I’m being rocked at about 93% power by Junot Diaz’s The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. Rocked enough to write a mid-day, mid-book endorsement: Read it. The voices in this book are crystalline and entertaining enough that breezing through 50, 75, 100 pages at a time is easy and enlightening. Not sure why I put this one off for so long, but I nearly missed my stop on the train on my way back from My Big Day In The Big City last night. MBDITBC was fun…

Things I may need to look into:

1. An iPhone or the like. MBDITBC proved to be a humbling technological experience, as my beaten-up flippity phone (on which I text at a blazing one character per three # hits) felt tiny and inadequate. Still, I’m not sold on whether or not I have it in me to be that guy. The day job seems to demand it. My personality rejects it. The battle rages on.
2. Getting a new bike. The ol’ Death Bike, that got me through ‘97-’00 in The City, and that saved my life on more than a few close encounters with CTA buses and cabs, is on its last, sad wheels. If I were so motivated, I’d fix it up. But it needs a surgeon, and I’m but a mere specialist.
3. Wall shelving. You know those wall-mounted, long shelving units that kind of make your books look like they’re suspended? Sort of mod-looking and whatnot? I’d like those. Only for cheap. Thoughts? Suggestions?
4. Getting outside more. Enough of this list. I grow tiresome of it…

This year’s Florida trip was, in fact, awesome (see the entire photo album on my Facebook page). Things I noticed while walking along the beach: The early 90’s tattoo craze that brought tats from the prison population & street people to “extreme” college students (the rise in popularity of tattoos and rock climbing as a “hobby” are, in fact, intimately bound) and then to everyone else is now coming back to bite many of those folks right on the back fat. Now, those brave middle-class pioneers of tattoo are themselves middle-class parents with middle-class beer guts and middle-class wrinkles. Their once glorious tribal markings and tramp stamps and barbed arm bands are rather humorously on display above plaid Old Navy swim trunks and sagging stretch marks. It could have just as easily been me, as I’ve been known to jump a bandwagon or two. But it’s not. So, I look forward to seeing them when we all reach our 60’s and retire down there. Will be quite the visual feast…

I’ve finished Evan Wright’s “Hella Nation,” which took longer than I’d planned simply because I found that reading essays about the fringyest people in our country all in a row had a negative effect on my sense of comfort with people. Kind of like watching a Dateline To Catch a Predator marathon–it’s interesting at first, and then the more you see, the worse you feel about humanity. Still, it’s a book worth reading, and I highly recommend it (maybe in between essays, watch an episode of South Park or something light to cleanse the palette)…

I was in Milwaukee on Friday night to witness the ordination of a Marquette friend at Gesu Church. This marked the first time I’d set foot on the MU campus in more than a decade, the first time I’d been to church in at least seven years, and the first time I’d ever witnessed anyone becoming a priest. I was struck by how “not mine anymore” the campus felt–it was very much like walking on foreign ground. Except for the reception in the AMU, which I was stunned to see still had the Brew Bayou. Given the amount of change the campus has undergone, I figured that the old coffee shop had become a Starbucks or maybe was given up to office space or something. But there it was. That was a warm fuzzy, as was seeing 2 old roommates and a few other old friends, all of whom I hope to see again sometime in the future…

I used to be so easily inspired. Trips to Barnes & Noble these days, however, yield little more than low-grade anxiety due to the overwhelming number of New Books and Unfamiliar Authors. I used to be so in touch. Maybe it comes with my age, but so anyway–I caught a Bob Edwards interview with Evan Wright, author of Generation Kill, a few weeks ago on NPR. It clung desperately to a lobe in my brain and then dislodged itself last weekend as I browsed the BN Current Events section.  I stumbled upon Wright’s Hella Nation, a collection of his essays/articles that have appeared in everything from Hustler (“Heil Hitler, America”–a superb bit of embedded journalism at the Church of Jesus Christ-Christian (still not clear on the reasoning behind the repetitive name, except that its followers all tend to be a little slow on the draw, as it were) compound in Idaho) to Vanity Fair. In an even stranger twist of kismet, in his introduction to the collection Wright recounts how as an editor at Hustler, he lobbied the editor of Premiere to let him write a story about the Adult Video News (AVN) Awards show that year. This rang a bell (not b/c of the porn, just stick w/me here, this is going somewhere interesting, at least to me). Anyhow, the editor of Premiere decided to give the story to one David Foster Wallace instead, who used Wright as his AVN & greater porn-world guide. In Foster Wallace’s essay on the AVNs “Big Red Son” (originally titled “Neither Adult Nor Entertainment” when it ran in Premiere and then later re-titled for his collection Consider the Lobster) he refers to his Valley guide as “Harold Hecuba” (Evan Wright)–a clever Gilligan’s Island reference, because Hecuba (played by Phil Silvers in an episode called The Producer) in fact gets off the island, just as Evan Wright wanted to get away from the porn world. So, I was hooked. The book is incredibly entertaining and insightful w/r/t the fringes of America. It falls somewhere between Thompson’s Hell’s Angels and all of Foster Wallace’s Harper’s pieces in which he chronicles being a fish out of water (which pretty much sums up all of his narrative nonfiction work, eh?). Added bonus: Unlike the other two aforementioned favorite authors, Wright hasn’t killed himself, so hopefully I’ll be able to enjoy his writing for many years…

