'forever overhead' was the star for me. all the stories work together as a whole well but this one particularly shines. cried on the plane reading this passage:

'your family like you. you are bright and quiet, respectful to elders - though you are not without spine. you are largely good. you look out for your little sister. you are her ally. you were six when she was zero and you had the mumps when they brought her home in a very soft yellow blanket; you kissed her hello on her feet out of concern that she not catch your mumps. your parents say this augured well. that it set the tone. they now feel they were right. in all things they are proud of you, satisfied, and they have retreated to the warm distance from which pride and satisfaction travel. you all get along well.'

It's not that I didn't know that this was going to be difficult to read at times. I was warned several times, and I have swam these waters before. The Pale King was a very good book, but also off-putting and aggressively numbing. After finishing that book, and thinking on it for a bit, I really liked what he was saying, but there were times, while I was reading it, that I asked "is it worth this?". That's part of Wallace's endgame, really. Yes, he wrote for himself and his standards first, but...it's hard to read some of these stories, that go on and on, and just revel in difficulty, and not think that Wallace is doing this on purpose, that he is standing on high, an ancient ruler commanding his subjects to prove fealty by torturing themselves, a little bit, and then the proof of loyalty will be known. There are so many moments in Hideous Men that any truth gained was overshadowed and lost to the constant obstacles to be overcome. Eventually, the obstacles become the reality, and nobody remembers that they are looking for the truths. Eventually, if you are continually writing to show the dark, terrible, unlikeable sides of humans, if you are writing in a manner that upsets people so they lose empathy and sympathy for your creations, at some point, somebody is just going to assume you are dark, terrible, and unlikeable, and discard empathy and sympathy, and the message gets lost. I said, in a status update, that there comes a point in every DFW book where I ask why I am reading this. That's not a joke, that happens every time, but I eventually find the reasons I'm looking for, and we all move on. All I found in this book was Wallace, languidly flipping me the bird while he smokes his cigarette, not even bothering to deem me worthy of full extension of the middle finger.

The cover, someone wearing a paper bag, presents a sad, pathetic image. That - along with the title - implies elephant man ugliness, and I'm inclined to be sympathetic before I even start to read. It quickly becomes apparent that the hideousness does not refer to any exterior quality (sometimes there is a physical component to the ugliness, but that fact is secondary). These guys are creeps. The real problem is always within. The “Union of the Hideously and Improbably Deformed” services are not needed. Gradually, remarkably, your disgust turns to pity, to the point where you see how sad and pitiful even a brutal rapist torturer is. Some of these pieces (they're not exactly short stories) are hilarious, with a veneer of sadness. All are smart as a whip.

A few of my favourites:

Death is not the End - A poet has settled. "It is the height of spring, and the trees and shrubbery are in full leaf and are intensely green and still, and are complexly shadowed, and the sky is wholly blue and still, so that the whole enclosed tableau of pool and deck and poet and chair and table and trees and home’s rear façade is very still and composed and very nearly wholly silent, the soft gurgle of the pool’s pump and drain and the occasional sound of the poet clearing his throat or turning the pages of Newsweek magazine the only sounds—not a bird, no distant lawn mowers or hedge trimmers or weed-eating devices, no jets overhead or distant muffled sounds from the pools of the homes on either side of the poet’s home—nothing but the pool’s respiration and poet’s occasional cleared throat, wholly still and composed and enclosed, not even a hint of a breeze to stir the leaves of the trees and shrubbery, the silent living enclosing flora’s motionless green vivid and inescapable and not like anything else in the world in either appearance or suggestion. "

Forever Overhead - Bits of human skin, the sky, water. The end. "Two black spots, violence, and disappear into a well of time. Height is not the problem. It all changes when you get back down. When you hit, with your weight.
So which is the lie? Hard or soft? Silence or time?
The lie is that it’s one or the other. A still, floating bee is moving faster than it can think. From overhead the sweetness drives it crazy.
The board will nod and you will go, and eyes of skin can cross blind into a cloud-blotched sky, punctured light emptying behind sharp stone that is forever. That is forever. Step into the skin and disappear."

