From “Improvisations of the Caprisian Winter”

Face, my face:
whose are you? what
are you the face of?
How can you serve as face for such insides,
where beginning and decomposition
ceaselessy converge.
Does the forest have a face?
Doesn’t the great basalt mountain
stand there without a face?
Doesn’t the sea
rise facelessly
from the abyss of the sea?
Isn’t the sky mirrored in it
without brow, without mouth, without chin?

Doesn’t one of the animals sometimes approach
as though it were pleading: take my face?
Their faces are too hard for them
and hold what little soul they have
much too far into the world. And we?
Animals of the soul, bewildered
by all that’s inside us, unprepared
for anything, grazing
souls,
don’t we pass whole nights
pleading with the power that hears
for the nonface
which belongs to the darkness in us.

~ Rainer Maria Rilke, trans. Franz Wright

As I near the final sprint of “Infinite Jest” (well past the Infinite Summer deadline, alas), I of course felt compelled to do the thing I do with all things that affect me all intense-like–I made a playlist about it. I don’t know how to actually upload it or anything, but here it is. Some of it is more literal to plot elements, but most of the songs are just mood-based. I know it’s kinda long. DEAL WITH IT.

INFINITE JEST: THE PLAYLIST

• “How to Embrace A Swamp Creature” – The Mountain Goats
• “The Sporting Life” – The Decemberists [for E.T.A.]
• “Lola” – The Kinks [for Steeply]
• “The Way We Get By” – Spoon
• “Wake Up” – The Arcade Fire
• “Miss Misery” – Elliott Smith
• “Road to Nowhere” – Talking Heads
• “Late Night Radio” – David Gray [for Madame Pyschosis]
• “A Peak You Reach” – Badly Drawn Boy [for Schtitt]
• “My Alcoholic Friends” – The Dresden Dolls [for Ennet House]
• “Happy Again” – Longpigs
• “Black Eyed Dog” – Nick Drake
• “The Bar is a Beautiful Place” – Ryan Adams
• “On the Bus Mall” – The Decemberists [for Matty Pemulis]
• “Mistake” – Fiona Apple
• “Best Imitation of Myself” – Ben Folds [for Hal]
• “Pissing in the Wind” – Badly Drawn Boy [for Mike Pemulis]
• “I Turn My Camera On” – Spoon [for Mario]
• “Roadrunner” – Jonathan Richman & the Modern Lovers [for Gately]
• “The Lovecats” – The Cure [for Randy Lenz]
• “Please, Please, Please, Let Me Get What I Want” – The Smiths
• “Fakin’ It” – Simon & Garfunkel [also for Hal]
• “Lucky” – Radiohead

Listening to: “Honeymoon” – Bombadil

Life is stories that you fake
And rake like leaves behind you….

Hiya, blog. Don’t be pissed that I’ve been MIA. I still care. I do. I’m popping in again because, well, I’m BLOCK’D. You know, that thing. Where I need to write shit, and the shit is not getting written no matter how many hours I sit a’plopped in front of my computer screen. Otherwise, I’d just be putting shit on my totally unnecessary new Tumblr account.

I’m trying to write an ad for a varicose vein treatment center. Here’s what I’ve got so far: Hey, 50something ladies! Get yer legs cut open here! Not catchy? No? It’s a work in progress.

……..

I have an interview tomorrow morning at my neighborhood bagel joint. Just imagine, this guy up before the sun every morning, arranging foodstuffs inside starchy rounds. Sleep schedules will have to be drastically, painfully altered. But I can deal with it.

………

Creative writingwise, I’ve been a little of the slump. Whenever I sit down to work on my own projects, I feel like I should be doing all the freelance shit I need to do instead. Which is true, I should.

