He Was Just a Bellhop on the Elevator to Hell
Published October 1st, 2008 | 
I received an email recently from a guy who I hadn’t heard from in awhile, asking me why I didn’t mention David Foster Wallace’s recent suicide on my blog. “I know you weren’t exactly a fan,” he wrote, “I thought you’d have something to say about it.” Well . . . no, I hadn’t planned on it precisely because I’m not a fan of DFW’s writing. But since you mentioned it, guy, I’ll put my two cents in.
Probably, the major reason I’ve never been a fan of Wallace’s work has less to do with him than with postmodernism in general. Postmodernism is one of those things that makes for great chatter in the confines of a graduate school classroom, but has little appeal to me outside in the real world. I’ve always thought of David Foster Wallace as a terribly clever stylist but an ultimately empty storyteller too easily lost in the minutia of “words, words, words ….” And really, as far as DFW was concerned you were either in my camp or otherwise a fanboy. He wasn’t a writer who inspired indifference — which is, I suppose, the closest thing to a compliment I can express. I kind of feel the same way about DFW’s writing that I feel about coffee. Everyone I know drinks coffee, but I’ve never acquired a taste for it. I mean, I’ve tried to like coffee — I’ve tried it about four times since I was four years-old (which rounds out to about once a decade) and I’ve never enjoyed it. By the same token, I’ve tried to read and enjoy Wallace’s writing over the years and couldn’t manage it. I’ve often thought that his so-called masterpiece, Infinite Jest was actually a joke played on the reader. I only actually know one person who’s read the thing cover-to-cover and claims to have enjoyed it and even he said that he didn’t get into it until about “page 700.” I’d say that after 700 pages of a 1000-plus page opus, you’re already pretty well into it, so if it takes you that long to feel as if you’re into it . . . well, I rest my case.
As for David Foster Wallace, I don’t think I could write a glowing obituary of the man. I didn’t know him. I didn’t enjoy reading his work. And it’s not like this guy came to some heroic or otherwise brave end. The fucker hanged himself! Don’t get me wrong, I can embrace the notion that suicide is sometimes a noble thing — like when a unmarried soldier throws himself on a grenade to spare the life of a buddy who’s married with six kids so that guy can go home safe to his family. Or, when a terminally ill woman is faced with a choice between dying after much suffering or dying in peace wit some dignity. David Foster Wallace’s death wasn’t such an occasion. I can’t feel sorry for him. I feel sorry for his poor wife who discovered his body. I feel sorry for his parents. I feel sorry for those fans who will miss his presence in the literary world. But sorrow for him? Since David Foster Wallace was a self-proclaimed truth-seeker, here’s a little truth: His life and death don’t amount to spit in the grand scheme of the universe. And I think that’s ultimately what drove him to suicide. In his 2005, commencement address at Kenyon College, he said, “Worship your intellect, being seen as smart — you will end up feeling stupid, a fraud, always on the verge of being found out. ” I think he was talking about himself. Just my humble opinion. I think the truth of his own existence ate away at him. I think it made him unhappy. I think he couldn’t carry his own luggage spiritually, emotionally or intellectually and it did him in. But it’s politically incorrect these days to call a suicide a coward. We’re supposed to blame society or something. Treat the suicide with deference rather than with shame. Pity that I’m not a politically correct individual.
What I know is this: though a star in his short life, David Foster Wallace will be forgotten. His books, will sell well for a time because of his death, but will eventually fall out of fashion. His writing and his death will just be more chatter for the graduate writing programs. He has become a cliche and not a proper example for the next generation of writers to follow.
Google Hate Me
Published August 24th, 2008 | I was reading an interesting post over at the blog, Consistently Inconsistent this morning. According to the post, there’s a new search engine out there geared specifically towards the African-American community. Apparently, there is a need for it because, according to the search engine’s founder, John C. Taylor, Google’s search algorithm is biased against black web-surfers:
“I was having great difficulty finding things that matter to us,” Taylor said. “You’d like to think things like cancer are race neutral, but cancer is black or white. How we get it, the things that impact how black people deal with the treatment regimen – all that is different. I looked for it, but there is really nothing that spoke to how black men deal with [it]. So I said, ‘Gosh, it would be great if we could merge all the stuff from the National Cancer Society, the National Institute of Health, all the right places, the authorities, but also get that information that is specifically relevant to black people . . . .”
