Aether

The final word in the Tucson Tennis Monologue on page 169.

Definition:

"The poetic personification of the clear upper air breathed by the Olympians."

I felt the religion of the physical

IJ has so many great concepts, phrases in it.

The Brando wanna be could have been a contender tennis player / actor Dad of J.O.I. (James Incandenza), talks about his fall from grace, his career-ending injury:

P.169:

"...I felt the religion of the physical that day, at not much more than your age, Jim, shoes filling with blood..."

Great line. I re-read much of this chapter out-loud to myself. One of my old profs insisted on the out-loud reading of Shakespeare and it is interesting that I went into out-loud mode with IJ without thinking here in the re-reading of the I Could've Been A Tennis Contender monologue.

The son never spoke in this chapter. He is only talked about, described by the Dad as a whimpering, snot-nosed nerd.

The chapter, the monologue, when read out-loud, reveals beautiful momentum in the writing. The words seem to hurtle forward just like the one-time tennis contender toward the spider which ruins everything.

Joy With... Axe?

Is that what it's called Abbot?

An axe?

In Jest, the tennis racquet is a stick.

In both cases they are instruments that manipulate...

But music has no "object" to manipulate as we find in the Dad's beautifulsad description of his beloved game. The object in tennis is the ball - which the Dad rips apart with his bare hands (like Brando).

But in music? There is no object.

Or is the object sound?

Or the soul?

Senses on Full

Page 161:

"...boy, Jesus I just took five minutes explaining how the key to being even a potential player is to treat things with just exactly...books aren't just dropped with a crash like bottles in the trash can...they are placed, guided, senses on full...Got me? Got it? Well now don't be that way. Son, don't be that way, now. Don't get all oversensitive on me, son, when all I'm trying to do is help you."

The Bastard Wasted No Motion Is What Made It Art

Page 158:

"The bastard (Brando) wasted no motion, is what made it art, this brutish no-care. His was a tennis player's dictum: touch things with consideration and they will be yours..."

Every Day Arts

P. 157:

"She may have loved Marlon Brando, Jim, but she didn't understand him, is what ruined her for every day arts like broilers and garage doors..."

Jest With Post Pedagogy Pint

It was a long full week. Tired. But this Friday I remembered my pages. Am retiring now with pint at the closest possible bar to my son's guitar lessons. I have opted to re-read "Winter B.S. 1960 - Tucson AZ" because i liked it so much.

My Joy With My Flask

Just finished chapter - Winter BS 1960 Tucson AZ, pp. 157-169 - and have to say that this was my favourite chapter/vignette yet. They are chapters right? I am beginning to feel some coherence but then the Abbot did say initially that "the book won't make sense to you til about page 300". So this is good - the coherence. But beyond all that sh*it I have to say that I loved the moment where the alcoholic father of James Incandenza waxes tennis philosophical through his flask. It reminded me of conversations with my Dad - who was never more impressive to me than when he was hammered. I love the run-on sentences and lack of punctuation which illustrates just how much the Dad had to impart. I love the Brando stuff - which while it is not made explicit is beautiful in that the guy (the Dad) who keeps refering to Brando is actually someone who is preoccupied with "talent" and is clearly someone who "could've been a contender".

And on top of all of this I love that DFW has also seen something that I have seen - that a boy is a joy.

Page 164:

The Dad:

"Come here, kid. C'mere c'mere c'mere. That's a boy. That's my J.O.I. of a guy of a joy of a boy. "

Page 148: High-Def-Videophonic-Mask

Sometimes (often) I ask myself, "Vivant, why read? Why use precious time on "fiction" when there is plenty of pleasure in the real world, in real reading (non-fiction): newspaper columns, magazine articles, essays, even blogs."

And then I read IJ - after a hiatus of 2 days - and I say "Ah. Uh huh. There is a purpose for a piece of fiction, just as there is a purpose for a great painting, a work of art."

Tonight I have learned about DFW's "high-def-videophonic-mask" and I am quite amused (especially given that I am using my "handblogger" to bring you this "blog post") and impressed by DFW's view of the future.

A view and and sensibility that can come only out of fiction...

Jestless

If this is Friday then Vivant must have forgotten his pages at his Education Ministry Gymteacher locker. Yep. The picture is of me sitting outside the room where my son is doing guitar lessons. It would have been a perfect time to do some reading. Damn. Have to wait for Monday again.

Out of Pages

Out of friends

Didn't count on this

Of course
I could just keep drinking
And wait for the band
To start playing

But I have discipline

I have "drink"

I am not a slave to AAlcohol

This is good though
I guess

No friends
No pages
No music

And no more drink

But still a beautiful night. I had fun.

I "met" with myself.

And, no doubt, It'll be a beautiful, crispcanadianwinternightwalkhome - where the Carcass waits with page 143 and beyond...

