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Earlier this summer, I read Hear the Wind Sing* by Haruki Murakami. At only 130 pages of main text, this book is quite short. For summer reading, anyway. But it wasn’t my summer reading. I’d finished that already.

HTWS is the first book in Murakami’s Rat trilogy, The Rat being a character in the books… the close friend of our unnamed narrator. It’s a pretty easy, fast read. And it wasn’t really widely published/distributed in English (thus the high prices on amazon.com for this super tiny book). Evidently Murakami doesn’t think of this or the second in the trilogy as his best work. Hmmm.

Oh well. I liked it anyway. And went on to read the second in the trilogy as well (I’d read the third — which was widely distributed — quite a while ago, not knowing it was part of a trilogy). So there. Oh. And you’ll be hearing about that (the second book) in this space sometime, too.

Daniel Handler’s (aka Lemony Snicket) blurb on the back of Everything and More: A Compact History of Infinity* by David Foster Wallace: “All the grace of pure mathematics without the parts that made me want to bang my head against the wall.”

OK.

For a while…

From DFW’s own foreward:

Like the other booklets [this booklet is 305 pages long, not including the scholarly boilerplate, the bibliography, and the index] in this ‘Great Discovers’ series, Everything and More is a piece of pop technical writing. […] The aim is to discuss these [mathematical] achievements in such a way that they’re vivid and comprehensible to readers who do not have pro-grade technical backgrounds and expertise. (pp. 1–2)

Which he does. Mostly.

So I was super excited to read a book whose subject matter, while fascinating, is just plain difficult to a mathematically challenged person such as myself. But excited I was.

Because it’s written by DFW and he really can make me get/love/devour any subject about which he writes.

Because at one point in the text, DFW says he sucked at math (yeah, right)¹ and hated all his math classes.

Because throughout the text, DFW reminds us that we don’t even have to have had college math to get the gist of the book (he even will point out things that, sure, are great to know, and yes, he is stating them, and boy, yes, do they make no sense to me whatsoever, but, he says, (I paraphrase) “That’s OK, you don’t need to understand that, just trust me and you’ll be fine.”).

Because Lemony Snicket* has a blurb on the back (that was a huge plus).

Because as much as math makes my brain explode, I do find it terribly interesting… to a point.

My brain remained intact, oh, I’d say until about section 5-ish maybe. Confession: yes, it did just get too complicated for me. Boast: but I did finish the book. Confession: after finishing, I was kinda “WTF?” I almost started reading it again immediately…. but didn’t think I had it in me.

I’m thinking that at some point I will read Everything and More again and do what he (DFW) suggests: i.e., skip everything that he’s marked I.Y.I. (If You’re Interested). I read all those the first go-around, and he wasn’t kidding. Some of them are just way too technical for someone like me who completely bombed college math.

So thanks, DFW, for writing this book. I promise I did get something out of it. Not the least of which was the pure enjoyment of reading your writing….

Finally! The post about my summer reading, 1Q84* by Haruki Murakami. I tend to like to pick long books for my summer reading, so I’ll spend the whole summer (and sometimes, much longer than the whole summer) reading the same book. At 944 pages, I thought this qualified.

Oh but no. I started it, OK, technically before summer started, I think in late April maybe? I can’t remember. Anyway, typically, I do start my summer reading early, because it usually takes me longer than three months to get through the massive novel I pick each year. And so this year I finished two days after summer started. Ummmm.

I’m kinda copping out on this post (although the book is very good and I enjoyed it immensely) by just saying, “Watch this video:”

Boy.

I’m becoming a voracious reader.

For me.

Adult me.

Child me was a voracious reader.

…

Summer’s not officially over yet, and I’ve not only finished my planned summer reading,* but I’ve also finished three* more* books* (OK, two are quite short) and am more than a third of the way through Mao II.*

I had to post this because I’m reminded, after not having read DeLillo for a while, just how much I enjoy his writing. Once I pick up the book, it’s really hard for me to put it back down and get back to work. Or play.

Maybe we ought to change the title of this section of Patrick’s blog to “What my wife has read…” I am now officially three books behind in my posting, and am almost finished with a fourth book. Oooooh.

Anyway. The eponymous essay in A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again: Essays and Arguments* by David Foster Wallace is… wait for it… great! DFW chronicles a Celebrity cruise for a “certain swanky East-Coast magazine” (Harpers). You don’t have to read more than the first chapter to get the drift. Oh, but you should.

Thinking back on it — how long ago was it when I actually read it? — I sort of think he could have written it about part of our most recent vacation. Although I might do that again. Once. Patrick has already written about that, and I pretty much concur. But I say I might do it again once, because I think I’d like to be in the Fremont area at nighttime. And I’d like to go to Dino’s again.

