No reading here either: A great, great 84-minute interview of David Foster Wallace split into 10 parts on YouTube. You can find part five here (the others can be found from there). It contains these gems: (1) "There's a lot of narcissism in self-hatred." and (2) "Most of the problems in my life have to do with my confusing what I want and what I need."
Instructions from Charles Mingus on how to toilet train a cat. Charles Mingus!
A Huffington Post post with a link to one of the most awesome videos on YouTube: Bronte sisters action figures! The video is a must watch. Seriously.
Coach Rodriguez gets his hair cut by my old Ann Arbor barber!
Pictures of Donald Judd's personal library. This is incredibly cool. I practically insist you go look at it. Read the instructions on how to browse (on the map, click on the shelf section you want to look at; on the picture, place your cursor on each shelf and it'll summarize what's on it; click on the shelf you want to see and it will show you that shelf; when you're looking at a shelf, if you place your cursor on a book it will tell you what it is). It's so great, I'm telling you.
The syllabus from a literary interpretation class David Foster Wallace taught at Pomona College (I assume) in 2005. It's seven pages and amazing.
A video of Axis of Awesome doing their "Four Chord Song" medley. It's fun, if not exactly fair.
Love and Theft. A short video for National Film Board of Canada's online short film contest. Forbidden Tree is also worth watching. The Last Passenger and The Report Card are also good.
I’ve been reading Cormac McCarthy’s Suttree. Never in my life have I had to look up so many words when reading something. Here’s a list of the Suttree words I looked up in getting through chapters two through six (about 76 pages of text). The words from chapter one can be found at the bottom of another post. [n.1]
Chapter 2
Moiled – (moil) To work hard; to whirl or churn ceaselessly; twist.
Concatenate – To link together; unite in a chain.
Revetment – A facing of masonry or the like, esp. for protecting an embankment.
Brogans – Heavy, sturdy work shoes.
Nates – Buttocks, rump.
Limn – To represent in drawing/painting; to describe.
Chapter 3
Adenoidal – Pertaining to the adenoids (lymph glands near the pharynx), having enlarged, esp. to a degree that interferes with breathing.
Leptosome – A person of asthenic build; slight; weak; thin.
Bewenned – (be-wenned) Wen = harmless cyst, fatty secretion of a sebaceous gland.
Chapter 4
Anneloid – (annelid) Worms or wormlike animals of the phylum Annelida.
Marcid – Withered, shrunken, wasted away.
Accretion – Natural growth or extension by gradual external addition.
Barbican – An outwork of a fortified place; a defensive outpost.
Lazaret – Same as lazaretto = Hospital for those with contagious diseases, esp. leprosy; a quarantine ship.
Comestibles – Edibles.
Excrescence – (1) An abnormal outgrowth; (2) A normal outgrowth (hair, horns).
Electuary – A pasty mass composed of a medicine, usually in powder form, mixed with a palatable medium (e.g., honey, syrup), esp. for animals.
Decocted – (decoct) To extract the flavor/essence by boiling. [n.2]
Beeves – Plural of beef (!).
Abbatoir – (s/b abattoir?) Slaughterhouse.
Cambrelled – (cambrel) British for gambrel; hock of an animal, esp. a horse; gambrel stick = a device for suspending slaughtered animals.
Blueflocced – ? (Floc = a tuft like mass; floccus = a small tuft of wooly hairs)
Piscean – Person born under the Pisces sign; of/pertaining to the sign (here it probably means fish, or fishlike).
Dolorous – Full of, expressing, or causing pain or sorrow.
Slaverous – ? (slaver = Dealer/owner of slaves; slobber, drool) (Here it probably means drooling).
Mummes – A person who wears a mask or costume while merrymaking; an actor.
Shriving – (shrive) Impose penance; grant absolution; hear confessions; confess.
Chancel – The space about an alter, usually enclosed and restricted to church officials.
Glaucous – Of a pail grayish or bluish green.
Sedge – Any of numerous grass-like plants of the family cyperaceae, having solid stems, leaves in three vertical rows of spikelets of inconspicuous flowers.
Relict – Organism or species of an earlier time surviving in an environment that has undergone considerable change; widow.
