6 : almost infinite summer

Okay, I’m ready to begin again. Begin what, you ask? Everything, including this blog. I’m feeling optimistic and inspired. It’s not quite summer yet, but I’m already feeling the vibes.* This scorching heat wave we’re experiencing is ominous, however, and the last remaining days of spring have wilted into a sad, shriveled clump of brown plant corpse. Nevertheless, there is an indefinable spiritual buoyancy that emerges in the summer climate, even during the heat waves. Perhaps it’s simply the absence of winter. Perhaps it is due to the fact that, even at 100 degrees Fahrenheit, the temp is much closer to our natural body heat compared to the sub-zero Celsius frost of winter and damp, layered-sweatshirt chill of Northwest Indiana spring.

All of this warmth and buoyancy has complimented the continuous rotation of Fleet Foxes songs emanating from whatever music-playing device is on hand. Their music has been a unifying force in our household, as even my five-year-old daughter loves it despite her self-proclaimed preference for “girl songs” (note: Fleet Foxes is all men). Their new album Helplessness Blues, with its rich tapestry of melody and harmony and pastoral beauty, has been keeping the spirits alive and kicking throughout the usual tedium of daily routine. See/hear below.



Vocal harmonies have been on my mind lately and there does seem to be an inherent summery quality to them. The so-called ‘California Sound’ of the late 1960s/1970s—Beach Boys, Fleetwood Mac, America, even the frickin' Eagles—evokes a curious sense of tingly seasonal nostalgia in me even though I was either yet-to-be-conceived or barely a toddler when that music was released. Classic rock radio broadcasting from my dad’s ’78 Ford Thunderbird stereo back when I was around half a decade old surely played a part in provoking this nostalgic response.

The Midwestern fantasy of California as a magical land of summer cheer has persisted since I was quite young: scenes of warm southern California beaches, azul skies and cotton white clouds, surfboards and neon yellow swimwear, that orange 1970s haze you see in old photographs coloring the air like ocean spray, a sandy blond dream soundtracked by the crackle of scanning FM radio waves. I combine all of those audio/visuals with assorted postcard visions of northern California forests, all rich redwood and lush green foliage rustling, a pastoral landscape ripe with living-off-the-land idealism. All of this is evoked in the sound of those ‘California’ bands.† Amusingly, I’m almost certain that I first heard most of that music in our family doctor’s office waiting room, circa 1980-1984, so scenes of sitting on sticky vinyl chairs and reading Highlights magazine insert themselves in this summer fantasy Viewmaster session.



Speaking of pastoral landscapes, an impending trip to the remote Irish countryside and the uninterrupted technological blackout—no cell phone, no computer, no TV—it entails, in addition to two glorious, humming 8-hour flights of beverage-and-snack-provided luxury, has presented an opportunity to belatedly begin my participation in a summer reading challenge: reading David Foster Wallace’s mammoth Infinite Jest.

A short history of my relationship with David Foster Wallace and Infinite Jest: I purchased Infinite Jest, encouraged by repeated namedrops in the music magazines I read as well as its general notoriety among young collegians, at Caveat Emptor in Bloomington IN, probably around 1998 or 1999. This 1,079-page magnum opus sat on my bookshelf until around 2001, when I foolishly attempted it as a bedtime read, got about 30 pages or so into it before my weak attention span waned. It wasn’t terribly difficult reading, but it was and is way too intellectually rich and intense for bedtime. Bedtime reading should be light, and nothing about this book could be described as light. Even its physical weight was a problem; it was too heavy and uncomfortable to hold while lying down. No, this was something that not only required real attention, it deserved it, and I just wasn’t willing to give it at the time.

I’m ashamed to say that thoughts of DFW and Infinite Jest remained dormant until hearing about his death in 2008. I came across some of his nonfiction online and it instantly, as Wallace might say, rung a cherry in me. I began exploring his oeuvre and anything related to him. I started with Although Of Course You End Up Becoming Yourself, which is author David Lipsky’s book-length road trip interview with Wallace, just to get to know him a little bit. This was followed by the DFW books Brief Interviews with Hideous Men and Consider the Lobster, the latter a brilliantly versatile essay collection. I’ve nearly completed his other nonfiction book A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again and have his first short story collection Girl with Curious Hair in my queue. I recommend any of these as primers before tackling Infinite Jest.

At the risk of sounding presumptuous, I get Wallace. He has a mind that you can tell is almost superhumanly powerful with intelligence and insight, yet his voice comes across as warm, humble, self-deprecating and LOL-level funny. I’ve yet to find anything pretentious or ‘academic’ about his writing, even while reading a 62-page essay on linguistics and grammar.** He’s become my absolute favorite writer, especially for his nonfiction, and I now feel it’s time to tackle the beast on the bookshelf.

I was batting around the idea of reading Infinite Jest as a summer challenge seemingly moments before I serendipitously discovered that an actual Infinite Jest summer reading challenge existed and was conducted in 2009. There’s even a website for it here. Naturally, this sealed the deal on my decision. I’ve already got my dual bookmarks—a Flash postcard for the main story and an old Northwest Airlines boarding pass from 2003 for the endnotes, both of which I felt were appropriate for some reason—placed in position and ready for battle.

My progress on the book may or may not be documented here. Frankly, I’d rather spend that precious time reading than writing about reading, but we’ll see. I’ll most certainly post something when I finish it. 75 pages per week! That doesn’t sound like a terribly large number, but these are David Foster Wallace pages. With several hundred footnotes (which often contain some of his funniest and most endearing writing). Again, I don't expect it to be horribly difficult reading, just too rich and challenging and rewarding and intense and funny and way too deserving of my undivided attention to skim through lightly. See you on the other side (of the book, that is).

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* I find it embarrassingly and pathetically lame that updates on this blog have been arriving at such a glacial pace that a mere two posts ago I was praising the summer vibes of last year. Poor show, Mike. Poor show, indeed.

† Yes, I am well versed enough in rock history to know that a lot of these ‘California’ bands are not actually from California. I’m talking about vibes, not literal facts. Their music feels like California, at least on a surface level.

** This essay, from Consider the Lobster, was preceded by an extremely entertaining journalism piece covering the AVN awards, which is the adult film industry’s version of the Oscars.