And I might open that '95 Barolo
Or
The Blonde Woman's legs...

AA

Drinking alone
And reading
My precious pages

This is the life

Then page 137 introduces:

"Ennet House Drug and Alcohol Recovery House"

And I laugh
To myself
(Of course)

9

Drinking and thinking
In a trendy Irish bar
For quite some time

Then

Suddenly

Feeling self conscious

In this empty bar -
Usually full of howling musicians
And growling felines

Empty feeling

But finding pages
Yes
In a denim back pocket
From a book I recently dismembered -

Feeling I have a friend, a weapon
Against
The Feeling

Reading a bit now
Laughing a bit now
To myself of course

Burying the feeling
With glee

Then the bar starts to fill up
Slowly

Even Better feeling now

But too many old farts -
Their silver heads glimmer fracturing
The golden pub glow -
Looking like they're part of
Some gay-assed book club

One of them complains:

The music starts at 9?
But we'll be gone by then

A band has just started setting up

And I too wish
I could stay past 9

Education Ministry Dumbbells - Pictured with Pages 133-142 Plus Errata

I realized today that I am going to have to ramp up my workrate (reading) in order to complete the Thick Book challenge in a time that is satisfactory to me.

Typically I have been doing 1 set (day) of 6 reps (pages).

This lame, pu*ssy-a*ssed stuff.

Today I will do atleast 1 set of 10 reps.

Unless of course I attack the carcass tonight for another set of pages.

Tomorrow though I think that I will look to do 20 reps during the day.

Given that I have about 850 more pages (reps) + errata to go, this would have me finishing off the monsterous Thick Book within (850 ÷ 20) 43 days. I would therefore be victorious in early March and be able use the leisure of my Education Ministry Spring "Break" to find out what IJ is really about and why DFW killed himself.

As I've said before, I don't want to get into the whys of IJ + DFW just now. I just want to enjoy the glorious pain of hacking through what is - apparently - a brilliant book written by an - apparently - incandescent writer.

January 20th

Some of my posts have bordered on the weird and unusual but please forgive me if this one post goes a little too far - since it is too real.

Today, January the 20th, has long been on the calendar for the inauguration of the first black American president. However, it is a date that I have had on my calendar for seven years now since the death of my brother.

I have numerous other blogs where I could post this but I write this entry here because my brother went out in the same way that David Foster Wallace went out.

Today, I hope to read my requisite pages of Infinite Jest but first I will have to finish the pages upon pages of letters my brother Paul wrote the day before he died. I do this every year. It's the least I can do - to remember a guy who gave selflessly to his community, who was a great father and had a fair bit of jest in him. He was a well liked guy. A guy you have to remember once a year, if not every day.

Who knew that he was in such pain for so long? He was a strong guy. He hid it well.

I have to add here that for me it goes without saying that Infinite Jest stands on its own as a great piece of literature but I have to admit that as I read it, I inescapably look for clues about DFW's suicide and even my brother's.

Reading...hmm...it is like staring at Yorick's skull: it is a chance to glimpse both life and death at the same time; a chance to learn something; a chance to grow, expand and so much more.

Reading is life.

Repetition

Pages 117-18.

Nice passage on how evetually repetition in training makes a player great:

"The court may as well be inside you. The ball stops being a ball... "

Precious Pages

There they are. Just as I left them. Time to start reading again. Pages 109-118 + errata.

The Power of Reading

A day after I admitted that my life was somehow incomplete without good reading, the New York Times has a piece on how books (and reading) made Barack Obama, the next President of the United States and soon to be Most Powerful Man in the World:

"Mr. Obama’s first book, “Dreams From My Father” (which surely stands as the most evocative, lyrical and candid autobiography written by a future president), suggests that throughout his life he has turned to books as a way of acquiring insights and information from others — as a means of breaking out of the bubble of self-hood and, more recently, the bubble of power and fame. He recalls that he read James Baldwin, Ralph Ellison, Langston Hughes, Richard Wright and W. E. B. Du Bois when he was an adolescent in an effort to come to terms with his racial identity and that later, during an ascetic phase in college, he immersed himself in the works of thinkers like Nietzsche and St. Augustine in a spiritual-intellectual search to figure out what he truly believed."

I wonder then if the crazy, weird, almost incomprehensible - and brilliant - Infinite Jest (a book I really like) is going to show me something about what I truly believe...

It just might. For there is a nice coincidence in the NYT piece. The writer of the piece, MICHIKO KAKUTANI, uses one of my new favourite words - and the source of Hal's surname - incandescent:

"The incandescent power of Lincoln’s language, its resonance and rhythmic cadences, as well as his ability to shift gears between the magisterial and the down-to-earth, has been a model for Mr. Obama — who has said he frequently rereads Lincoln for inspiration — and so, too, have been the uses to which Lincoln put his superior language skills: to goad Americans to complete the unfinished work of the founders, and to galvanize a nation reeling from hard times with a new vision of reconciliation and hope."

