Feeds:
Posts
Comments

Archive for the ‘David Foster Wallace’ Category

David Foster Wallace–short uncollected pieces (with titles): “Other Math” (1987); “The Empty Plenum: David Markson’s ‘Wittgenstein’s Mistress'” (1990); “Rabbit Resurrected” (1992); “The Nature of the Fun” (1998); “F/X Porn” (1998); “Peoria (4)” (2002); “Peoria (9) ‘Whispering Pines'” (2002); “Deciderization 2007” (2007)

Posted in Aliens, Book Reviews, Canadian Music, Concept Albums, Constellation Records, Corporate skewering, David Foster Wallace, David Markson, Essays, Harper's, Infinite Summer, James Cameron, Land of Kush, Robots, Sci-fi, Shalibi Effect, Short Story, Smarty Pants, Terminator, Terminator 2, Thomas Pynchon on September 26, 2009| 2 Comments »

dfwshelfSOUNDTRACK: LAND OF KUSH-Against the Day [CST058] (2008).

kushLand of Kush is a huge orchestra created by Sam Shalibi.  Shalibi is a maniac of independent releases, creating everything from orchestral pieces to solo records all with his unique blend of middle eastern tinged music (featuring his oud playing).

This album is inspired by Thomas Pynchon’s Against the Day, a book I have not read.  As such, I can’t say if the music works with the book, or indeed if the songs with lyrics have anything to do with the book at all.  The liner notes essay that Shalibi wrote reveal his deep appreciation for the book and how it made him hear this music.  Pretty neat.  Against the Day the book is over 1,000 pages, so I won’t be getting to it anytime soon.

The CD has 5 tracks: three of them about 8 minutes, one at 14 minutes and the centerpiece comes in at 21 minutes.  To read more than I’m going to say about this band and the album, check out the Constellation Records page.

In general, I find Shalibi’s music to be fascinating, but sometimes a bit much.  He is not afraid to pull out all the stops.  And I think that’s to his credit.  He does free jazz, psychedelic and middle eastern phrasing, often within one song.  And while it’s often very enjoyable, it can also be exhausting.

And that is the case with this disc. The 21 minute “Bilocations” is such a brilliant piece of music.  The main musical line is just fantastic: middle eastern instruments playing a sort of James Bond type suspense theme.  And the vocals are simply amazing.  The singer (and I regret to say I’m not sure which one she is) is snarling and sexy and brings the whole piece to life.  I’ve never heard anyone say “economics” with such emotion before.  And I enjoy probably the first 15 or 16 minutes of it.  The last five drifts into a sort of solo for voice which gets a bit tiresome, actually, especially after the intensity of the first part.

And yet it is then followed up by the last two songs, each about 8 minutes long, again with fantastic motifs that propel these weird and wild pieces beyond the middle eastern psychedelic soundscapes into actual songs.

Despite my amorphous criticisms (I think that the disc is just too long to appreciate in one sitting (and I find middle eastern music is hard for me to digest in more than small doses)) this is my favorite of Shalibi’s releases.  And some day I hope to read the book, too.

[READ: September 19th ish 2009] short uncollected pieces

This is my second (and final, I think) review of multiple DFW uncollected pieces.  There are a few uncollected pieces left that I’m going to read, but they’re all longer and will likely deserve their own post.  Most of these pieces are very short, and I don’t have all that much to say about them.  But, heck, I’m a pseudo-complestist, so I want to have them all here.

All the text in bold, including the links comes from (where else?) The Howling Fantods.  Thanks! (more…)

Read Full Post »

David Foster Wallace–various uncollected essays (1987-2007)

Posted in Books about writers, Bookworm, Boston Phoenix, Consumerism, David Foster Wallace, Don DeLillo, Essays, Fleet Foxes, Funny (ha ha), Funny (strange), Harper's, History, Infinite Summer, McSweeney's, NASA, Rolling Stone, Salon.com, Short Story, The New York Times on September 25, 2009| 5 Comments »

dfwshelfSOUNDTRACK: FLEET FOXES-Sun Giant EP (2008).

sungiantMy friend Jarrett introduced me to the Fleet Foxes with their self-titled CD.  I recently picked up the Sun Giant EP and it is just as good as the main CD.  It opens with a beautiful a capella introduction to “Sun Giant” in multipart harmony that melds into a nice folksy song.