That said, I’ve started actually committing to paper this silly story that’s been fermenting in my head-cask for at least a decade now. A lifelong insomniac like Yrs Truly (thanks, D.F.W.) can’t generally fall asleep without either A) Substances, or B) Making up shit to pass the pre-R.E.M. time. This has long taken the form of one, I repeat, very silly, action/adventure/romance/allegory about oppressive regimes, mountains, traitors, rebel factions, and dudes riding around on the backs of giant eagles. Yeah, shut up. Just color me ten years from now, some kind of back-bookshelf genre hero. Then we’ll see who’s laughing. No, just kidding. Quit looking at me like that. Just kidding.

Speaking of D.F.W., the best advice I have gleaned from Infinite Jest thus far (on page 433 and plugging along, slightly behind on Infinite Summer):

Try to learn to let what is unfair teach you.

………

In Real Life news, the roomie and I are grabbing the dog and the horribly mutilated futon and moving across the river to Cambridge next month. It’ll be weird not to be an Allstonite–we’ve been here for 3 years. 3 YEARS. Can you believe that shit? Before that I was IN COLLEGE. What?

But that’s a nostalgic wax for another day, Dear Reader. Right now, there is vein draining to be discussed in aesthetically pleasing ways. Why is it today of all days that we run out of beer?

……..

Here, have a webcomic:

Listening to: “Fluorescent Half Dome” – Dirty Projectors

And now, a word from Gilbert & George, everyone’s favorite weird British art guys:

We are only human sculptors in that we get up every day, walking sometimes, reading rarely, eating often, thinking always, smoking moderately, enjoying enjoyment, looking, relaxing to see, loving nightly, finding amusement, encouraging life, fighting boredom, being natural, daydreaming, travelling along, drawing occasionally, talking lightly, tea drinking, feeling tired, dancing sometimes, philosophising a lot, criticising never, whistling tunefully, dying very slowly, laughing nervously, greeting politely and waiting till day breaks.

…….

SCARY UNFINISHED PROJECT NEWS: I think somebody else may have finished my story before I did. It doesn’t sound exactly like “World’s End,” but it’s uncomfortably similar. End of days, British slackers, drinking the apocalypse away. Will probably have to give it a quick perusal the next time I’m at the Booksmith.

Listening to: “Skullcrusher Mountain” – Jonathan Coulton

So I’ve been diving whole-hog into this Infinite Summer thing. Have you heard of it, blogs? Basically it’s a summer-long, communal reading of David Foster Wallace’s giant, giant book, Infinite Jest. I mean 981 huge pages, tiny lettering, plus 96 pages of endnotes, written in even tinier lettering. And it’s full of passages like this:

So on 1 April, Y.D.A.U., when the medical attache is (it is alleged) insufficiently deft with a Q-Tip on an ulcerated sinal necrosis and is subjected at just 1800h. to a fit of febrile thrusive pique from the florally imbalanced Minister of Home Entertainment, and is by high-volume fiat replaced at the royal bedside by the Prince’s personal physician, who’s summoned by beeper from the Hilton’s sauna….

I’ll stop there, because the sentence goes on for another half-page paragraph. You get the idea. It’s tough going. But in between all this jargony gobbledegook (which may be some people’s thing, but not mine) are wide swaths of real brilliance, and those are what it’s worth pressing on for. In any case, I know I’d never finish this book in my life if I wasn’t adhering to  Infinite Summer’s bi-weekly page count deadlines, with a whole interweb’s worth of blogs and tweets to bolster my reading.

And ever since ol’ D.F.W. did himself in last fall, I’ve been meaning to tackle some of his denser work. And it makes sections like the one circa page 68-78, about a suicidal depressive, all the more meaningful and painful. I mean, it’s nice to see a real honest description of depression, straight from the mouth of the beast:

Everything gets horrible. Everything you see gets ugly. Lurid is the word. Doctor Garton said lurid, one time. That’s the right word for it. And everything sounds harsh, spiny and harsh-sounding, like every sound you hear all of a sudden has teeth. And smelling like I smell bad even after I just got out of the shower. It’s like what’s the point of washing if everything smells like I need another shower.

