tonari no shibafu

DFW Grammar Quiz results

Got 4 out of 10.

Better than I thought I'd do.

DFW

DFW Grammar quiz

Kottke points to a grammar quiz that David Foster Wallace gave some of his students. I am now posting my answers (after the jump) and will check against the real ones in the next post.

DFW

Latest learned from DFW

diplopia |diˈplōpēə|noun

technical term for double vision .

It was used an an adjective (diplopic) in one of the stories in Girl With Curious Hair.

David Foster Wallace, DFW

DFW Rolling Stone piece

The Lost Years and Last Days of David Foster Wallace

via Paul

David Foster Wallace, DFW, Depression

DFW Amherst Interview

Amherst magazine did an email interview with David Foster Wallace back in 1999.

When I was watching one of the interviews that Charlie Rose did with him, I noticed that after an answer he winced noticeably after responding to one of Charlie's questions. The wincing happens a few more times during the course of the interview as well. It seemed to me, after reading much of his work, that the wincing resulted from dissatisfaction, an inability to be self-satisfactorily concise/succinct/relevant -- the latter in the Gricean sense of the word. This interview adds some supporting evidence to my hypothesis.

1) This interview-by-mail is an unusual medium for an Amherst magazine interview. From your perspective, what are the benefits of presenting you and your work to readers this way?

I am a Five Draft man. I actually learned this at Amherst, in William Kennick’s Philosophy 17 and 18, with their brutal paper-every-two-weeks schedules. I got down a little system of writing and two rewrites and two typed drafts. I’ve used it ever since. I like it. My problem with most interviews is that they’re terribly first-draftish. If an interview question is even remotely interesting, it’s going to be hard to answer it briefly. I always wish they’d let me scuttle into the next room and do five drafts and come back out. This way, unless it turns out your deadline’s real short, I can do five drafts. Actually this is better for everybody, because the more drafts I have the more succinct I can be (usually).

Not a terribly interesting article, but more insight into the mind of this guy that has so ensorcelled me.

via Kottke

Academics, David Foster Wallace, DFW

Don't have to reinvent the wheel

I was going to make a post listing some of the words that I've had to look up while reading David Foster Wallace.

Turns out I don't have to.

DFW addiction

Thanks to Kottke and Mike, I have developed a borderline obsessive attachment to David Foster Wallace. If you've been lucky enough to have sufficient geographical distance from me that you haven't been forced to just read this paragraph or check out this turn of phrase, your luck's run out.

This bit from a footnote in Consider the Lobster

As I see it, it probably really is good for the soul to be a tourist, even if it’s only once in a while. Not good for the soul in a refreshing or enlivening way, though, but rather in a grim, steely-eyed, let’s-look-honestly-at-the-facts-and-find-some-way-to-deal-with-them way. My personal experience has not been that traveling around the country is broadening or relaxing, or that radical changes in place and context have a salutary effect, but rather that intranational tourism is radically constricting, and humbling in the hardest way - hostile to my fantasy of being a real individual, of living somehow outside and above it all. (Coming up is the part that my companions find especially unhappy and repellent, a sure way to spoil the fun of vacation travel:) To be a mass tourist, for me, is to become a pure late-date American: alien, ignorant, greedy for something you cannot ever have, disappointed in a way you can never admit. It is to spoil, by way of sheer ontology, the very unspoiledness you are there to experience. It is to impose yourself on places that in all noneconomic ways would be better, realer, without you. It is, in lines and gridlock and transaction after transaction, to confront a dimension of yourself that is as inescapable as it is painful: As a tourist, you become economically significant but existentially loathsome, an insect on a dead thing.

  

Five Years

As of yesterday it's been five years since I started this blog. Precedent would suggest that I make a post that is at least somewhat soul-searching and/or otherwise reflective on the interim years, but I'm not really feeling it. Perhaps because I've been reading this and this. I guess not so much the second one because Bertrand makes us feel like it's a moral imperative to write; whereas David Foster Wallace makes most of us feel like poseurs.

義理

I just read June Thomas's fifth post in a series on Japanese craftsman. She describes talking with brush maker Yoshio Tanabe.

excerpt:

Matsuzo Tanabe, whose only schooling after the age of 7 had been his brush-making apprenticeship, pushed his son into the family business. Yoshio's rebellion was to insist that he be allowed to graduate from college before he moved into the workshop, but once installed, he never left. Nothing has changed in his five decades of brush-making. Is he bored, I asked. "Yes," he answered flatly, though he didn't seem to consider that such a terrible fate.

I haven't read the rest of them yet.

Getting caught up with my reading

JAL CEO cuts his own salary to respond to poor performance and problems.

Esquire's 7 Best Stories via Kottke

Canada's Internet is Crap

Credit Default Swaps Demystified

You only need one folder for this

The Wire as a model for creating enduring work, by Merlin Mann.

David Foster Wallace

I've never read any of his stuff before but this commencement address is compelling.

