Infinite Summer #3: The McDonald's of the Soul and a thing about water

Think of these Sunday posts as jumping off places...discuss what I've posted, post something yourself, answer questions, ask questions, add links...do whatever it takes to make this experience enjoyable and understandable for you!

These post will be CHOCK FULL OF SPOILERS for the reading for that week (Just in case you didn't already know that!). I think knowing this will stop those of us that aren't at a certain place from reading on and will enable those of us who are writing to do so without worrying if someone knows that fact or not. If you are reading ahead and want to post about the pages ahead please wait and if you want to talk about other books, not Infinite Jest and are giving spoilers please indicate that in some fashion...even a *spoiler* before the comment would be nice.

And, finally, if there is anything I can do to make this run more smoothly please don't hesitate to message me on here, on twitter or on Goodreads and I'll see what I can do.

Let's begin the discussion...


OK, so I've been reading Infinite Jest and some YA fiction for a Goodreads group I'm in and...well, I've been watching Jim Gaffigan and I am finding so many connections...my brain is full of Hal and the gang. Thank-you very much DFW.

“I’m tired of people acting like they’re better than McDonald’s. It’s like, you may have never set foot in McDonald’s but you have your own McDonald’s. Maybe instead of buying a Big Mac you read Us Weekly. Hey, that’s still McDonald’s, it’s just served up a little different. Maybe your McDonald’s is telling yourself that a Starbucks frappuccino is not a milkshake. Or maybe you watch Glee. It’s all McDonald’s. McDonald’s of the soul.”— Jim Gaffigan, Mr. Universe

What connections to DFW and everyday life have you noticed?

I deviated off-course (yeah, it's that darned book for $3.99)
I think we're far enough along in the book that we can start seeing how it's changing us...or, should I say, I can start seeing how it's changing me...If you haven't, read "A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again" (the link is to the Harper's article; I printed it just in case it will be taken down later)

And, then there's this beautiful thing...the LiveJournal (every time I get finished with a section I read its LiveJournal counterpart, I am loving the LiveJournal!) talks about DFW's Kenyon Commencement Speech and finally I broke down and read and listened to it and teared up (thinking about my own life, the lives of those around me and, of course, DFW, a man who I will never meet, but who feels like someone I know).

Transcript here, and you can listen to it (I would suggest you do both; maybe simultaneously):

Then, I wanted to watch these movies again (both of which I only have on VHS, bummer):

And, I wanted to be in college again...except for I'm not really sure that's exactly what I'm feeling it's just the best way of summing it all up.

If we must talk about the book...
I love how the movies keep coming back and it's fun to have something to imagine while rereading some of their descriptions. I also love looking at the pictures again.

I am finding that I like Michael Pemulis. I hope that he isn't a shady character.

"Tennis and the Feral Prodigy"...wow...

"...talent is its own expectation: it is there from the start and either lived up to or lost." 

"By repeating this term over and over, perhaps in the same rhythm at which you squeeze a ball, you can reduce it to an empty series of phonemes, just formants and fricatives, trochaically stressed, signifying zip." 

"If you are an adolescent, here is the trick to being neither quite a nerd nor quite a jock: be no one." 

"It is easier than you think." 

"This is also how not to fear sleep or dreams. Never tell anyone where you are. Please learn the pragmatics of expressing fear: sometimes words that seem to express really invoke."

 "But in the interval, if it is an interval: here is Motrin for your joints, Noxgema for your burn, Lemon Pledge if you prefer nausea to burn, Contracol for your back, benzoin for your hands, Epsom salts and anti-inflammatories for your ankle, and extracurriculars for your folks, who just wanted to make sure you didn't miss anything they got."

Finally, a little house-keeping:

The ereader and physical copy
of this edition are not the same...

1] Thank-you Deana for noticing...it would seem that the ereader and physical versions published from the same year do not have the same page numbers. I used my ebook, the physical book one time (yes, in the bookstore, no I do not own two copies of the book), and the information from infinitesummer to calculate the page numbers.
Amanda, who owns the physical copy, and I, poured over it to figure out the flaw. The physical book does it at 981 which means in essence we don't need the last two weeks, my book ends at 1203 (which I thought was a bit odd, but calculated it up to the transfer to ereader). When I did the math (to convert % to page number) it all worked out, based on my limited knowledge of the book and I didn't notice the error until Deana mailed me and then AGD was talking about something in the section I hadn't gotten to although I read all the pages. If you go by infinitesummer index (I used it to figure out where I should be and realized that I was about 100 pages in the red), you should be fine and heck! being ahead in the reading, must be better than I am...behind (less than I was on Thursday and hopefully caught up on the plane) on the reading. I can fix the page number thing (so it aligns in perpetuity), but can't now because I am reading the book and don't want to look ahead. I've been very good at not spoiling things for myself. Sorry, if this has caused anyone confusion!
2] If you haven't signed up officially, please do so here.
3] Catch up on all of our IJ stuff and things here.
4] All of the books on this list are $3.99 on the Nook, including A Supposedly Funny Thing I'll Never Do Again: Essays and Arguments ...go snag it while it's there to be snagged!
5] And, keep the convo coming, I am loving it and it helps me to understand the book and my viewpoints so much more.
6] I will not be coming back here until after the 12th (I will still post daily, but will not be on Twitter or Facebook, or able to reply to comments or such), as I'll be at a conference in Las Vegas learning about high school journalism and hanging out with my husband sans the tiny person. And, when I'm away I like to be away...and, I'm sure I'll have work to do and places to go anyway...

