Ouch. That’s Hot.

But what to do with it all?  I once saw an interview with the author whence he noted the improbability that those who reviewed his book had read it.  “Do the math,” he said, “there’s too many pages to read it all in that amount of time.”  So true.  It 0nly took me a decade of false starts and a few months of dedication.  Nothing that would happen by an end-of-the-day-Friday sort of deadline.

With other books, I’ve made it a point to look Google-up the words and references I don’t know as I go, tightening my mind’s grasp on our language, to more firmly bear-hug and french-kiss this great English tongue of ours, in American.  Well, that wasn’t really in the cards for this one.  If there was ever a time to let oblique references and literary obfuscation wash over me like a dip under the Niagara, it was now.

So yeah, it’s big.  And full of good stuff.  Diamonds a-plenty.  In plenty of rough.  The shear quantity of rough parts I found troubling, though I suppose his editor did not.

On the up side, I really enjoyed the whole Salinger/Glass family thing.  I happily latched on to Hal as an updated Holden Caulfield beset by East Coast prep-school privilege and brimming with potential, yet unsure of how to proceed with no real dreams and/or direction to point his way save the expectations of his uniquely gifted family.  But I had nothing but head-scratching for the whole Quebecois Separatist subplot,  though it was funny and the accent was outrageous.  That being said, after a thousand pages, I was getting pretty curious as to how the whole ridiculous attack of the wheelchair-bound assassins was going to play out, to see what sort of mini-eschaton was about unfold on the courts of the Academy.  To see how DFW was going to tie it all together.  But then?  Well…  nothing.

Argh.

I’m not big on plot.  My knee-jerk reaction to the best-novel-ever question is On The Road.  But there were some pot-boiler, page-turner twists in there that ought to be going unambiguously Somewhere.  Sure, you can cut up the book and re-string some scenes together in a more chronologically consistent order.  You can make some educated guesses as to what lies behind the many veils of ambiguity.  You can fill in the narrative gaps about the short-term fate of our wonderboy, Inc.  But why-oh-why-oh-why does Mr. Wallace feel justified in cranking out dozen-page-long drug-mumbled rambles plucked right from the brains of addle-minded minor characters without giving us just a little proper satisfaction as to how the thing turns out?  Yeah?  Not saying I need to be spoon-fed Readi-Whip and Cheez-Whiz to be kept happy, but a wee bit of payoff would have been polite.  Is it too much to ask?  Dan Brown wouldn’t do this to me.

Despite this (point-missing, I know) grumble, INFJ is certainly a thing of beauty with much to ponder.  Ponderous Exhibit #1 being addiction.  Nary a character escaped the grip of some compulsion or another, chemical or otherwise.  But mostly chemical.

Addiction, in INFJ, is the unspoken tie that binds every last man, woman and child in the near North American future.  Your fix could be as simple as TV, or over-training for tennis, or as terrifying as multi-day blackouts at the mercy of an alphabet soup of grade-A pharmaceuticals.  At the root, it’s not so different.

DFW delves deep into 12-step insight, including the concept of learning to separate Identifying and Comparing.  The idea is that when listening to a fellow addict’s tale of woe, regardless of how horrible it may be — and DFW has a flair for the surreal and gratuitous grotesque, disturbingly — the important thing to remember is the common shared humanity between you and the speaker, to look at this fellow suffering human being as being like you, with the same feelings and fears, the same shames and weaknesses, and the same longings for escape.  Don’t compare, don’t judge, don’t rank, just understand how they felt, how you’ve felt, how much we’ve all got in common.

Despite the hyperbole, there’s a lot of  stop-and-look-in-the-mirror stuff in there.  In other words, there’s plenty for any honest person to Identify with, as long as you can remember not to Compare.

So, now that I’ve read it?  I’d like to read it all over again.  I missed too much linguistic trickery the first time, and the words were too luxurious,  too sweetly decadent, not to be enjoyed a second time.  Eventually.