Ebonfaced – Ebony faced.
Wapsy – Waspy (having many wasps?).
Batboard – (batting = fabric, cotton, often used as stuffing) Here it’s likely a compound—board made of batting.
Jakes – Latrines, privies.
Serried – Pressed together, crowded, esp. in rows.
Brisket – Chest of an animal (the cut of meat was clearly not what was intended here).
Scupper – Opening on a ship deck or roof to let water run out.
Caustic – (as a noun) A caustic material or substance; a hydroxide of a light metal.
Adumbrate – To give a sketchy outline of; foreshadow; disclose partially or guardedly.
Chapter 5
Ermine – Of or pertaining to weasels.
Shako – A stiff, cylindrical military dress hat with a metal plate in front, a short visor, and a plume.
Baize – Cotton or woolen material napped to imitate felt and used chiefly as a cover for gaming tables, often bright-green.
Chapter 6
Kudzu – An Asian vine of the legume family used for forage and erosion control; a serious weed in the S.E. United States.
Creepers – A creeping plant/vine.
Datura – Any of a genus of widely distributed strong scented herbs, shrubs, trees, of the nightshade family.
Phlox – Any of a genus of American annual or perennial herbs that have red, purple, white, or variegated flowers.
Suppurating – (suppurate) To form or discharge pus.
Midden – Dunghill; refuse heap.
Talus – A slope formed esp. by the accumulation of rock debris; the debris at the base of a cliff.
Sleech – Thick river mud/sludge/slime.
Vitreous – Relating to/resembling glass; glassy; made from glass.
Chrysalis – A pupa, esp. of a moth or butterfly, enclosed in a firm case or cocoon.
Whelk – Type of marine snail; inflamed swelling (pimple or pustule).
Apostate – One who has abandoned one’s religious faith, political party, cause, etc.
Birdlime – A sticky substance that is smeared on branches or twigs to capture small birds.
Warfarined – (warfarin) A white crystalline compound (C19, H16, O4) used as a rodenticide and as an anticoagulant.
Pneuma – The soul or vital spirit.
Niello – Any of several black metallic alloys used to fill an incised design on the surface of another metal; such a decorated surface; the art or process.
Slattern – An untidy, dirty woman.
Hipshot – Having the hip dislocated; hence having a hip lower than the other.
Winksome - ?
Dogstar – Sirius (but that doesn’t seem to be what he means here).
Ordurous – Of or pertaining to ordure (dung, feces); filthy.
Dishabille – Partially or very casually dressed; casual or lounge attire.
Cordite – A smokeless explosive powder.
Tawed – (taw) To convert (skin) into white leather by mineral tanning, as with alum and salt.
Note 1: The definitions are mostly my abbreviated versions I noted when I looked each word up.
Note 2: I can’t hear or see the word “essence” without thinking of the scariest movie of all time—Dark Crystal. Watch this, if you dare. It is extremely disturbing. I can’t believe people let kids watch this:
(1)Anne, Carver, and I went to the Lincoln Square neighborhood of Chicago last Saturday evening, and we stopped in a bookstore called “The Book Cellar” (clever, eh?). We found the store to be charming and cool. Carver needed to have his diaper changed so we used the restroom, and Anne, perhaps having acquired one of my public-bathroom-using neuroses, mentioned that we were probably then obligated to buy something. That is a dangerous suggestion to make to me in a bookstore. My self-imposed severe restriction on book buying, which had been going well until a few months ago, went right out the window. So I decided to get Anne a bonus Mother’s Day gift and bought a copy of Asterios Polyp. I wasn’t sure if she had any interest in graphic novels, but I’ve had people whose opinions about books I trust tell me that Asterios Polyp is insanely good and people who haven’t read it should drop everything and read it immediately. And even if she didn’t like it, I want to read it (yeah, not the most thoughtful gift perhaps, but hey, it was a last minute bonus gift).