I wish you way more than luck.

A Time to be Overcome 9.11.11

"Overcome"

Live

even now the world is bleedin' but feelin' just fine all numb
in our castle where we're always free to choose never free enough
to find i wish somethin' would break cuz we're runnin' out of time

and i am overcome i am overcome holy water in my lungs i am overcome

these women in the street pullin' out their hair my master's
in the yard givin' light to the unaware this plastic little place
is just a step amongst the stairs

and i am overcome i am overcome baby holy water in my lungs i am overcome

so drive me out out to that open field turn the ignition off
and spin around your help is here but i'm parked in this open space
blockin' the gates of love

i am overcome i am overcome holy water in my lungs i am overcome

beautiful drowning this beautiful drowning this holy water
this holy water is in my lungs

and i am overcome i am overcome i am overcome i am overcome

________________________________________________________________________

Ten years ago on this day I was running late for school, this was not unusual. Because I was running late I did not have time to turn on the TV to watch the news liked I liked to do in the morning. I drove like hell the 5 minutes to the high school and was taking off my cardigan as I ran in the back doors, hoping to slip by everyone unnoticed. The halls were quiet.

"Stephanie, they think a plane just crashed into the World Trade Center", somebody says...all I know is that the person was male.

My friend and I go into my room and turn on the TV, we watch the newscasters frantic to understand what is going on..."Are you sure it was a plane? How does an accident like this happen?," I ask having missed the inital report and not wanting to wait. "Maybe it was an explosion?"

And, as we're talking...those of us who didn't have a class had gathered in my room around the TV waiting for the newscasters to tell us more...I am reminded of The Challenger explosion and tell my colleagues as much, talking about what happened in school when that happened. I talk about how we were all afraid, but we didn't know where to channel that fear. I didn't know that then the newscasters were also at a loss for words and frantically searching for answers, I was only 10. At 25, looking at the television and talking with my friends, I could tell that all the reporters were just as lost as we were and were guessing just as we were and were watching The World Trade Center just as we were, trying to make heads or tails of the situation that they were presenting to us.

"Oh my gosh, oh my gosh," one of my friends said and we all turned to look at the news. And, as if in slow motion we watched as the second plane, by then we knew it couldn't be anything else, flew into the second tower.

We are breathless. We are crying and the school (I can only assume every classroom had the news on) was in panic. Many were worried that Whiteman Airforce Base was next as it had Stealth Bombers and Missouri also has a nuclear reactor. We have students who parents were in lockdown at Fort Leonard Wood and one teacher was frantically trying to get ahold of her husband, as she wasn't going to be allowed on post anytime soon. She thought for sure that we were at war.

The terroist attack on the World Trade Center is the second disaster I have seen live on the news and it is the second disaster that binds me with millions of other people in my nation as we collectively mourn the lives of those who we know are lost, as we mourn lost innocence. I can tell you were I was and what I was doing during both. Later my mom tells me this is how she feels about the assasination of JFK and MLK and I think Oh my gosh my mother has been around for so much and I think I'm not sure that I can do this another time. My heart is hurting.

During that year I will see several students graduate to fight in Operation: Iraqi Freedom, I will listen as we, as a nation, try to make sense of how these attacks (there were two more one on the Pentagon and one thwarted heading to the White House) happened in a nation with such a strong military force and government. As a nation we are shaken, I am shaken as I learn to differeniate between a nation and its criminals and as I learn to teach others to try to do the same. One teacher is reprimanded for playing the Dixie Chicks in her class, a school trip we were going to take to Boston in November is canceled and I revamp my War Fiction Unit to incorporate what is happening as we go to war in March of 2002 .

Later that year, when I think my heart is fine, my friend and I will take a recent graduate to New York City, we'll see Audra McDonald and Hugh Jackman at Carnegie. We'll also go visit the site of The World Trade Center still in devastation with sidewalks torn up and fences surrounding where the buildings use to be. It's eerily quiet and I can hear the other tourists around us sniffling and patting their eyes with tissues and the backs of their hands holding back tears. We're hugging strangers, as we look through the barracade at the humongous hole in the ground. It smells like wet cement and soil. We read signs and notes dedicated to those lost and to those fighting for the cause overseas.

We are overcome.

U2 will bring a crowd to tears when they dedicate "Walk On" to 9/11 during their Elevation Tour, they will do it again during the Superbowl when we are watching their 9/11 Tribute using "Where the Streets Have No Name".

They are so classy, spirtual and patriotic.

Two years ago my aunt, niece, sister and I go to New York, it's late at night when we walk to the construction site of the Memorial to be, my aunt is overcome by the site, as we walk around looking for it. I have to look up on my phone what it looks like now and tell them that we have passed it several times. We settle on a bench overlooking the water. I'm amazed at New York City's ability to heal. We are a nation that perseveres, we are a nation that stands strong.

Saddam Hussein is dead, Osama Bin Ladin is dead, Libya is all but crushed, our war on 'terror' is still raging on. I am sad thinking about the roles that my former students have played in this battle, I am sad for the former student that has been lost in this battle, I am sad for my friends who have fought and who have been changed because of our nations need to insure that the world is free of terror.

I think about the work that has been done, I think about the work still yet to do, I think about the lives that must be dedicated to make sure that freedom stands for everyone. I am divided about my role, I am divided about our agenda in this affair. I am also proud of my nation and I am proud to be an American.

I am overcome.