The Beautiful Game of Reading

It's been a decidedly below par couple of days without my reading. I mean real reading - not newspapers, magazines, blogs, etc. I mean - the reading of Infinite Jest.

The Abbot made a very courageous offer to lend me another copy of IJ - knowing full well that I am a book killer - but I didn't take him up on it. Maybe I just got too busy. Or maybe I just wanted to see if life could go on without reading.

And the verdict?

Sure, life went on - but life really wasn't as interesting without DFW.

This weekend, I had some nice meals, plenty of drink with friends, shagged a bit and even reverted to the beautiful game blogosphere - but it wasn't enough.

I mean, I do like to drink and shag and I like beautifulgaming and the debate over who is the best player in the world did tap me into this really interesting piece of writing on the Brazlian Kaka - but as the Abbot tried to suggest to me - this would have been a really good time (with my precious pages left in the gymteacher locker) to re-read the part about Hal's crazy admissions interview.

But wait - I did have a kind of interesting moment of reflection back on the whole IJ-Tennis-Academy-Gymteacher bind I find my mind in when I read IJ: in the article on Kaka, Kaka is quoted as saying that if he hadn't become a football player for whom Manchester City are about to spend 100 million pounds on, he - get this - would have wanted to become... a gym teacher.

I kid you not. Read the article for your self.

I don't really know what to do with this.

I know - perhaps all I have to do is become a Born Again Christian like Kaka and then I will be great and happy no matter what: a great player, a happy teacher.

Hmm.

Nahhhh...

Superstar athletes don't have all of the answers.

I want my IJ. I want my reading. I want my pages.

Besides - the Carcass seems almost to want to be torn into again. It seems to miss the pain that I have inflicted on it every day...

I can't wait to open my locker tomorrow and get back into the fantastic world of the Enfield Tennis Academy.

I hope this drink will help me...

.. get over the devastation I am feeling right now as I have realized that I left behind today's pages back at my Education Ministry issued Gymteacher Locker.

What a terrible empty feeling.

I was too busy with gymteaching today to read even one word - and being sat at my favourite Irish bar with my favourite Irish pint - I reached into my back denim pocket only to find...emptiness.

It would have been a perfect way to end a long day: the warm feeling of the best bar in town, the cool feeling of the best pint in the world sliding down my throat...and a little reading.

But all I have is an empty pocket.

And I also have a situation. I will want to read over the weekend but will I dare to skip those pages and errata left in my gymteacherlocker?

Can one skip five pages of genius and errata and still absorb the totality of that genius and errata?

What are pages? What are books? What is reading?

The Remains of the Day

It seems increasingly likely that I really will undertake the expedition that has been preoccupying my imagination now for some days. An expedition, I should say, which I will undertake alone...in the comfort of Mr. Ashdale's Ford.

Today I finished page 100 of 981.

881 pages remain.

I do recall that Mr. Ashdale said that the journey of reading would be a breeze from here on in - perhaps like a drive through the fine English countryside.

Page 98: Csikszentmihalyi Reference

Page 98 already? I haven't obsessively handblogged in 14 pages. This means that I'm actually reading. Sweet.

I should just stay in the flow of reading but I'd like to quickly point to DeeEffDoubleYou's attempted introduction of Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (the Psychology professor who developed Flow theory).

I say attempted because there is a difference in the spelling of the two names (an error?). This seems to be a classic DFW move (though 98 pages in how in the f*ck can I possibly know what is classic DFW?) - he introduces the idea of Flow theory by putting his son Zoltan into the Enfield Tennis Academy.

I wonder if Zoltan will play more of a role in this Thick Story or if this is just a cameo for his famous father's famous theory.

This is fun stuff: introducing a theory through a marginal character - in a locker room scene where the student-athletes are studying theories for their History of Entertainment course.

Tennis and Suicide: Page 84

"...so what's the difference between tennis and suicide, life and death, the game and it's own end?"

The Beauty of Tennis: Page 84

"Tennis's beauty's infinite roots are self-competitive. You compete with your own limits to transcend the self in imagination amd execution. Disappear inside the game: break through limits: transcend: improve: win..."

The Beauty of Tennis: Page 83

"...it's infinite expansion inward, that make tennis like chess on the run, beautiful and infinitely dense?"

Pages 81-82: Gerhardt Schtitt's Theory of Beauty in Tennis

A fantastic insight into DFW's love of the game:

"Schtitt knew real tennis was really about...the place where things broke down, fragmented into beauty."