The remaining 4 songs all contain these harmonies, although some rock harder than others (within their style of orchestral folk).  Orchestral folk implies a “bigness” that the band never really strives for.  In fact, some songs sounds downright pastoral.

“English House” is great for so many reasons: the fantastic guitar lines, the breaks in the song proper, just everything.  But the track “Mykonos” is probably my favorite Fleet Foxes song of all.  It has such a wonderfully catchy pre-chorus and then an even more fantastic post-chorus.  Simply amazing (even if I don’t know what they’re saying).

The EP is a great introduction to this fantastic band.

[READ: Mid-September 2009] uncollected essays

I don’t normally like to have a bunch of things appear in one post.  But this post is going to be about those small, uncollected pieces that aren’t really long enough to warrant their own entry (letters, interviews, etc).  I tracked down most of these pieces from The Howling Fantods, but I also got a few from The Joy of Sox.  You’ll notice that many of these pieces are stored at http://theknowe.net/dfw and yet I can’t figure out how to access the files there directly, so Howling Fantods links are what we get.

The text in bold comes from The Howling Fantods site (I hope they don’t mind that I swiped it).  The text underneath is my review/opinion/idea. (more…)

Read Full Post »

David Foster Wallace–“Hail the Returning Dragon, Clothed in New Fire” (Shiny Adidas Tracksuits and the Death of Camp and Other Essays from Might Magazine) (1998)

Posted in David Foster Wallace, Death, Essays, Fables, Infinite Summer, Might, Neutral Milk Hotel, NPR/PRI/PBS, Sex on September 24, 2009| 3 Comments »

shinySOUNDTRACK: NEUTRAL MILK HOTEL-In the Aeroplane Over the Sea (1998).

neutralI had always put off getting into Neutral Milk Hotel.  They were just another one of those Elephant 6 bands, and there were so many bands and splinter-bands and solo bands that I had to draw the line somewhere.  And Neutral Milk Hotel were on the other side of it.  I hadn’t even heard them, I just decided I couldn’t listen to them.

About four months ago, I heard a piece on NPR about a high school putting on a musical based on this album.  They played bits and pieces of the disc and I was totally blown away.  The play is somehow connected to the Anne Frank story (as the album apparently is, too, although I haven’t been able to figure that out from the lyrics at all).

It also turns out that my friend Jarrett had put “Two-Headed Boy” on a sampler disc for me, so I already DID know some of the disc.

Make no mistake, this is an unusual disc: from the bizarre cover, to the bizarre song titles (“The King of Carrot Flowers”).  And, most notably, to the instrumentation.  Sure it starts out simply enough with some acoustic guitars, but it eventually adds everything from flugelhorn (a recent safe word on How I Met Your Mother)to euphonium to zanzithophone(!) to what I thought was a theremin, but which turns out to be a singing saw (even cooler!).

“The King of Carrot Flowers Pts 2 – 3” begins with the very earnest “I love you, Jesus Christ.”  It eventually morphs into the rollicking Pt 3, with the repeated effort of “I would [x] until I learn to [x]”  It’s frankly an amazing trilogy to open the disc.

The title track and “Two-Headed Boy” continue this fascinating orchestral folk with incredible catchiness and what can only be described as supremely earnest singing.  At times, the singing almost makes one uncomfortable for how naked it sounds.

“The Fool” allows for some interesting marching band type instrumentation, but it is followed by even more earnest singing in “Holland, 1945” a ramshackle song that feels like it is trying to race itself to the end.   And then there’s “Oh Comely” a simple guitar ballad that grows and shrinks for 8 minutes of raw, lyric bending.  Eventually it adds some horns as Magnum sings “we know who our enemies arrrrrrrrrre.”

The whole disc has a sound of being recorded too close to the microphone…with many many sounds crackling into distortion.  And while it does have a feeling of cheapness, it really has more of a feeling of urgency…they couldn’t wait to get these songs out, and damn the recording levels (the guitars on “Ghost” are almost outrageously too loud, even though they are not louder than anything else in the song).

The disc ends with the fun, keyboard and uilleann pipe fueled “The Penny Arcade in Calirfornia” a wonderful instrumental that reprises some of the musical lines from other songs.  And then comes “Two Headed Boy, Pt 2” which doesn’t really reprise the original song. Rather, it is a multi-versed song in which Magnum barely pauses for breath trying to get the lengthy verses (with no evident chorus) out.  It ends with an actual reprise of “Two Headed Boy” and fades out.

