Colin Dodds
Forget This Good Thing I Just Said is a book of 900 aphorisms by Colin Dodds. By turns funny and upsetting, incisive and poignant, they each contain a small world. For best results, flip around the book and seize on a line, think about it or dismiss it, then start flipping and try again. It was named a finalist for the 2022 Big Other Book Award in for nonfiction!This is a work of literature that lives at the ball-in-socket joint of what the author meant to say, and what he didn’t know he meant. Like the cut-ups of William Burroughs, it’s an experiment in exposing intentional language to the mysterious dynamics and agendas of so-called randomness. Like the I-Ching, it offers the reader something other than what the reader believes they’re looking for, or what the author entirely intends. Like a walk through a city in a strange mood, it is full of messages -some tangential, others meant for exactly where and who you are in that moment.This is philosophy that’s closer to first questions than final conclusions, philosophy that springs from the grease on a pizza box, a stranger’s glance on a sidewalk, or a child’s bedtime negotiations. The aphorism is the unit of meaning because it doesn’t leave much room for equivocation or obfuscation. It’s also an app for your phone, which you can find at forgetthisgoodthing.com.
