested in language that cannot be parsed by a machine - language that can only be understood through acculturation.
eat fish low pregnant
I think we've got two messages. If you're not pregnant and you're not going to become pregnant, eat fish. If you are pregnant or you are going to become pregnant, you should still eat fish, but you should eat fish low in mercury.
animal classify computers derive engine entire ideas search
Without computers, in the 17th century, we could classify the entire animal kingdom... there was this idea of the speciation, right? And now, all a search engine is is essentially the mathematical speciation of ideas - and these things really derive from the way that language is used and the way words relate.
ends
The problem is Jewish-American fiction that always ends with assimilation back into the community.
post
You know you're a fool when what you're doing makes even the post office seem efficient.