So here’s the point I want to make: I derived some small satisfaction from buying the book at a small, independent bookseller, rather than from Amazon or one of the big chains (not that I don’tlike Amazon or Borders or Barnes and Noble—I actually like them all and buy lots of books from them). But the thing is, I paid list price for the book + the absolutely insanely high highest in the country sales tax that is imposed on those who dare buy anything in Chicago = around $33. Had I ordered it from Amazon I would’ve paid $19.77 total, and it would’ve been delivered to me (I don’t have to pay for shipping from Amazon and there’s no sales tax applied). A difference of $13 and change is nothing to scoff at when you’re buying a book with an MSRP of $29.99.
I’m reminded of the time shortly after I moved to Ann Arbor when the Borders employees were striking and demonstrating outside of the original Borders (Borders #1) on East Liberty and they were singing songs of solidarity and such, completely blocking the sidewalk, and then some jackass got in my face about “crossing their picket line” when I dared to, you know, try to get from point A to point B using the sidewalk. At which point I told him: to fuck off; that I was only trying to use the sidewalk and didn’t so much as hint at going in the store; that the level of arrogance and self-centeredness required to think that every East Liberty sidewalk user should be required to accept being put out, annoyed, and accosted by him and his comrades because they are chagrined at Borders is mindboggling; that while I had no intention of going in the store, now, after our little chat, I was going to go in the store and I was absolutely going to buy something just to spite him; and that he can go fuck himself. Anyway. So my thinking at the time was: how do they expect Borders to remain competitive, and by extension remain in business, if Borders has to pay their employees $13 or more an hour and provide them with health insurance? Borders has a hard enough time battling Barnes and Noble as it is, and they clearly cannot come close to competing with Amazon when it comes to price. I’m not one of those people who thinks physical bookstores that you can go in and browse in are going to all be gone in the next decade, but they do have serious challenges they have to face, challenges that are bad enough without paying a clerk $15 an hour to do the exact same thing the cashiers at Ross and McDonald’s do (who you know are making way less than that) and providing them with health insurance. [n.1]
So, yeah, supporting your local independent bookseller, while worthwhile, is sometimes an expensive endeavor.
(2) I was in Borders in Lincoln Park on Monday. While I was in the store I decided I wanted to look at a copy of Native Son. So I went to the fiction section and looked in the Ws for “Wright.” There were no books by anyone named Wright. I thought: there’s no way they don’t have a copy of Native Son, a famous and relatively widely read book that is based in Chicago, that was stacked tall on several tables in front during African-American History Month. After spending a couple minutes very carefully examining the entire “W” section of the shelves, in disbelief, I could not find it or anything else by Richard Wright. So I go to the computer they have set up for people to search for books and such. The computer told me that they had Native Son in stock . . . in the African-American Literature section. So I went to the African-American Literature section and, sure enough, there stood many copies of Native Son and other books by Wright.
I also noticed that the fiction section did not contain anything by Colson Whitehead—all the Whitehead books were in the African-American section. I noticed a pattern, and it was somewhat disturbing.
I don’t really want to use such a loaded word, but the Lincoln Pak Borders (all Borders?) has segregated its books. By putting Colson Whitehead’s books, and Richard Wright’s and lots of others, only in the African-American Literature section they’re doing a bad thing. They’re limiting interest in those books (trust me, wrong as it is there are plenty of people who would enjoy those books who would be turned off by the label “black fiction”), books that are very good and important, books that are precisely the sort of books someone who would be turned off by the “black fiction” label should read. But I also understand that the existence of the African-American Literature section is a good thing; people who are interested specifically in black fiction probably appreciate that the section exists, that the sort of books they want to find are neatly collected in one place. Ideally, I think, the store would have the books in both places, but I also understand that a bookstore probably wants to avoid doing that—it complicates their stocking and inventory and such. It’s a complicated issue, for sure. But I still think it’s messed up that black fiction gets excluded from the seemingly catch-all category that is “fiction.”
Note 1: I recognize that the Borders employee would tell me that they do much more than act as a cashier, that they’re educated readers who are helpful in recalling and suggesting books, and so on. [n.1a] Maybe it’s just me, but I don’t want that service, it isn’t a service I’m going to use, and I don’t want to pay for it. I just want someone there who will take my payment as quickly and courteously as possible so I can leave the store with the items I want without getting arrested.