For instance, most of the story takes place in the fictitious just-outside-of-Boston town of Enfield, Massachusetts.  However, there really was an Enfield, Massachusettes.  It’s now at the bottom of a lake, washed-over and drowned-out in the name of progress, just like the book’s experialist territories formerly of USA.  There’s a lot more where that came from.  A lot more.

I must admit that I had pinned my hopes on a more transcendent experience through this journey of a thousand pages, to catch a view of some new Xanadu now that I’ve climbed to the top of this mighty pulp mountain.  INFJ is too realistic for that.  Like the character of Don Gately, on occasion we find moments of enlightenment, but most days we must struggle to do the redemptive work before us.  As the adage says: “One day at a time.”

This book has been on my shelf for about 10 years.  Since the late nineties, it’s been skulking there in the corner.  Bright-oranged and baby-blued, unmissable in girth and shelf-sagging heft.  (Can’t find it?  Look for the low spot on Shelf “W”.)  This year marked my third attempt at getting through, though I must confess that my motives had not been pure.

My first swing at INFJ was driven by thoughts of Ought.  As a recent graduate in the fantastic field of English Literature, I knew that it was my duty to continue my education.  (Call me old-fashioned, but I still buy into the idea that the goal of a Liberal Arts Education is to learn how to educate one’s self, ’til death or senility do we part.)  I had heard tale of this this new scribbler, this inscrutable hotshot Dave Wallace, and felt I ought to size him up as only I, college graduate, could.  So I read The Girl With Curious Hair and started in on INFJ.  Didn’t get far.  At all.  I had cash-in-hand waitering jobs to attend to.  (English Major career opportunities and all that.)

A few years later, the urge hit me again.  This time, I needed to get a few new intellectual bragging rights to wave around.  Rock ‘n Roll was good kicks, but my new venue for social performance was lousy with grad students.  I figured that tackling the Gen X version of Ulysses would do the trick the next time someone asked, “Read anything good lately?”  Unfortunately, the answer “I’ve read INFJ” is just as satisfying at a cocktail party as “I’m reading INFJ.”  And since nobody else had finished it either, there weren’t many questions relating to the captivating climax and the delicious denouement.  There was no need to complete the quest, as long as it loitered on the back of the john with a bookmark stuck firmly in place.

But this year he came up a lot.  New people that I’d met in new circles found him worth reading, indeed, worth finishing.  He seemed to have something to say.  So I licked a finger and held it to the wind, catching more and more interviews, essays, addresses, and other bandanna-brained dives into the icky depths of modern  life.  In death, his once-shelved specter loomed large.  I started to love the guy, the man, DFW.

Motivational rudder righted, compass reset, and course corrected, I set sail once again.

I know it’s been way too long since I’ve hit the right balance of inspired and untired to do a little writing, but the last issue of Spin has convinced me it’s nigh time to pop the cork on another bottle of blog.

So it’s back to my roots; back to the guys that most recently lit my muse.  Columbus, OH may not be an Athens or an Austin or a Seattle, but this college town has got more than its share of real deal rock ‘n roll, as evidenced by the August ‘09 issue of Spin which declared that it’s pages contained “100 of the Greatest Bands You’ve (Probably) Never Heard.”

The headline was right on the money.  Yes, 96% of these guys I’ve never heard.  But the other 4% were some of the greatest.

I know because 4 of the top 100  hailed from what  was once known as Cowtown, the now magnificent megalopolis of Columbus.  That’s 4% of Spin’s Top 100 Worldwide.  That’s saying something for a snatch of real estate which sure as hail ain’t New York or LA or Chicago or even Hotlanta.

Granted, all of these guys peaked before I earned the right to plug in my Fender Twin, but it’s this scene that gave me the dream to keep it going on and on and on.  (Not Stopping Believing, as it were.)

