I Just Read About That…

SOUNDTRACK: TINDERSTICKS-Bloomsbury Theatre 12.3.95 (1995).

This is a rare and out of print live CD from an early Tindersticks show.  My friend Lar found it used for me in Ireland (thank you!).  But it turns out he found it for me about a week before it was reissued as a bonus disc with the Second Tindersticks CD.

It’s a great concert, with Tindersticks in fine form.  After the amazing creative success of the second disc, the band sounds energetic and Stuart Staples’ voice is fantastic. Live Tindersticks don’t sound drastically different from the record, but there is a very cool “close and intimate” vibe to  this show that makes the songs sing a little more.

Normally, I’d encourage anyone to try and find this disc, but since it has been reissued with the second disc, it’s worth getting that package instead.

[READ: October 25, 2009] “Order and Flux in Northampton”

This is the final uncollected DFW short story that I hadn’t read yet (not including the excerpts from The Pale King).   And it’s a very good one!  The story is chock full of DFW’s awesome character descriptions and hilarious word play.  He also has a bit of fun with James Joyce, which is always a treat.

This story concerns three characters who live in Northampton, MA.  Barry Dingle is a severely cross-eyed hippie who owns The Whole Thing, one of two local health food stores.   He harbors unparalleled love for Myrnaloy Trask. Myrnaloy works at Collective Copy, the copy shop next to The Whole Thing.  Barry has never talked to her, but he fell madly for her when he saw her reflected in a bus window.  But Myrnaloy is only interested in Don Megala, a professional student (he’s on his seventh unfinished PhD).

Barry’s backstory is that his mother dominated every aspect of his life, and seemed to predict his shortcomings.  For example, he didn’t like the taste of milk so he never drank it.  His mother said this would make him weak-boned.  And he is.  She was especially insistent that he never, ever, ever cross his eyes, because she believed they would stay that way.  Dingle’s mother was always right.  So, when, at fifteen years old, in a fit of pique with his mother, he crossed his eyes dramatically at her, they did, in fact, stay that way.  He was from that point forward severely cross-eyed and needed special glasses to correct the problem.  (But even the correction wasn’t all that beneficial).

Barry’s love is personified in this story as well.   His love is a little homunculus living inside him.  And after two years of pining for Myrnaloy, it finally forces him to do something about it (by intensifying the pain in his ingrown toenails).

Barry knows Myrnaloy and Megala’s routine, and he “happens” upon them at various establishments (although he never talks to them or acknowledges them, he just, well, spies).  In one instance he overhears her tell Megala that she is still a virgin and she is quite afraid of sex.  Megala sympathizes and says that he, too, is afraid of sex, but, you know, it is one our most primal instincts, right.  Barry’s love screams out (to Barry) that Megala is full of it.

Megala’s life as a professional student is quite humorous.  His latest PhD thesis is about James Joyce and is titled “The Ineluctable Modality of the Ineluctably Modal.”  But being a professional student means that he is always surrounded by the female students at Smith College (and the description of Megala with one of them is hilariously vulgar.

Barry finally gets up the nerve to talk to Myrnaloy (by pretending that his store’s copier is broken).  And a connection is made.  Barry’s foolproof plan is to follow up this meeting with another “chance encounter.” Barry ‘s mother once predicted that love would give him nothing but trouble.  Does it transpire that she is, indeed, always right?

This story was very straightforward and lots and lots of fun.  I was hooked from the start. I especially enjoyed the use of the word “reproduced” in terms of Barry checking out Myrnaloy while she is making copies.   But, it wouldn’t be DFW if he didn’t twist things a little bit. The final few pages change from a straight ahead narrative to this set up:

The interval 11:50 to 11:57 am EDT, 15 June, 1983, finds a tiny percentage of the planet’s persons involved in a tiny percentage in a tiny percentage of the planet’s various ineluctably modal situations.

And the remaining paragraphs all begin with a time and show a small detail about what is happening to various people.  Most of these people have not appeared directly in the story (Dingle’s sister, Dingle’s college professor and, inexplicably, Aristotle Onassis), but also Dingle and Myrnaloy.

The story ends before the excitement can be fully consummated. But unlike IJ or some of his other stories, the ending point comes a little bit later. So, you don’t actually see the finale, but you know of its inevitability. It would have been interesting to see it play out, although the story is totally satisfying even without it.

Oh, and like IJ, the story has footnotes!  Both are used as citations backing up facts (one is about the history of Northampton–DFW’s summary of the city is hilarious!  And the other is about germs.)  I am fairly certain both are fake, which is a shame, as the Northampton one sounds like it would be an amusing read.

And, also like in IJ, there is a comment about Quebec Separatism!

It is a fantastic story and, again, I’m surprised it has not been anthologized yet.

You can read it here.