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Jun. 21st, 2012
Infinite Jest
Jun. 21st, 2012 08:00 amYou can’t turn "Infinite Jest" into a two-hour play. You can’t put it on a conventional stage. And you can’t send your audience away without at least a small dose of pain.
-- Aaron Wiener at Slate.com
David Foster Wallace is still getting the love, even though he is not easy to love. He is a challenging author. But people try. And now an experimental theater has staged a continuous 24-hour play adapted from the novel "Infinite Jest", and they apparently used the city of Berlin as the stage. That is a tribute!
But how many people can enjoy all of that? It is not even easy to get people to try reading the thousand-page novel. I know I have yet to make the attempt, though news stories like this do help to keep the novel on the periphery of my attention. I just cannot put it on the top of my 'wanna read' stack.
There is this sense that the man has some wonderful sensibilities, that he is a senstive soul, and right or wrong, his suicide seems to affix a stamp of guarantee on that proposition. The problem, though, is that he seems to have played too many genius games in his work, especially in "Infinite Jest". Which may be great for fellow geniuses and geeks, but it does leave the rest of us out of the game as merely curious bystanders.
-- Aaron Wiener at Slate.com
David Foster Wallace is still getting the love, even though he is not easy to love. He is a challenging author. But people try. And now an experimental theater has staged a continuous 24-hour play adapted from the novel "Infinite Jest", and they apparently used the city of Berlin as the stage. That is a tribute!
But how many people can enjoy all of that? It is not even easy to get people to try reading the thousand-page novel. I know I have yet to make the attempt, though news stories like this do help to keep the novel on the periphery of my attention. I just cannot put it on the top of my 'wanna read' stack.
There is this sense that the man has some wonderful sensibilities, that he is a senstive soul, and right or wrong, his suicide seems to affix a stamp of guarantee on that proposition. The problem, though, is that he seems to have played too many genius games in his work, especially in "Infinite Jest". Which may be great for fellow geniuses and geeks, but it does leave the rest of us out of the game as merely curious bystanders.
Infinite Jest
Jun. 21st, 2012 08:00 amYou can’t turn "Infinite Jest" into a two-hour play. You can’t put it on a conventional stage. And you can’t send your audience away without at least a small dose of pain.
-- Aaron Wiener at Slate.com
David Foster Wallace is still getting the love, even though he is not easy to love. He is a challenging author. But people try. And now an experimental theater has staged a continuous 24-hour play adapted from the novel "Infinite Jest", and they apparently used the city of Berlin as the stage. That is a tribute!
But how many people can enjoy all of that? It is not even easy to get people to try reading the thousand-page novel. I know I have yet to make the attempt, though news stories like this do help to keep the novel on the periphery of my attention. I just cannot put it on the top of my 'wanna read' stack.
There is this sense that the man has some wonderful sensibilities, that he is a senstive soul, and right or wrong, his suicide seems to affix a stamp of guarantee on that proposition. The problem, though, is that he seems to have played too many genius games in his work, especially in "Infinite Jest". Which may be great for fellow geniuses and geeks, but it does leave the rest of us out of the game as merely curious bystanders.
-- Aaron Wiener at Slate.com
David Foster Wallace is still getting the love, even though he is not easy to love. He is a challenging author. But people try. And now an experimental theater has staged a continuous 24-hour play adapted from the novel "Infinite Jest", and they apparently used the city of Berlin as the stage. That is a tribute!
But how many people can enjoy all of that? It is not even easy to get people to try reading the thousand-page novel. I know I have yet to make the attempt, though news stories like this do help to keep the novel on the periphery of my attention. I just cannot put it on the top of my 'wanna read' stack.
There is this sense that the man has some wonderful sensibilities, that he is a senstive soul, and right or wrong, his suicide seems to affix a stamp of guarantee on that proposition. The problem, though, is that he seems to have played too many genius games in his work, especially in "Infinite Jest". Which may be great for fellow geniuses and geeks, but it does leave the rest of us out of the game as merely curious bystanders.
In the 1970s, disgruntled young Iranians rebelled against a corrupt secular regime by embracing an ascetic form of Islam. Now they’re rebelling against a corrupt religious regime by embracing personal freedom — in some cases, even sex, drugs and rock ’n’ roll.
-- Nicholas D. Kristof at The New York Times
Kristof writes about how the Iranian youth are becoming increasingly freer despite their repressive government. His argument is that if we can refrain from invading Iran, we will surely see the tide turn as the more liberal young rise to prominence. Conversely, if we invade Iran, we will likely only strengthen the regime as well as set back liberalization in that country.
On the other hand, we have a fanatic regime that will soon have nuclear bombs. It is a tough position.
-- Nicholas D. Kristof at The New York Times
Kristof writes about how the Iranian youth are becoming increasingly freer despite their repressive government. His argument is that if we can refrain from invading Iran, we will surely see the tide turn as the more liberal young rise to prominence. Conversely, if we invade Iran, we will likely only strengthen the regime as well as set back liberalization in that country.