I don’t see us ever taking a cruise; I’d have to O.D. on Dramamine® for sure. So it was cool to read the very detailed descriptions of one.

It’s interesting to me that immediately before boarding the cruise, you’re subjected to near torture for three or four hours while waiting to board the ship. The you board and all of a sudden it’s sheer bliss. Then about half-way through the cruise you’re sick of your room being cleaned spotless every time you step out… and the towel guy on the pool deck replacing your towel every time you get up from your lounge chair… and, and, and. You’re just ready to go home and not do “‘…something you haven’t done in a long, long, time: Absolutely Nothing.’”

I’ll pass.

This is the seventh post in a series.

• A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again
• Derivative Sport in Tornado Alley
• E Unibus Pluram: Television and U.S. Fiction
• Getting Away from Already Being Pretty Much Away from It All
• Greatly Exaggerated
• David Lynch Keeps His Head
• Tennis Player Michael Joyce’s Professional Artistry as a Paradigm of Certain Stuff about Choice, Freedom, Discipline, Joy, Grotesquerie, and Human Completeness
• A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again… Again

OK, I’ve finished my summer reading (!)… And am halfway through another book… And have still not finished these posts about the essays in A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again: Essays and Arguments* by David Foster Wallace. But this is the second to last one, so I’m getting close!

Now to think back to so many months ago when I read this….

OK, yeah. That’s right. This one’s about when DFW kinda hung around with Michael Joyce at the Qualifiers for the Canadian Open tennis tournament. There’s kind of a lot of tennis stuff that I may or may not have heard of, but, in true DFW style, he makes it interesting. Bless him!

I remember mostly, though, that he was in Montreal. And of course that made me remember our epic vacation in 2010 (34 days!). We sure had fun. Canada is so cool. We’d been to Toronto before, in 2006, but of course, it’s in Ontario, which is mostly English-speaking. Quebec is more French-speaking, and that was really new to me. I know I always say how much I love going to South Beach, because it’s like being in Europe or something, because when you’re lying on the beach, almost nobody around you speaks English… But so then in Montreal, it wasn’t quite like that (no ocean, no sand, e.g.), but… Like every person we came in contact with professionally (bartender, bell-hop, bartender, concierge, bartender, hotel desk person, bartender, maintenance guy, bartender….) addressed us in both French and English. “Bonjour Hello.” “Quel étage? What floor?” You get the idea.

Then in Quebec City, it was even more French! There was this awesome pizza restaurant right across from our hotel (I think it’s a chain or at least a small, possibly local to QC, chain, but still… awesome). And we had our favorite bartender who was so sweet. And so like the third day there I’m talking to her (you know, my mile-a-minute blabber), and she says, “Oh, I’m sorry, my English is not very good.” Gee, Tree. Did I feel like a cad. Ugly American, right here. So I replied, “Your English is much better than my French!” (non-existent, basically, if you don’t count “French” that should be pardoned or “Une carte des vins, s’il vous plaît,” or “Une bouteille de vin rouge, s’il vous plaît.”¹ Yeah. So.

Anyway. This essay. Yes. So in true tree tradition, I’m spending time I should be talking about this essay, instead talking about myself. Narcissistic, much?

Just read the essay.

This is the seventh post in a series.

• A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again
• Derivative Sport in Tornado Alley
• E Unibus Pluram: Television and U.S. Fiction
• Getting Away from Already Being Pretty Much Away from It All
• Greatly Exaggerated
• David Lynch Keeps His Head
• Tennis Player Michael Joyce’s Professional Artistry as a Paradigm of Certain Stuff about Choice, Freedom, Discipline, Joy, Grotesquerie, and Human Completeness
• A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again… Again

tl;dr: In this essay about his time on the set of Lost Highway,* David Foster Wallace really makes you feel like you’re on the set, too. It’s 45 pages long, but doesn’t really seem long. And I suggest you read it.

This is the sixth post in a series.

• A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again
• Derivative Sport in Tornado Alley
• E Unibus Pluram: Television and U.S. Fiction
• Getting Away from Already Being Pretty Much Away from It All
• Greatly Exaggerated
• David Lynch Keeps His Head
• Tennis Player Michael Joyce’s Professional Artistry as a Paradigm of Certain Stuff about Choice, Freedom, Discipline, Joy, Grotesquerie, and Human Completeness
• A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again… Again

This one. Yeah. The essay “Greatly Exaggerated” in A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again*.