It’s a fantastic disc.  Simply fantastic.

Neutral Milk Hotel has basically been on hiatus since this record, so it’s not hard to catch up with their output (2 full lengths and an EP).  It’s just a shame if you waited as long as I did to do it.

[READ: September 18, 2009] “Hail the Returning Dragon, Clothed in New Fire”

When Infinite Jest came out there was a lot of discussion of its being “ironic.”  But generally, it is well established at this point (just look at virtually any post on Infinite Summer) about how un-ironic the book is.  In fact, it rather eschews irony.  (I’m not going to detail why, I promise).

This essay, if nothing else, should hammer home the idea that DFW had very little tolerance for irony (even despite the nature of this book, the magazine it comes from, and some of the other ironic pieces in it). (more…)

Read Full Post »

David Foster Wallace–[Final thoughts] Infinite Jest (1996)

Posted in Big Books, Brief Interviews with Hideous Men, Canadian Content, Consumerism, David Foster Wallace, Death, Demons, Dreams, Drinking, Drugs, Infinite Summer, James Joyce, John Krasinski, Kurt Vonnegut, Meta, Postmoderism, Set at School, Short Films, Smarty Pants, Supernatural, Tennis, The Future, Threats, Violence, William Golding, Yuck! on September 22, 2009| 13 Comments »

inf sum

Okay, now that I’ve had time to digest the book (and to cope with the ending) I wanted to give some final thoughts on the book.  I also wanted to tie up some loose ends by posting my original response to the Salon.com questions as well as my letter to the posted article (keeping all my IJ stuff in one place).  I also found a map of Enfield that places things nicely in context.  I’ve included that at the bottom of the page.

But on to the book:

My previous post ended with what feels like a somewhat bitter taste in my mouth.  And yet I the disappointment I felt at the end of the book was not so much at what was said, but was actually a sort of disappointment that the book is over.

The book, the world, these characters became a part of my life.  I know for a fact that I have never spent this much time and effort on a book before (I didn’t even spend as much time on Ulysses, which I’ve read twice for a class).  And I think having the book left so open keeps the characters floating around in my head without actually letting them rest.  (Wraith-like if you will).

When I finished the book, the first thing I did was to go back to the beginning and re-read the Year of Glad section (now, for the third time!) [And I now I’m not the only person to have done so….just how many posts will say that that’s what they did?]. And I know that’s sort of the set-up of the book, like Finnegans Wake or even Pink Floyd’s The Wall.  And, in re-reading, even more gaps were filled in.  And that is, of course, why people read it multiple times.  And yet, do any of the multiple-times readers come any close to filing in the gaps of that lost year, or do they just find more and more awesome details to obsess over (or both)?

But before I get wrapped up in trying to “figure out what happened” I have to mention just how much I enjoyed the book.  I’ve never read anything like it.  The details, the quotes, the laughs, the pain.  It all sounds so trite (“It was better than Cats!”)  And yet, whether it’s the work itself or the amount of time spent on it, these characters are now with me.

So, I had read IJ when it came out.  And sometime in 1997 or 1998 after DFW published A Supposedly Fun Thing… he did a promotional tour stop in Boston.  And I recall getting up there and getting his autograph and saying how much I loved IJ and how it has stayed with me two years later. And that was true then (of course, if you’ve read me fumbling around and not remembering anything, you’ll know the details didn’t stay with me for 13 years, but that’s okay…the writing and the imagery stayed there somewhere.)

I think also, given the amount of time I spent on the book, and the amount of effort I expended keeping track of things, having this vacancy (both in the fact that the book is over and in the gap of one year) is really weird.  I’ve since read a bunch of reviews of IJ and the one thing I cannot imagine is how anyone with an advanced readers copy of this book could hope to read it in a few days (typical reviewer turnover time) and actually have something useful to say about it in time for a slated book review date?  I would think that if you weren’t following quite so closely you wouldn’t feel the sense of loss at the end of the book.

But enough pontificating.