DFW refers to beauty three times in this long paragraph about Schtitt. Nice stuff.
And the depiction of the German Schtitt is classic, hillarious. How many Eccentric EuroSport Philosophers have I met in my days?

"This myth of the competition and bestness we fight for you players here: this myth: they assume here always the efficient way is to plow in straight, go! The story that the shortest way between two places is the straight line..."

Post coitus reading: Pages 77-82

In the absence of smokes... or Bob Hope.

I'm really getting into this reading thing.

What if they sold book pages in cigarette packages and condom wrapping?

One could read before, during and after f*cking The Blonde Woman.

Did DFW Turn Himself Into a Woman?

..in order to talk about - yet hide - his initimate knowledge of depression and suicide?

Having read quite a bit about suicide my self over the years I can tell you that his writing of the character of Kate Gompert went well beyond research.

And this is clear now that DFW is gone by his own hand. DFW is known for his detail but I tell you that he was Kate.

Page 77: Kate:

"I don't want anything except for the feeling to go away. But it doesn't. Part of the feeling is being like willing to do anything to make it go away. Understand that. Anything. Do you understand? It's not wanting to hurt myself it's wanting to not hurt. "

I have chosen to not read about DFW's life until I've finished IJ. I want the book to speak for itself. But my feeling is that The Great Modern American Writer suffered for a long, long time.

Famous Footnote 24: The Filmography

I really owe a great debt to Mr. Ashdale for drawing my attention to the footnotes. They really are essential. If the main Thickness is not impressive and hillarioius enough, the Severed Footnotes (not to be confused with the Severed Feet Still Washing Up on the Beaches of British Columbia) do add a depth of glee and hillarity and genius that ought not to be missed.

It was tough to sacrifice the spine initially, Mr. Ashdale, but now I am grateful and this just proves that books were made to be dismembered. Dismembered in order to be thoroughly remembered. Isn't that what we do anyways - some of us who Thinktoomuch - tear things apart - especially when we find our minds in the midst of greatness, beauty, the unique? We can't leave it alone, can't be consciousless, can we?

I'm not going to regurgitate Note 24 (You'll have to sever your own footnotes) except to say that a few of my favourite aspects were the "UNTITLED. UNFINISHED. UNRELEASED" films of James O. Incandenza (since this hits close to home with my own "career") and the various iterations of the production company that leaves us with the delicious Poor Yorick Entertainment Unlimited.

Thank you Mr. Ashdale again. I am very happy to have sacrificed The Spine of My Precious Carcass as well as the additional space in my increasingly carb stretched denim back pocket in order to get to a deeper level of genius.

The super straight tear: Pages 71-76

I was starting to get worried about margin encroachment as I started to read more, tear more and add to the calcification of The Carcass's spine.

The spine calcification can otherwise be imagined as build-up or residue which has been making it harder and harder for me to tear off my daily reading very well.

As a result, I was imagining that by the time I got to page 500 for instance I'd be tearing into the text itself and that then in some weird form of vengence and natural law the "book" would start to reclaim it's totality with every tear - and that potentially by page 981 the book would put me into a checkmate situation where I could not tear, nor read - and I'd lose this game of book reading and the book would win and this whole process of Reading Infinite Jest would have been rendered meaningless.

However - when you do something frequently enough and reflect on it - you can defeat all things - except perhaps Death. I learned this from playing soccerfootball. Perhaps Dee-Eff-Double-You learned it from Tennis. It's called skill development. And just now my skill in tearing pages from stubborn book spines has reached a higher level.

As a result of this skill of mine I have hope that I will achieve my goal of getting to page 981 and be able to read it's contents clearly. Whether or not I can understand what I've read is another matter all together.

Page 68: The Beautiful Game of Tennis

(On Bob Hope / Dope)

"The crowd is a tableau, motionless and attentive. I twirl my stick in my hand and bounce a fresh yellow ball and try to figure out where in all that mess of lines I'm supposed to direct service."

Reading Footnote 24 While Parked at Dismal Suburban Strip Mall

Page 62: Maternal Cursive

This line - from the First Night at the Academy - almost made me cry:

"...the flashlight with your name in maternal cursive plays over every cm. of the walls..."

How many kids get sent to camps or schools with their joyful, new first names written in the loving hands of their mothers on tape or directly on the objects themselves?

I am recalling now how my wife did this for my joy and my daughter.

This is a wrist-slashingly beautifulsad image, created by two little DFW words.

I wonder if this would represent a davidfosterwallace-ism.com?

Page 62: Lunch hour weightroom supervision

(Be-shorted, hairy and jaded Gymteacher has just pollished off a meatball sandwich. People still tell him that the weight really disappears on his Big Frame, but he knows that his BMI must be above 32 - and that he is therefore according to all modern fitness measures, obese.)

