I only just heard – so, this won’t be news to many internet readers out there but since I was one of the many who were in awe of his writing talent, I do want to say how sad I was to hear that David Foster Wallace has died, aged 46; a suicide.
He was a great writer, of fiction and non-fiction. For those who haven’t read him, his 1000 plus pages’ second novel ‘Infinite Jest’ is probably not the best place to start. Neither, maybe, is his much lesser known first novel, ‘The Broom of the System.’
Both are excellent works but the new reader might be better served starting with some of Foster’s short stories and/or non-fiction pieces, before moving on to the novels.
So, here’s a very short, yet very much recommended reading list.
Non-fiction:
1997 - A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again
2005 – Consider the lobster
Short stories:
1989 – Girl with curious hair 2004 – Oblivion: Stories
I will leave you with a short quote from the New York Times article he wrote about tennis player Roger Federer, called ‘Federer as Religious Experience.’ You can find the full article here:
“Beauty is not the goal of competitive sports, but high-level sports are a prime venue for the expression of human beauty. The relation is roughly that of courage to war.”
To find observations like this, almost casually thrown in, in a piece about a tennis player, is one of the common but great joys of reading anything by David Foster Wallace.
His voice will be greatly missed.
It has been said that saints can see the divine in the mundane. I’m sure Wallace would have felt uncomfortable in that role but he did find - and show us - the divine side (and footnotes) of things.
I’m not sure why but since I heard of his death, I’ve been playing Jennifer Warnes’s ‘Song of Bernadette’ a lot - so I’ll just finish with that song. Here it is:
It is a well-known fact that people don’t just have memories but also create them. One instance of this is what happened during an old psychological test, in which people were asked if they saw the Kennedy assassination in colour or on a black and white TV. A lot of people answered that they did so, one way or the other, while, of course, the Kennedy killing wasn’t shown on TV at all.
There were no camera crews present along the route. There was only the Zapruder film. Thirty stills from this film were published in Times’ November 29, 1963 issue – but but the film itself was only shown to the public in full in 1969.
So, there was no way that people could have remembered seeing the shooting, in colour or black & white, live on TV (as many stated) or later on a news show…
… but still many people claimed to remember having done exactly that.
Of course, a creative memory isn’t such a bad thing to have. As the following article shows, the truth will, most probably, not set you free – but only make you depressed:
“From rose-tinted views of childhood to clear recollections of events that never happened, research shows that memories are both suggestible and inherently idealised. Psychologists increasingly believe that even when our recollections of the past are held with great confidence, emotion and clarity, they can be at best inexact and at worst completely false.
“Our memories have a superiority complex,” says Elizabeth Loftus, professor of psychology and social behaviour at the University of California. “It’s not that we’re lying. It’s just something that happens naturally to allow us to feel a little better about ourselves.” This illusion happens less among people who are depressed. “You could argue that they are sadder, but wiser,” says Loftus.”
Anyway, it’s kind of obvious why we would like to remember ourselves having enjoyed a happy youth, having been popular at school, good at sports or good at maths, and so on. Rose-coloured glasses aren’t half as effective as a rose-coloured memory, so, it’s easy to see how people tend to acquire the latter.
It’s less directly obvious why people would create these false memories about the Kennedy assassination, or 9/11, or the London tube bombings. Back to the article for that third outrage:
“A new study, released last week by the University of Portsmouth found that, when asked leading questions, four in 10 people had false memories of the 7/7 London bombings - describing in detail non-existent CCTV footage, such as images of the explosion on the bus in Tavistock Square.”
I’m not an expert in this field, of course, but I do think there might be an easy answer to this question.
Again, I’ll quote from the article:
“The writer Karl Sabbagh, who is working on a book entitled Remembering Childhood: How Memory Betrays Us, says that we use memory to score points in our daily lives, which influences our recollections. “We love telling stories in the hope that people will find us interesting,” he says.”
That’s part of it, I feel. We do like to impress other people. That’s why there will always be a healthy market for all types of gadgets. It’s also why many people support successful sports teams and athletes. When ‘your’ team wins it makes you feel special too. A case of reflected glory, if you will.