I also want to note that I am not anti-labor. It’s just that I think unions have a place, and that place isn’t Borders. I also think strikers should not harass people on the street, block traffic, et cetera. And I am also often suspicious of unions as organizations—I have personal experience with more than one union that was led by obviously corrupt leadership and that also clearly had interests other than getting the best wage, benefits, and working conditions for its members. I could say way more, but this post isn’t the place.
Note 1a: This reminds me of two things: (1) that scene in You’ve Got Mail where Meg Ryan’s character, the small bookshop owner, is checking out the mega bookstore that just moved in around the corner and is going to put her out of business, and someone in the children’s book section is looking for a book that she can’t remember the name of. The mega store employee is not at all helpful, but Meg Ryan’s character not only knows what book the lady wants but has a whole warm conversation with the customer about the series or something; and (2) I was in a Borders in Lincoln Park a few months ago and witnessed a Borders clerk attempt to help two black women who were looking for a book to give as a gift to a relative. They wanted a particular type of black fiction, and this was clearly not the clerk’s area of expertise (if he had one). It was painful to watch. In the end he said, “Oh! How about To Kill a Mockingbird? I Just read it and it was great!” Umm, yeah. That’s a service worth paying a premium for, right?
[Beer for this post: Dark Horse Brewing Co.’s Crooked Tree IPA]
[Music for this post: The Magnetic Fields I]
Anne and I went to see the Magnetic Fields a couple months ago (March 8) at the Harris Theater. [n.1] The show was really great, as I expected it would be. The Magnetic Fields are, as I’ve mentioned before, one of my top-five favorite bands ever. Stephin Merritt—the ukulele player, a vocalist, and the lyricist and principal songwriter for the group—is pretty much a genius. [n.2]
While I expected to love it nearly beyond compare, I was very pleased that Anne did too.
The band, and Merritt, is perhaps best known for its magnum opus 69 Love Songs, a three CD album that is one of the most remarkable achievements in music. But all of their other stuff is good too (I don’t love every single song they’ve ever done, of course, but generally it is awesome). I should create a Trent’s Favorite Magnetic Fields compilation, but until I do here’s a small list (in no particular order) of their really great stuff that you should listen to and love unless you’re soulless:
I Thought You Were My Boyfriend; I Wish I Had an Evil Twin; I Don’t Believe You; It’s Only Time; The Nun’s Litany; Seduced and Abandoned; I Think I Need a New Heart; The Book of Love; When My Boy Walks Down the Street; If You Don’t Cry; You’re My Only Home; My Only Friend; Papa Was a Rodeo [n.3]; The Way You Say Good-Night; I Shatter; Busby Berkeley Dreams; Yeah! Oh, Yeah!; The Night You Can’t Remember; I Have the Moon; and many more. [n.4]
In 2006, I saw Merritt perform with Daniel Handler (of Lemony Snicket fame) at a benefit show for 826 Seattle. They played “The Night You Can’t Remember” and “The Book of Love” along with a couple Gothic Archies songs. I loved that performance too, but it was made much less enjoyable by my fellow audience members who seemed intent at laughing at everything, even things that weren’t funny. Now, I recognize that the event was mostly funny stuff, it was meant to be a good time. OK. But I mean, watch this:
Here’s the play-by-play of the video:
[Laughing…laughing…laughing…laughing…]
Before you left your garrison
you'd had a drink, maybe two.
You don't remember Paris, Hon,
but it remembers you.
[HAHAHAHHAHA]
It's true, we flew to Paris, dear,
aboard an Army jet
the night you can't remember,
the night I can't forget.
[HahahHHAHAHAHAHAHaahahahaHAHHAH]
You said I was terrific,
it meant zilch to you, ah, but I
have our marriage certificate
and I'll keep it till I die.
[HAHAHAHhaahhAHHAH—oh yeah, unrequited love that a person holds dear until death—hilarious!]
You were an Army officer
and I just a Rockette
[HAHAHhahummmm—All that leg kicking, and the sense of worthlessness, damn that’s some funny shit]
the night you can't remember,
the night I can't forget.
No rose conveyed your sentiments,
not even a petunia,
but you've got vague presentiments
and I've got little Junior.