This is maybe, yeah, a little more aimed at academics. It’s about (OK, as I remember, because it’s been a week or more since I read it) “author-ity.” Like how author is different from writer. Critical-theory wise.

He refers to a lot of lit-crit theorists of whom I’d never heard — Foucault, Derrida, Barthes, Said — had I not been married to Patrick when he was getting his Ph.D. And some who are totally new to me. Not being a lit-crit person myself. Or an academic. Or even a college graduate.

I digress.

But yeah, speaking of not being a college graduate. Yeah, I wasn’t really into college. I mean, the drinking was fun.

And meeting all kinds of different people from different backgrounds was great. But class? Meh. Not so much. And once I learned where to find the answers I needed — you know, how to look things up. For real. — and how to think — you know, for myself. Critically. Analytically. — I didn’t really feel like staying in school. I tend to learn more on-my-own-like. Just researching and practicing.

Long story short, though. I probably would have liked it (college) a lot more if I’d a.) known what the heck I even wanted to do with my life (I still don’t, really. Does anyone?), b.) majored in English, like I always said I would when I was younger (instead of dabbling in business admin (?! I know, right?), radio-television, theater (that was pretty cool though)), and, possibly the most-likely-thing-besides-meeting-Patrick-there-(which unfortunately I did not)-to-make-tree-actually-enjoy-college, c.) had DFW for a professor.

Reading this essay really made me wish I’d had the opportunity to take a class with DFW. And (if you read the last two paragraphs, you know this already) I’m not a big class-taking kind of person, so that’s saying a lot.

This is the fifth post in a series.

• A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again
• Derivative Sport in Tornado Alley
• E Unibus Pluram: Television and U.S. Fiction
• Getting Away from Already Being Pretty Much Away from It All
• Greatly Exaggerated
• David Lynch Keeps His Head
• Tennis Player Michael Joyce’s Professional Artistry as a Paradigm of Certain Stuff about Choice, Freedom, Discipline, Joy, Grotesquerie, and Human Completeness
• A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again… Again

When we were in Springfield, IL recently, I read the third essay in A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again,* “Getting Away from Already Being Pretty Much Away from It All.” This was great: I was in Springfield, and it was (sort of) about Springfield!

Springfield is the home of the Illinois State Fair, about which this essay was written. When I was old enough to ride my bike to the fair, and young enough to still be eligible for free admission, I was a Fair regular. I’d say that was for about three years. Vicki — and later Jenny — and I would ride our bikes up there every day.

Of course the last Sunday was our favorite day of the Fair, really,¹ because for five dollars, you could get a wristband that allowed you free, repeated access to all the rides in Happy Hollow. Oh yeah! How many revolutions on The — what was it called? — Himalaya² would we turn that day?

When we weren’t riding rides³, we’d stand for too-long periods listening to the carney in the dunk tank insult passers-by, hoping to avoid any of those insults being hurled our way. One year, the carney was pretty funny… at least to a couple of giggling 15-year-old girls, he was. He kept calling this audience member “Pewey Lewis.” We couldn’t get enough of that.

We never spent much time at the livestock venues. We might stop by to look at the horses or sit in the coliseum for a few minutes and watch a horse show. Between the smells and the oppressive heat, buildings housing animals weren’t really the most pleasant places to be.

You had to get a corn dog and lemon shake-up⁴. And Tom Thumb donuts. And Spiess fries. And an Italian or Polish sausage with peppers, onions, and cheese. Or a Philly cheese-steak. Basically, you gorged yourself on pretty inexpensive fried goods, mostly. And an elephant ear or funnel cake (fried and fried). DFW has some fun remarks about some of the edibles.

We’d go through the Expo and Grandstand buildings on the hunt for gew-gaws. It was my tradition every year to get myself a one- or two-dollar birthstone ring. Why was I obsessed with that?

There was also a ton of free stuff to be procured — pencils and rulers and bumper stickers and buttons and magnets… and… and… and… — in tents devoted to local politicians, farmers’ groups, seed companies, safety organizations, unions, mega-corporations, you name it.

DFW wrote about his visit to the ISF in 1993. I bet Patrick and I were there; I know we went at least once or twice in our early dating years. We might have seen him and not known it!

The last time I went to the ISF was probably something like three or maybe four years ago⁵. Patrick and I were going to be in Springfield visiting family anyway, and we thought, “What the heck! Let’s go for old time’s sake.” Happy Hollow wasn’t there anymore.⁶ What was down there? I think some livestock stuff, maybe. The “big-kid” rides were all where I think the big farm equipment used to be. And they just called it something like “Carnival Midway.” Or something.

