Author Archives: Naptimewriting

Infinite Jest quote of the day 14

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Appropos of Hal as narrator, by Hal as younger academic:

“We await, I predict the hero of non-action, that catatonic hero, the one beyond the calm, divorced from all stimulus, carried here and there across sets by burly extras whose blood sings with retrograde amines” (142).

Though Wallace disdained postmodern irony, and especially ironic distance that created a lack of humanity, he sure gets the self-referencing joke of postmodern lit pretty well…

And but so, this day of reading gave us the lethal purse snatching, the bricklayer’s accident clarification letter, and the page  long question that ends, “And but so why the abrupt consumer retreat back to good old voice-only telephoning?” after a huge surge toward video-TP conferencing.

Aces reading assignment, today. Stitches, from the on-the-inside laughing.

Go read Infinite Jest.

Awful truth—Uighur uprising uninteresting to Christian right

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So depressing that our media covers entertainment and Alaskan stories without putting proper perspective on the violent uprising in China.

Where now are the Republicans who wanted us to shout our disapproval of Iran from the highest, most offensive, and least appropriate mountains?

Check out this post by Glenn Greenwald on the double standard.

Don’t make me use the H word.  But when you pick and choose using your far-right-colored glasses (that color, I believe, is the really distorting maroon of upholstered hotel lobbies),  hyprocrisy is the only word to use.

Let them figure it out

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I have no problem letting Republicans figure out their own leaders, politics, and goals. They know much better than I what they want and how on earth they can believe the things they believe.

So I’m just saying this…of all the theories, and I’ve heard maybe eight this weekend, on why Palin quit a job she promised to do, I don’t care which reason is real and which is spin. What I care is that Canada embraces now the knowledge that I will undoubtedly leave this country if the Republicans choose her as their representative, and that by some stretch of faith, ignorance, or fraud, she gets elected President of these United States.

I’m not opposed to thoughtful, intelligent, inspiring Republicans getting their shot at running things. But I am opposed to that woman, who stands, talks, and walks for everything I find abhorrent in the way our democracy is going, putting her stamp on this nation.

Just saying. In advance. Appropos  of probably nothing.

IJ quote of the day 13

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the whole scene, really with Poor Tony and C and yrstruly, but here’s a snippet, all sic

“I yrstruly get a cold feeling of super station once more, you get wicked super station in this fucked up kindof shit life because its’ a never ending chase and you get too tired to go by much more than never ending habit and super station and everything like that so but I dont’ say any thing but yrstruly I have a cold super station about Poor Tony not wining while he makes like he has to cusually piss and takes a piss and the piss steams up around the lower ares of the bush with his back turned away and isnt’ looking around with interst or anything like that you never turn your back on the skeet when its’ partly your skeet” (134)

Thank dog for small favors

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Dear Universe,

Thank you, thank you for making fruit that does not need to be peeled or cut.  Washed, sure, mostly. Thank you for berries and grapes; they make my life so much easier I might actually cry. (All you chocking-hazard types can just get bent because I’m having a freaking moment here, and I sit with him when he eats, and I haven’t cut grapes since he was a year, and I’m bending over backwards here not letting him cry and respecting him so if I want to endanger his life a little it’s my business since I’m the one whose given up almost everything I know as happy and good in the world to give him things that are happy and good so just back the hell up and choose another blog to safetyvangelize.)

Thank you, Universe, for screwcap wine being okay now instead of all box winey.

Thank you Universe for my son’s perspective. On our hike I saw a deer and three wild turkey (not the former because of the latter, though that might be a good story, too) and he showed me a hawk, about 20 feet across a gorge, in a tree. I see stuff that’s moving and blow past things that are still. He sees everything. I’ve never before seen a hawk sitting still, watching.

Thank you, capitalism, for making pipe cleaners so cheap. Seriously. That’s like an hour of free thinking time while we quietly make fake flowers together for the house’s many vases. (Cat bastards make sure no real plant goes unmolested. For those keeping score, cats are more trouble than a fetus; newborns and infants and toddlers are more trouble than cats. Now cats are back on top, causing way more headaches than a three-year-old, even one without child care or preschool or any time away from me god help me don’t know how to make it through tomorrow or the next day.)

Thank you, Universe, for hummus. I would thank you more for avocado if my kid would eat it, because it’s an even more complete meal than hummus. But, we play the hand we’re dealt, and I appreciate hummus.

Thank you, youtube. Just for being you. Except all the creepy parts. I don’t appreciate having to prescreen searches to make sure some Plushy doesn’t pop up when I search for aardwark vids. But, still.

