To Be Continued...

"When a person is lucky enough to live inside a story, to live inside an imaginary world, the pains of this world disappear. For as long as the story goes on, reality no longer exists." 

The Brooklyn Follies by Paul Auster

I found this quote earlier today and thought it would easily prompt a post. I then looked further into the context of the quote and saw that it was a maxim concluding a delightful anecdote about Austrian writer Franz Kafka. In the story, Kafka is consoling a young girl in the park who had just lost her doll. I will get more in-depth with this later, but anyways, he tells her a story about the doll to distract the girl from her loss. This description doesn't really justify the aforementioned delightful-ness , but I promise it will seem a lot more charming when I delve into it later. 

My first reaction after hearing this story in a work of fiction was to check on the accuracy of the story. It was in my search immediately after that I found the written account of Dora Diamant. Diamant was not only the last romantic interest of Kafka, but more importantly, a first-hand witness of this uncharacteristically tender moment  for Kafka. Reading through her portrayal of the event, it was nearly identical to Auster's interpretation in Follies; if anything, his version is just watered-down in terms of detail. My personal favorite is his line, "He immediately starts inventing a story to explain what happened" replacing Diamant's "At once he invented a sufficiently plausible story to explain the disappearance of the doll...". I mean, seriously? Don't bullshit a bullshitter, Paul, and especially not this poorly. That's the thing about plagiarism: if you're going to plagiarize effectively, it can be more work than just making you're own opinion. Below are the links, you can judge for yourself on the severity of Auster's crime. FYI, the copyright for Kafka's Last Love: The Mystery of Dora Diamant is 2003, while Auster's Follies is 2006.

The Brooklyn Follies- middle of page 138, starting at "All right. The story of the doll..."

Kafka's Last Love: The Mystery of Dora Diamant- middle of page 51, starting at "One day, as they were walking..."

So that put a hold on my post, and I also have to wait a couple days to get one of the Kafka biographies. The specific one I wanted was by the initial interviewer of Diamant, Marthe Robert, and neither the Wheaton College nor the Wheaton Public library had it in stock. But that library Inter-loan program is pretty badass; I'll get that book in a couple days. Honestly, this will  probably turn out to be more research than I did my two years at Wheaton combined. I'm just such a stubborn son of a bitch that when I am told I have to research, and of what I have to research about, I don't do it. Like at all. 

Really busy week at Shane's, but my hours will be back to normal this week. Unless, of course, Dustin gets that job at the Museum of Science and Industry, which I hope he does. Dustin's a sincerely good dude with that sense of moral reciprocity that makes him the ideal co-worker. He's old-school like that.

In other news, I started Infinite Jest by the inspiration for this particular blog's name, David Foster Wallace. I can already tell that I am going to love that book. However, it is so dense, literally and linguistically, that it's going to be more of a savoring than devouring, meaning that posts might be a tad fewer and far between. I know, I know, try to contain the wailing and gnashing of teeth, countless followers. Just understand that I am cheating on you with someone that really knows a thing or two about style. 

Sleigh Bells- Crown on the Ground

A truly epic cut by Brooklyn duo Sleigh Bells. The distorted guitars are unrelenting throughout the entire song, ranging shrilly enough to match the notes of vocalist Alexis Krauss. I like thinking of "set that crown on the ground" as Krauss calling out the prom queen of her high school, and it seems to make sense with the album art and the other lyrics. The opening lines, "you never doubted it, you're so proud of it, you straight shouted it, there's no doubt of it, you couldn't care less," specifically remind me of those high school cheerleaders- you know the type. I probably would call my prom queen out too if I could recollect who won the award. I was pretty busy trying to not embarrass myself by dancing, yet also to avoid any attention being drawn to the fact that I was avoiding dancing. Let's just say the that thin line between the two was the only thing I was incompetently straddling that night.

