Dailies

It’s the wee hours before I go to work; when I first woke, forty-five minutes ago, the sky over Harlem was a dull, tiger-lily orange. (What are sailors supposed to make of that? I forget.) Kate hummed a little as I climbed back into bed and rubbed her back. The instant I got out of bed, however, she dozily rearranged the stacks of pillows and flying buttresses on which she’s sleeping these days and has now extended herself across my side of the bed. “Watch This Space” Hirsch was quiet when I put my hands on her/him, but I figure that’s only temporary.

There’s nothing quite like having friends with a one-year-old come and stay for the weekend to really bring home the fact that we’ve invited a tasmanian devil crossed with a whirlwind into our lives. Tim, Rachel, and Adi Diego were marvelous houseguests, and my early morning walks with Adi utterly awesome. I’m really psyched to do this with our own creature.

• 08:46 Chopping mangos, making coffee, expecting weekend guests delayed by inclement weather, Booker T on the stereo, sourdough on the rise. #fb #
• 08:59 Man goes. Men go. Go, man, go! Mangoes grow as men go; Men grow as man goes. Grow, mango! Grow, man! Go grow! As man grows, grows mango. #

Automatically consolidated by LoudTwitter

• 06:59 If *I* were 37+ weeks pregnant and working overnight shifts, I’d be snarling and biting the heads off bats. My chill wife is a rockstar. #
• 13:13 I am rockin’ my Mr. Bento lunch.. pail. box. containers. Really, it most resembles a set of nesting matryoshka dolls, except made of lunch. #
• 14:25 RT @baratunde: after noticing the pace at which people in the south walk, it becomes clear to me why the union prevailed in the civil war #

Automatically consolidated by LoudTwitter

24 hours of micro updates:

• 19:10 RT @erdanton: Sanford spent the past five days crying in Argentina? Hasn’t he seen "Evita?" #

Automatically consolidated by LoudTwitter

Okay, people I’ve given Infinite Jest over the years. Here’s your chance to actually read and (hopefully) enjoy the book. Via the excellent kottke.org:

the challenge

Join endurance bibliophiles from around the world in reading Infinite Jest over the summer of 2009, June 21st to September 22nd. A thousand pages¹ ÷ 92 days = 75 pages a week. No sweat.

1. Plus endnotes^a.
a. A lot of them.

[...] But what I am qualified to tell you — as a two-time reader and lover of Infinite Jest — is that you don’t need to be an expert in much of anything to read and enjoy this novel. It isn’t just for English majors or people who love fiction or tennis players or recovering drug addicts or those with astronomical IQs. Don’t sweat all the Hamlet stuff; you can worry about those references on the second time through if you actually like it enough to read it a second time. Leave your dictionary at home; let Wallace’s grammatical gymnastics and extensive vocabulary wash right over you; you’ll get the gist and the gist is more than enough. Is the novel postmodern or not? Who f’ing cares…the story stands on its own. You’re likely to miss at least 50% of what’s going on in IJ the first time though and it doesn’t matter.

And and and! It is a fact that Infinite Jest is a long book with almost a hundred pages of endnotes, one of which lists the complete (and fictional) filmography of a prolific (and fictional) filmmaker and runs for more than eight pages and itself has six footnotes, and all of which you have to read because they are important. So sure, it’s a lengthy book that’s heavy to carry and impossible to read in bed, but Christ, how many hours of American Idol have you sat through on your uncomfortable POS couch? The entire run of The West Wing was 111 hours and 56 minutes; ER was twice as long, and in the later seasons, twice as painful. I guarantee you that getting through Infinite Jest with a good understanding of what happened will take you a lot less time and energy than you expended getting your Mage to level 60 in World of Warcraft.

And so, readers: Forward. I wish you way more than luck.

via Infinite Summer .