[HhhahAhahhahmmm—Ah! Yes, a fatherless child. Ha! Man, you’re killing me.]
You said, nobody loves me,
and I said, wanna bet?
The night you can't remember,
the night I can't forget.
But the guy sitting directly in front of me laughed way more often than what you hear in the video. He found just about every line side-splittingly funny. I so desperately wanted to kick him in the back of the head. The crowd was also laughing loudly and obnoxiously, and often, during “The Book of Love.” What’s funny about that song? It’s lovely and beautiful, but it isn’t funny. Maybe it, like “The Night You Can’t Remember,” has a few moments where a sort of knowing, wry smile is appropriate, but not guffaws. I mean, come on. I recognize that I am not the sayer of what level of humor should or may be found in something, but come on. I also recognize that Stephin Merritt may have meant some of this stuff to be funny, but I think I’m reading it right. I think he means there to be a tinge of humor, however you quantify that, where knowing smiles are anticipated, but that’s it (at least with those two songs). At the show we just saw in March, we got to see a little insight on this point.
(I wish I wrote this right after the show so I’d have it exactly right, but this is the gist of what happened and was said) Toward the end of the first set Merritt was talking during a break between songs and he mentions how the next song is sadly appropriate, or coincidental, or something like that, referring to the recent earthquake and tsunami in Chili and I think also to the tsunami in Indonesia, and then he introduces the song as “Suddenly There’s a Tidal Wave.” Guess what happens. About a quarter of the crowed erupts in laughter. And Merritt says something like, “Why is that funny?” More laughter. “Yeah, thousands of people died. Ha ha.” Shockingly, still more laughter, albeit from far fewer people.
So, why the laughter? Is it that when people go out they just want to have a good time and laugh? Is it that they want to be in on the joke so they laugh when they think there is one (even if there isn’t)?
We saw Kaki King perform a couple nights ago and a slightly similar thing (in my mind) happened: Kaki and her band were playing “Doing the Wrong Thing” (I think, which, HA!), and toward the end the band slowly faded out and the lights were flashing about once a second with a very noticeable clicking sound. It was very clear, to me at least, that the song was not over, and given that no one really applauded, I think the bulk of the audience understood that this was part of the act, the song was still in progress. But it was quiet, the band had completely stopped playing, all that we heard was the click of the lights. At this point the guy in front of me said, not quietly, something like “What the fuck are they doing?” and shortly after that a number of other people took the opportunity to shout things to the band. Why couldn’t they let it be? Why couldn’t they endure more than eight seconds of relative, obliviously purposeful quiet before they had to start making their own noise? Why can’t people stand quiet? What are they so scared of?
I do think it is fear, of a kind. There’s fear behind those shouts, and there’s fear behind that laughter. My knee-jerk reaction when this stuff happens is to think the offenders are just jackasses. But I’m trying hard to be a more understanding person, so I’m trying hard to understand what’s behind that fear.
Note 1: The Harris Theater, by the way, is hideous. The interior of the actual theater, where the seats are, was fine, but the lobby areas and such are eye-gougingly ugly. Anne likened it to a subway station. It’s pretty clear that they were going for a modern look, but it just doesn’t work. The walls are covered with shiny white panels, the lighting is like pink and green florescent or neon stuff that is not only ugly in itself but also makes everyone in there look less attractive. It’s a nightmare.
Note 2: See him at work here. That’s a video from NPR that shows him create a song from start to finish (once you're redirected, click on the image of Merritt on the left that's marked "video").
Note 3: “Papa Was a Rodeo” always makes me think of Brokeback Mountain, something that would probably horrify everyone involved with either project.
Note 4: That’s not even counting stuff by The 6ths and the Gothic Archies, two other Stephin Merritt bands that have great stuff of their own.
We had lain thus in bed, chatting and napping at short intervals, and Queequeg now and then affectionately throwing his brown tattooed legs over mine, and then drawing them back; so entirely sociable and free and easy were we; when, at last, by reason of our confabulations, what little nappishness remained in us altogether departed, and we felt like getting up again, though day-break was yet some way down the future.
Herman Melville, Moby-Dick.
First Clown: . . . . Here's a skull now; this skull has lain in the earth three and twenty years.