That’s an interesting theory — especially if you’re trying to sell African-Americans on using your search engine. But, is it true? I went to Rushmore Drive and input the search terms “cancer african-americans.” In another window, I input the exact same terms into Google. Guess what? The results returned were more or less the same — certainly not so different as to support the argument that Google’s algorithm is biased against black people. I input several other search terms that might be relevant to the black community and I got similar results. In fact, the only thing my own research was able to conclude is that Mr. Taylor doesn’t know how to use a search engine.
You Are a Doo-Doo Head or, Do As I Say Not As I Doo-Doo
Published August 2nd, 2008 |
To John Erianne:
You are always complaining about a lack of “professionalism,” but don’t you think you should practice what you preach? Your blog is replete with vulgarities, grammatical errors and a snide, unprofessional attitude, yet you caution others to be perfect in every respect you are not. I, for one, would take you more seriously if you stopped using foul language and exhibited a more positive attitude toward others.
The Uptight Grammarian
Dear Uptight Grammarian:
You know — honest to Christmas, I wasn’t originally going to respond to your email. It’s been sitting in my inbox for 2 weeks and I was going to delete it today. I get a little sick of reading the same complaints by knuckeheads like you who have nothing intelligent or substantive to say beyond the usual whining. It gets tiresome trying to come-up with witty retorts and there’s really very little sport in it for me these days. But, I was chatting with another literary editor yesterday and we were talking about the use of vulgarity in writing, so I thought I could cover that topic by way of a response to you.
Before I address your point about my use of “vulgarities” let me say this about my blog:
1) Yes, I do bend the rules of grammar/mechanics to some degree. This blog is written in a certain style and I bend those rules to fit that style. The manner in which I write this blog merely reinforces everything I’ve said about good writing. If you don’t understand that, I’d suggest you read through my blog more carefully.
2) My “snide, unprofessional attitude”? Is there some special edicate manual for literary editors I’m supposed to know about? I’ve read and responded to thousands and thousands of submissions over the years, and I’d defy but the tiniest percentage of those thousands to even suggest that I was ever unkind or unfair to them. And if I did trash that tiny percentage of writers, they had it coming as far as I’m concerned.
3) Last time I checked, this blog was called Diary of a Mad Editor — not Diary of the Warm, Fuzzy, Well-Manicured Editor so, get over it.
Now, about “vulgarities”:
Yes I do curse to some degree in this blog and elsewhere. But I only use obscenties when they seem appropriate. I’ve never said to any writer not to use obscenities in their writing — only that they use that language when necessary and not frivolously. Foul language, seemingly inappropriate subject matter, extreme violence, explicit sex, gallows humor, taboo subject matter of any kind — all of these things have a place in written communication. Anything that is a part of our human experience has a proper place in our literature. This was what I was discussing with my editor friend. When you write about a subject, you have to be true to that subject. You can’t sanitize it if the subject, by it’s very nature, is unsanitary. Fuck that. Fuck censorship. How are you going to write about something convincingly if you restrain yourself that way. As a writer, you have to embrace the idea of an appropriate level of language. That doesn’t mean that you write something purely for it’s apparent shock value. What it does mean is that if you are writing about a dock worker, for instance, that he walk, talk, dress and exhibit many of the traits of someone of his social class and experience. Same goes with soldiers or cops or anyone else. If you write about a pedophile, you have to capture all the things about him that make him creepy and wrong no matter how taboo.
Now, I realize I’ve deliberately strayed from your email’s topic, but only somewhat because, despite your protestations to the contrary, I think I’ve demonstrated in a roundabout way that I do very much practice what I’ve been preaching.
Can I get an “Amen”?
Posted in Assholes, Happy Horseshit, Rants, The Last Word, The Writing Life, blogs, editing, politcal correctness