The brilliant First Night at the Academy description really gets me reflecting on the past and thinking about the future. I am reminded of those days when I became a professional beautifulgamer and my spirit was gradually choked by banal environments like the ETA. And I wonder how on earth I have managed to now put my own joy...I mean boy...into a soccerfootball academy. It is not residential yet but the problem is that he might be good enough to be incarcerated by a soccerfootball club down the road. Why did I go down this road with him, my...Joy, when he could be happily and freely beautifulgaming with his buddies in the park and doing other expansive, fun stuff?

Perhaps it's tied to the very same thing that has me wearing shorts every day as a gymteacher.

Perhaps there is a weakness there. Or a denial of some sort. Or just plain old realism - a giving over to the pervaisive power of The System.

I wonder if there will be an answer in my continued reading of this - apparently - brilliant Thick Book.

But perhaps not. I am leery of the Thick Book's title.

Will the Infinite Jest (whatever it means) be on me when I reach the finish line, the final page, the final footnote - the last errata...?

"Beeeeeeeeeeep..."

There goes the lunch hour bell. Time to get back to gymteaching...

Page 61

With Education Ministry Perforated Pay Stub in background. Circa 2009.

Vulnerable pages

I'm in the shower. My jeans are on the floor. The pages are susceptible to the random evil that lurks in this world. Don't know what I'd do if I lost one of my precious pages.

Jagged Tear: Pages 57 to 60

The spine almost bridled tonight or perhaps held firm - as I tore off some new pages.

It's a cold night here in Torontocanada. And The Nest is a bit cool. Perhaps The Spine of The Carcass was stiff simply from the cold. Thank g/God for the wide margins of this Back Bay Books edition which Mr. Ashdale says - was - worth 150 points. The wide margins in books have been a joy to me in the past - because I liked to go hard with pencil notations - but now that I have become a dismemberer of books the margins do me a great service because they leave room for anomalies like the cold of tonight or simply poor tearing form.

With such large margins in IJ we just might end up with some delicious jaggedness of left margins in the future - if the spine holds firm. Long live The Spine.

Page 55: Don Gately Arrives

I've heard mention of this character. I like the toothbrush story.

Page 53: Teaching Laughable Elective Classes

"...most of the prorectors themselves are depressed or traumatized about not making it into the Show and having to come back to ETA...and teach laughable elective classes..."

My first footnote

A proud moment.

#4

Some might focus on the fact that I have missed 3 footnotes already. But what do I care? I am a psycho-murderer who has the potential to become a serial killer (of "books"). Critics are small potatoes to me. I want small joys, victories - like #4 - "prorectors".

---

"What's a prorector, DFW?"

"Don't call me Dee-Eff-Double-You, Dear Reader."

"Sorry...Baby...I...I...I just want to know what a prorector is..."

"Simply consult the Notes and Errata!...that's what they're there for!..."

"Sorry. So sorry to upset you...I will...I will consult them...I carved those up yesterday...I have the remains right here...in my bloody hands...By the way I love, love, love the word "errata". Care to join me for a glass of wine?"

"No thank you, Dear Reader, I'm dead just now."

"Just now? I like that. You'll never die. That's right, baby!. Keep talking about a writer, reading a writer...and he never dies. "

"So it's true then?"

"Oh yes, it's true, Baby - you are immortal. The only problem is..."

"What? What?"


"...I've only read 50 pages and I'm dying to know what you did that made you into such a f*cken star. You're like Jim Morrison or something..."

"Morrison? Really? Well...I guess you'll have do some f*cken reading then won't you Dear Reader if you want to figure me out - instead of Handblogging your nights away..You're pathetic. A pathetic reader..."

"Oh...I guess you're right Baby, so right...I'll read now...I'll read..."

Back at page 50:

"...these two basements and smaller tunnels often serve as student storage space and hallways between various prorectors' (4)..."

Reading vs late night (cbc) tv news

It's late. The kids are down. The Blonde Woman is out doing her Corporate Thing. I have a glass of wine by my side. All is relatively normal except that I'm turning off the (lame) CBC news - which I routinely watch with The Blonde Woman. I'm going up to my Nest where The Carcass rests and the Blogmachine hums and the shelves bulge with unread, cruelly bound pages of...books. And I'm going to...surf porn. No. No porn tonight. I'm going to commune with page 51 and perhaps some errata. This is new territory for me. As I said, normally I'm watching the news, drinking hard and fu*cking The Blonde Woman on the couch. But tonight? It's reading...pure...simple...reading.

Shuttling between classes

Busy day. No time to read. "Prep Period" was used for prep and lunch was used to run a lunchhourleague. Haven't read one word of page 51 and certainly haven't glimpsed any of the errata.