(Michael Phelps: Beijing hero )
I do think though that we don’t create false JFK or 9/11 memories merely to have something to talk about in the pub, or at work – something that will (we believe) make us interesting for at least as long as it takes to tell the story.
I suspect we do it primarily to make us more interesting, more important even, to ourselves.
According to the Bible, Jesus admonished us to love our neighbours as we loved ourselves. Often misunderstood, this instruction simply told us that it was as important to love ourselves as it was to love others – and, inherently, that we can’t be of any real emotional/relational use to others if we don’t love ourselves.
I would suggest that the same goes for our instinct to try and impress our fellow humans – which is, obviously, what comes natural to all social animals. Status is very important to social animals; it’s how all types of hierarchical systems work.
However, in order to impress others, we must first impress ourselves. The best salesmen are those who believe in their own product. So, creating these false memories may be part of that sell.
By putting ourselves inside the big stories of our time – by misremembering – we become, to a certain extent, players instead of background silhouettes. Like becoming a Manchester United or a Michael Phelps fan, having a Kennedy or 9/11 ’story’ makes us part of something that’s much bigger than most of us can ever hope to be on our own. Again, a somewhat perverse instance of reflected glory.
Which, I suspect, is also why so many people are open to and become addicted to conspiracy theories: it gives more substance, more glory, if you like, to otherwise mundane and not very impressive lives – but that’s a topic for another day, perhaps. If I can be bothered: conspiracy theorists form, on the whole, a rather drab and depressing crowd.
It’s kind of funny how people who say things like “In the real world” often don’t have a clue about how things do operate there.
This is not going to be (yet another) column about the upcoming presidential election in the US but I do find it interesting to note that the Republicans still rely on that old saw that their opponents are elitists and out of touch – thereby declaring their own party and candidates more grounded in the real world.
This from a party whose former candidate, George Bush ‘The Elder’ didn’t have a clue what a loaf of bread cost – and whose current candidate couldn’t say how many houses he owned. I’m not saying that this disconnection with the lives of the vast majority of the population matters all that much. It’s just another example of people going on about ‘the real world’, whose relationship with the harsher facts of life are, to put it mildly, rather tenuous.
Anyway, as I said, this is not about the November election – though I’m sure I will return to that often enough in the coming months: as we all know, it’s impossible to keep your tongue from probing a sore tooth. This, however, is about my favourite tribe: scientists, one of which has made yet another amusing public statement: The internet needs a way to help people separate rumour from real science, says the creator of the World Wide Web. Talking to BBC News Sir Tim Berners-Lee said he was increasingly worried about the way the web has been used to spread disinformation.
Now, I have only the highest regards for Sir Tim. It might shock those who believe that Al Gore did put together the WWW in a George Washington like wood cabin shed (when he wasn’t busy worrying about polar bears and ice caps) but the then not yet ennobled - or as of yet unnobled - Berners-Lee had slightly more to do with this marvellous invention.
Still, ’separating rumour from real science’ on the internet? What world does Sir Tim think he’s living in precisely?
Truly, this great man has now become a Don Quixote, seeing a Promised Land through a wood of giant windmills. Like the Diogenes of old he’s lit his little lantern and has gone on a quest to find one honest man, one holy fact in the vast wilderness of the WWW, where trolls and mad bloggers lie in wait to ambush anyone passing by.
As the old maps had it, ‘Here be dragons.’
Or, in more modern terms, anyone who’s looking for truth on the Internet will find that he or she is a very lone angler indeed, surrounded by a swirling sea of Swift boats.
Oh would I could subdue the flesh
Which sadly troubles me!
And then perhaps could view the flesh
As though I never knew the flesh
And merry misery.
To see the golden hiking girl
With wind about her hair,
The tennis-playing, biking girl,
The wholly-to-my-liking girl,
To see and not to care.
At sundown on my tricycle
I tour the Borough’s edge,
And icy as an icicle
See bicycle by bicycle
Stacked waiting in the hedge.