B.I. #59 - This one is so funny: a masturbation fantasy based on Bewitched has gone wrong because of the Synodic Period and Sidereal Period. "Well, too, do I remember this envy I felt of my brutish, unimaginative brother, upon whom the excellent scientific instruction of so many of the posts’ schools was sheerly wasted, and he would not be in the least overwhelmed by the consequences of realizing this further: that the earth’s rotation was but one part of its temporal movements, and that in order not to betray the fantasy’s First Premise through causing incongruities in the scientifically catalogued measurements of the Solar Day and the Synodic Period, the earth’s elliptical orbit around the sun must itself be halted by my supernatural hand’s gesture, an orbit whose plane, I had to my misfortune learned in childhood, included a 23.53-degrees angle to the axis of the earth’s own spin, having as well variant equivalents in the measurement of the Synodic Period and Sidereal Period, which required then the rotational and orbital stopping of all other planets and their satellite bodies in the Solar System, each of which forced me to interrupt the masturbation fantasy to perform research and calculations based upon the varying planets’ different spins and angles with respect to the planes of their own orbits around the sun. This was laborious in that era of only very simple hand-held calculators."

B.I. #20 - A re-enactment from the movie (yes, there's a movie!) http://youtu.be/LHXpl2FiVQk

n
A Hideous Man

B.I. #42 - Unfortunately the irony is lost in the movie, which is the main point here. http://youtu.be/PF_lUrrZYJI

John "I think David Foster Wallace is one of the greatest writers that has ever lived" Krazinski at Starlight Books Los Angeles reads from "Brief Interviews With Hideous Men" which he adapted, directed, and acted in.

The first 1/2 rd of this book is just ok. I just love Wallace's writing style so it's always pleasant to read, but there wasn't much to get excited about. The last half was just stunning. One essay after another, funny, breathtaking, awful, but all so well-written and interesting. Wallace's subject is usually himself, which is to say men who think a lot about themselves and their desires and urges and conflicts and the ways in which they fail to be "good men." So these essays expose different conversations where men are awful, but are trying to justify their goodness. They do a good job actually where you almost believe them. They start off with a position that's clearly appalling (that rape can be good for women), then they just throw logic and words and arguments until you're with them. In a way, the arguments are like Nabakov's Lolita. I think we are supposed to be appalled by the thing being justified, but the author is so good at occupying the justifier's mind that there is really a fine line. The essay toward the end about the two grad student men talking about feminism is a classic.

Sono capaci di vederti come una cosa. Lo sai che vuol dire? È spaventoso, noi sappiamo quant'è spaventosa come idea, e che è sbagliato, e ci crediamo di sapere tutte queste cose sui diritti umani e la dignità umana e quant'è terribile privare qualcuno della propria umanità di quella che noi chiamiamo umanità di qualcuno, ma metti che succede a te, allora sì che lo sai per davvero. Adesso non è più solo un'idea o una causa da reazioni sterotipate. Aspetta che succeda a te e allora sì che assapori il Lato Oscuro. Non l'idea di oscurità, l'autentico Lato Oscuro. E adesso ne conosci il potere. Il potere assoluto. Perché se sei davvero capace di vedere un altro soltanto come una cosa allora sei capace di fargli qualsiasi cosa, non si accettano più scommesse, umanità e dignità e diritti e correttezza...non si accettano più scommesse.