So, for the record, they are:

Gaunt

Great Plains

Royal Crescent Mob

Scrawl

I’m a little bummed that I can’t find a decent picture online of any of these guys rocking out in obviously Central Ohio sort of way.  Sure, there’s a million pictures of bands bashing away at Bernie’s, but they all post-date the digital revolution (iPhones n’at.)  I’m sure that somebody out there has got a stash and a scanner.  Get to work!  Because of this, I’m using the above picture of some guy wearing a Gaunt t-shirt.  It’s the best that I can do.

Just to round out the Buckeye Beat, I must also mention that the hard workin’ Michael Stanley Band made Spin’s list of “Essential Heartland Rock” at slot number six with his EMI-released and spot-on titled, “Heartland”.  Trust me, he was a big deal if you grew up on bunny-ear-only Cleveland TV.  Kind of a local King Of All Media.  The kind of guy who only had to play one show at year, at the biggest shed in town, and it always sold out.

Still not convinced?  To let the proving begin, here he is with a song I know you know, the glorious romp “He Can’t Love You.”  Enjoy:

Recently, The Economist ran this article about a new law to rid the land of Nebuchadnezzar from the the dangers of secondhand puffing by introducing legislation to nix lighting up within the four walls of all public institutions.

How’d it work for them?  Here’s a sampling of the hyperbolic reaction greeting the new measure:

“My cousin was recently murdered by terrorists, my neighbour was tortured by the police, my electricity is cut for most of the day, the same is true in most hospitals in the city. And they are worried about smoking?”

“Bring back Saddam. We were free to smoke anywhere then.”

“Prisons are public buildings, right? So will they now prevent guards from stubbing out cigarettes on the arms, legs and backs of inmates?”

Wowzers.  That all being said, the key fact behind the bill is that smoking is responsible for 55 Babylonian deaths a day, as opposed to 10 for insurgent-related shootings and bombings.   A 10-death-daily toll is still way too high for my little green-lawned and shrubberied suburban mind to comprehend, but it’s still a lot safer to face the jihad than to make a habit of sparking up a Camel.   Of course, that just doesn’t feel right, now does it?

This gap between feeling and thinking illustrates a greater principle:  People are pretty bad at setting priorities.

Ever since reading the book Innumeracy, I’ve been fascinated by the odds underlying life as we know it.  In his book, author John Allen Paulos makes the case that the average person can’t apply basic math to everyday decisions.  This results in much idiocy and hullabaloo.

Freakonomics mined much of the same turf when it famously pointed out that swimming pools are much more lethal than pistols, yet we joyfully take the kids swimming and fear them finding a gun.  And we can listen to Dave Ramsey run the figures all day and then go out and still slowly swipe ourselves into debt and depression.

I’m as guilty as anybody when it comes to ignoring the numbers.  Not in my head, mind you, but somewhere in that emotional part of the back of the brain where opinions are formed and next steps are felt-through rather than thought-out.  But I’m not alone.  There’s a growing field of study known as Behavioral Economics that’s been endeavoring to figure it all out.  A guy named Barack Obama channeled it to great success last year with a little campaign called “Hope & Change”, so it might be on to something.

Another resource I’d highly recommend is the BBC documentary The Century Of The Self which describes the revolution on Madison Avenue a few generations back, when Freud’s Id was tapped to sell us what we want instead of what we need.

Spock we are not.  That’s not a bad thing, but a little self-awareness might do us some good while we attempt to “live long and prosper.”

Great interview in the month’s TapeOp with Sufjan Stevens, a man mostly unknown but loved and adored by my former clique in the big ol’ OH-IO.  The article is called “So Wrong, But So Right” and that really sums up everything that is true about this guy and the way in which he goes about making his music.

I listened to Illinoise again yesterday at the gym. (The gym being this place where I like to strap on the headphones and find a world of my own, the anonymity of the group-sweat,  being together alone, all human, inescapably human.  The man beside me in the locker room, falling apart, his 60-some years of burgers and fries falling over his too-tight whites, heavy-breathing and panting while shrugging black socks up his shower-damp feet.  A quick-shave later and he’s risen from the bench, fully robed in pin-point starched oxford and charcoal-wool slacks.  Matched cordovan belt to Johnston & Murphy’s.  Watch, ring, wallet, keys.  A captain of local industry ready to take on the rest of his day, transformed, indestructibly armoured by the Macy’s Men’s Department.)