Fresh Denim, Fresh Pages 51 to 56, Notes and Errata - To Go

No Hashbrowns for already carb-filled ass.

Gymteacher reads notes and errata

I am on my back on the requisite dingy, grey gymoffice couch after a day of "inspiring" young people into uniforms they don't want to wear and activities they did not choose. I am therefore tired but not snoozy.

"Some reading then?"

"Sure."

"Notes and Errata then?"

" What's errata?"

" Nothing, what's errata with you?"

(Note the Nike ankle sock. (So "tennis" isn't it?) Note also the circa 1978 microwave. I can nuke my leftover pasta to perfection in 15 minutes and 35 seconds. No, the microwave was not issued by the Education Ministry, however it fits right in around here.)

Page 50 in the books

This means I've read 50 pages in 4 days.

Let's see:

981 - 50 = 931 pages to go.

Plus of course the Notes and Errata.

Reading in the car during the snow storm really helped. I could only have done so though with the liberated pages and not the 2 kilo Fully Intact Book.

Also, reading during lunch hour instead of engaging in witty but draining conversation with other Education Ministry Staff, helped me get closer to my goal of defeating this Monster Of A Book.

Page 47: The Amputation of the Mom's Head: During Gymteacher Lunch

With Pinot Paul's blind-sided assault on my Reading style, I was left reeling. It's hard enough to be committing Literary Attrocities without having your drinking buddies stabbing you in the back.

What to do then to allevaite the anxiety?

A little pleasure reading during Education Ministry Allotted Lunch Hour perhaps?

Don't mind if I do...

And within seconds, on the first line of page 47 I am reading these DFW Words:

"...his mother's disembodied head, and he cannot. Last night's Subject note indicates that at some point last night Orin had clutched her head with both hands and tried to sort of stiff-arm her...The apparent amputation of the Mom's head from the rest of the Mom's appears in a dream to be clean and surgically neat: there is no evidence of a stump or any kind of nubbin of neck, even, and it is as if the base of the round pretty head had been sealed, and also sort of rounded off..."

You see Pinot! Dismemberment IN the book, therefore...dismember THE book.

What I am doing is perfectly in keeping with the writing of DFW.

His book is begging to be torn to pieces and carried around in big jackets and denim.

I love coincidences...

Reading while driving

The Footnote and Spine Dilemna has set me back in my reading of The Thick Book Now Known As The Carcass.

As a result I have been forced into reading while driving to work - in a snow storm no less.

Worry not though - this is a very Torontocanadian thing to do. We are multitaskers par excellence.

The deed is done

Sideways Cut

The downward approach was starting to cut my Precious Carcass's spine too jaggedly.

(It's a good thing I didn't opt to use the saw - it would have made a real mess.)

Ever the Problemsolver, I lay the spine on it's side like a spent lover waiting to be spooned.

The new approach and the always sharp Henckels kitchen knife yields a nice, long, slow, smooth, clean, cut.

I am quite satisfied.

But I am quite freaked out now too. I kid you not - cutting through that spine felt like cutting a real piece of meat. Like cutting into a firm, well done, pork tenderloin.

After I finish "reading" this "book" (or before) I may require some professional help.

"The first cut is the deepest...

Baby I know..."

I would have given you all of my heart

But there's someone who's torn it apart

And he's taken just all that I have

But if you want I'll try to love again

Baby, I'll try to love again, but I know...

The first cut is the deepest

Baby I know

The first cut is the deepest

But when it comes to bein' lucky, he's cursed

When it comes to lovin' me, he's worst...

I still want you by my side

Just to help me dry the tears that I've cried

And I'm sure gonna give you a try

If you want I'll try to love again, (try)

Baby, I'll try to love again, but I know...

OOHHH,The first cut is the deepest

Baby I knowThe first cut is the deepest

But when it comes to bein' lucky, he's cursed

But when it comes to lovin' me, he's worst...

I still want you by my side

Just to help me dry the tears that I've cried

But I'm sure gonna give you a try

Cuz if you want I'll try to love again

(Try to love again, try to love again)

Baby, I'll try to love again but I know, OOHHH....

The first cut is the deepest

Baby I knowThe first cut is the deepest

When it comes to bein' lucky, he's cursed

When it comes to lovin' me, he's worst

OOHHH, the first cut is the deepest

Baby I know (baby I know)

The first cut is the deepest

Try to love again...