In looking around for stuff on Wallace I noticed something odd. In last November's Atlantic, Foster wrote:

Are some things still worth dying for? Is the American idea* one such thing? Are you up for a thought experiment? What if we chose to regard the 2,973 innocents killed in the atrocities of 9/11 not as victims but as democratic martyrs, “sacrifices on the altar of freedom”?* In other words, what if we decided that a certain baseline vulnerability to terrorism is part of the price of the American idea? And, thus, that ours is a generation of Americans called to make great sacrifices in order to preserve our democratic way of life—sacrifices not just of our soldiers and money but of our personal safety and comfort?

In still other words, what if we chose to accept the fact that every few years, despite all reasonable precautions, some hundreds or thousands of us may die in the sort of ghastly terrorist attack that a democratic republic cannot 100-percent protect itself from without subverting the very principles that make it worth protecting?

Is this thought experiment monstrous? Would it be monstrous to refer to the 40,000-plus domestic highway deaths we accept each year because the mobility and autonomy of the car are evidently worth that high price?

I could have sworn that Bill Maher (or perhaps one of his panelists) made this very case last week or the week before. I searched around the web and couldn't find the video to double-check.

Anybody know anything about this? Is someone plagiarizing?

Bill Maher, David Foster Wallace

David Sedaris on the Daily Show

Sedaris was on the Daily Show recently and talked about his experiences living in Japan for three months.

More Wire

Ed Burns on Fresh Air
Burns and Simon on Talk of the Nation
Simon and Pelecanos on Fresh Air
David Simon on Fresh Air

Ed Burns, David Simon, et. al.

The Time Magazine article. Read it.

I you haven't been reading Why We Write

You should.

excerpts from Michael Oates Palmer's entry will give you a clue

I write because when I was six years old, my grandfather would take me to his favorite hang-out, the Stop Inn, a dive bar on the corner of a row house street in Northeast Philadelphia. He’d let me sit on a stool and drink a Roy Rogers, while he and his cronies told stories for hours. Then we’d stop at 7-Eleven on the way home, and he’d buy me comic books.

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Because in college, I learned that music journalists got to go backstage. Because I loved rock and roll, but was a lousy guitarist, and realized at around 21 that all of the rock critics I worshipped were having a tough time paying their health insurance.

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Because when the writing’s going well, there’s a high. Because when it’s going poorly, you call another friend up, and then you can talk for fifteen minutes about how it’s going poorly, and then you talk about food.

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Because it was one of only three things I was ever good at, I couldn’t figure out how to earn a living make mix tapes, and the third thing is illegal.

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Because no matter how many times you see them, Duck Soup is still funny, The Manchurian Candidate is still jolting, Rosemary’s Baby is still scary, and, when you’ve had a lousy day, Donald O’Connor’s “Make ‘Em Laugh” bit in Singin’ in the Rain can still put you in a good mood. Every time.

Because it’s therapy, and because it’s church. Because it’s community, and because it’s solitary confinement. Because it’s blood.

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And because, like the song goes, we did it for the stories we could tell.

I may as well join everyone else...

... and display my unbridled admiration for The Wire with a post about this (or any other) season. Or I could do it in geekier fashion with this t-shirt.

Why We Write

I'll let the website folks tell you what it is about

WHY WE WRITE is a series of essays by prominent - and not so prominent - TV and Film writers… and by people like you: writers and those who hope someday to call themselves writers. Conceived by Charlie Craig and Thania St. John, the campaign hopes to inspire and inform all writers.

via Kottke

How little they think of us

Kozak, my fellow worshipper at the altar of Sorkin, sent me a link to the Charlie Wilson's War trailer. This was my reply:

Looks good.

Couple of things I noticed right off:

1) All Along the Watchtower (Hendrix version)

2) American Pie

These are two songs that appear (one or the other if not both) in just about every Vietnam movie that has ever been written.

What's the significance of them being used in a trailer about a scandal from the 80s? What are they trying to say? Seems that the whole trailer <snip> seemed a little Oliver Stone-esque.

My tag line would be 'Bartlett. What's he hiding from us now.'

S

I'm all over it, but now I'm going in with baggage...

After failing in indignation...

...in response to my treatment at the hands of the crack freshman writing teaching corps -- at my, like many, large universities, teaching freshman writing is an easy way to make a buck for grad students -- I had the best teacher ever. She created an environment where everyone felt safe and I think that most of the students came away with something great. Even during a shortened summer session.

Who knew that she would go on to win the Pulitzer?

Reunion of sorts

Got to hang out with some old friends last Saturday. Alan is in town from Oxford en route to some fieldwork in Australia via Wellington. Nate is also back here for the next couple of years doing his dissertation field work.

While we were hanging out and preparing some nabe, Kevin played us some music (YouTube link) from the artist that he represents. If'n I can get it to work (やっぱり駄目だった）I'll try to include a sample of his music in this post either now or in an update.

Posted in extreme haste...

Chris, Alan, Kevin, Nate

NPR's Fresh Air goes podcast

NPR's Fresh Air goes podcast:

The long-running NPR show Fresh Air is now available in podcast form.

The hour-long show ranks among NPR's most popular programs. Each day, host Terry Gross interviews actors, musicians, politicos and other luminaries, occasionally featuring music and movie reviewers as well. iTunes users can subscribe to Fresh Air directly, but it's also accessible via any podcatching software (such as myPodder).

