I guess a big part of serious fiction’s purpose is to give the reader, who like all of us is sort of marooned in her own skull, to give her imaginative access to other selves. Since an ineluctable part of being a human self is suffering, part of what we humans come to art for is an experience of suffering, necessarily a vicarious experience, more like a sort of “generalization” of suffering. Does this make sense? We all suffer alone in the real world; true empathy’s impossible. But if a piece of fiction can allow us imaginatively to identify with a character’s pain, we might then also more easily conceive of others identifying with our own. This is nourishing, redemptive; we become less alone inside. It might just be that simple.

--David Foster Wallace

infamous

The question of just how many of us subscribe to this idea of significance, and what we’re willing to do to achieve it, has only gotten more urgent in those seven years. To remind readers of watershed events such as the White House State Dinner Crashers, the Boy Trapped in Weather Balloon, the antics of Sheen/Lohan/Palin/Cruise/Kanye/Kardashian/O.J./Trump, or any number of other displays of insatiable hunger would be, as they say, like shooting fish in a barrel. We’ve grown accustomed to the idea that there are, at any given time, certain people “out there” who will sacrifice themselves on the altar of public ridicule for the higher purpose of remaining in the public eye—indeed, there seems to be an agreed-upon communal need for such people, and as soon as one atrocity begins to fade another is always ready to replace it.

Back to the paradox. So we privilege authenticity above all, but in our authentic state nearly all of us are insignificant; and we desperately crave significance, but achieving it nearly always requires a departure from authenticity. Here’s where reality television is so fascinating: It solves the paradox by dissolving, or deconstructing, the idea of authenticity until authenticity itself no longer signifies, like when you say a familiar word over and over and over again until it sounds like something in an alien language. I used to have this argument with my wife about The Hills, the painful MTV show that generously gave us Heidi Montag and Spencer Pratt, surely two of the most repulsive specimens ever to crawl out of the gene pool. To boil down the argument: I would say there was no way they were authentically that repulsive, and that this alone was enough to invalidate the show’s claim on reality; and my wife would say but they’re real people, as in they exist, and if they’re willing to be seen as so repulsive just to stay on the show, if they’re willing to sacrifice all dignity and self- and other-respect and distort their already-to-be-sure-unsavory personalities in whatever outlandish direction the producers deem necessary to keep the ratings up and the advertising revenue flowing, if they’re in essence willing to annihilate their “real” selves and replace them with these manufactured doppelgangers if that’s what it takes... well, then there’s something frighteningly and shamefully real about that. And she was right.

From this great, long, article

Transient pleasures, drastic measures.

I had read Falling Man by Don DeLillo and was not impressed.  It's a story about a marriage breaking apart in the aftermath of 9/11, but has just too many scattered segues into trying to form a plot. However, I decided to give his fiction another try, as I had admired his writing style, as well as the authors he'd influenced, for many years. Enter White Noise, which has an infinite setup for each of its sardonic passages, such as the end of chapter 1: "I am chairman of the department of Hitler Studies at the College-on-the-Hill." Set in the late 80s, as far as I can tell from the book publication date and the prevalence of station wagons, it follows a college professor, his exercise-obsessed wife, and their brood of children from failed marriages through a Midwestern winter full of radiation waves, the airborne toxic event, and dealing with the side effects of our media-saturated world. Jack, our narrator and Hitler expert (who doesn't speak German), leads us through lengthy descriptions of his world, his disguises, and his personas, while finally reaching my favorite chapter, on page 293 out of 332, a Socratic discussion about the individual's fear of death with his colleague Murray. 