Succede sempre la stessa cosa. Mi scordo di quanto era bravo DFW. Poi leggo (a pezzi, sempre a pezzi) qualcosa di suo. Meraviglia.
Fa dell’elemento linguistico (parola, sintassi, punteggiatura...) ciò che vuole.
Sì, è vero: a volte incappi in qualche passaggio che proprio non riesci a digerire e ti ci impantani. ‘Quando la finisce?’
Una pagina dopo resti lì con la mandibola cadente e lo stomaco intorcigliato - non è corretto, ma rende l’idea.
In particolare le Brevi interviste a uomini schifosi che danno il nome alla raccolta - e sono inserite in più sezioni nel volume- sono una cosa pazzesca.
Non so se dire che raccontano per bene cos’è l’umanità, o cosa non è - sono vivisezioni, come quando tranci un dito a un cadavere per analizzarlo, lui trancia conversazioni o presunte tali e ne escono cose schifose e belle, o forse belle perché sono schifose, tipo nel racconto di Lucia Berlin in cui l’infermiera pensa che l’essere umano si crede bello, ma se avesse un corpo trasparente e si vedesse come lavorano organi e tessuti ci faremmo molto schifo.
Non so se ho reso.
Fenomenale entrare così dentro alle persone. Essere, oltre che uno sguardo, una sonda interna che fa un esame.

Però se c’è un racconto che ho letto e riletto e riletto e riletto e forse a un certo punto mi ha anche commosso nel profondo (quindi devo averlo riletto di nuovo, dopo essermene resa conto) è Per sempre lassù.
Mi è sembrato, per un attimo, che in quel momento di scrittura ci fosse qualcosa di vicino alla perfezione.
Nonché un rimando a Cheever - ma forse è il mio amore per le piscine e il cloro a parlare.
Io lo amo, questo autore.

Quando vennero presentati, lui fece una battuta, sperando di piacere. Lei rise a crepapelle, sperando di piacere. Poi se ne tornarono a casa in macchina, ognuno per conto suo, lo sguardo fisso davanti a sé, la stessa identica smorfia sul viso.
A quello che li aveva presentati nessuno dei due piaceva troppo, anche se faceva finta di sì, visto che ci teneva tanto a mantenere sempre buoni rapporti con tutti. Sai, non si sa mai, in fondo, o invece sì, o invece sì.

(Una storia ridotta all’osso della vita postindustriale)

Recommended for hardcore DFW fans. This collection is a deeply personal, scattered exhibit of loneliness, a harrowing, sad, and convincing portrayal of damaged psyches. Wit, brilliance, and exuberance are all evident in Wallace's oeuvre, but here, must be discerned through strata of mimesis.

Listening to the audiobook reading by the author this time around allowed me to feel landscapes of hurt and brokenness within its multitudes of layers of densely packed, heady elegance. Its psychological abysses yawned before me, its desolate precision etched indelible fingerprints of gracious remembrance into my mind.

Elevating this story-jumble are the author's tangentially related interviews with fictitious personalities, wherein elaborate thought-salads congeal into heartbreaking, cohesive episodes of disturbing humanness.

Unlike his other 2 story collections, untamed libidos and feverish perversity reign here - hence the title - along with truly awe-inspiring prose-segments, interspersed in a confusing and disorienting package, where every page yields meteoric surprises, hand-in-hand with sweaty frustrations, culled from the unhallowed interior corridors of bed-sheet-twisting angst. Especially notable are the longer pieces, the meditations on violence, where Wallace proves his mastery of voice and imitative dialogue. He somehow renders incomprehensible concepts digestible, and translates his polymathic cogitations for the layman reader.

My second reading enlarged upon my first, and no doubt a third review of his complete works would uncover further joys. His contribution to American letters is astounding, and though divisive, these fragmentary stories depict an oft-forgotten side of Wallace, who had a tendency to tiptoe around his own insecurities, except when he dramatized them, when, carried away by the slippery slope of his magnificent intellect, he connects the dots for us, that we might better come to terms with the hidden maps of the mind and heart.