In my fair-going heyday, the only thing you could get “on a stick” was a corn dog. Not so, the last time I went. Patrick and I saw all manner of stick-impaled edibles.

⁷

There was even a stand completely devoted to stick-borne foods: pizza, twinkies, deep-fried cheese, sandwiches… Am I remembering correctly? Was everything at that stand also deepfried?? I would love to know what DFW would have written about that!

OK, this is long.

I don’t need to tell you all about the Illinois State Fair. You can read DFW’s essay and get a really, really, really good idea about the whole experience. I mean, I could very vividly picture practically every single thing he wrote about. And not just because his writing makes you do that anyway, but because I’d seen the very same things.

Or you can go to the Fair and see for yourself. If you’re not in Illinois, I’m sure many State Fairs in flyover land are very comparable: Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, Missouri, Indiana, Ohio…

But seriously. Do read DFW’s essay; it’s terrific!

This is the fourth post in a series.

• A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again
• Derivative Sport in Tornado Alley
• E Unibus Pluram: Television and U.S. Fiction
• Getting Away from Already Being Pretty Much Away from It All
• Greatly Exaggerated
• David Lynch Keeps His Head
• Tennis Player Michael Joyce’s Professional Artistry as a Paradigm of Certain Stuff about Choice, Freedom, Discipline, Joy, Grotesquerie, and Human Completeness
• A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again… Again

As someone who lives in a TV-less household (by choice), I thought that this essay wouldn’t be very relevant to me. Oh boy. I was wrong. Or David Foster Wallace wrote it in such a way that it seems relevant to me. As usual.

Even though I really had to guess at what a lot of the words he used meant (no dictionary* handy in that particular reading situation). I mean, I thought synecdoche was a town in New York*. And really. How do you even pronounce that?

Really.

He uses that word a lot. I mean. A. LOT. I finally asked Patrick what it meant.

It’s just a tragedy that DFW isn’t still alive and writing. I’d love to read (maybe he’s written this already and I just haven’t gotten to it. Fingers decidedly crossed….) a sort of follow-up piece to this.

This particular piece was written in 1990. So it’s about television as it was then. And in the 80s. Before everybody was using the Interwebs. Watching shows on Hulu and Netflix. And YouTube. Before reality shows.

I think he’d write some wonderful words about today’s TV. I do.

This is the third post in a series.

• A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again
• Derivative Sport in Tornado Alley
• E Unibus Pluram: Television and U.S. Fiction
• Getting Away from Already Being Pretty Much Away from It All
• Greatly Exaggerated
• David Lynch Keeps His Head
• Tennis Player Michael Joyce’s Professional Artistry as a Paradigm of Certain Stuff about Choice, Freedom, Discipline, Joy, Grotesquerie, and Human Completeness
• A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again… Again

As promised¹ in my last post, here’s a post about the first essay in A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again* by David Foster Wallace. This essay is about tennis. Specifically, it’s about how DFW played tennis (and was highly ranked) as a youngster in Central Illinois.² There’s a funny bit about him and his friend practicing when a tornado is nigh³.

Ha! This is great! My footnotes might be longer than the text. hee hee.

So anyway. I didn’t come across too many words that made me wish I had a dictionary next to me. And it was fun to read something about stuff that happened not too far from where I lived.⁴ That’s a really kind of weird and not very specific way to say I really loved reading it.

This is the second post in a series.

• A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again
• Derivative Sport in Tornado Alley
• E Unibus Pluram: Television and U.S. Fiction
• Getting Away from Already Being Pretty Much Away from It All
• Greatly Exaggerated
• David Lynch Keeps His Head
• Tennis Player Michael Joyce’s Professional Artistry as a Paradigm of Certain Stuff about Choice, Freedom, Discipline, Joy, Grotesquerie, and Human Completeness
• A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again… Again

Photo Credit: “Heather Bradley Photography”http://www.flickr.com/photos/senzenina/3787553493/

I love David Foster Wallace. He’s a genius.
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Was.
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And I’ve been procrastinating this post…

Started reading A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again*, oh, last week sometime, I guess. And like within the first paragraph, I was thinking, “I’m still pissed about that!” Yeah, so but then anyway….

Luckily I still have a lot of DFW’s work left to read, so I’m probably OK for a few years… but someday, I’ll never have a new DFW work to read. Ever. And I’m not happy about that. I mean, he’s a genius!
…
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Was.
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Anyway….

ASFTINDA is a book of essays, the first of which is about tennis, a sport about which I know very little. But like DeLillo (see, e.g., the first chapter of Underworld*), DFW captivates me. Even when I’m reading about things that really have no relevance to me, I’m rapt. And they really actually seem relevant to me. Weird.