Murray is a New Yorker who has traveled to this quaint little college town to study the American essence of culture. He's fascinated by the mundane, by all this white noise that surrounds us, that creates in us this fawning consumerism as a repressed, unconscious sort of mannerism: expressway traffic, fast food environments, ATMs, and of course, supermarkets and televisions. Television is ''the primal force in the American home, sealed-off, self-contained, self-referring, a wealth of data concealed in the grid, in the bright packaging, the jingles, the slice-of-life commercials, the products hurtling out of darkness, the coded messages, like chants...Coke is it, Coke is it, Coke is it.'' This concept is reflected in Jack's life as there are phrases that pop into almost every conversation he has with his precocious children. The TV is always on in the background, swirling in their dreams, with its incantations of "Toyota Celica" for his daughter, or listing side effects of mind-dumbing medications for him as he strolls through the living room.

The events in this town seem to happen in waves, rolling back onto previous lives and looking into future apocalyptic ones. Every discussion is laced with ominous undertones, unvalidated emotions, and a sort of hurtling toward fate. Nowhere is this more evident than in the Socratic method-esque discussion that Jack and Murray have while strolling along the college campus:

Murray: "Doesn't our knowledge of death make life more precious?"
Jack: "What good is preciousness based on fear and anxiety? It's an anxious, quivering thing.
Murray: "True. The most deeply precious things are those we feel secure about. A wife, a child."
Jack: "So how do I get around fear of death?"
Murray: "You could put your faith in technology. It got you here, it can get you out. This is the whole point of technology. Technology creates an appetite for immortality on the one hand. It threatens universal extinction on the other. Technology is lust removed from nature. It's what we invented to conceal the terrible secret of our decaying bodies."
Murray, continuing with other ways to get around the fear of death: "There are two kinds of people int he world. Killers and diers. Most of us are diers. We don't have the disposition, the rage, or whatever it takes to be a killer. We lie down and die. But think what it's like to be a killer, to kill a person in direct confrontation. If he dies, you cannot. To kill him is to gain life-credit. The more people you kill, the more credit you store up. It explains any number of massacres, wars, executions."
Jack: "Are you saying that men have tried throughout history to cure themselves of death by killing others?"
Murray: "It's obvious...The killer, in theory, attempts to defeat his own death by killing others. He buys time, he buys life."

Though the technology of the 80s was not even half as impressive as today's gadgets and advances, Murray was expounding upon the timeless debate of the good and evil in any invention. Technology has brought us life-saving antibiotics and revolutionary surgeries, and it has also brought us bullets and drones. It can aid us both in the creation of our self-focused lives, and in the destruction of ourselves and our world.

still haven't read Tolkien. guess i'm not a renaissance woman.

James Franco:
actor
painter
short-story author
soaking-wet Gucci spokesman
Oscar-nominee
Oscar-host
General Hospital's psychotic murderer/artist
studied at Brooklyn College, Columbia, Warren Wilson College in the last year
taking classes in filmmaking at NYU where he is also teaching
working on a PhD in English at Yale
plowing through more weed than a tanker full of Round-up

Sir Dr. Stephen T. Colbert, D.F.A.
wearing tights & codpiece under suit
pundit
author
singer
Olympic athlete
war-ender
art-world phenom
sailor
Korean pop star
rapper
ice cream magnate
Congressional witness
feminist boy-toy
March leader (to Keep Fear Alive!)
chef
Emmy winner
Grammy winner
Peabody winner
and Free Pepsi winner!

Colbert also ran for president. but Franco is single, i think, and doesn't have children.
advantage?

