Notes on reading/watching (2/6/25)
I just made plans with my friend Daniel to eat at the Taco Bell Cantina next week. It’s a fancy Taco Bell. I’ll let you know how it goes, but until then…
As mentioned last week, I found this David Foster Wallace novella at the McNally Jackson near Rockefeller Center, and it’s much clearer than his earlier writing, or even from Infinite Jest, the sentences do run on in places, but the ideas are more focused.
However, it still is classic DFW with tangents about television in the 70s and scientific preciseness on a traumatic event that happens within the novel. That preciseness has a formality to it, which makes the IRS and taxes a good topic for Foster Wallace and the character’s “transformation” into an accountant with a memorable speech from a substitute accounting professor is magnificient.
So good, and definitely worth the read
My daughter wanted to go to the Harry Potter store and so we traveled to Madison Square Park and then made our way to the fanciest Petco in America to see the dogs up for adoption, and in between we stopped at Barnes and Noble wehre she bought a “verse” novel (essentially novels told in poetry, I used to write that way a lot and my creative writing teachers hated it), but on one of the fiction tables was “The Flamethrowers” by Rachel Kushner, a book I’ve tried and seen around a lot and now I’m finally reading it and enjoying it so far. It starts out west with an artist/motorcyclist which feels too “dangerous” for today’s times, rebelling these days is more through online posturing rather than dangerous doing, and that’s different and physical
Books I’ve read so far this year:
Wise Blood by Flannery O’Connor
The Bee Sting by Paul Murray
Something To Do With Paying Attention by David Foster Wallace
This magazine called Common Good started appearing in my mailbox a few months ago, I didn’t subscribe to it, I think it’s quarterly, but it’s about the “intersection of faith and work” (not the crossing or junction, but it’s always intersection) and my Christian readers will know that phrase and what I’m referring to, but that said it’s a really well-done magazine, with sections on the economy and sports, and here’s a great chart about organizing your junk drawer. Definitely different stuff than the typical Christian magazine.
Watching
I’ve been watching normal TV a bit more, like Seinfeld reruns and The Daily Show on Mondays when Jon Stewart is back in action.
My wife and I watched Groundhog Day and I haven’t seen it in a long time, Bill Murray is definitely a jerk in a lot of movies, the setup reminded me of Scrooge and Groundhog Day feels like the time he perfected his disinterested gaze and posture. The only part I remembered was the Ned Ryerson scenes and then Phil dropping a toaster in the bath tub, but yet he keeps waking up to the same day. I did not remember the old man dying each day and Phil trying to help each time, only for the same outcome. That’s really the turning point and it’s a great story of change from selfish to selflessness.
I stopped with Sopranos after season 1, I lost the momentum. I’ll try again.