I absolutely love the pedigree of this band: Derek E. Miller, former shredder for Poison the Well, and Krauss, former teenybopper for short-lived Rubyblue, met while Miller waited on Krauss and her mother's table, and the rest is history. Have you seen these two? They are just too fucking adorable. Anyways, this is off their debut album, Treats, check the download below.

download here

This isn't a blog, this is a lymph node

"The novel is so formidable a mass, and it is so amorphous- no mountain in it to climb, no Parnassus or Helicon, not even a Pisgah. It is most distinctly one of the moister areas of literature- irrigated by a hundred rills and occasionally degenerating into a swamp. I do not wonder that the poets despise it, though they sometimes find themselves in it by accident. And I am not surprised at the annoyance of the historians when by accident it finds itself among them." E.M. Forster (from Aspects of the Novel)


When I first saw this quote, I didn't follow at all, mostly because it was missing the second half of the quote that clarifies how the hell the novel is a "moister area of literature". And also because the word "moist" always seems to me nauseatingly sensual, almost onomatopoeic- just saying it sounds like it requires an inordinate amount of saliva sloshing around one's mouth. A hundred rills of saliva, if you will. But E.M.'s always been my boy, so I'm willing to let this instance of lewd word choice slide.


I had to look up those three references in the first sentence; Parnassus and Pisgah are both mountains, and the Helicon is a river. Parnassus, pertaining to Greek mythology, was seen as the home of the Muses, and Pisgah is believed in the Hebrew tradition to be the mountain which Moses climbed to view the Promised Land for the first time. The Helicon, located in the Macedonian state Dion, is also a figure in Greek mythology, known most prominently for receding completely to prevent the woman who killed Orpheus from washing her hands of his blood in its pure waters.


With that in mind, I really enjoyed the idea of the novel being a pervasive figure whose impact transcends the intellectual audience. I am certainly eager to believe that, being an english literature major who worries not a little about the practical application of my studies. Forster, in my opinion, is portraying the novel as something not only substantial, but also as, at its core, natural- the novel recurring so prominently in nature that even "historians" are irked by it's intervention in their arena. This claim has obvious merit, as the three extremely historic locations mentioned in the first sentence all have literary significance dating way back. With this view, I find myself being able to take pride in the study of literature, and not trivialize it as a mere diversion from reality.


“The sensitive tale of a sensitive young WASP who’s just had this midlife crisis that’s moved him from coldly cerebral analytic math to a coldly cerebral take on fiction . . . which also shifted his existential dread from a fear that he was just a 98.6°F calculating machine to a fear that he was nothing but a linguistic construct.” David Foster Wallace describing The Broom of the System


I threw in a quote of Wallace describing his 1987 debut novel, The Broom of the System, which I just finished today. More extravaganza then novel, I thoroughly enjoyed it, and my enjoyment was amplified by listening to it on audiobook. If anyone has read the book, I'm sure you would agree with me when I say that the outlandish dialogue becomes even more ridiculous when being read outloud by the misfortunate narrator. Personal favorite of my being the narrator having to impersonate Judith Prieth's ventriloquial screeches at the expense of her morbidly obese cat. *sigh* Is it pathetic to be overcome with nostalgia for fictional characters? The question is a bit more appropriate in this context, as the book's premise hinges on the allegedly fragile membrane between fiction and reality, asking whether we are comprised of atoms and molecules, or whether we are simply "nothing but a linguistic construct".


My immediate impression on concluding the book, however, was not entirely favorable. The close of the novel is shockingly abrupt and left many tantalizing questions unanswered, its climax leading up to the peak of giant Parnassus (full circle, baby) and leaving us to stare down the unscalable side opposite. Yet upon backtracking and heeding Lenore's dimensional concerns, the non-resolutions make the novel an adroitly-constructed picture of reality. Having things go terribly awry, having expectations go horribly unfulfilled- is that not what life is all about? I say that in a bit of jest, but truly, what separates our day-to-day from the romanticized versions that we entertain ourselves with is fucked-up shit that stays fucked-up, protagonists that end up being unabashedly self-absorbed, and just the kind of general sense of something missing like cold, unfinished basements. God, that book was awesome.


Anyways, here's what I've been bumping lately. Been on a huge Das Racist kick. Even those these cats are such major goons, my love of their music should not in any way be confused as a guilty pleasure; these guys are creative, innovative, and sometimes even viably moral. In terms of being a joke,  "that's not how Das Racist roll: they kid because they are deeply and madly in love with hip-hop, and Sit Down, Man is an infinitely entertaining result of extreme reverence toward rap and irreverence toward everything else, themselves included" (Ian Cohen, Pitchfork Reviews).  They are just the kind of guys to not take themselves too seriously, which is very refreshing in the hip-hop game. Peep the vid below (if for nothing more than Kool A.D. posting stark naked and showing some mad pubeage) and check the download, if you are so inclined:

Das Racist- Rainbow in the Dark


cop that shit here



and get both of DR's mixtapes for free here