Taking a Wild Guess, Here

For those of you playing along at home: This is not strictly what you could call a spoiler (because I haven't read the entire book [I'm still in the very low three figures]), but it's a bit of a guess about where Infinite Jest is going. Don't play if you care about not finding things out till the very end of the book. Me, I like to think ahead. Guess at the author's direction the first time through.

And if you're not reading along with the Infinite Summer project. Too bad. Still, a couple of these videos you'll find pretty funny.

Maybe our author was trippin' on some serious weed (or something) when he saw this particular episode, to wit from the first episode of the first season of the Pythons:



Could that really have been the inspiration for IJ?

Then there's (anachronistically w/r/t the film but not necessarily the novel) this:



Not half-bad music by Sakamoto Ryuichi.

And, of course, there's this (uncensored) Matt & Trey classic:



For those of you who've read it: am I on the right track?

Scramble(-d)

I played golf last week with my father. He's 85. Can almost shoot his age. That, to me, is a kind of accomplishment akin, in regular guys who are not professional athletes devoted body and soul to their sport, to winning a major. Shooting your age. 72 at 72, e.g. 80 at 80. A couple of birdie putts dropping, a truer seven iron from the rough: that sort of thing would have done it for him. Remarkable. Anyway, we were early off the starting tee. Nobody in front of us for a few holes and nobody behind us. It looked to be a leisurely round. Play. Rehit (for funsies, for sure) those putts that didn't break the way you thought they were supposed to—and always making them. Make fun of my brother, the best golfer of the three of us. In our own time. At our own pace. I mean the guy's 85 after all. Why hurry when you're having fun. Anyway. Just as we're about to tee off on six, a foursome of cigar-chomping thirty-somethings go buzzing by us in their carts to seven. Then we see (and hear) another foursome piling on on the fifth tee. They were having some sort of tournament, and instead of everybody starting off seriatim on the first tee or even doing first and tenth tees, they were scrambling: that is to say playing eighteen, but starting on all the odd tees all at once in order to get it done more quickly. So much for our leisurely pace. We were sandwiched between them for the rest of the morning.

And that's what the first hundred pages or so of Infinite Jest feels like. A scramble. A whole bunch of characters starting off on different holes at the same time. Looks like to me they're all about to play eighteen, and we'll just have to keep up with all their strokes along the way (I guess that last carried the metaphor too far, huh?). May need a database (or database-like mind) just to keep up. Do they all morph in some way or another (or choose not to)? Do their story arcs parallel, intersect, mirror, converge? We'll have to read on to see.

All-in-all, off to a good start.

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Lots of other folks are participating in Infinite Summer. This guy pointed me to this guy's reading.

Days of Yorick

Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio; a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy; he hath borne me on his back a thousand times; and now, how abhorred in my imagination it is! My gorge rises at it. Here hung those lips that I have kissed I know not how oft. Where be your gibes now? (Hamlet, V.i)

With a tip of the hat to Bud Parr at the fine Chekhov's Mistress, this looks interesting: a Summer of Jest. No, no, check that, an Infinite Summer: an on-line group read of David Foster Wallace's monumental Infinite Jest.

Sad to say, I've never read it. This just might be my opportunity. Here's the reading schedule, lifted from their site:

Date Page Location % Complete

Fri, Jun 26 63 1522 6%
Mon, Jun 29 94 2233 9%
Fri, Jul 03 137 3236 13%
Mon, Jul 06 168 3900 17%
Fri, Jul 10 210 4844 21%
Mon, Jul 13 242 5561 24%
Fri, Jul 17 284 6545 28%
Mon, Jul 20 316 7250 32%
Fri, Jul 24 358 8174 36%
Mon, Jul 27 390 8869 39%
Fri, Jul 31 432 9832 44%
Mon, Aug 03 464 10556 47%
Fri, Aug 07 506 11510 51%
Mon, Aug 10 537 12243 54%
Fri, Aug 14 580 13233 59%
Mon, Aug 17 611 13925 62%
Fri, Aug 21 653 14900 66%
Mon, Aug 24 685 15628 69%
Fri, Aug 28 727 16554 74%
Mon, Aug 31 759 17293 77%
Fri, Sep 04 801 18315 81%
Mon, Sep 07 833 19021 84%
Fri, Sep 11 875 19972 89%
Mon, Sep 14 907 20767 92%
Fri, Sep 18 949 21708 96%
Mon, Sep 21 981 22403 100%

Not really all that arduous—even including the endnotes.  (N.b.:  But don't take my listing the locations above as an implied endorsement of Kindle as to which I'm neutral at this point.  If, however, the Kindle has the effect of actually reinvigorating the moribund publishing industry and providing me with the opportunity to find an agent who is actually taking new authors and get my novel published, well...I just might be tempted to take sides!)

Anybody with me? Of course, that means I might have to blog about my experience.

Or, maybe we could all just take tennis lessons.