At the gym yesterday, I listened again to Illinoise.  (The gym being the place where I like to really give things a listen, being a captive in search of an audience to slip into, being able to listen in perfect ear-budded stereo to new and old and try new things knowing that just because my body’s strapped to the machine doesn’t mean that my mind can’t be stretching its wings.)

And so, at the gym yesterday, while listening to Illinoise, and reflecting on the recording as a recording after reading TapeOp’s interview with Sufjan, the following point was made more clear than ever:  It’s not what you’ve got, it’s what you do with it.  It’s not the tools, it’s the hands that weild them.  Within 10 feet I’ve got enough gear to write the next folk anthem and record a MySpace-ready demo capable of blowing up the indie charts.  Within 10 feet I’ve got enough typing-up and editing-down tools to write the greatest and latest novel to burn a hole in your soul.  Within 10 feet I’ve got a broadband connection and quiet room and a space for my head to burst, to bloom.

All of this can be summed up in one quote from Dallas Willard:  Never try to find a place to speak, try to have something to say. Alrighty then, here goes.

Here’s the quick deal on this one:  There’s been a lot of love passed around my extended circles of friends with this book, and baby, I was feelin’ the lovin’ too.

So, cynical spectacles smashed by Same Kind of Different As Me, I hereby take another crack at posting from the heart, and shall let the soul roll wherever the soul may wish to flow.  Heck, you’re listening to a guy who once read and fully embraced not just The Celestine Prophecy, but also gave solid consideration to the The Tenth Insight.  I’m very ok with didactic cheeseball parables loosely inspired by real or imagined visions and touted as the next big thing to change your life forever.  I might even start watching Oprah.  I might.

The big difference between this tale and similar books (always shrouded in mystic light breaking through the dust jackets and paper-backed bookcovers glowing warmly on its way to your heart like a fleet of literary Thomas Kincaids) is Jesus.  That’s just facts.  Once you get into this book, you start hanging out with Jesus.  If you’ve ever done that, or would like to try it, this book will bring some joy to your heart.  If that creeps you out, you might not be into this one.

For me, it was like popping in an old CD that swung open memory gates and reminded me of good times, good friends.  The characterization of the Lamb of God as Buddy Jesus brought back to mind times we spent together, and prompted me to kneel down and dial in.  I’m glad it did.  Yeah, the book’s a little different, but then again the things that it wrestles with — divine love & forgiveness — are a little unusual too.  It won’t hurt you to read up on it.

In a self-less act of self-denial of the cynical self, and in an effort to cultivate the warm little garden of love a-bloomin’ in my heart, I will not offer any of the disclaimers that I (as a former English major who is capable of reading and enjoying David Foster Wallace and who would otherwise be judged “Totally Awesome” by a jury of his well-read peers) really wants to drop right about now.

The bottom line is that this book tells a good tale (a bonafied true story!) about a homeless black guy and rich white guy who become best friends through the pluck and persistance of the latter’s freakin’ angelic wife.  The story is remarkable, and it has left a real mark on the city of Ft. Worth, TX.  I’m not saying that it’s for everyone, but anyone who ever laid a claim to a hope in The Lawd could use this book as quick test of the state of their soul.  (I know mine could use some work.)

Now this is getting exciting.  For the second time this week, I’ve been able to blog about a book by an I author I know.  Heck, the way I’m networking up the ranks of the media elite, I’d expect Danielle Steel & Rupert Murdoch to be ringing me up soon.

Up for discussion is Jeremiah (Kingtycoon) Methuseleh’s Raindrinker - The Murder’s March. (Buy yours today!)  And I’m impressed.

I’m not just impressed in the way that you’re impressed by your buddy’s band ’cause you figured they’d really suck, but you went to the show to be nice and were surprised that they could actually all play their instruments together at the same time.