Thank you, England, for losing. We totally dig our fireworks. And the kazoo parade at the Russian River. I’m a total Yankee Doodle Dandy, macaroni and all. Seriously, how would we make it from Memorial Day to Labor Day without an excuse for outdoor cooking and excessive desserts? Thanks, British Empire. Most of the other colonies got totally scrod, but we did okay.

And thank you, Spouse, for the help yesterday. Your willingness to move the dust mop AND the whole pile of dirt about four feet out of the way when shrieks from our child interrupted my progress really helped. I was able to pick up my mopping again the next day, almost as if nothing had happened. You’re a peach.

And thank you Universe, for continuing to throw a freaking bone to the family you keep tossing about like a plaything. Thank goodness the illnesses (times thrity-two, by now, I think) and the car accident and the spitballs of bullshit you keep hurling at them just miss. There, CB. I’m grateful for you.

IJ quote of the day 10

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You’re almost to two weeks and you’ve cracked 100 pages. Congrats. Today you get a special bonus: several quotes.

IJ’s gorgeous prose quote of the day: “A curled bit of cloudy old Pledge-husk and a green thread from a  strip of GauzeTex wrap are complexly intertwined in the blue fibers of the carpet near Hal’s left ankle, which ankle is faintly swollen and has a blue twinge” (104).
[Wallace’s grammatical tic of using “which” as an adjective is at once infuriating and endearing. Or infuriating but less with incessant exposure.]

IJ’s philosophical quote of the day: “Are we not all of us fanatics? I say only what you of the U.S.A. only pretend not to know. Attachments are of great seriousness. Choose your attachments carefully. Choose your temple of fantacism with care. What you wish to sing of as tragic love is an attachment not carefully chosen” (107.)

IJ’s perfectly tuned pitch on tween-y voices quote of the day:
“‘Purchase a clue Kent Blott!’ Arslanian says.
‘The large and economy-size clue, Blott,’ Ingersoll chimes.
Beak sits up and says ‘God no not with pliers!’ and collapses back again, again with the spit-bubble. (113).

And IJ’s ETA quote of the day:
“‘You do not kertwang back. You play the calls, not a word, keep smiling. If you still win, you’ll have grown inside as a person.’
‘If you lose?’
‘If you lose, you do something private and unpleasant to his water-jug right before his next round.’
A couple of the kids have notebooks and studious nods” (119).

Bonus word of the day from Infinite Summer: Infsumalians. Lovely,  Kevin.

Found around the Web today

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I think Wednesday might become “shamelessly linking” day because it’s also Movie Day, during which my kid gets an hour of crap from a DVD and I rearrange furniture or finally put away winter clothes or whatever (whatever meaning both of those things, at least today).

Here’s a lame attempt at mocking the literati, offering a list of how to pretend to read like a hipster. (It’s funny if you aren’t above conflating “nerdy” and “ironic.” Or if you’ve never read any of the titles on the list.) I say, find the egregious error and win a prize, in which you can say you may be pretentious, but at least you’re not a poseur.

Here’s an article on the legal decision that nobody other than J.D. Salinger can write a sequel to Catcher. Swedish author calls it book banning. His lawyers said the derivative text was parody. Judge says no. And hopefully, is being misquoted with “naivety.”

Here’s a bit about Mayor Bloomberg’s literary reference to Roth’s newest novel and how, as always, it’s all about context.

Finally, here’s a small item to file in my gigantic folder of why Florida should be annexed to anyone who will take them. Place in subfolders “parents should be licensed” and “do not go to Florida.”

IJ quote of the day 9

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Oh, dang it! Today is pp105 max, and I’m dying with some quotes for tomorrow.

So, here you go, with apologies to Craig Kilborn and Jon Stewart (that’s right, punks, I’m *that* old because Daily didn’t use to mean Stewart and I know it), today’s moment of  Zen:

After Mario’s father Dr. Incandenza passed away, the new headmaster, Dr. Charles Tavis, a Canadian citizen, either Mrs. Incandenza’s half-brother or adoptive brother, depending on the version, C.T. had taken down Incandenza’s founding motto—TE OCCIDRE POSSUNT SED TE EDERE NON POSSUNT NEFAS EST¹—and had replaced it with the rather more upbeat TE MAN WHO KNOWS HIS LIMITATIONS HAS NONE” (81).