Let’s think about what happened from 11/20 YDAU to Whataburger in late November, Year of Glad. (more…)

Read Full Post »

David Foster Wallace–[Week 14/End] Infinite Jest (1996)

Posted in A Clockwork Orange, Big Books, Boredom, Canadian Content, David Foster Wallace, Death, Demons, Dreams, Drinking, Drugs, Infinite Summer, Meta, Neurotics, Set at School, Short Films, Sonic Youth, Suicide, Supernatural, Synesthesia, Technology, Tennis, Violence, Yuck! on September 21, 2009| 8 Comments »

finSOUNDTRACK: SONIC YOUTH-“Rather Ripped” (2006).

rippedWhen Rather Ripped came out, I was really excited by it.  It rocked heavy, it was catchy and it featured a lot of Kim.  I listened to it all the time, and would have said it was my favorite SY disc of this era.  However, listening to Sonic Nurse reminded me how much I liked that one too, so I’m unclear now which one I like better.

Jim O’Rourke left the band, so they’re back to a 4 piece.  And the overall sound of the album is more minimal. There’s less squalling feedback (although there are noisy parts).  And the song structures are tighter.  It sounds more like a punk album that a jazz album.  It’s a great release.

“Reena” is so instantly catchy, it’s an amazing opener.  And it’s followed by “Incinerate” which might be even more catchy.  A simple guitar riff and a beautiful chord progression.  “Do You Believe in Rapture?” is a delicate guitar-harmonics filled song.  The only thing that keeps it from being totally poppy are the off-kilter harmonics between verses.

It’s followed by the screaming noise guitars of “Sleepin’ Around.”  This has some amazing tom-filled drums from Steve Shelley which really propel the song along.  It eventually morphs into a pretty straightforward chugga-chugga song until the noise solos in the middle.  “What a Waste” is a lo-fi rocker with Kim singing angrily.  It’s followed by Kim’s more delicate/sexy “Jams Run Free,” a rather tender guitar line.  And, with Kim playing more guitar, I’m wondering if she’s writing these more delicate guitar riffs?  They seem kind of bass-like rather than the complex lines that Lee typically writes.  I’ll never know.

“Rats” is a noisy Lee song that I’m quite fond of.  It’s immediately followed by an even more delicate Kim song, “Turquoise Boy.”  This is a slow ballad that is quite surprising.  “Lights Out” continues the quiet mood with Thurston’s own brand of sinister/seductive singing.

“The Neutral” continues Kim’s delicate singing.  While “Pink Steam” is a beautiful six minute near-instrumental that Thurston reins in with great vocals at the end.  “Or” ends the disc in a quiet frame of mind.

I’m still undecided if I like Nurse or Ripped better.  But I am delighted by this new style that SY has been playing with.

[READ: September 17, 2009] Infinite Jest (completed!)

Hal is remembering the ’98 blizzard (which I actually tried to remember if I had been in Boston for and then realized that ’98 came after the book was written…Doh!)

It was the year that E.T.A. opened and they moved from Weston to E.T.A.  The Moms was attached to the Weston house so she dragged things out. (more…)

Read Full Post »

“The Planet Trillaphon as It Stands in Relation to the Bad Thing” (Amherst Review, 1984/Tin Roof #40, 2009)

Posted in Amherst Review, David Foster Wallace, Death, Drugs, Explosions in the Sky, Godspeed You Black Emperor, Infinite Summer, Mogwai, Neurotics, Suicide, Tin House on September 20, 2009| Leave a Comment »

40SOUNDTRACK: EXPLOSIONS IN THE SKY-The Earth is Not a Cold Dead Place (2003).

eitsExplosions in the Sky play beautiful, lengthy almost cinematic instrumentals.  They are primarily a guitar-drum band, (but they do add bass from time to time).

Each of their albums is practically symphonic in its beauty as most of the songs start slowly, sparsely, with a few guitar notes.  They have simple melodies that fold in on themselves.  When the (often martial) drums are added, it brings a depth to the song that lets you know this isn’t simply some kind of ambient background music.

Mogwai is probably the most likely comparison point, yet Mogwai’s instrumentals don’t have quite the expansive feel…Mogwai tends to rock a little harder too.  In some respects, Godspeed, You Black Emperor are another touchstone for epic instrumentals, and yet they really don’t sound anything alike.  EITS’s songs are definitely rock: the guitars are clearly guitars, and when the bands rocks (and they do) it is definitely the rock of a guitar band.