i was born an april fool

 So, Manchester Orchestra performed a stellar 4-song acoustic set for KROQ last week. Nadia Noir, who is listed as a staff writer, which I assume means she gets paid to write about music, was in charge of the narrative for this set. She describes them as "grunge-ish indie rock" and in the space of ten small paragraphs, compares them not once, but twice to Bright Eyes. While I enjoy the acoustic versions of songs as much as anyone, I don't think it's too much of a stretch to wonder why she didn't describe how the songs sound in the recorded versions as well. For example, "I've Got Friends" could certainly be akin to "the cathartic crunch of Nirvana-ish guitars" on the album version, while acoustically it sounds nothing like that-ish. I am glad I can hear the stripped-down version of "April Fool" since I've only ever heard it with massive guitar reverb, and now I have more of an idea of the lyrics. But especially with that song, one would think since it was the release date for the single, she may have been able to link to the recorded version for people who wanted to hear more.
Her co-worker explained "that the songs are more fantastic with all the players present." Really? One would think you could provide a link to an example of this difference, and maybe not rely on your co-workers just because it's a band you haven't ever heard. So you're not a fan of the "indie-rock" genre? Well here's a helpful hint: Manchester Orchestra really isn't an "indie-rock" band. But it's actually quite obvious you're not a fan, because you compare Andy's voice to Conor Oberst's voice, of Bright Eyes, which is apparently now the go-to band for anyone trying to make any sort of reference to music that features guitars and male singers. Andy's voice is quite high, yet gravelly, sounding as if he just smoked a pack of cigarettes and then let out a yowl or two, while Conor's, as much as I like it, sounds more like he drank ten cups of coffee and has a slight frog in his throat. And this is all just off the top of my head, because, you know, I don't get paid to write about music, and therefore don't do music research into the bands I'm assigned, or anything. Anyway, I'm going to go listen to these sweet harmonies some more. Robert and Chris sound amazing as well.

The Entertainment

Although I’m guessing David Foster Wallace wrote Infinite Jest as early as 1993 or 1994, the year of publication was 1996, at which time I had reached 15 years of age. Muddled memories include Driver’s Ed class; going to every boys’ basketball game because the senior class of 96-97 was super-attractive; emailing friends rarely, mostly to gossip (and email being dial-up and separate from the internet, i.e. Juno); talking on the phone a lot, maybe instant messaging; working full time at Subway during the summer; going downtown to the bay to swim and to watch skaters doing ollies off railings; etc.

Older techno-geeks can inform me if any of the following was in even pre-existent creation in 1996 B.S. (Before Subsidization)¹ : The videophone (okay I do remember this being around) – but videophone leading to a panagoraphobia which opened “huge new entrepreneurial teleputerized markets for home-shopping and delivery”; cell phones, like very small and quite interactive; DVDs /HDTV which he calls “cartridges” but are like High-Definition CD-ROMs and the HDTV is also your computer(!); laptop TPs (teleputers); DVR, nixing the commercials and everything; “Break Free of the Confinement of Your Channel Selector!” –Netflix-type instant-watch; “Aapps, Inc” controls the TV choices; interfacing like Skype programs and webcams (which are really videophones re-imagined); and finally, “Twitter”. I’m kidding about that last one, but in the first chapter of the book, Wallace really does use ‘twittering’ as a verb like ‘chatter’ at least ten times. How could such a visionary-type genius have left us in a world devoid of his revolutionary ideas?

Sadly, I found out about this greatly troubled man only after his death last year. That was when the ‘Infinite Summer’ group started, of people across the world pledging to read his 1100+ page book together throughout the summer. There was a scheduled online book club set up and I was on track with the articles and discussion. Then I slowly dropped behind the page I was supposed to be on, mainly due to the fact that each word, and page, and section of each chapter is dense reading, along with lengthy footnotes comprising the last 100-page section of the book. I stopped around page 240 and the book’s been gathering dust until this most recent month of May (2010 B.S.) when I picked it up again and decided it must be finished.

The main interlaced storylines consist of:

Enfield Tennis Academy – containing prodigies like Hal Incandenza² or Michael Pemulis, elaborate descriptions of the hierarchies of instruction and drills and other sports elaborations that surprisingly don’t bore me. Includes the live-action Risk-like game of Eschaton, which I now wish to play.