I hate February. It is a month to be tolerated, weathered, before the few glimpses of promise that show themselves to the Chicagoland region in March. As such, I really had nothing to share last month. Didn’t have to up the meds to make it through, but otherwise, no news to report. Now that it’s over, we’ve got some activity…

First: Today, Little Brown announced today that they’ll release David Foster Wallace’s unfinished final novel next year, perhaps thinking that what’s good enough for Biggie and Tupac is good enough for DFW. Which might be true, especially since plenty of pubs have printed Wallace’s notes/outlines (my favorite being “Adult World (II)”, an outline that appeared in Esquire, and ends with: “4b. Concl : ‘…were ready thus to begin, in a calm and mutually respectful way, to discuss having children [together].’”)…

Second: My guiltiest TV pleasure, Reaper, returns tomorrow night. I can neither justify nor defend its existence, except to say that I like watching these kids do the devil’s bidding. It makes me laugh. Come on — check out the trailer on their web site, which includes “You’re the Best” by Joe Esposito (you may remember this from its original home: during the tournament montage in the first Karate Kid movie… “You’re the best…around / nothing’s ever gonna bring you down…”). Hi-larious…

Third: Cubbies…

Oddly enough, I did about 80% of these at some point in February…

I just tossed out the last can of Who-Hash, and packed away every jing-tingler, floob-floober and tar-tinker that wasn’t sucked up by the vacuum. This merciful holiday season is done. Fa-la-la-la La-la-la-la. Now, the winter blues. However, I made one incredible discovery in the last few weeks that might very well save this winter. Target was selling 1.5-gallon bottles of this stuff, and I cannot endorse this product more. In my extensive holiday travels, I tore through many gallons a week of the blue crap washer fluid until stumbling upon this gem. After 3+ weeks of using it, I have yet to refill the tank. Little goes a really long way. Truly amazing…

I’ve been spending time getting frustrated with recent events: the Gov/Sen situation here, and I started reading The Dark Side by Jane Mayer, which sheds all kinds of spotlights on ever single way that the Bush Administration betrayed the Constitution in the name of “justice.” It’s all very sickening, really. But the book will help you to understand why Obama chose Panetta to head the CIA…

Tonight, a break from current events. I’m tossing in Tropic Thunder, which has been in its little Blockbuster sleeve since before Christmas…

As if it couldn’t get more tragic, it would seem DFW suffered in the precise way you might have suspected. From the NY Times yesterday:

His father said Sunday that Mr. Wallace had been taking medication for depression for 20 years and that it had allowed his son to be productive. It was something the writer didn’t discuss, though in interviews he gave a hint of his haunting angst.

In response to a question about what being an American was like for him at the end of the 20th century, he told the online magazine Salon in 1996 that there was something sad about it, but not as a reaction to the news or current events. “It’s more like a stomach-level sadness,” he said. “I see it in myself and my friends in different ways. It manifests itself as a kind of lostness.”

James Wallace said that last year his son had begun suffering side effects from the drugs and, at a doctor’s suggestion, had gone off the medication in June 2007. The depression returned, however, and no other treatment was successful. The elder Wallaces had seen their son in August, he said.

“He was being very heavily medicated,” he said. “He’d been in the hospital a couple of times over the summer and had undergone electro-convulsive therapy. Everything had been tried, and he just couldn’t stand it anymore.”