On the other hand, we have a fanatic regime that will soon have nuclear bombs. It is a tough position.
In the 1970s, disgruntled young Iranians rebelled against a corrupt secular regime by embracing an ascetic form of Islam. Now they’re rebelling against a corrupt religious regime by embracing personal freedom — in some cases, even sex, drugs and rock ’n’ roll.
-- Nicholas D. Kristof at The New York Times
Kristof writes about how the Iranian youth are becoming increasingly freer despite their repressive government. His argument is that if we can refrain from invading Iran, we will surely see the tide turn as the more liberal young rise to prominence. Conversely, if we invade Iran, we will likely only strengthen the regime as well as set back liberalization in that country.
On the other hand, we have a fanatic regime that will soon have nuclear bombs. It is a tough position.
-- Nicholas D. Kristof at The New York Times
Kristof writes about how the Iranian youth are becoming increasingly freer despite their repressive government. His argument is that if we can refrain from invading Iran, we will surely see the tide turn as the more liberal young rise to prominence. Conversely, if we invade Iran, we will likely only strengthen the regime as well as set back liberalization in that country.
On the other hand, we have a fanatic regime that will soon have nuclear bombs. It is a tough position.
Atlas Shrugged (1,3) The Taggart Terminal
Jun. 21st, 2012 06:00 pmDagny makes it into New York, raring to get to work.
_ _ _
With the first whistling rush of air, as the Comet plunged into the tunnels of the Taggart Terminal under the city of New York, Dagny Taggart sat up straight. She always felt it when the train went underground - this sense of eagerness, of hope and of secret excitement. [...]
She watched the tunnels as they flowed past: bare walls of concrete, a net of pipes and wires, a web of rails that went off into black holes where green and red lights hung as distant drops of color. There was nothing else, nothing to dilute it, so that one could admire naked purpose and the ingenuity that had achieved it. She thought of the Taggart Building standing above her head at the moment, growing straight to the sky, and she thought: These are the roots of the building, hollow roots twisting under the ground, feeding the city.
When the train stopped, when she got off and heard the concrete of the platform under her heels, she felt light, lifted, impelled to action. She started off, walking fast, as if the speed of her steps could give form to the things she felt.
-- “Atlas Shrugged” by Ayn Rand
_ _ _
With the first whistling rush of air, as the Comet plunged into the tunnels of the Taggart Terminal under the city of New York, Dagny Taggart sat up straight. She always felt it when the train went underground - this sense of eagerness, of hope and of secret excitement. [...]
She watched the tunnels as they flowed past: bare walls of concrete, a net of pipes and wires, a web of rails that went off into black holes where green and red lights hung as distant drops of color. There was nothing else, nothing to dilute it, so that one could admire naked purpose and the ingenuity that had achieved it. She thought of the Taggart Building standing above her head at the moment, growing straight to the sky, and she thought: These are the roots of the building, hollow roots twisting under the ground, feeding the city.
When the train stopped, when she got off and heard the concrete of the platform under her heels, she felt light, lifted, impelled to action. She started off, walking fast, as if the speed of her steps could give form to the things she felt.
-- “Atlas Shrugged” by Ayn Rand
Atlas Shrugged (1,3) The Taggart Terminal
Jun. 21st, 2012 06:00 pmDagny makes it into New York, raring to get to work.
_ _ _
With the first whistling rush of air, as the Comet plunged into the tunnels of the Taggart Terminal under the city of New York, Dagny Taggart sat up straight. She always felt it when the train went underground - this sense of eagerness, of hope and of secret excitement. [...]
She watched the tunnels as they flowed past: bare walls of concrete, a net of pipes and wires, a web of rails that went off into black holes where green and red lights hung as distant drops of color. There was nothing else, nothing to dilute it, so that one could admire naked purpose and the ingenuity that had achieved it. She thought of the Taggart Building standing above her head at the moment, growing straight to the sky, and she thought: These are the roots of the building, hollow roots twisting under the ground, feeding the city.
When the train stopped, when she got off and heard the concrete of the platform under her heels, she felt light, lifted, impelled to action. She started off, walking fast, as if the speed of her steps could give form to the things she felt.
-- “Atlas Shrugged” by Ayn Rand
_ _ _
With the first whistling rush of air, as the Comet plunged into the tunnels of the Taggart Terminal under the city of New York, Dagny Taggart sat up straight. She always felt it when the train went underground - this sense of eagerness, of hope and of secret excitement. [...]
She watched the tunnels as they flowed past: bare walls of concrete, a net of pipes and wires, a web of rails that went off into black holes where green and red lights hung as distant drops of color. There was nothing else, nothing to dilute it, so that one could admire naked purpose and the ingenuity that had achieved it. She thought of the Taggart Building standing above her head at the moment, growing straight to the sky, and she thought: These are the roots of the building, hollow roots twisting under the ground, feeding the city.
When the train stopped, when she got off and heard the concrete of the platform under her heels, she felt light, lifted, impelled to action. She started off, walking fast, as if the speed of her steps could give form to the things she felt.
-- “Atlas Shrugged” by Ayn Rand