اومبرتو اکو توی "آنک نام گل" توضیح می‌داد که توی اروپا، واژه‌ی لپروس (جزامی‌ها) صرفا به افراد جزامی گفته نمی‎شه. مربوط می‌شه به تمام افرادی که توی بطن جامعه حضور ندارن، به نوعی فردیت اون‌ها متفاوته از چیزی که دنیای اطراف نیاز داره. ادبیات همیشه علاقه‌ی زیادی به اون‌ها نشون داده، از امثال دکامرون گرفته تا آثار مارک تواین، همه به نوعی وصل می‌شدن به بخشِ جدا افتاده‌ی جامعه.

قطعا هزاران کتاب هست که من نخوندم، ولی بین اون‌هایی که خوندم "مصاحبه‌های کوتاه با مردان کریه" بهترین بود. روشی که به شخصیت اصلی نزدیک می‌شد، نظراتش رو می‌گفت و مغز مخاطب رو به کار می‌گرفت بی‌نظیر بود. خیلی وقت پیش یک نفر بهم گفت که موقع خوندن فاستر والاس نویسنده از تو کمتر فکر می‌کنه، فقط داره جزئیات رو بهت نشون می‌ده و تو مجبوری که فکر کنی. بخش‌هایی که مصاحبه‌هایی با مردان کریه بود واقعا همینطور می‌شد، مخصوصا قسمت آخر. فاستر والاس توی مغز من بود تمام این مدت، داشت در مورد چیزایی حرف می‌زد که من بارها دیده بودم، اما این دفعه بخش‌های نامرئی رو نشونم می‌داد. از دستشویی‌های عمومی گرفته تا تجاوز، به حدی جزئیات قدرتمند بودن که صرفا حس تخیل من نبود که همراهش می‌شد، من می‌تونستم بشنوم و تمام بوهایی که توی این نوشته‌ها بودن خونه‌م رو پر می‌کردن.
بعد از این همه سال کتاب خوندن، مواجه با چیزی شبیه به این عجیب بودن. من توی این چند روز چیزی رو تجربه کردم که نه انتظارشو داشتم، نه خیال می‌کردم امکان‌پذیره. این فوق‌العاده‌ست!

در مورد بقیه‌ی داستان‌های کتاب هم باید بگم بیشترشون واقعا قوی بودن، اما اون وسط چندتایی هم بودن که مشخصا خود نویسنده سعی می‌کرد ازشون چیز جدیدی بسازه، حتی خودش اشاره می‌کرد که اینقدر یکسری از بخش‌ها خسته کننده‌ می‌شن که مخاطب به آخرش نمی‌رسه، برسه هم پیام رو نمی‌گیره. برای همین نمی‌تونم ایرادی از اون داستان‌ها بگیرم، فاستر والاس به نتیجه‌ای که می‌خواست رسیده، من کی باشم که بگم اون خوبه یا بد.



پ.ن: کاملا از عمد بخش پایانی کتاب که مصاحبه‌ی فاستر والاس و نوشته‌هایی در مورد اونه رو نخوندم. حس کردم همینقدری که ازش می‌دونم کافیه. دوست دارم از طریق داستان‌هاش بهش نزدیک بشم و بشناسمش.

پ.ن 2: اگه اتفاقی نیوفته و زنده و آزاد بمون توی ماه‌های آینده، برای پروژه‌ی دانشگاهم یک انیمیشن کوتاه از روی داستان "آن بالا، تا ابد" بسازم.

...read as far as GR is concerned. But I've abandoned ship. 4 months, off and on, have gone into trying to shift this. In the end Life's too short..I hate giving up on a book especially as there are some real gems here but the Depressed Person (one of the pieces/ 'short'! stories brought on chronic constipation, albeit of a literary bent, and a few pieces on..it got worse, so I opted for the enema. Sorry DFW. I'm sure you're brilliant and the fault lies with me but your work will be heading for a charity shop and will then, hopefully (for you) find a more appreciative audience.

David Foster Wallace me parece brillante. Confieso haber llorado de la risa y lo contrario con este libro. Él es lúcido, intenso, y se esfuerza en cada palabra por experimentar con una trascendencia y una intelectualidad que a veces se hace deslumbrante y en ocasiones insufrible. Este libro es precisamente eso. Ni más. Ni menos.