¹ [really, 32, but wordpress didn’t think we’d be blogging Wallace and the footnote characters only go to 3, which is laughable, considering this project]

¹ Roughly, ‘They Can Kill You, But the Legalities of Eating You Are Quite a Bit Dicier.’

Um, had Tavis left himself’s motto and added the newer, allegedly peppier aphorism, the sum would basically say, “if you know there are legal implications to said consumption, you can get around them, so then there’s *really* nothing stopping you.”

Also, the Latin translation is really more like “they can kill you but they can’t eat you because it’s illegal,” but as we have all noticed, Wallace puts things much better than anyone (I almost said “anyone out there,” but damn it, he’s not anymore. shit fuck piss.)

Seriously

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I’m not kidding. This is what I want to do.

Not the journalism part. The goatherding and cheesemaking part.

Seriously, seriously, seriously.

Maybe not Vermont. It’s cold there. Pretty. Cold. So’s New Hampster. But again, pretty. Collegiate. Cosmopolitan in fits and starts. Hmmmmmm.

As I posted last month, Peanut has already put in a request to be a cheesemaker. Our tour at the Pt. Reyes creamery is set for later this month.  After devouring their website and a wheel of Cowgirl Creamery’s  Mt. Tam brie, he is concerned that his brown shoes won’t fit when he’s big, and since he’s already picked them as his cheesemaking shoes, he’s in a quandry. Or was, for, like five minutes. Then he decided that if I would buy him red boots and a pink scooter when he’s big, that all his problems are solved.

Sure. And 75 acres of forested farmland, buddy.

IJ quote of the day 8

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Well, at least we get to reread endnote 304. Twice in two days. Fecal deposits and all.

So we end where 304 begins, thematically:

“Struck’s been at this over an hour, and his original sights have lowered considerably. He’s been feeling a bit punk all day, sinuses with that infallible  storm’s-on-the-way feeling of weight and clot and a goalie-mask headache that throbs with his heart, and he’s not trying to find some new resource in the piles that’s obscure and amateurish enough for him to transpose and semi-plagiarize without worrying about Poutrincourt  having read it or smelling a rat in the woodpile” (1055).

Consider this

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Item one: Peanut walked at least 3 miles and ran on half mile of today’s 4.5 mile hike in my favorite of all places to find early blackberries, Tilden Regional Park.

Item two: I had counted on a two hour workout with 35 lbs in a backpack but settled for a glorious four hour blackberry and poison oak extravaganza.

Item three: Peanut took a full hour to eat his pudding (yes, it’s Tuesday!) and PB&LC before acquiescing to nap.  I almost clawed my own eyes out.

Item four: But I didn’t. I read Infinite Jest instead.

Item five: Spouse came home early for Tennis Tuesday and we all ate crackers and hummus in between sets. And by sets I mean whenever Peanut decided he was done playing hockey with my old tennis racquet and the pink tennis ball he picked out. I’ve been playing tennis since I could walk. And I think I found out today that I’m really a lefty.

Item six: We walked the half block home and played one round of Candyland. Ask The Kitchen Witch how I feel about Candyland.

Item seven: Peanut and Spouse screamed at each other through another bath. And teeth. And new mouthwash because, my  god, that kid’s breath stinks for someone who brushes twice a day. Damn.

Item eight: After his timeout for kicking Daddy, Peanut and I had a lovely talk and two books.

Item nine: Peanut then screamed and cried for an extra song after stories and songs.

I need an item ten. Because today is all ping-pongy between phenomenal and crappy. And though the day was great overall, I’m left on a slight aftertaste of crappy. So I’m breaking all this week’s rules about refined sugar and dairy and wine and such (long story, different post, fourteen alien pounds dragging me down as though they need to be the straw that f—ing poked the camel in the eye then laughed as it tried to cry but couldn’t because it lives in a desert and even a camel’s body knows not to waste tears on something so stupid, but mine doesn’t) to have a South African shiraz and some mediocre soy ice crap with coffee and chocolate in it. And pizza. And some pistachios  I just found. And maybe some heirloom tomatoes with balsamic and olive oil and grey salt. For fiber.

on that note…

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This week’s Peanutisms:

“Mommy. Don’t EVER give me plain goat cheese again. I only want my cheese without herbs.”

“I want something really new that we haven’t had in long time.”

“Mommy, Daddy. ‘P’ peanut. ‘P’ pee. ‘P’ punkin. ‘P’ pree. ‘P’ I don’t want to do this game anymore.”

“I just don’t want one baby. They’re too little.”

“Mommy, you picked me so many blackberries that I need to go poop.”