Cafe Society (ft. Felix Biederman)

We're back! And joined by Felix Biederman, a promising young
podcaster recently arrived in Los Angeles whom we condescended to
let on the show. Although by no means a "bookhead" -- to
appropriate his charming coinage -- Felix is a longtime fan of
Karl Ove Knausgaard. The Norwegian author became a source of
strength for Felix when he first encountered the Struggle books
in 2017 amidst an increasingly cloying digital media landscape.
With startling lucidity, Felix articulates how Knasugaard, with
his undifferentiated and unselfserving stream of thoughts, served
as a welcome anecdote to the insanely hypertargeted and
overdetermined first person essay boom of the time (should she
have pitched a piece about what it's like to be a quarter
Portuguese woman in America? Lauren wonders). Then we get into
the text: specifically pages 88-94 of book 2, which cover about
five minutes of Knausgaard stalking around Stockholm with the
stroller and having thoughts. We try to understand Knausgaard's
aversion to being recognized as a "regular" as a coffee shop (and
utter mortification at being presented with a free croissant) and
Felix recounts his stint in cafe society (the LES Dunkin Donuts)
as a young man. Also: we discover Knausgaard to have invented
main character/NPC discourse, and consider the 2005 fashion trend
of knee high black boots for women, which Knausgaard wishes
"would last forever" (cruel hindsight: it didn't).


If you enjoyed this episode with Felix, make sure to check out
his podcast, "Chapo Trap House"


As always we can be reached at teixeira.lauren@gmail.com;
deohringer@gmail.com


LIVE SHOW IS THURS JUN 2 @ KGB BAR. Tickets are not available yet
but will be soon. We'll send out an email blast!


Mugs are available at ourstruggle.store. Discount code MISTAKE
valid for one week!


Oh and congratulations to our baby Joshua Cohen (novelist) on his
Pulitzer win, which we like to think we are in some part if not
all responsible for.