I’ve been chugging along pretty well so far, bolstered by the fact that I was traveling for a week (Boston—>Rochester—>NYC—>Boston), and I get my best reading done in transit. And then there was last night, skulking around the emergency vet in Brookline waiting to hear about canine X-rays because a certain dog who shall remain nameless grabbed a chicken bone off the sidewalk the other night (he’s OK, by the way), with nothing but time to read on my hands.

And it helps that a lot of Infinite Jest takes place right here in Boston and environs. I can pick out exactly where D.F.W. is talking about when he brings up random street corners or satellite locales. It all takes place in this as-yet-unspecified near-future time, and Boston has become this border town in a re-mapped North America. But my favorite is how much Infinite Jest name-checks my very own Allston, which in D.F.W.-land has turned from college-and-indie-kid ghetto into actual ghetto:

Michael Pemulis… is a scholarship student from right nearby in Allston MA — a grim section of tract housing and vacant lots, low-rise Greek and Irish housing projects, gravel and haphazard sewage and indifferent municipal upkeep, a lot of depressed petrochemical light industry all along the Spur, an outlying district zoned for sprawl; an old joke in Enfield-Brighton goes ‘”Kiss me where it smells” she said so I took her to Allston.’

Hehe. I’m an indifferently fattish 158 pages through, with a coupla 10ish-page endnotes along the way, so not too shabby. I know I haven’t been a-blogging as much lately, but maybe I’ll start up again. Good for getting the writing muscle going, which is really why I started this thing in the first place.

I want to post more excerpts, because this book is just….wonderful. But here’s a couple:

Two adult unmentionables–both of them male–busied themselves feasting upon the flesh of the household staff. How two zombies could have killed a dozen servants, four maids, two cooks, and a steward was beyond Elizabeth’s comprehension, but she knew precisely how they had gotten in: The cellar door had been opened to let in the cool night air and relieve the oppression of the woodstoves.

“Well, I suppose we had ought to take all of their heads, lest they be born to darkness,” she said.

Mr. Bingley observed the desserts his poor servants had been attending to at the time of their demise–a delightful array of tarts, exotic fruits, and pies, sadly soiled by blood and brains, and thus unusable.

“I don’t suppose,” said Darcy, “That you would give me the honour of dispensing of this unhappy business alone. I should never forgive myself if your gown were soiled.”

“The honour is all yours, Mr. Darcy.”

Elizabeth thought she detected the slightest smile on his face. She watched as Darcy drew his blade and cut down the two zombies with savage yet dignified movements. He then made quick work of beheading the slaughtered staff, upon which Mr. Bingley politely vomited into his hands. There was no denying Darcy’s talents as a warrior.

“If only,” she thought, “His talents as a gentleman were equal.”

………………………………………………………………..

Elizabeth and Darcy merely looked at one another in awkward silence, until the latter reached both arms around her. She was frozen–”What does he mean to do?” she thought. But his intentions were respectable, for Darcy merely meant to retrieve his Brown Bess, which Elizabeth had affixed to her back during her walk. She remembered the lead ammunition in her pocket and offered it to him.

“Your balls, Mr. Darcy?”

He reached out and closed her hand around them, and offered, “They belong to you, Miss Bennett.”

Thao & the Get Down Stay Down concert at T.T. the Bear’s: $10

Drinks at the Cellar: $19

Drunk guy trying to make out with my chin at Noir, leading to a near-bar fight: Priceless.

Listening to: “Dance Dance Dance (live)” – Lykke Li & Bon Iver

FYI: For those readers (do I have readers? WHO CAN SAY) who are not content with my sporadic blog posts or would like their updates in frantic miniature form, I now have a Twitter account. Lord help us all.

I’ve spent most of this week interviewing theatery types for preview articles. I now know more about Spring Awakening (the play and the musical both) than I ever dreamt possible. I’ve been a little obsessed with the whole thing since I saw the musical on Broadway a few years back, so it was cool to actually get to talk it out. For those who live in Boston, there are two productions afoot: the Frank Wedekind 1891 original from Zeitgeist Stage Company at the BCA, and the touring Broadway musical at the Colonial. If Wedekind were pulled out of his grave today, I think he’d be laughing his ass off at how much play his oft-censored baby is getting in the Cradle of Puritanism. Chatting with musical lyricist/book writer Steven Sater yesterday, he had some pretty interesting stuff to say about the changes he made to the story. I guess amorality and musical theater don’t mix too good. Maybe one day they will.