Contemplating the footnotes

Dismembering The Thick Book was supposed to make life (reading) easier but I'm now faced with the advice given to me by two highly esteemed figures from the Canadiansport community who also have a foot firmly planted in various intellectual (and pseudo-intellectual) realms. And what to do with the advice about The Footnotes? Based on explanations given by first Mr. Ashdale and then my dear friend the Abbot of Theleme, the footnotes seem to loom larger in my mind now than even The Thick Book itself did - prior to dismembering. But perhaps that's due to my new-found agitation and paranoia. Indeed, now that I've turned The Thick Book into a Carcass and found within it a crazed genius that I don't understand, I have started to wander around in a bit of a daze. Is it both the guilt of killing the increasingly brilliant book and the genius of the words that is mezmerizing me? I don't know. I am digressing. Apologies. But...the footnotes, the damned footnotes - I thought I had it all figured out.

As I assess what I need to do here, I have noticed that the publisher, Back Bay Books, has placed a little circular symbol at the corner of page 981 to presumably assist in the practice of "footnoting" which the Abbot so sweetly described.

As for me, clearly now that I have a Carcass on my hands and not the Fully Intact Book that The Abbot originally, lovingly, painstakingly "footnoted" - I am going to have to find another solution.

I think I'm going to take the easy way out again and further dismember the book.

This pains me. You see despite the fact that I was able to with a clear conscience tear the book apart initially, I have since become attached to the beauty of The Carcass - with it's glowing orange-yellow spine intact. I have also become very comfortable with the Tear From The Top And Put Into Your Denim Back Pocket approach to collecting my pages.

You see, as much as you will hear me rail against The System and Simplemindedness, it seems that I like things Systematic - but (I stress) ONLY when it suits me.

(BTW - this rule trumps all other rules in my life - the Only When It Suits Me rule.)

So, the beautiful spine of The Carcass is now going to be gone forever, simply because DFW overindulged himself - and us - with footnotes. I need to separate the chunk of back pages 983 - 1079.

This is a big chunk of pages.

And, to deal properly and respectfully with the strong and beautiful spine of this Back Bay Books offspring...

I'm going to need something sharp...

Caged Pages: 35 to 44

I turned my head only for a minute and somehow The System had lured my precious pages from my battered old clipboard and captured them in steel.

(The System craves talent, captures talent, re-educates talent, gives rules to talent, takes away freedom of talent and uses up talent. But what does talent get?)

Luckily I am these days part of The System and I use my keys to unlock the steel that holds my pages hostage.

I sit on top of the steel and read on page 40 about Hal's prodigous tennis talent. Post-match, his brother gets religious:

"...I was going to ask you if you felt like you believed in God, today, out there when you were so on, making that guy look sick."

I look up from my pages, the steel mesh now starting to embed itself into the skin of my bare legs (the gymteacher wears shorts), and - sitting alone in an empty, old gymnasium during my "prep period" - think back to that brief period when I too was young and on top of my game as a soccerfootballplayer. And I do recall that that period coincided with my religious period: I believed in God then and on the pitch/field often felt like God. My, my, my, those were heady times. No greater drug than that: a player on top of his game...

My legs start to sting a bit as my waffled leg skin now has goose-bumps with little hairs spiking up - from the memory of those beautiful days of a talent still free...

Handblogger

(Blogmachine companion)

Pictured here with pages 35-44 - morning light streaming in through kitchen window - ready for the coming day of writingaboutreading.

Pages 35 to 44: Bedside

Feeling ill but not wanting to pu*ssy out of my reading. I may have torn more off The Carcass than I can chew tonight. I think life is catching up to me. You know: back to work; taking care of The Stroke-Addled Moms for two weeks; a cold coming on: "Cough, cough, cough." I know, it's really pu*ssy-assed stuff. Perhaps the sublimity of DFW can keep me from Instant Head Touches The Pillow Sleep...zzz...

Reading while watching Canadiansport and drinking

I'm on page 31. My son wonders how I can read (and blog with my handblogger) while historic moment in Canadiansport is imminent. The drink is mine, not his. Per Thick Book Theme I am wondering if there are any Southern Quebecois (p.29) anarchists on the Canadiansport team. If not, will Politically Correct Equity Obsessed Nation dare accept fifth consecutive gold medal?

Reading During Canadian Childcare

Now here is a beautiful advertisement for the practice of dismembering Perfectly Good Books that are marketed by Extra Serious Global Publishing Giants: you can pull some tattered, folded pages out of your denim back pocket and simultaneously read while supervising your nine-year-old at the Idyllic Neighbourhood Canadian Rink. Sigh...

Carcass in late afternoon light

She's a beauty. My Precious Carcass (Technically The Abbot's Carcass). Waiting for me at home. Now I can sink my teeth into page 27. I've also ripped off pages 28-34.

Gymteacher's Clipboard

I am reading during my lunch hour. I'd never, ever read during class. And if I ever did sneak a page during class well that would be a celebration wouldn't it (?) as a Gymteacher could never haul a fully intact copy of The Extra Thick And Potentially Intellectual Book around a high school while at the same time bullying kids into being in uniform and being less fat.