Get down from me! I thunder there,
You spaniels! Shut your jaws!
Your teeth are stuffed with underwear,
Suspenders torn asunder there
And buttocks in your paws!
Oh whip the dogs away my Lord,
They make me ill with lust.
Bend bare knees down to pray, my Lord,
Teach sulky lips to say, my Lord,
That flaxen hair is dust.
Well, I suppose it does make a nice change – from raping children, that is:
“An Italian husband returned home early from work to find his wife in bed with their local priest. Following the shock discovery, the man stormed into the local bishop’s office in Chioggia, near Venice, and demanded an explanation. Later police were called to calm him down.
The local bishop Angelo Daniel has now confirmed that the adulterous priest has been sent to another parish for “reeducation”. He also stated that “you cannot discount all the good a person has done in their life just because of one mistake.”"
It’s almost funny how the Church always goes into the ecclesiastical version of “My country, right or wrong” whenever one – or thousands or so – of their priests decide to abuse the power the Church has invested in them.
Then, it’s always ‘Do as I say, not as I do’ or, as in this case, ‘the one mistake’ option. While the former is perfectly human in its egocentric hypocrisy, the latter doesn’t even begin to make sense.
Not many murderers get off with the ‘But I only did it once, your honour,’ line of defence.
In this case, of course, it is slightly more than just the one mistake. First, only God, the priest and the wife know how many times those last two had already hopped into bed the moment the husband had, like Elvis, left the building. In other words, to get caught once is not the same as to have sinned once – though that seems to be the line the Church does take with its child raping priests as well.
Anyway, as with our one time murderer, there are some ‘mistakes’ that are somewhat more serious than others. A priest has, or so the Church claims, the holy duty to take care of his flock and to help them to obey the rules of the Church, the original Ten Commandments and to honour and love their God.
Having sex with a married woman is not really part of that job description.
As we know, the RC Church has invested a lot in the institute of marriage – investing it with a kind of holiness, in fact. In the eyes of the Church, and in the words of its own ceremony, no man should come between a husband and wife.
For a priest to do so and to betray his church, the institute of marriage and the family involved is, perhaps, slightly more than just making ‘one mistake.’
That’s apart from the fact that priests have taken a solemn vow not to fuck at all, of course.
Anyway, enough about the Bishop and his perverse and hypocritical take on this regrettable incident. Back to the original sinner, in other words, who started this whole low bedroom farce. The newspaper article states:
“The 53-year-old priest was described as a specialist on the Bible and had been a good friend of the couple.”
Well, we can safely say that the latter part of that statement is due some serious revision but the first part seems to be correct.
Now, this is not something you would normally associate with the Dutch Royal Electronics company:
One of the world’s biggest electrical companies has announced it will launch a “tasteful” sex toy range for middle-aged British couples called Relationship Care. The company, which employs 133,000 people in 60 countries and had a turnover of 27 billion euros (£21billion) in 2007, said it would launch the range in Selfridges and Boots stores.
Marvellous news.
It was indeed high time that someone would finally try to market sex. It’s such an underdeveloped area, after all. What with the internet only being used for academic purposes, and our entertainment industry doing nothing more than Victorian drama and all our advertising billboards showing Burka-clothed women selling shampoos, cat food and iPods…
Yes, it is definitely time to finally try and exploit sex, for a change.
Anyway, I can’t wait to see the ads for this tasteful toy – but something tells me Philips probably won’t be calling it their new electronic screwdriver.
I happily admit that I’m not a big fan of democracy. I’m with Churchill, who said that democracy was the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried. Of course, he also said that the best argument against democracy is a five minute conversation with the average voter – and I couldn’t agree more with that latter statement.
Democracy invariably leads to Big Brother house scenarios. Again, all other forms of government are probably worse but I can’t say I respect the so-called will of the people. It’s the will of the people that sells ABBA records, fake sun tans and Obama thongs & Sarah Palin dolls.