Ennet House – halfway house nearby the academy for recovering alcoholics and drug addicts. Mainly starring Don Gately, deals heavily with the background of addictive personalities. Especially intriguing to me is the constant debate (excerpted below) regarding its mind-numbing platitudes:
“By AA’s own logic, everyone ought to be in AA. If you have some sort of Substance-problem, then you belong in AA. But if you say you do not have a Substance-problem, in other words if you deny that you have a Substance-problem, why you’re by definition in Denial, and thus you apparently need the Denial-busting fellowship of AA even more than someone who admits his problem.”
Gately: “The slogan I've heard that might work here is Analysis-Paralysis. You can’t think about it like an intellectual thing.”
“AA’s response to a question about its axioms, then, is to invoke an axiom about the inadvisability of all such questions.”

O.N.A.N. – political backdrop wherein through the Great Concavity agreement, the U.S. has a treaty with Canada to give them various parts of New England and consequently catapult all of our trash (Toxic Waste Management) into said areas, through the use of fairly magical dumpsters. This literally makes our streets and country clean, a treaty proposed by germaphobic President Johnny Gentle, a former actor who sounds a lot like Schwarzenegger.

“Himself” – James Incandenza, Hal’s father, a filmmaker (see footnote 24, well over 10 pages of his film titles and descriptions, mainly documentaries, such as interviewing over 200 people in the U.S. named John Wayne) – married to a Canadian and highly involved in the title of this book.

One of the premises argued throughout the political chapters is that of ‘delayed gratification’ – that is, how everyone in America is guaranteed the ‘pursuit of happiness’ in hopes that if we’re all moving toward this goal, everyone will be simultaneously happy, but if we’re all like kids who don’t know when to stop eating candy, we’re all getting sick and making others sick with our American dreams. Consequently, we have thousands of choices, we have ‘freedom’ but no one has taught us how to make good choices, in other words stopping at the limit of the candy/sickness level. Or to use the technology example, when the cable kabal of 504 channels is available, we have 504 choices, but when Netflix-instant-watch is available, we supposedly have the ‘freedom’ to choose anything we want, but we don’t necessarily possess the wisdom or direction to make quality choices. In modern terms, it’s doubtful Wallace would’ve been a fan of the Real Housewives in the Year of The KFC Double Down, Subsidized Time. But he’s probably also referring to my ability to turn on the Weather Channel at 7:20am every morning and select Local Weather and immediately obtain a 30-second long 5-day forecast, which I rather like. All of this I’ve written at having only reached page 470. Full speed ahead…

___________________________________________
1. My favorite is the Year of The Trial-Sized Dove Bar
2. Hal frequently suffers from The Howling Fantods, which would be an excellent name for a rock band.

postscript: Colin Meloy weighed in with similar summarizing thoughts last summer, with or without Pemulis’ yachting cap.

Bffs 5ever

I thought it seemed distorted...that's because there was a magnifying glass in front of it!
(Let's not even mention the fact that monotone Sarah from Prison Break ruined the entire episode)

Brain exploding with joy...fake doctors unite!

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
House Returns the Favor
http://www.colbertnation.com/
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor Fox News

Colbewart

Carell returns for 3rd interview since leaving TDS. I miss Produce Pete and Even Stevphen.

This is America! If we can put a man on the moon, we can put an 'i' in 'team'.

Awe / Aww

I am gonna make it through this year if it kills me.

Albums of the year /making twenty-oh-nine palatable

Brother's Blood, by Kevin Devine

Poetic literary aural perfection. Looking for communion.

"A flaming ferris wheel spun where the sun used to be"

"All those foxhole prayers full of fear you shared with a bored and distant sun"

"You're burnt sky, the fever moon that makes the sun jealous at night"

"The hungover sun sneaks back in the sky"

"Stubborn sun spites the hallways, paint chips blink yellow, white"

"Every morning the sun comes - to shuttle you back to your man"

[those were just the sun lyrics, see: "the entire album"]

From Sumi to Japan, by Brian Bonz & The Dot Hongs

Ambient wonder. Makes me happy. Growing up.
"The pattern of dependence has got me down"
"And you're pushing three decades with that bottle now"