So it would be a celebration wouldn't it if a gymteacher dismembered a Modern Literary Classic Hailed By The Critics As A Modern Literary Classic and read it page-by-sweat-soaked-page when he could instead have invested those precious moments in bullying kids into "excellence".

But I am not really a gymteacher am I?

Just like I was never a soccerfootballplayer.

Maybe I was a beautifulgamer who was too often beautifulgaming when his coaches thought he should just "get on with it, break the striker's leg and play simple football" (said with a thick Scottish accent).

But I was never really a soccerfootballplayer and I am not now really a gymteacher.

I am a mere reader. A reader of other people's thoughts and creations. That's my specialty. That's my craft.

And speaking of reading, I have been struck by this line on page 26 by The Guy Trying To Not Get High On Dope:

"Reading while waiting for marijuana was out of the question..."

When to read then?

When there is a gun to our heads?

When The Blonde Woman promises you sex to get you to read so that you'll be smarter when she takes you to cocktail parties instead of just being some guy who gives her sperm, children and a steady wage?

Shouldn't we read all the time, or at every opportunity, if we are true readers?

I want to be a reader. A great reader.

I want to fill the gaps of the day with reading, not sperm.

I want to become the best reader in the world. I would do "anything" to read. I'm going to win this game. This game of reading. I'm going to complete this task, meet this challenge, where others have failed.

Bring on page 27!

Oh shi*t, The Carcass is at home! It'll be hours before I can get my hands on a few more scraps of white meat.

And to think I had an entire "prep period" ahead of me.

What to do now?

Maybe I'll mark some papers...

Fresh Pages Fresh Jeans

Pages 19-24 are in place. I am ready for a new day of reading. Who knows what this day, this "reading" will bring? Hmm. The uncertainty - that's the beauty of it. It's all circumstantial isn't it Abbot?

Not a good tear

Rushing off to work I hastilly try to tear off a few pages for the day's reading and - horror - it's not a good, clean tear.
I look closely at the binding and realize that the quality binding job done by Back Bay Books is going to be a little challenge for me down the road. (As if a reader of The Thick Book needs any more challenges.)

I'm just going to have to be more careful, precise and focused when I do my tearing in the future. I am sincere in my intent to return The Thick Book to the Abbot in the best condition possible.

Hanging loose

Now that I'm getting deeper into The Carcass I need to be careful. The pages are starting to come free of their binding on their own. Of their own volition? Are they begining to sense freedom and trying to pull away themselves?

I need to keep an eye on this situation as I would hate to lose one of my precious pages.

I also need to better keep track of the already liberated pages I am reading or have read. For instance this morning, in my grogginess, I left pages 15-19 by my bed.

God forbid if today was a cleaning day and our Polish Cleaning Lady disposed of my pages.

I want to state for the record right now that despite the fact that I have chosen to dismember The Thick Book, it is my sincere intention to return every single page back to it's rightful owner - my dear friend, The Abbot of Theleme.

Bedside Lamp

But no bedside book. This is a world of my making.

Will The Carcass haunt my sleep tonight more than The Thick Book haunted my waking days?

Page 18 is done and I want more pages.

I am more tired now though. Perhaps I should try to sleep. Another couple of pages won't bring page 1000 much quicker.

Lights out.

Good night merciful Carcass.

Night-time Snack

Ahh...pages 15-19. That should do me for the night. It was eerie though with the house all dark and quiet and me tearing at The Carcass. The pages made a crackling sound when I separated them from the glue and string that binds them together. Kinda sounded like skin crackling at a pig roast.

Page 14: In bed for the night

But not ready to sleep. And out of pages.
I need more pages.

This would never have happened if hadn't chosen to murder The Thick Book. The Thick Book would still be alive and well beside my bed - eternally waiting to serve me.

I think I have to get up and go down to my office to tear at the carcass again.

Not only am I not tired enough for sleep but I am intrigued by what has been said about Hal's tennis talent - after his mental episode:

"I'd only seen him play. On court he's gorgeous. Possibly a genius...We were watching ballet out there..."

Down the stairs I go...

Page 11: Main floor tv room surrounded by my dependents

Forget about Hal's mould and my carcass for a moment.

Listen to what Hal says to the administrators who are questioning his academic suitability for their program:

"I am not just a boy who plays tennis. I have an intricate history. Experiences and feelings. I'm complex."

I see now where Hal and I (or DFW and I) have something in common. I used to say sh*it like this too when I was an upandcoming soccerfootball player; When I played the beautiful game; when I was a beautifulgamer: Coaches hated to hear shi*t like that. They said, "V- you think too much. You'd be a great player if you didn't think so much..."

I love the passage where Hal says (page 12): "I believe the influence of Kierkrgaard on Camus is underestimated..."

This book - or collection of pages - is getting interesting now.