If there’s one thing I’m reasonably sure of it’s that you can bet serious money on the likelihood that, whatever a majority of the people thinks or wants, it’s wrong.
Having said all that, the following bit of news is fun:
The Large Hadron Collider may do exactly what it says on the tin but, in an unusual move, scientists have asked members of the public to come up with a catchier name. The Royal Society of Chemistry - perhaps motivated by a little professional jealousy at the media attention given to the physics experiment - has launched a competition to find a new moniker for the atom smashing machine buried beneath Geneva.
Of course, when you invite members of the public to give names to things, quite a large number of them will come up with predictably silly suggestions.
I can already see people rooting for Paris Hilton. (Anything to do with black holes will have people making associations with the Hilton heir, of course.)
Still, I have to admit that, the moment I read the headline of that story, I was already thinking of nifty (and silly) acronyms – which immediately led to my first choice: OOPS! (Our own particle smasher.) Not a very inspired, let alone inspiring name but I’m never really into creating stuff before my first cup of tea of the day (and where I type this, it’s still that early.)
Anyway, if anyone out there is reading this, I’d love to hear their - yes: your! - suggestions.
(Though I have a sneaky suspicion that, as with many things, Douglas Adams was here first, so maybe we shouldn’t even try to improve on his ‘Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster’ – since both that famous cocktail as this new toy could be described as “expensive and bad for the head.”)
Don’t you think it’s rather irritating, the way politicians go into that silly little dance routine when they want to introduce themselves to us, in order to ingratiate themselves with us and con us into voting for them?
How they claim to be one of us and understand our pains and worries – and then ’share’ all those wonderful stories and anecdotes with us, that made them into these down-to-earth- Ghandis?
None of these presentations can ever be finished without one politician or the other almost choking on his or her tears, telling us about the wonderful influence of the candidate’s loving mother.
A mother is to a politician what a shovel is to a shit cleaner – or, more to the point, since we are talking about politicians here: what that shovel is to the piece of shit itself.
Anyway, there’s this saying, “All happy families are the same, each unhappy family is different.” I’m not sure that that’s even close to being true but since all politicians are basically the same, when it comes to small matters like decency, honesty and all other ethical issues, they could easily skip all the introductory nonsense and show us a video of the court case of Charles Emmet Santos and simply tell us, “That’s all you need to know about me, really.”
Such a lovely story too: “A former El Cajon councilman has pleaded guilty to stealing money from his dying mother. Charles Emmet Santos allegedly took out more than $160,000 in loans on the home owned by his 88-year-old Alzheimer’s-stricken mother, who has since died.”
Oh yes, the story is not merely useful to show us the nature of the political beast.
It also confirms what we already knew: that the lowlife scum that starts its career in the sewers, before rising to the rim of the political toilet pot, almost always get away with their disgusting crimes as well:
“Santos pleaded guilty Tuesday to a felony count of grand theft and he will be placed on 18 months probation. San Diego County prosecutor Paul Greenwood says five other felony charges are being dropped as part of the plea deal.”
In China, senior leaders claim that corruption is a ‘life and death’ struggle for the communist party.
I’m sure that they are right. The old saying goes that all power corrupts but that absolute power corrupts absolutely. So, it’s no wonder that dictatorships breed corruption the same way that democracy breeds incompetence.
What makes this problem worse, of course, is that China has converted from a communist ideology to a capitalist pragmatism – and consumption-driven capitalism comes with its own, highly seductive & corrupting mine-fields.
Small wonder that some senior party members are fearing for the worst.
Still, most clouds come with those obligatory silver linings and so it is with this corruption story. Because the (somewhat haphazard) crackdown on corruption comes with corruption trials – and corruption charges inevitably lead to some very comic, defensive statements.
Here are three, quite brilliant ‘My dog ate my homework’ type of excuses, all made by senior party officials, caught with their snouts in the collective/capitalist trough. (All of the following quotes were taken from this article in today’s Guardian.)
So, there was this former county secretary from Zhejiang who told the investigators that “Although I received money, I feel I am more incorruptible than others.”