The tracks are haunting (as is the bands’ name, the album name, and the song titles: “First Breath After Coma”; “Six Days at the Bottom of the Ocean”) and yet they are ultimately uplifting, reaching crescendos that are hard not to be bouyed by.

Even as instrumentals, the tunes are so engaging that they quickly move to the front of your activity.  You can’t go wrong with any of thier discs.

And, yes, I chose this, their third album, to stand in contrast with the DFW piece below.

[READ: September 15, 2009] “The Planet Trillaphon as It Stands in Relation to the Bad Thing”

This is listed as fiction according to the awesome DFW site The Howling Fantods.  (And indeed, Tin Roof has republished it as fiction too).

And so I went into this story expecting some kind of young (he was a junior in college when this was published) fantasy story ala Vonnegut (Tralfamadore and all that).  Well, don’t make that mistake going into this.

This is some heavy shit.  And one can only hope that it is as fictional as everyone ascribes, although really, that seems unlikely. **  [Please see my update at the bottom for my clarification on this rather naive sentence]. (more…)

Read Full Post »

David Foster Wallace–[Week 13] Infinite Jest (1996)

Posted in Adventure, Big Books, Boredom, Canadian Content, Consumerism, Corporate skewering, David Foster Wallace, Death, Demons, Dreams, Drinking, Drugs, Edith Wharton, Eschaton, Funny (ha ha), Funny (strange), Humiliation, Infinite Summer, Marriage Trouble, Meta, Morality, Neurotics, Oddities, Postmoderism, Racism, Set at School, Smarty Pants, Sports, Supernatural, Technology, Tennis, The Future, Threats, Universities, Violence on September 18, 2009| 2 Comments »

ijestSOUNDTRACK: SONIC YOUTH-Sonic Nurse (2004).

nurse

After the glorious Murray Street, SY return with an even better disc: Sonic Nurse.  This is probably their most overtly catchy (and therefore in my opinion wonderful) record since the Goo/Dirty period of 1991.  (Can it really be 13 years between these discs?).

This disc features Jim O’Rourke as well.  I’m led to believe that he has been playing bass with the band in order to free Kim up to do other things.  Although what she is doing I can’t really imagine.

“Pattern Recognition” opens with the most catchy guitar line in Sonic Youth memory.  Such a great and easy guitar riff.  Kim’s voice is sultry and wondrous.  And Steve Shelly really gets a chance to shine with some fun drum parts.  And, as is typical lately, the catchy songs get some lengthy end treatments, so this song ends with a 2-minute noise fest.  But it’s a good one.  “Unmade Bed” is one of Thurston’s special mellow-singing songs but the guitar solo is weird and wonderful.

“Kim Gordon and the Arthur Doyle Hand Cream” was originally called “Mariah Carey and the…” (and I have no idea if the original was different).  Is one of those noisy Kim-sung jams that SY are known for. But it also features a “Hey hey baby” sing along chorus too.

“Stones” continues this midtempo catchiness with another amazing guitar riff that runs throughout the song.  While “Dude Ranch Nurse” is another mellow Kim piece that has a great riff and wonderfully noisy bridges.  And of course, Lee is awesome on “Paper Cup Exit,” yet another fatastic song.  The cool breakdown in the song is a nice unexpected twist.

“I Love You Golden Blue” may be the most beautiful song the band has ever done.  Kim’s voice is delicate and delightful as she whisper/sings over a gorgeous guitar line.  The final song is another of Thurston’s beauties: “Peace Attack” a slow builder, complete with verse ending guitar solos.

Sonic Nurse is a beuaty.

[READ: Week of September 14, 2009] Infinite Jest (to page 949)

Flying in the face of potential spoilers, I was looking for any evidence of there ever being a “unedited Director’s Cut” version of Infinite Jest.  There is, supposedly, one copy of the full text floating around, and I’m actually quite surprised no one has tried to capitalize on DFW’s death by releasing it (I’d rather see that than another “This is Water” type publication).

But while looking around, I got this pleasant surprise from the Howling Fantods–these are comments on a first draft of IJ (without too much unpublished work shown).  But there’s also this disturbing (to me) item:

(N.B.: Wallace made numerous corrections for the paperback edition of 1997, so that edition is the one scholars should use. Put a Mylar cover on the pretty hardback and leave it on the shelf.)

