I promised I wouldn't do this but...

I haven't blogged about reading in close to a month - which kind of means that I haven't been reading. I know that most people can read without blogging but this is me you're talking about.

So... I post this because I plan to start reading again (and blog about reading).

I have reached this point because somehow today I came across a wonderful New York Times piece written by Dick Cavett (at work (while trying to remove myself for a moment from the insanity of an educational institution which is moving more toward being a soul-destroying edutainment institution)) through which you also get to see an old rerun of Cavett interviewing John Updike and John Cheever.

Anyway, after finishing off the viewing of this brilliant bit of old TV talkshow stuff at home this evening (and reading the always excellent comments that Times readers are capable of), I felt that I needed more and I felt like I wanted more. I remembered that at the end of the interview both writers talked about how they still got rejected by the New Yorker for their fiction submissions - despite their success and fame.

So, I went to the New Yorker site (I know, I know, I should actually have turned to my pages of IJ - if I wanted "more") and low and behold on today's New Yorker site - a brilliant piece about the life of David Foster Wallace.

I had vowed to not read about DFW until I had finished the book. But it's done now, just like the last time I promised myself I wouldn't masturbate ever again.

( Here's the piece. )

Incidently I'm currently on page 227 which contains the Putative Curriculum Vitae of Helen P. Steeply...

I'm about a quarter way through the Thick Book and there is quite a bit of Carcass still left...Notice how the Carcass is shrouded by dead flowers...Is it strange to find dead flowers to be more beautiful than live ones?...