The Pale King, dullness

Former IRS examiner David Wallace on dullness:

To me, at least in retrospect,¹ the really interesting question is why dullness proves to be such a powerful impediment to attention. Why we recoil from the dull. Maybe it’s because dullness is intrinsically painful; maybe that’s where phrases like “deadly dull” or “excruciatingly dull” come from. But there might be more to it. Maybe dullness is associated with psychic pain because something that’s dull or opaque fails to provide enough stimulation to distract people from some other, deeper type of pain that is always there, if only in an ambient low-level way, and which most of us² spend nearly all our time and energy trying to distract ourselves from feeling, or at least from feeling directly or with our full attention. Admittedly, the whole thing’s pretty confusing, and hard to talk about abstractly . . . but surely something must lie behind not just Muzak in dull or tedious places anymore but now also actual TV in waiting rooms, supermarkets’ checkouts, airports’ gates, SUVs’ backseats. Walkmen, iPods, BlackBerries, cell phones that attach to your head. This terror of silence with nothing diverting to do. I can’t think anyone really believes that today’s so-called “information society” is just about information. Everyone knows³ it’s about something else, way down.

¹ (which is, after all, memoirs’ specialty)
² (whether or not we’re consciously aware of it)
³ (again, whether consciously or not)

David Foster Wallace, The Pale King (Boston: Little, Brown, 2011).

The Pale King is a novel in the form of “basically a nonfiction memoir” by former IRS examiner David Wallace, “with additional elements of reconstructive journalism, organizational psychology, elementary civics and tax theory, & c.” This passage is from the Author’s Foreword. The footnote numbers are 26, 27, and 28. Ellipsis in the original.

[Cf. Blaise Pascal’s Pensées 139 (trans. W.F. Trotter): “They have a secret instinct which impels them to seek amusement and occupation abroad, and which arises from the sense of their constant unhappiness.”]

“Share Curiosity. Read Together.”

I couldn’t resist.

[With apologies to H.A. Rey, Margret Ray, and the gummint.]

Fine Austrlian wine

A misspelling in the news:

Hundreds of fake bottles of best-selling Australian wine Jacob’s Creek have been seized by trading standards officers in England and Wales. . . .

The bottles appear identical to the real thing, apart from a tell-tale misspelling on the label on the back, where Australia is spelt Austrlia.

Fake Jacob’s Creek wine seized (BBC News)

Most frequently challenged books

The American Library Association has released its Top Ten List of the Most Frequently Challenged Books of 2010. Number one: Justin Richardson’s and Peter Parnell’s And Tango Makes Three,

an award-winning children’s book about the true story of two male Emperor Penguins hatching and parenting a baby chick at New York’s Central Park Zoo. The book has appeared on the ALA’s Top Ten List of Frequently Challenged Books for the past five years and returns to the number one slot after a brief stay at the number two position in 2009. There have been dozens of attempts to remove And Tango Makes Three from school and public library shelves. Those seeking to remove the book have described it as “unsuited for age group,” and cited “religious viewpoint” and “homosexuality” as reasons for challenging the book.

The logic of book-banners would seem to dictate that the Penguin House itself be closed to children, no? If a story about the penguins is “unsuited for age group,” how much more so the penguins themselves.

The Wikipedia article on And Tango Makes Three includes this passage from a court ruling:

[I]f a parent wishes to prevent her child from reading a particular book, that parent can and should accompany the child to the Library, and should not prevent all children in the community from gaining access to constitutionally protected materials. Where First Amendment rights are concerned, those seeking to restrict access to information should be forced to take affirmative steps to shield themselves from unwanted materials; the onus should not be on the general public to overcome barriers to their access to fully protected information.

Amen.

ML on DFW at Broadcastr

To mark the arrival of The Pale King, Broadcastr has invited readers to record brief appreciations of David Foster Wallace’s work. If you’d like to listen, here’s mine. You’ll need Flash, and you should put the volume up high:

Allston, Brighton, East-Central Illinois (Broadcastr)

[I’m up to page 104 in The Pale King. Making slow progress!]

Billy Bang (1947–2011)

Sad news: the violinist Billy Bang has died. WKCR-FM is playing his music all day.

Thanks, Richard.

A Brooklyn grows in Brooklyn

Jonathan Lopes has built a Brooklyn of Legos.

Correction: “of LEGO® blocks.” See Comments.

Thanks, Seth!

Stephen Fry on pencils

Actor and comedian Stephen Fry on pencils: “I love pencils. No, I really do. Pencils. We don’t hear enough about them.”

Amazon Kindle with Euphemism

Amazon has introduced a cheaper Kindle with Euphemism. Because we never get tired of looking at [euphemism]. I wonder how many people will decide that saving a mere $25 is worth a device-lifetime-supply.

[The Kindle with Special Offers: ads, ads, ads.]

Van Dyke Parks on Bananastan

[Design by Art Spiegelman. Click for a larger view.]

Van Dyke Parks will soon release six 7"-vinyl singles on the Bananastan label. Two singles will drop (as they say) in the first week of May, with four more to follow in the summer. Downloads for the digital crowd from iTunes.

Not every record label has a logo designed by Art Spiegelman. Very cool indeed. Thanks, Van Dyke.

Update, May 4: The release date for the first single is now May 16.

Related posts
A new Van Dyke Parks project
Van Dyke Parks on Bananastan, cont’d.
Van Dyke Parks, two singles (imaginary liner notes)