Mean Everything to Nothing, by Manchester Orchestra

Emotional. Spiritual. Whilst entirely rock and roll.
I may or may not have listened to The River my entire 13 hour trip back from Lollapalooza.
"I guess it's true you never knew the passive power of the truth so cut me loose"
"So I prayed for what I thought were angels, ended up being ambulances"
"I'm gonna leave you the first chance I get"

Curse Your Branches, by David Bazan

Just gorgeous. Questions, theology, faith.
"And it's hard to be, hard to be a decent human being"
"Causing the doubt to begin to spread like original sin"

The Hazards of Love, by The Decemberists

Mutton chops and suspenders.
I think the songs work on their own but it was nice to see the entire album performed as well.
"And the wanting comes in waves"
"And I'd wager all, for the hazards of love"
"Tell me now, tell me this, a forest's son, a river's daughter/So let's be married here today, these rushing waves to bear our witness/And these hazards of love, nevermore will trouble us"

The Life of the World to Come, by The Mountain Goats

Thematically sound. Retrospective. Love my nasal singers.
"I used to live here"
"In the burning fuselage of my days"

When The Devil's Loose, by A A Bondy

Haunting. Ocean. Harmonicas.
"This is the light that shines, and I can see the pines are dancing, this is the leaving of another love..."
"And when I come, I will come on like a dream, with the crimson moon shining down upon my devil's ring"


Just released, and/or just started listening:

Height, by John Nolan

"Well I'm a born disciple, but I'm inherently suspicious"
"I keep trying to think of clever ways to say: that I don't believe you. But nothing comes to mind so I'll just make it plain: I don't believe you."

Daisy, by Brand New

It's a trip so far.

Interesting how we compare: I've never heard #3 and #7 but otherwise similar (and wasn't sure what year Mini Ts came out and forgot about Koufax since I didn't see them live- but they are lovely and Czech!)

commander-in-chief

BRA-AINS!

yearly portrait.

You are a gentleman and a scholar

Everyone who knows what that's from gets a prize:





As if that weren't enough for my un-update, here's an Irishman:

Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups = God exists

Metal Cart! Hand Sanitizer! Dog! Synthetic Pants!
This is a threat to germaphobic, pet-owning, polyester pants wearers everywhere.
I’ve run out of room for the metal cart, so I’ve included an asterisk and a footnote over here.

Nation, I love you.

no time for writing, just last week's screencaps

RIP, Coverage of the Coverage of the death of MJ:

Sotomayor hearings:

I'd Like That Redacted

Book Review of prelude to a SUPER AIRPLANE by Brian Spaeth

I am afraid to fly. My first airplane trip occurred at age four when most of our family moved across the country. I do not recall this experience in any detail. My second airplane trip was at age twenty-one during Spring Break. At this point I still followed the flight attendant's detailed instructions for turning off my electronic device for the majority of the hour-long flight. I find I have no problem once the plane is actually airborne, it's the takeoff and landing that makes my heart skip several beats. If I am stuck in the aisle seat and cannot see the ground when the plane is taking off, my anxiety levels increase and I don't want to stare past the person in the window seat. I detest "puddle-jumper" planes and always hit my head on their small overhead compartments. All this to say, prelude to a SUPER AIRPLANE has renewed my childish sense of wonder and amazement regarding the creation of flying machines. Although I just returned from vacation wherein our plane inexplicably sat on the runway for two hours, then sputtered to life, I no longer think of flights with quite the anxiety-inducing terror of my past. Plus, the TSA employing robots would be incredible.

Spaeth's tome draws the reader in to the magical colliding worlds of super airplane construction, finding love in airports, instant messaging via Facesbook (so no one will sue), self-proclaimed orphans, authorial intrusion, Mayan prophesies, and the cabal of energy-drink addicts. From the man who "also knew that this [deed] would propel him into the national spotlight as a war hero, even though America's Secret War With Brazil was a secret" to the psychiatrist who "was suggesting ill-conceived courses of action to her patients, so that their problems became larger than hers", the characters come alive through their bizarre and idiosyncratic actions. This book is perfect for the self-referential, ADD crowd of the twenty-first century, who still express Native American history incorrectly, have thumb blisters from Blackberry addiction, and want to live on a 47-story super airplane. Spaeth causes the reader to ruminate on such heady topics as how the most awesome name ever in the history of horse-naming is a horse called Pencils, and how Warmth For Monstero would be a good name for a rock band, all while trying to piece together each character's path to the super airplane.