I just–I mean just like two fucking nights ago–discussed a fragment of “Getting Away from Pretty Much Already Being Away from it All” by DFW with my students. And I pleaded for them to read the entire essay. Even offered up “non-credit-bearing brownie points” for those who read it. I told them how DFW was my favorite author, etc. Now, he’s dead…

I spent my Valentine’s night teaching. We discussed the essays “A Day in Samoa” by Margaret Mead and “Getting Away from Already Being Pretty Much Away from it All” by David Foster Wallace. They found Mead’s antiseptic/anthropological descriptions of Samoa to be interminably boring and lame, while they enjoyed DFW’s jabs at white “traish” and carneys. We talked about representations of cultures and the self in the personal essay. We talked about voice, tone, persona. We did not talk about NIU, though plenty of my students had friends/siblings/cousins/people who knew people who had friends who were in the room when. I used to talk to my students ironically about how it’s never a good plan to shoot up a classroom–a kind of cheeky, prophylactic sort of self-conscious talk–but more and more it’s becoming a really stern frickin’ lecture about how I care about them and how I want them all to live to see their children’s children. I just cannot believe this is the world in which my little girl is growing up…

This winter is wearing seriously thin. My poor, little Honda is limping toward spring, gasping, trembling, depreciating at a rapid pace…

Reading: God of Small Things; ten years late to the game, but loving it, which is odd, since I have very definite biases in what I read (those of you who know me know what those are — this book is a rare delight, though I’d like to talk to some of you regarding her prose style…)

Loving: Lyle the Intern

Also Loving: My mom’s comments regarding Barack Obama. It’s easy for me to talk about hearing about how he’s so much like JFK, but it means something more when someone who knows says it… Yeah, he’s rollin’, and for reasons that I know irk certain people; but in my lifetime, I have yet to feel the kind of “national pride” that others before us have felt. So much so that those people are moved to action, moved to inspiration — this is a concept that has been so lost in politics in this country for a long time, I think. And maybe it’s where Hillary’s choice to go at “managing the government” goes south. Inspiration and creativity are essential in government, especially now. The fears of our parents are very real, but maybe this time it will be different…

Oh yeah, the snowman’s back. Next to her is Daddy’s illustrated explanation of tonight’s lunar eclipse. The Little Girl was so excited about it, she could hardly contain herself. I didn’t bother to mention that the lunar eclipse is the red-headed step-child of eclipses; that the solar eclipse is really where it’s at. Instead, we opened the blinds and watched as the blackness took a cookie-bite out of the moon. She’s going to be a super-genius…

Apartment-dwellers, I implore you: Get thee to an ACE Hardware, drop the 80 bones on a D-handle, steel square-point shovel; keep it in your trunk during the winter; then use on days like today to unearth your car in less than fifteen minutes. Guaranteed. Trick learned from living in the city. I’ve spent all day working from home and listening to neighbors revving their engines, spinning wheels and snapping plastic snow shovels in futile attempts to dislodge their cars. I did mine in under 15, then helped some with theirs. I’m Batman…

All I can say about yesterday’s goings on is Oh, how I wish Hunter were here (“All we have to do is get out and vote, while it’s still legal, and we will wash those crooked warmongers out of the White House”). He’d be having a field-day with all of this spectacle. Still, just thinking about the Democratic race is making my arm pits sweat, and I was hoping for a more definitive end to the anxiety last night. The Man is up against the most relentless political machines of our time and is hanging in. But if you can’t beat ‘im…

Finished reading Exit Ghost today, while taking breaks from working from home. It is a wonderful end to the Zuckerman chronicles, I thought. Made me kind of sad to see him go, but it ended nicely in character…

Well, maybe not next Tuesday–I couldn’t resist after Barack’s victory today. But Super Tuesday, I will be casting my vote for The Man. In fact, he just sent me an email. Personally. It was a message of hope and inspirationally inspired inspiration. There’s an article in the New Yorker that contrasts Obama’s view of the role of President and Clinton’s, which would enlighten some claptrap…* readers as to why I back him instead of her. Give me idealism on a grand scale over “managed government.” I think this country is ready to at least give it a test drive. Could it possibly turn out worse than our current situation? What’s more interesting to me is whether or not this country can be so moved as a collective anymore. Whether or not this little experiment has wheelz. Or whether we should call in J.J. Abrams for help get people’s attention… (The Cloverfield monster is pretty bad-ass. If you scour geek-sites long enough, you can find bootleg footage of all of the monster shots spliced together, saving you $10 and a severe case of nausea…)