Great. So I read the wrong copy?  Twice??

ijdot1
I haven’t said very much in any of these posts regarding DFW himself.  I don’t feel it is my place to comment on the man or his situation.   However, through a nice shout out to me, I found this really cool site: The Joy of Sox.  It’s primarily about the Red Sox but it has a delightful side venue in DFW information.  There’s not a ton, and he quotes extensively from others who have done more research than he–he’s a fan of DFW, but this is a sports blog after all.  But it is a delightful collection of miscellanea.  And he pointed me to this article, “Democracy and Commerce at the U.S. Open“, which I had never read (so thank you!).   So, do check out the site, he’s not doing Infinite Summer, but he’s likely going to read IJ again in the fall.

ijdot1
As this almost-final week opens, the book is flying downhill like an AFR wheelchair, paralleling Gately’s literal inability to talk with Hal’s metaphorical? literal? we’ll see? one.  But it really is the Gately show.  We learn more and more about him, and his back story makes him more and more likable.  Who ever would have guessed? (more…)

Read Full Post »

David Foster Wallace–“Democracy and Commerce at the U.S. Open” (Tennis, September 1996)

Posted in Chronicles of Narnia, Consumerism, David Foster Wallace, Essays, Funny (ha ha), Infinite Summer, NPR/PRI/PBS, Sports, Tennis, Tennis Magazine on September 16, 2009| 4 Comments »

usopenSOUNDTRACK: REGINA SPEKTOR-Far (2009).

spektorRegina Spektor has reaffirmed my faith in female singers.  Back in the 1990s, during the height of Lilith Fair craze, there was an embarrassment of cool, hip, interesting women singers releasing discs.   Since then some have sold out (Liz Phair), some have gone away (Shirley Manson), and some have just, well, matured (Tori Amos).  Maturation is a fine thing, but when you are known for doing interesting things, by the time you get to doing standard piano ballads, well, yes, we all mature, but we don’t all lose our quirkiness, right?

And Regina Spektor has quirkiness in spades.  Her songs are primarily piano based, and yet rather than sounding like the grown up piano of many of her contemporaries, she rocks the piano like Ben Folds (with whom she did a duet on his last single).  Each of the first half dozen songs or so have an interesting or unusual part that totals sells the song for me.

The disc opens with the bouncey “The Calculation” with a lyrical melody line that betrays the boppy piano.  “Eet” had another of her fascinating vocal lines in which she sounds ethereal and mechanical at the same time.  “Blue Lips” has fantastic bass piano to accentuate the cool guitar effects.  “Folding Chair” is one of the quirkier songs on the disc what with her singing dolphin sounds at one point, and yet it still remains irresistably catchy.

“Hooked Into Machine” channels Laurie Anderson vocally, although once again, the melody is fantastic. “Laughing With” I actually heard on NPR this morning, used very nicely as a segue instrumental about people fearing getting swine flu in church.  It also features one of the few times a singer sings/says Ha Ha and it doesn’t sound affected.  “Two Birds” has an awesome tuba (!) run.

“Dance Anthem of the ’80s” is as weird as one might think from the title. It’s all mechanical sounds and strange trilling voices (Spektor somehow sounds mechanical and angelic simultaneously).  “One More Time with Feeling” which I like to think of as a shout out to Buffy, although I doubt it really is, is, as the title suggests, almost musicalhall in its tempo and yet again, she pulls it off amazingly.

The disc ends with “Man of a Tousand Faces” one of the most normal songs on the disc.  It immeiately lends itself to hitting start once again.

Reviews of this disc has said they found it lacking compared to her previous releases.  I haven’t heard any of her other recordings so I can’t say.  But if her other discs are even better than this one, then I’m going to be pretty happy getting her back catalog.

Oh, and in another nod to synchronicity, Regina has the final song that plays over the credits of Chronicles of Narnia, Prince Caspian which I know is over a year old, but we just watched it the other night.

[READ: September 15, 2009] “Democracy and Commerce at the U.S. Open”

Since I’m nearly finished Infinite Jest, I am trolling around for spoiler-free things to read by and about DFW (gee, imagine that I’d get hooked again to DFW’s ouvre).  I thought I had read just about all of DFWs nonfiction, but I was reading The Joy of Sox blog, and he pointed out this article that I had not yet read, and I couldn’t wait to print it.

The folks at Tennis.com are presently running the article in all of its color glory here.