In reading prelude to a SUPER AIRPLANE, I was taking a break from my summer commitment to read 1100-page Infinite Jest. The short paragraphs, short sentences, and absence of fatal drug overdoses in Spaeth's book piqued my interest, but I was soon caught up in comparing him to Wallace. First, they both use the word "twitter" at least once in their books, as in, "to utter a succession of small, tremulous sounds, as a bird." At least, I'm sure that's how Wallace meant it, as Infinite Jest was published in 1996, long before our generation's incessant need to share what we had for lunch. Next, they both use glorious footnotes[1] to further delineate important expositions to the reader. After these come footprintnotes[2], and many chapters set in the future--whether it be 2012 or the Year Of The Trial Sized Dove Bar--with newfangled technology predicted. Brad Radby's complete filmography might be largely comparable to Incandenza's own film career--the indescribable footnote 24 in Infinite Jest. Escapism is good for the soul, and in prelude to a SUPER AIRPLANE we can all fly away together.

[1]. I don't know how to make numbers appear smaller and footnotey in Blogger.
[2]. I made up that word.[1]

[1]. It means a footnote of a footnote. Alternately, toenotes.

-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-

End of Part 1:
1. Me. Women are the only gender who can multitask, therefore I could think about airplanes whilst attending to my normal activities. (Ex. I was just thinking about airplanes, reading your book, watching The Daily Show, replying to an email, and on the phone with my sister).
2. Cheese, musicians, peanut butter, time-travel, gingers.
3. Cheese: it can be easily eaten on an airplane.
4. Fork. It cannot be easily transported on an airplane because of its weapon-like qualities.
5. Yes, it's me, Demi Lovato.

copyright: me, 2009.

Thanks to NFZ's great screencapping abilities

Coors Light - delicious. it doesn't taste at all like Palmolive dishwashing soap. Oh, they’re a sponsor too?

need this matted & framed.

Need to DEAR (drop everything and read) to finish this beastly wonder

“So far it seems as if people think it really is sort of a book about drug addiction and recovery and, you know, intentional fallacies notwithstanding, what was really going on in my head was something more general like what you were talking about before, that there is a kind — that some of the sadness that it seems to me kind of infuses the culture right now has to do with this loss of purpose or organizing principles, something you’re willing to give yourself away to, basically. And that the addictive impulse, which is very much kind of in the cultural air right now, is interesting and powerful only because it’s a kind of obvious distortion of kind of a religious impulse or an impulse to be part of something bigger. And, you know, the stuff at the academy is kind of weird because, yeah, it’s very high-tech and it’s very “become technically better so you can achieve x, y, and z,” but also the guy who essentially runs the academy now is a fascist, and, whether it comes out or not, he’s really the only one there who to me is saying anything that’s even remotely non-horrifying, except it is horrifying because he’s a fascist. And part of the whole — part of the stuff that was rattling around in my head when I was doing this is that it seems to me that one of the scary things about sort of the nihilism of contemporary culture is that we’re really setting ourselves up for fascism. Because as we empty more and more kind of values, motivating principles, spiritual principles, almost, out of the culture, we’re creating a hunger that eventually is going to drive us to the sort of state where we may accept fascism just because — you know, the nice thing about fascists is they’ll tell you what to think, they’ll tell you what to do–they’ll tell you what’s important.”
DFW in an interview about Infinite Jest (1996).


Brought to my attention by Bailey, I'm now wondering if David Wallace in The Office is named after DFW.