Sucking on Kenneth Goldsmith's words

Meeting strangers can be interesting, but it can also provoke social anxiety. So it was nice to meet Kenneth Goldsmith for the first time last night, having already read a word-for-word account of his daily speech habits ('Soliloquy') and a sinew-by-sinew narration of his every bodily function ('Fidget'). If at any point I felt too far at ease in his company however, I was able to reflect on the knowledge that he has been named the James Joyce of the 21st century.

For someone mad enough to document the ins and outs of his existence for his readership (or his 'thinkership', as it was described) and genius enough to be compared to Joyce, Kenny G is a really friendly man. Well he is a radio DJ; and he has the soundbites to boot. We were gathered in the hallowed halls of the British Library to watch a new film about him, Sucking on Words. Some such 'suckable' words he gave us included the following, about his own books: 'I fall asleep when I proof read the things, but I love the fact that they exist'. And a battle-cry for conceptual writers: 'We don't need the new sentence, the old sentence reformed is good enough.'

He also likes hats. And he presumably likes Caroline Bergvall, who was there too, and who is also very friendly. We sat outside a pub, and we were all serenaded by some crazy X-Factor-reject-human-juke-box. He was very friendly as well. Perhaps he's the James Joyce of the 21st century, because I'm more inclined to think Kenneth Goldsmith is the literary Marcel Duchamp. Well anyway, if he'd like to claim either of those elusive epithets, good because they must be long overdue somebody or other.