I have to admit. I, on a whim, just googled "David Foster Wallace" and "autism", just to see if anyone else ever thought what I'm thinking. I hadn't researched or known a thing about him otherwise, other than his suicide.

I did find something. Lots of things, plus speeches, interviews, etc. Some reinforced the idea, some did not.

One thing for sure, the autism thing can't possibly sum up everything that is interesting about David Foster Wallace and his writings, or what I know of them so far. And, well, I'm a label hater by nature--I really don't want to believe the world and its interesting peoples can be summed up in boxes to be sorted and scientifically labelled. How dull and unimaginative…for example, there is the notion that "Aspies" are non-intuitive, very scientific minded. From experience I'd say that is not true, only that it rather appears that way--because of a non-emotive way of speaking, a professorial air for those that are verbally verbose. Sometimes the words just don't come the way they do for others.

Right away I noticed he loves to repeat. (in fact, I erased two paragraphs of this review where I repeated, a lot, in parody, imitation, by accidental influence? something. But I erased it.)

یک سوم حجم کتاب به یادداشت‌هایی درباره‌ی والاس و آثارش اختصاص دارد. این‌جا است که متوجه می‌شویم کل حجم چیزهای در مورد والاس، صرفا انبوهی است از اطلاعات خالزنکی و قدیس‌ساز. مثل این است که صدها صفحه سیاه شود تا به شما بگوید چیزی مهم است و خیلی مهم است، بدون این که آن چیز مهم به شما نشان داده شود. داستان‌های والاس به خودی خود خوب‌اند، اما ژورنالیسیمی که دور والاس ایجاد شده به غایت سطحی است. یادداشت‌های آخر کتاب آن‌قدر بی‌مایه هستند که در بهترین حالت، والاس را یک تقلیدکار امریکایی رمان پست‌مدرنیستی معرفی می‌کنند، بدون این که به عمق جمله‌های نویسنده نفوذ کنند. به همین دلیل هم، این نقدها ترجیح می‌دهند از نسبت زندگی والاس و زندگی مردان کریه و چیزهایی از این قبیل حرف بزنند؛ سفیدپوستانِ طبقه‌متوسطیِ خودشیفته‌ای که دغدغه‌ی والاس را فرومی‌کاهند به نقد تلویزیون و مصرف‌گرایی.

A Brief Word on the Famous Interview #20

I'm here to air my total ambivalence after having read the final interview (second to last story in the collection) and not knowing what at all to make of the story. Yes, it is very well written and DFW had certainly mastered the interview style by this point in the book. The way that the Hideous Men speak in each of the interviews is quite natural and sounds true from the stories that I've heard many guys tell w/r/t women, sexual encounters etc. And it is also the point of these stories (given that they're Hideous Men) to give voice to misogynistic men and men who struggle severely with relationships with other women, but the last story just did not go down well with me, given what the story seems to imply. Without spoiling the story, there's a woman character that the interviewee tells the story about in which she tells the man a story. But the way she deals with what happens to her seems to make okay a very serious and problematic occurrence in society. Now, I know; I imagine that DFW had much different intentions when he wrote the story, but the implication it makes seems inevitable to me and kind of problematic to be honest. All that aside, the story hit me in this very visceral way; it is fucking powerful. I've always been of the opinion that moral outrage in a story is a good thing, as it incites dialogue among its readers. So I guess I'm trying to say (very long-windedly) that I'm giving the story the highest compliment I could give it. It treads some dangerous ground while wresting a great deal of emotionality from the situation and develops three different complex characters through a single man's monologue. That's some writing skill, that is.

It was a good thing that the story left such an impression because there are some stinkers towards the end of the book. I am the first to admit that DFW is not perfect and there are a couple obvious examples of that throughout this collection. But overall, I'm so happy to have sifted through more of the DFW ouvre. It's worth it, if you ever do get the chance.

