I was just listening to some Faithless as I was doing the washing up, and when ‘God is a DJ’ came on, it really hit me that I’ll be seeing these guys lives in about 8-9 weeks time. And I got really excited by that fact.
I’ve wanted to see Faithless live for so long, being totally in love with all of their music, and blown away every time I’ve seen any footage of their live performances. I’ve got a live album, and the sheer energy and passion they let loose on stage is incredible.
I mentioned just before I went to see Rammstein that Faithless and Korn were the other two bands that I’ve always wanted to go see. Well, before 2010 is even halfway through, I’ll have ticked two off that list of three. Hopefully Korn will tour Europe again before too long.
Evidently people just don’t look at my face, as nobody (save for the girlfriend) has noticed without prompting that I shaved my beard off over the weekend. Seriously, I’ve had a goatee beard for nearly 9 months, but nobody has commented that it’s missing.
I’m starting to understand why women get pissed off at their men for not noticing a new hairstyle.
Fact: Infinite Jest would be less of a bitch to read if DFW used footnotes instead of endnotes.
mar-see-ah
I’m a month into Infinite Jest now, and about halfway through. It was a bit of a slog at first, especially the constant flicking to endnotes, but after I started using a bookmark for that section of the book it made things a whole lot easier.
I sort of understand why he uses endnotes, but sometimes it’s ridiculously annoying to flick forward and discover a 3-word note. At other times, however, I love the massive asides and disconnects to the main text, especially when it gives you a much better view of the near-future in which the book is set. I’m thinking specifically of Hal and Orin’s phone conversation about the history of Quebecois separatism, for example.
The writing in the rest of the book is still magnificent. The lengthy passage detailing Gately’s thoughts on AA meetings is simply stunning, weaving tales of unbelievable substance-abuse lows with Gately’s experiences of being sober.
I remember reading Haunted by Chuck Palahniuk a few years back, and in the endnotes he tells how at live readings of one of the short stories therein (‘Guts’, if memory serves) people used to faint because it was so horrifying. To my mind, that story wasn’t so bad, but there’s one passage in Infinite Jest which is a lot worse.
This won’t spoil anything, but those who have read the book will remember the passage I’m talking about: it’s one of the attendees at the AA meeting telling how she had a stillborn baby because of doing a shitload of drugs during the pregnancy, but still carrying it round with her for months afterwards.
That was a truly fucked up story, but the writing was paced so well that you couldn’t just fly through it. You were forced to read it and absorb the horror.
And I think that’s the enjoyment factor of the book as a whole: you can’t skim it, you can’t read it quickly. It demands attention and focus, which the use of endnotes actually increases.
Now, only another 500 pages to go…
Reblogged from: mar-see-ah
Originally posted on: Marcia is Amused.
Important question: is cheese better eaten hot or cold?
I’ve noticed a big upswing in followers the last 48 hours. Did I get on the Radar or something?
EDIT: Thanks to kapi for recommending me to Personalities in the directory. I guess there’s no category for “Gets annoyed easily at the media, and tends to write reams and reams without pausing for breath nor editing”. Yet.
Although, having said that it’s an expensive month for me, I did just go away for three days in Edinburgh on a stag do and rack up an impressive amount of spending.
And 90% of that spending was on booze and food, so I don’t even have anything to show for it other than a two-day hangover and exhaustion. Cheers!
March is always such a stupidly expensive month for me. I’m the only one in my immediate family that doesn’t have something this month:
I genuinely have to plan ahead during February and save some money ahead of buying umpteen presents in March. Throw in some train tickets to go back seemingly every weekend, and it becomes very expensive.
When I was still at university, March used to cripple me financially, and I’d always be eating nothing but beans on toast by the middle of the month. Now I’m a bit more secure, I might add some cheese to that…
I’m just watching last night’s Daily Show, and yet again I’m in awe of the way this programme tears apart the hypocrisies present in the media nowadays.
Jon Stewart destroys Fox News’ midday host Megyn Kelly and her one-sided portrayal of what is supposedly “fair and balanced” news. It was stunning how unfairly the “news” is actually broadcast. Is it really “fair and balanced” to only pick four random members of the public who all (coincidentally!) were against the healthcare bill?
Is it fuck.
There’s a great little montage of talking heads who all use the phrase “cram down the throats” of the American public, in terms of the healthcare bill, and then Stewart just rips apart Fox’s reliance on polls which support its position, whilst handily ignoring those that disagree.
Kelly is particularly in favour, it seems, of quoting poll numbers at those who disagree with her/Fox News. Well, until the final clip, which shows her in October 2008, discussing the latest polls which put Obama well ahead of McCain. Her opinion? To paraphrase, “we shouldn’t trust polls and pollsters anyway.”
The hypocrisy is just mind-blowing, and I don’t see how anyone can not notice it.
Knowing that Canada really represented this year despite being about a tenth of the size of the US and having far less monetary resources is pretty awesome.
jaimeleigh
Pffft, we don’t even get snow, or have mountains, and we still won one (count ‘em!) gold medal. That is what you call punching above your weight…!
Although that one medal (the only one we won [and this post rhymes a lot]) apparently cost us a total of £6million in funding for winter sports. Money well spent?
Reblogged from: jaimeleigh
Originally posted on: Newsweek
Selected winners of the Bookseller/Diagram Prize for Oddest Title of the Year, awarded annually by Bookseller magazine to the book published that year with the strangest title:
The Joy of Chickens (1980)
Versailles: The View From Sweden (1988)
How to Avoid Huge Ships (1992)
Bombproof Your Horse (2004)
Of these, I think “How to Avoid Huge Ships” is my favourite, and my vote for this year’s prize is “Afterthoughts of a Worm Hunter”.
More at the Wikipedia page.