And so this piece covers DFW’s press day at the 1995 US Open.  He spends the beginning of the article talking about tennis (Pete Sampras especially), and the rest of the article wandering the grounds, musing about commerce, concessions and New Yorkers.  It’s actually surprising how little space he spends on tennis (especially since it was written for Tennis magazine).  But rather, you get a complete awareness of the sights, smells, rip-offs and crowd that are present at a US Open event.  It’s fantastic! (more…)

Read Full Post »

David Foster Wallace–[Week 12] Infinite Jest (1996)

Posted in Bewitched, Big Books, Boredom, Canadian Content, Cheers!, Consumerism, David Foster Wallace, Death, Demons, Dreams, Drinking, Drugs, Funny (ha ha), Funny (strange), Infinite Summer, M*A*S*H, Marriage Trouble, Meta, Neurotics, Postmoderism, Ren & Stimpy, Seinfeld, Set at School, Short Films, Suicide, Supernatural, Technology, Tennis, The Mighty Mighty Bosstones, Violence on September 12, 2009| Leave a Comment »

ijSOUNDTRACK: THE MIGHTY MIGHTY BOSSTONES-Don’t Know How to Party (1993).

mmbI’ve always had a thing for ska (although even I got sick of it when No Doubt took over the airwaves, thanks Gwen).  When ska gets added to blistering metal, well, it’s hard to resist.  And so we get Boston’s own Mighty Mighty Bosstones.

This was the first Bosstones’ record I’d heard and I fell for it immediately.  I also really appreciated the aggressively green plaid that the band sported at the time (although they have since denounced the look).

A horn section can be a tricky thing in a rock band, with many using it to very poor effect. But the Bosstones used it wonderfully, complementing the heaviness and adding a cool skanking sound to the metal chops. And the songs are fantastic and fun.  “Someday I Suppose” is just one of the great rocking anthems from the 90s.  “Illegal Left” is wonderfully catchy and funny.  And “Issachar” is just blistering punk.  These three songs show the rocking and skanking range on the disc.  All of this is wrapped around Dicky Barrett’s rough, growling, heavily-smoker-sounding voice.

The Bosstones would go on to write some hugely popular tunes after this disc (with each disc getting progressively more recognition and sales) but for me, this is what ska is all about.

[READ: Week of September 7, 2009] Infinite Jest (to page 876)

Infinite Tasks drew my attention to a new comment regarding the Joelle timeline that we’ve been concerned about.  Greg Carlisle responded to it at Infinite Summer. And so Infinite Tasks updated an older post here.  I’m willing to accept Carlisle’s word as he did write Elegant Complexity after all.

And yet there’s another interesting time line issue that I bring up below about a chapter heading and an electronic calendar that Hal looks at.

ijdot1I’ve also decided that, since the story is steamrolling to an end, and since so many of the end days are coming along, I’m going to update my own calendar (but just the November info).  I’m putting it at the end of the post to include this week’s information.

In general, I’m a little bummed to see so many people have completed the book early, tempting as it is to do so (although obviously that’s better than not finishing at all, right?).  I’m nevertheless enjoying my routine and I think I’ll actually miss it when it’s over.

ijdot1

elizThis week’s reading is almost entirely focused on Gately in St Elizabeth’s Trauma Wing.  He is stuck staring at the ceiling which is breathing at him.  It reminds him of a holiday in Beverly, Ma in which the beach house that they rented had a hole in the roof. The hole was covered by a plastic sheet which flapped and pulsed with the wind.  His crib was placed under the hole and it freaked him out (although what is a 4 year old doing in a crib?  Well, Gately’s mom is clearly not the best parent.) (more…)

Read Full Post »

David Foster Wallace–[Week 11] Infinite Jest (1996)

Posted in Big Books, Canadian Content, Colin Meloy, Consumerism, Contests, Corporate skewering, David Foster Wallace, David Lynch, Death, Demons, Dreams, Drinking, Drugs, Eschaton, Funny (ha ha), Funny (strange), Infinite Summer, Marriage Trouble, Meta, Neurotics, Noir, Postmoderism, Set at School, Short Story, Smarty Pants, Sonic Youth, Sports, Sports Illustrated, Suicide, Technology, Tennis, The Future, Violence, Wikipedia, Work, Yuck! on September 4, 2009| 5 Comments »

dfwSOUNDTRACK: SONIC YOUTH-NYC Ghosts & Flowers (2000).

nycIn the midst of all of the experimentation with the SYR discs. Sonic Youth released this “proper” release.