But so then I thought, “I really need to post about what I’m reading.”
…
…
…

“Maybe I’ll just read the next essay first, so I can do the book justice. [I won’t]”

Oh. But then so the next one’s about TV (in c.1990)… and 62 pages long. “OK, yeah. It’ll be longer before I do my post, but that’s OK.”

Finished that when we were in Springfield. I know I had my computer with me and could have written this thing before I started the essay about the Illinois State Fair. But I was in Springfield. Home of the ISF. And I was a regular at the ISF as a teenager (when I could ride my bike there and still get in for free)… Write? Read? Write? Read? Read.

So now here I am, say two-thirds of the way through. I really need to do this thing justice (I tell you, I won’t), so here’s what I’m going to do: I’ll write a post for each essay. You’re under no obligation to read any of them. And I’ll spread it out, so my posts aren’t dominating what’s really Patrick’s blog.

There. Decision made. Post complete. Good. Now I’d better start working on some drafts….

This is the first post in a series.

• A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again
• Derivative Sport in Tornado Alley
• E Unibus Pluram: Television and U.S. Fiction
• Getting Away from Already Being Pretty Much Away from It All
• Greatly Exaggerated
• Tennis Player Michael Joyce’s Professional Artistry as a Paradigm of Certain Stuff about Choice, Freedom, Discipline, Joy, Grotesquerie, and Human Completeness
• A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again… Again

That was fast! I already finished those two books. May be a record for me, the slowest reader I know.

Started Kafka on the Shore* by Haruki Murakami. Fifteen-year-old runaway. Talking cats. Unexplained (so far) unconsciousness in children. What more could you want?

While it’s not exactly summer reading for me (ok, I didn’t finish that in the summer…. but I did read it all summer long), it’s not exactly a quickie at 448 pages. I’ll have to try to keep up my pace, since this one’s checked out from the library. Luckily, it’s the school library and Patrick gets extended checkout times since he’s faculty. Whew!

I don’t usually read more that one book at a time, with the exception of technical or work-related books. I’m pretty much the opposite of Patrick, who claims he reads too many books at once. Call me monobiblious? Anyway. Recently, two friends each gave me a book… I couldn’t decide which to read first, so I decided to read both. Going out on a limb here, truly!

David gave me How to Design a Typeface* by Design Museum. I read about half of it one morning. It has some interesting stuff about type history and such. I’m not to the case study portion, yet, which is where I think the “how to” will come into play.

Dennis gave me The Violent Bear it Away* by Flannery O’Connor after we had talked about it and some of her other works. I read and loved Wise Blood* (Did you know there’s also a movie*? It’s one that actually does the book justice! Oh. And Ministry pays tribute to Flannery O’Connor using samples from the movie in Jesus Built My Hotrod* {and yes, I have that on vinyl and it didn’t cost me $50… and I’m not interested in selling it…]). I’m about halfway through TVBIA and loving it so far. But you expected that, didn’t you… When I’m finished with it, I’ll donate it to The Civil Life Library as Dennis suggested, so if you’re in Saint Louis you can stop by there and start reading it while you enjoy a tasty brew or two… or ten.

Thanks, Dennis and David!

Started The Tender Bar* by J. R. Moehringer on Christmas Day. Patrick’s reading it, too. He started on Christmas Eve… And he’s more than 150 pages ahead of me… in spite of the fact that he reads too many books at once, or so he says. The first paragraph is so beautiful, I knew I’d love the whole book, and so far, I do. Patrick has a good description, so I’ll just stop writing now :)

OK, I lied. I said I’d probably read something by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. after I finished Gravity’s Rainbow*. But one day Patrick and I were laughing about some of the scenes from the television show Jeeves and Wooster, so I thought I ought to read one of the books by P.G. Wodehouse.

Jeeves in the Morning* (also published as Joy in the Morning) delights! Since I saw the TV show before reading any of the books, I actually picture Hugh Laurie and Stephen Fry acting out the scenes as I read. Big time. And of course, I laugh out loud quite a bit.

Listen to this gem (Wooster is in bad need of an adult beverage): “I headed for my destination […] and was speedily in conference with the dispenser of life savers.” “Dispenser of life savers.” I love it! Oh. And by the way, Patrick’s now a “dispenser of life savers” at The Civil Life Brewing Company’s pub.

If you’ve enjoyed the TV show but haven’t read any of the books, you ought to get them all and start reading them right away. Heck! Even if you haven’t watched the TV show, get the books and start reading them right away. If you’ve seen, but not enjoyed the TV show, well, your taste probably differs from mine a good deal, so you can ignore everything I just said.