I recommend pairing it with This American Life for two full hours of podcast perfection. &mdash; Rick Broida

Fresh Air [NPR]

For Paul

Didn't feel like waiting for the Mail program to boot so...

Here's a link to info that your boy Matthiessen used to work for the CIA.

Jamie again

Another essay I enjoyed over at I'm Still in Japan.  There are parts of this that I like better than others, but I felt -- partially due to time constraints and my abominable typing -- that I should just post this whole section.  So it's a bit long but...

I awoke somewhere around three or four in the morning to the whispering sound of rain. It was demure and polite, barely making a sound as it tiptoed across the ground and over my sleeping bag, and I liked the thought of drifting back to sleep on this misty river bank.

I changed my mind a few minutes later when the rain turned from Romantic to Biblical, fat drops falling like bullets and flashes of lightning detonating on the horizon. My poor loyal sleeping bag was hastily stuffed away, dejected and sopping, and I made an idiot dash across the rugby field, jumping through waterfalls and praying there wasn’t a thunderbolt up there with my name on it. I sprinted into the first shelter I could find, a little concrete tunnel shot straight through a hill for pedestrians, cyclists and sopping morons who think tents are for sissies.

It wasn’t exactly the most auspicious way to start my trip, but I had plenty of momentum in me. I changed into a dry set of clothes, confident that I was the only one stupid enough to be outside at four in the morning in a lightning storm. Like most spring storms it had the demeanor of a two year old, screaming hysterically for half an hour then fading into whimpers and forgetting about what the big deal was. So by five we were back where we started, in a transparent drizzle that instead of getting you wet was merely decorative.

The night before Takasaki had seemed atmospheric, otherworldly, and I had enjoyed the shock of wandering a city with no people in it. But in the dull drizzly morning the city looked about as romantic as my sleeping bag, wet, gray and getting moldy. I tromped into a convenience store for a cup of coffee and spooked the clerk stocking the shelves, gaping at this lanky white man who had materialized at five in the morning in a rain storm. I walked around the remnants of Takasaki castle, which was now a public park. The remaining fragments of the castle were weird little non-sequiters, carefully buffed and labeled. A single corner of the outer wall, the central gate, opening onto a playground, a two story public library sitting quietly where a towering keep had once ruled the landscape. An old man was taking his dog for an early morning walk, the mutt eagerly sniffing out traces of his medieval ancestors, then peeing all over their scents.

…

If you liked that, go read the rest

Leaving the primordial ooze

After a solid week of just sitting around (with exception of Saturday and Sunday), I am heading out today.

Gonna hang out with Pat and his kids this morning and then some cafe writing in Boston.  May hit a clothing store on the way out as well. 

The cold is much less oppressive than remembered.

Game on!

The Beautitude of Writing

An occasional read of mine, Spurious.

For the writers among you.

Things my Dad taught me

How to gap the spark plugs of my '72 Ford Maverick with a matchbook cover

That there are three sides to every argument: his side, her side, and the right side

To take care with the first thing that people see be that clothes or lawn

Lead with the left jab

Work to live, not the other way around, and leave your work at work

Education is the most important thing

If you have errands to do on the weekend try to get them all done by noon on Saturday.  You can beat the crowds and have the rest of the weekend to yourself

Patronize your friends businesses.  If you know an insurance agent, get your insurance from him/her

Always watch the bass player

Shooting less than 80% from the line is a disgrace

If you are going to take a long road trip, start in the middle of the night

Always have enough money in your wallet to get out of a jam

How to properly shine my shoes

How to bait a hook with sea worms

The simple pleasure of gardening

Watch out for widows and other elderly folks in your neighborhood  Shovel their driveways and sidewalks without being asked

Never call people older than you by their first names

Life can be tragically short

Read Tony Pierce

excerpt from a recent post about  turn off your tv week:

the babe who drove me to the restaurant was leaving but not before i reminded the woman that this country was founded on television.

she said no it was not!

i said look it up in one of your fancy books! i said after al gore invented it, THATS when the italians decided to come to america, to see what shit we had on our tvs.

the woman was clearly shocked that someone wouldnt agree with her fascist agenda.

turn off the tv!

i said, why dont you stop buying gasoline for a week? mankind has lived thousands of years without petrolium fueled automobiles.

she said, i have to take my kids around.

i said bullpucky. get the kids on the bus. let them learn first hand what its like to save the planet. they take the bus to get to school, let them take the bus to the grocery store. when you can only eat what you can carry you end up not buying so much crap i told her and slammed the passenger side door and dug into my french fries.

Don't  make me tell you again.

The Woolly-Thinker's Guide to Rhetoric

Priceless.  My favorite entries thus far:

Play the theory card

Talk about 'theory' a lot. Use the word 'theory' in every sentence. Say 'theory' with a special tone of hushed reverence. Ask people if they're well up on 'theory'. Everyone will be very impressed and very intimidated.

Define words in your own special way

Define truth, for example, as hegemonic discourse, or monoculturalism, or Eurocentrism. Define education as privilege. Define science as an arbitrary game, or a story, or a power-play.