A Brief Conversation with a Friendly Barista

‘Next. . . Next!’
‘Yeah, sorry. Can you just do a water with ice.’
‘Sure man, no probs. So, nothing else then?’
‘Well, yeah. I think that, um. . . C—— are you getting anything?’
‘. . .’
‘So yeah, then just one of those teas. . . No, yeah, the purple one.’
‘This?’
‘Yeah, great then.’
‘Okay. . . two-fifteen then.’
‘Great. Lemme get my. . . um. . .’
‘No rush my friend.’
‘Yeah thanks.’
‘Hey, whatchya reading there?’
‘Oh. . . It’s this guy David Foster Wallace. He’s a—’
‘Oh yeah, I’ve heard of him. I’ve heard his college thing I think.’
‘Yeah yeah. The Kenyon Commencement Speech.’
‘Sure.’
‘Well, yeah anyway, this here is a collection of short stories.’
‘Whatdya call it?’
‘Ha, um. . . It’s called Brief Interviews with Hideous Men.’
‘Right on. Killer title.’
‘Yeah definitely. It’s a good one.’
‘Well, here’s your tea man.’
‘Oh great. It’s for her, but cool man thanks.’
‘Hey, hold up.’
‘. . .’
‘So like what goes on in it?’
‘The book?’
‘Sure. What else?’
‘Okay yeah. Um. . . well it’s like a series of short stories and everything, but also there are these interview-things throughout it and they’re supposed to be all from the perspective of guys and they all have some problem in relationships and everything. Some’ve ‘em are pretty misogynistic too. But yeah, it’s got a couple of my favorite stories in it.’
‘Right on man. Lemme take a look.’
‘Oh, yeah of course. Here.’
‘Right on. Great cover.’
‘Yeah, I like how the face is covered up by the bag. It’s kind of like how, well, I should say that in the interviews, all the names are gone and the dialogue is written so that there’s no person tags, or whatever to them. But so anyway, you don’t get any of the people’s names or the questions in the interview either. It’s just the words.’
‘Right on man.’
‘Yeah, it’s pretty great. I mean I can see how it could be a very just guy-type of book given that all the perspectives are all men and they’re all like, you know, pretty masculine and occasionally degrading to women and I could get how that might not make for the most sympathetic characters, if you know what I mean and not to generalize too much about women or anything.’
‘Sure man, but I’m not sure if you have to sympathize with the character to appreciate a good book.’
‘Ah! Definitely. You got me on that one.’
‘For sure dude. Lolita and everything.’
‘Ah, great book. One of my first loves.’
‘No pun intended, eh?’
‘Ha. Sure man, if you say so.’
‘No, yeah, speaking of, here’s a Nabokov comparison on the back. Check it.’
‘Right you are, there. It’s great. I mean backcover blurbs are always pretty over the top and ridiculous. But sometimes they’re cool. I mean, I’m not sure Nabokov is who DFW resembles most, but I guess I see what the person is saying.’
‘Sure man, I feel you. But it’s like their only way to get the word out. I mean a lot of them depend on that kind of stuff.’
‘Oh. . . the authors? Oh sure. No, I mean, and especially for unknown writers, it’s way important, definitely. But I think that’s a bit different than still calling out the bullshit of what it is. I don’t know.’
‘Yeah. . . Hey, so what are the good stories?’
‘Oh man, I mean there’s this one called the depressed person in it. Goddamn.’
‘Oh yeah?’
‘Yeah, I mean, maybe it’s a bit of a downer, but if you’re the type of person who has ever been through any kind of depression or anything, I mean, every line will just make you clutch your heart.’
‘Oh yeah? Ha. I suppose by you saying that, it is an admission of having been through depression then?’
‘Oh, yeah. I guess it is. I mean, it’s still a good story on its own merits.’
‘For sure man. No, no offense or nothing. I’ve been through it all too. So no worries.’
‘Sure.’
‘Huh. . . looks like there’s some good-sized footnotes in here.’
‘Oh, ‘course!’
‘Yeah?’
‘Definitely. That’s the DFW trademark. I mean, I don’t think there could be anyone who could ever use footnotes in fiction again without being pinned directly to Mr. Wallace.’
‘Is that right?’
‘It’s his trademark.’
‘For sure. Well that’s cool.’
‘Certs. And somewhat frustrating too.’
‘Whatdya mean?’

