Day 6 - Rest Day or A Breath of Air at Pg. 193
Things I’ve done on our day off from Infinite Jest: (1) went to the gym and ran four miles, quickly followed by (2) getting off the treadmill too quickly and wobbling into someone jumping rope leading to (3) tripping and falling into a very muscled man doing push-ups. There were other things that I did, but they mostly involve me scribbling things on a notepad and typing at a keyboard.
Is this how we’re going to feel once we get off David Foster Wallace’s proverbial treadmill, reading everything with the same sped-up lens of IJ? I half expect my reading of the next book to go something like this (to be read in the voice of Phil Hartman):
Well, well, two characters speaking to each other, this can’t be anything but an exercise in wordplay! Wait a minute, wait a minute, they’re having a conflict. My word, they’re actually responding to what’s been previously said! My ears ring with the sweet sounds of continuity! My eyeballs are flowing down this page at the rate of a water droplet down Victoria Falls! My god, the next chapter is already here and it features the same two characters! I’m already turning the page! Too fast! Too fast! AHHHHHHH! (falls off the table)
Oh, Phil Hartman, I miss you. My sister hated when I watched News Radio, and sure, it was a so-so show, but you were great in it. Come to think of it, you were in a lot of projects you were too good for: Jingle All The Way, So I Married An Axe Murderer. I was too little to see you on Saturday Night Live. R.I.P.
NEW CHALLENGE for us, Elizabeth: I challenge you to pick out five of the biggest, fattest, most obscure vocabulary words from the next reading. Then using those, I’ll make up my own sample sentences. I’ll be doing the same for you, of course.
P.S. Congratulations, I’m pretty sure you beat my Panini post with your DFW Cookie recipe. You being the one most resembling DFW of course, you are obliged to try out the recipe yourself and be the true judge. Enjoy!