At the time, it was actually the impetus for me to stop buying Sonic Youth records.  Between the experimental discs and the expanding palate of 1,000 Leaves, it felt like Sonic Youth were sort of drifting away from rock altogether.  It was certainly a way to alienate fans of Goo and Dirty.

You get two two songs over seven minutes and three over five (there are two short blasts in the middle which add some heaviness to the proceedings). But for the most part, this is a very spare, almost atmospheric affair.

Prior to recording the disc, the bands custom gear was stolen.  So they started from scratch for this recording.  And that may have something to do with the ambient, almost spatial sound.  It is quite mellow, (although still angular and dissonant) with a number of spoken word/beat poetry vocals.

Whether it’s pretentious or artsy depends on your take for recited lyrics (and SY’s lyrics are inscrutable anyhow).  Although Lee’s piece “NYC Ghosts and Flowers” seems to fit the style best (he has done a number of spoken vocal pieces in the past).  And “Nevermind (What Was It Anyway)” has a sort of commercial appeal.  The closing tack “Lightnin'” even features a trumpet, which I assume is played by Kim.  It’s the most noisy piece on the disc, with all kinds of fun sound effects showing up.

I’ve been listening to this disc a lot lately.  I think because I’ve revisited the experimental discs, this one makes more sense.  It’s not what I’d call a typical Sonic Youth album, or even the best Sonic Youth album.  It is certainly their most jazzy/mellow experiment (especially compared to the noise of says the SYR discs) and is about as far from their commercial peak as they could get.

The strangest thing to me though is that, despite all of the experimentation and slow-building songs, the whole disc is under 45 minutes.  So, they aren’t just making noise to fill space.

[READ: Week of August 31] Infinite Jest (to page 808)

In all of the talk about DFW’s “psychic” abilities with regard to technologies, one thing no one has mentioned–that I’ve seen–is his love of Venus Williams. Her name keeps popping up (I’d say at least a half dozen references so far).  And in many ways one doesn’t think too much of it (she is the #3 player right now, bested by her sister Serena who is #2).  But the amazing thing about his embrace of Venus is that as venusof 1996, when the book was published, she had barely played any pro tournaments.

Look a these tidbits from Sports Illustrated:

October 31, 1994: Venus wins her first pro match, defeating Shaun Stafford at the Bank of the West Classic in Oakland. … Venus faces Arantxa Sanchez Vicario, the No. 2 player in the world, in her next match. Venus races out to a 6-3, 3-1 lead but then folds as Sanchez Vicario wins 11 consecutive games. In an interview after the match, Venus is asked how the loss compares with previous defeats. She answers bemusedly that she has never before lost a match.

May 22, 1995: Reebok announces it has signed Venus to a five-year, $12 million deal. Thus far, Venus has played in one pro tournament.

Although much has been speculated (by me and others) about when he was actually writing this book (and when he was able to send in last minute changes), she would not break into the Top 20 until 1998.  He clearly saw something in her.

ijdot1

I write these posts as I go along.  So, I read the day’s pages take notes and then type them up.  This is why I get moments of speculation in the posts.  But mostly it means that when I start writing I don’t know how much there will be in total.  This is now the second week in a row where the early reading started off, if not slowly, then certainly without all too much happening.  The notes I took were very simple, along the lines of: Marathe in Ennet House or Kate & Marathe talk.  I knew I could remember what they were talking about, but there wasn’t a lot of notable moments.

And then, we get the trifecta of Endnotes and Tine’s interview. Holy cow, a torrent of information flooding out at once.  It doubled my word count almost immediately. Phew.

ijdot1
As this week’s reading starts out we see Marathe trying to check into Ennet House.  Okay, actually he’s there as the final part of his recon looking for the veiled girl who was in the Entertainment and is now in rehab.

His new-eyes-looking-at-the-place is rather enlightening as I hadn’t realized just how dreary and drab the House is (nor just how weird most of the residents would be).  The supporting cast is in good form: some of them sleeping, some of them talking loudly, others just staring.  And Marathe takes it all in. (more…)

Read Full Post »

« Newer Posts - Older Posts »