Hamlet: Whose was it?
First Clown: A whoreson mad fellow's it was: whose do you think it was?
Hamlet: Nay, I know not.
First Clown: A pestilence on him for a mad rogue! a' poured a flagon of Rhenish on my head once. This same skull, sir, was Yorick's skull, the king's jester.
Hamlet: This?
First Clown: E'en that.
Hamlet: Let me see. [Takes the skull.] Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio: a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy: he hath borne me on his back a thousand times; and now, how abhorred in my imagination it is! my gorge rises at it. Here hung those lips that I have kissed I know not how oft. Where be your gibes now? your gambols? your songs? Your flashes of merriment, that were wont to set the table on a roar? Not one now, to mock your own grinning? quite chop-fallen? Now get you to my lady's chamber, and tell her, let her paint an inch thick, to this favour she must come; make her laugh at that. . . .
Shakespeare, Hamlet.
And listen to this, one of my favorite songs of all time (song starts at 0:17, I strongly encourage you to stop it by 3:23 as the music they use for the end credits totally kills the mood):
Two Words I Used Earnestly in a Five-Day Period
(1) Cad – I referred to someone as a cad.
(2) Swell – When a friend asked if I’d like him to share some information with me, I said it would be swell if he did.
Relatedly: About six months ago I referred to someone as a “dickweed.” Immediately after it came out of my mouth I was shocked by it. That word was an often-used piece of my vocabulary when I was in my early teens, but I don’t think I’ve heard anyone say it in at least 17 years or so.
Words from Suttree
I just started reading Cormac McCarthy’s Suttree. I’ve never read any of his stuff before, except for the first 10 pages or so of No Country for Old Men (I didn’t stop because I didn’t like it, I was just browsing the books on my mom’s bookcases). Never in my life have I had to look up so many words when reading something. There’s a saying about reading Infinite Jest: make sure you have two bookmarks and the O.E.D. handy. But, so far, on a words per page basis Suttree blows Infinite Jest out of the water on the words-Trent-doesn’t-know scale. So here’s a list of the Suttree words I looked up in getting through the first chapter (25 pages of text, but the dialog sections have way fewer words that I need to look up, so the words here are almost all from the 15 or so pages of non-dialog): [n.1]
Foetal – Variant of fetal/fetus
Alluvial – Detritus from running water
Hawser – Large rope for towing/securing/etc a ship
Interstitial – Relating to / situated in a gap
Striae – Stripe/line, groove, channel
Stele – The central vascular portion of the axis of a vascular plant, usually cylindrical
Pinchbeck – Fools gold, a counterfeit thing
Rictus – The gape of a bird’s mouth
Mucilage – Gelatinous substance of various plants
Reticulate – Resembling a net or network
Plover – Type of bird, like a sandpiper
Viscid – Sticky, having an adhesive quality
Volute – Spiral or scroll shaped; a type of mollusk
Gambrel – A stick or iron for suspending slaughtered animals
Incruent – Bloodless
Homunculus – A little man
Instanter – At once
Grapnel – Small anchor, usually with 4 or 5 flukes used especially to recover sunken objects
Stob – Stake, post
Flowage – An overflowing onto land
Rimpled – Wrinkled, crumpled
Agoggle – (Agog) Full of intense interest
Cerements – A shroud for the dead
Sulcate – Scarred with furrows, usually longitudinal
Davited – (davit) a crane that projects over the side of a ship
Catenary – The curve of a cord that hangs between two fixed points
Cannelured – Ring like groove, the groove near the butt of a bullet
Breeks – Breeches, trousers
Parget – Any plaster or rough cast used to cover walls/etc
Gaitered – (gaiter) A covering for the ankle, calf, shoe top, compare to “upper”
Amphoric – Resembling the deep, hollow sound made by blowing across the mouth of a bottle
Note 1: The definitions are mostly my abbreviated versions I noted when I looked each word up. Also: A few of the words in the list are somewhat familiar to me (e.g., alluvial, interstitial, pinchbeck), and others are of the sort where I could’ve made a decent guess (e.g., viscid, instanter, riven), but I wasn’t sure so they made the list.