Anyways, Blog, I’m tired of staring at my computer screen. I’ve been breaking up the time with egg parties, pub trivia, and concerts (Of Montreal tonight!) but my ass is starting to fuse to my desk chair. Enough. But you do what you gotta do, and I’m happy for the work.

Anyway, umm…WEBCOMIC!!

Hark! A Vagrant is for totes my new favorite time-waster. History is funny, fuckers.

Listening to: “All Tomorrow’s Parties” – The Velvet Underground

I was too lazy to scan it. I just took a picture of it with my computer camera thingy. (Face drawing style shamelessly cribbed from one of my fave webcomics, Girls With Slingshots).

What else, what else? Today my mom sent me a video of her trying to pull on a horse’s tongue. She keeps asking whoever’s behind the camera, “Did you get that?” And then the voice is like, “I dunno Gale, I can’t really see…”

…..

I saw the most exhalted Joss Whedon get a Humanism award last week at Harvard. It was awesome. He is my hero, and he was talking about constructive atheism. Double times awesome. He signed my comic book. I sputtered something at him. There was a giant fucking gold eagle in front of him, but that’s OK. He said lots of smart and funny things, including:

Faith in God is believing in something with no proof whatsoever. Faith in humanity means believing in something with a huge amount of proof to the contrary.

And, on coming to grips with death:

When your time is up… y’know… worms are hungry. And they’re cute!

And on writing:

That’s why we write in the first place–to bring the darkest parts of ourselves up into the light.

He also said that if Buffy and River got in a fight, River would win. But I disagree.

…..

Also in life:

- This gives me some faith in humanity. Go robots go!

- How did I not know about this before, and why isn’t there a button for it on my keyboard? It would make virtual communication so much less awkward. Also, “Irony Mark” would probably make a good name for a douchey band.

- Tomorrow I shall go to the beach with the mutt, yes I shall. Because I will have mailed in my taxes, and it will be sunny, and the beach is open to dogs till the end of April.

- I started a Twitter account, against my better judgment. I’m not going to give you the link, Blog. It will only lead to heartache.

- Against all odds, ended up at a Holiday Inn Express in Waltham last Saturday night. What? (PS: the Holiday Inn Express porn channel is really funny. And no one in Waltham delivers pizza at 3am. I had almost forgotten that from college).

- Today I wrote two theater reviews and two restaurant blurbs. I am EXHAUSTEDface.

- I’ve had the uncanny urge to add -face to the end of random words. Bewareface.

Listening to: “Rubber Ring” – The Smiths

The weather today (rainy, gray, not too cold) reminds me a lot of London in the winter. I was thinking of London today, how sort of aimless, cash-strapped, seeing lots of plays, drinking lots of beer, I was when I was living there–and it reminded me a lot of now. Oh, how life runs in loops.

Anyway, thinking of that time and that place, I ran across this video:

When I was there, I spent a whole lot of time just wandering the city, looking for weird little bits of historical shrapnel and back entrances to hidden places. The Shunt Vaults, which are mentioned in the video, is one of the coolest places I’ve ever been. Trippy performance art and tequila shots in old wine cellars under the London Bridge. One of the things I really love about London is how much history is piled on top of other history, how many and old stories you can find just by ducking down a side street. It’s something I really want to poke into in World’s End, once I get up and cracking on that project again.

Blargh. Time to keep searching for gainful employment. Got an interview at Starbucks next week, yup yup.

Somehow this wasn’t where I pictured I’d be three years outta school. Oh, younger self, if you only knew.

…….

In case you haven’t heard, journalism is getting wicked dead. I’m torn between wanting the Globe to hang in there and wanting them to get scared so witless, they actually morph into a decent newspaper. Let’s not talk about possibility number 3 just yet…