‘Well. Few reasons. First, as a reader. I mean, there’s a couple of those damn things that just drag on and on and they pull you out in mid-sentence and it’s kind of irritating especially for someone like me who reads real slow and has a hard time with following the complex stuff. So it’ll take you that much more time to just understand what all is happening. Don’t get me wrong, it’s worth it because he has so much to say that’s brilliant but still. . .’
‘No yeah bro. I got you.’
‘. . .’
‘You said a few reasons?’
‘Oh yeah. And the other is as a writer.’
‘How’s that?’
‘Oh well. Next time you sit down to write. Well, I’m not sure if you do write. If you don’t, you definitely should. It’s great.’
‘Ha, if you insist bro.’
‘No? Okay, anyway. You think to yourself, hey I’ll just try out a footnote to see what it’s like and them bam, you want to use it every time you sit down to write. It captures, like that part of your mind that sidetracks or argues against itself and gets away from the original point.’
‘How’s that?’
‘Well, it’s so easy when you write, to let your mind wander or just lock into a groove of a style and just go with it, but there has to be an outlet for the alternate voice in your head vying for attention.’
‘Huh, okay man. I mean I don’t write so I guess I’ll just take your word there.’
‘No sure, I get it. It kind of sounds like a bunch of abstract nonsense but trust me man. If you ever dive into it, you’ll see what I mean.’
‘And how does the life as a writer treat you?’
‘Oh goodness. I mean, I wouldn’t dare fashion myself with the label of a writer. I mean, I do try to write, but it���s not like I’m an actual writer in any real capacity.’
‘For sure dude, you’ve got it. Be writing. Don’t be a writer.’
‘Hey! William Faulkner!’
‘You got it.’
‘Right on dude.Well you know your shit.’
‘Not really. My girlfriend is way into this shit. So I get an earful whenever we’re out or whatever.’
‘Ah, damn. What a great girlfriend.’
‘Yeah, man. She’s alright.’
‘Well then, maybe she can sympathize with the footnote addiction. Because like I said, you start and then it’s so difficult to stop and all the while I feel guilty because I’m ripping from someone else.’
‘All great artists steal.’
‘Right again. But I mean, you’ve got to conceal who you steal from and you have to steal from a wide variety of people. I mean if an entire work of writing is copping just one author, people’ll notice.’
‘. . .’
‘Seriously man. Writing is a huge anxiety-ridden mess.’
‘Why do it then?’
‘Well, my life is a huge anxiety-ridden mess, so might as well try to become famous with it and regarded as brilliant or whatever.’
‘Ha! Good one bro. Good one.’
‘Yeah man. Well, shit looks like my date is pissed that I’m spending the whole time chatting up literature. I better go.’
‘Ah, don’t worry about it bro. It makes you look cool, like you are good in conversation and she’s just lucky to have such a socially-stable person deigning to date her.’
‘Really?’
‘Ah, probably not bro. But it doesn’t hurt to think that, right?’
‘Ha. Right you are my friend. Hey I’m S—— by the way.’
‘Good to meet you S——. I’m J——.’
‘J——. Good talk.’
‘You too bro. I’ve gotta get to some other customers.’
‘Sure man. You do that. . .’
‘Who was that?’
‘Dunno. Someone I just met.’
‘Oh really. What did you talk about?’
‘My book.’
‘Oh, so that’s why you brought it with you on our date, to start up conversations with other people?’
‘Oh. I guess I never thought about it.’
‘. . .’
‘Sorry?’
‘Whatever. Let’s go somewhere else. This place is weird.’