That might even have been true but telling the cops about the wickedness of serial killers seldom gets you anywhere, when you are doing so, while standing over your victim, with the smoking gun still in your trembling hand.
Anyway, when the old ‘I only did what everyone else does’ defence fails, you can always fall back on that other, oft-used excuse: that the Devil, some illness or other external influences made you do it.
Like the guy who ran a team of auditors for a large state-owned company, who claimed that the money he got did not count as bribes, because of his looks: “My face is too thin and when others insist on giving me money I feel it is difficult to refuse.”
Quite.
Of course, when you can’t blame peer pressure or the Devil for leading you into temptation, there’s always that oldest of excuses: Blame Eve.
Like Liu Songtao, a former head of a hospital, who got a 12 year sentence for taking bribes. He claimed he needed the money in order to keep his many mistresses happy. In his own words: “I have lovers. Many women like me, I have no other way.”
The last and, in my eyes, most brilliant statement by a corrupt official isn’t really an excuse. It’s a nicely solipsistic piece of analysis though, which proves that egocentric existentialism is alive and well, and living in Leshan City, Sichuan, where an arrested departmental head complained:
“I didn’t know corruption was a serious crime till I was arrested.”
That was Jeff Koons, one of the legion tiresome modern artists – or better: poseurs – who have been plaguing the (art) world, these last few decades.
Right now, he has a new show in France’s palace of Versailles. Me, I find that the perfect location for a man who married a former porn star, made sex tapes with her and presented these as art. What better place to exhibit your (very) average inflatable lobster, gigantic chrome rabbit and a $23.6 million, nine-foot, stainless steel, red Hanging Heart than in the place where Marie Antoinette advised the starving masses to eat cake.
Not everyone agrees with that, of course. Enter the usual lunatics:
“The palace of Versailles will undergo a kitsch revolution with the opening of a controversial exhibition by pop artist Jeff Koons, amid cries from traditionalists that it is sacrilegious to bring these works into the palace of the Sun King.
“Organising such an exhibition in the chateau is an outrage to the work of Louis XIV,” said Arnaud-Aaron Upinsky, chairman of the right-wing National Writers’ Union, which has spearheaded the campaign to oust Mr Koons. “This project is felt by many French people to be a veritable sullying of the most sacred aspects of our heritage and identity.” ”
I’m pretty sure though most French people don’t give much of a damn about the whole affair, whether their taste runs to Jeff Koons’ cheap and artless, pornographic thrills or not.
It would please me no end if the people of Paris would take over the palace as they did before, after they stormed the Bastille on that famous July 14th, in 1789 – and if they then would give the same treatment to monsieur Koons’ lobsters, rabbits and what have you as they gave to the king and his wife.
However, I’m very much afraid they probably can’t be bothered to do so - which is such a shame, really, because that would have made for an art performance I would have paid lots of money to see.
Anyway, back to that original quote by Koons, about modern art being imprisoned in the present.
You know, I sincerely hope – and I do, in fact, trust – that he is right. Most of our modern art is so dire that it doesn’t deserve to become more than a temporary irritant. Most of our artists, these last 45 years or so, have been like all those Big Brother inmates that don’t quite make it to the final stages, if they even survived the first screening tests.
The Jeff Koonses, Tracy Emins andDamien Hirsts of this world are like those obnoxious, and much overpaid winners of our ‘reality’ TV shows. They are ludicrous loudmouths, ignoble irritants and poisonous pests – very much over here, and oversold but, like those Big Brother berks and berkettes, they won’t be in our collective faces all that long.
While their gadfly fame lasts, it may seem that they are everywhere and everlasting but they are not. So, we may leave a poisoned earth to the next generation, saddle them with billions of dollars of bad debt but, at least, we can be reasonably sure that they won’t inherit most of our contemptible, contemporary art.
Because, happily, as even our porn star shagging Koons admits, those inflatable and stainless steel proofs of our collective gullibility and bad taste are safely imprisoned in the here and now, and will face the same, well-deserved oblivion as all those other, Big Brother type buffoons.