No, I’m impressed by the world that the formidable Kingtycoon has created.  I’m impressed by the completeness of the vision.  I’m impressed by the writing, the agility of the language, the craftwork, the book.  I started it out of personal curiosity, but finished it out of fascination.

To be honest, I’m really not a big fantasy guy.  Tolkien is still on my “To Read” list, and I know I’ll never get around to Robert Jordan no matter how many of my friends are devotees.   But this book is also a book of ideas.  Up for discussion are concepts of The Self , Identity, Duty, the Divine.

It’s fertile soul, well-seeded, and ready to sprout the already planned next 21 volumes to complete the story.  Ah, ambition!!  It is a beautiful thing!!

I recently had the pleasure of enjoying Dr. Johnson’s accessible yet thorough summation of the upper-left coast’s passionate political dalliance with Marx and his recounting of some very earnest sparks struck in hopes of lighting up a revolution.  Unfortunately, it’s a little soggy up in that corner of the country.

But it’s the numbers that really got me.  Back a turn of a century or two ago in the rough-n-ready Pacific Northwest, Eugene Debs was able to pull one vote for every ten that went to the ever-heroic, big-game-huntin’, horseback-riddin’, Teddy Roosevelt.

That One-in-Ten/Republican-to-Socialist ratio translates to state vote tallies in the low thousands, not the hundreds-of-thousands like you’d have to win today.  In other words, back then you could start spinning national policy with a vote count that would barely qualify you as a mega-church pastor.  I guess a little charisma once went a long way.

Furthermore, the  Socialist Party was able to achieve this while preaching a red-scary philosophy that would have made Dennis Kucinich look like flip-floppin’, middle-of-the-roadin’, convictionless tool of the vast right-wing conspiracy.

Of all of this, I can conclude only one thing:  These were different times.

Today, candidates run focus-group led campaigns to swing the swing vote a percentage point or two in their favor.  Today, we have two parties that differ more in theory than practice.  (Bush cut taxes for most of us while funding a little make-work program called The War On Terror, Obama pledges to cut taxes for most of us while stimulating us to make some work.)

I suppose it’s nice to have the stability.  But how long can it last?   I would guess that the gap between the poor and the rich, between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie, is a greater thing now than it was in a Washington State mining town in 1900.  I would also guess that these terms probably don’t translate very well to the average South Dakotan on the job in one of the Call Centers that seem to be holding on just fine despite the recession.

I might even have to admit that compared to the kid in Cambodia that helped Old Navy sow my fancy new t-shirt, that I’m the King Of The Hill with my boot on the necks of the rest of the world.

It’s all somewhere in the numbers.

Outside of soft spot for Woody Guthrie and Billy Bragg, I’m no fan of last century’s revolutionaries, but I have to admit it would have been kicks to hear some of the banter bouncing around the room.  Now we’ve got bigger numbers.  We might need some bigger ideas.

Yes, yes, yes… give me 200 pages of always superfluous & sometimes superlicious style and this blind pig will find the acorn.  Or maybe a nugget.  So it is that Michael Chabon writes a bit about feeling outta place whether in his cradle of Berkeley or on a business trip to a euphemistically christened Middleburg, USA.   “You have to be weird somewhere,” he writes, “might as well be here.”

The take-home tidbit here (Would you like a doggy-bag, sir?) is that it is our shared culture that provides us with the cues and the shibboleths — political, socio-economic, religious, etc. — that either allow us to belong or push us outside.  In other words, if we didn’t know each other so well, we wouldn’t know how much we were different.

Well sir, that makes sense.   And in the hopes of making this world a better place, I leave you with the words of the visionary Perry Farrell:

Wish I knew everyone’s nickname,
all their slang and all their sayings.
Every way to show affection,
How to dress to fit the occasion…

Blacks call each other brother and sis’
Count me in ’cause I been missed.
I’ve seen color changed by a kiss.
Ask my brother
And my sister.

Wish we all waved…
All waved…
All waved…

And now I’m feeling free to be me.