RE: Tedium

Bliss - a-second-by-second joy and gratitude at the gift of being alive, conscious - lies on the other side of crushing, crushing boredom. Pay attention to the most tedious thing you can find (Tax Returns, Televised Golf) and, in waves, a boredom like you've never known will wash over you and just about kill you. Ride these out, and it's like stepping from black and white into color. Like water after days in the desert. Instant bliss in every atom.

-David Foster Wallace, from his notes for The Pale King, a novel on transcendence, boredom, and the IRS.

Excerpts from The Pale King give us a glimpse into the uber-boring world of an IRS office and offer some interesting strategies for coping. Whilst checking forms for accuracy, IRS clerks pause to envision soothing tropical paradises and frequently clench and unclench their butt cheeks. 

Whether this an actual practice by IRS agents discovered during Wallace's extensive research and preparation or an entirely fictional creation could not be verified by my own cursory Google search.

*Wallace hung himself in his garage before completing The Pale King, casting serious doubts on the validity of his insights into how to cope with the tedium of human life. 

** Wallace was also an accomplished tennis player and scholar of the game. Read an article he wrote on Roger Federer (one of his last completed works).

Zoo Babies

Occasionally, boston.com updates their photo gallery of zoo babies; it always makes me smile.

Summer People, Summer Not

"Summer People" by Ernest Hemingway.

Browsing through a collection of Hemingway short stories for "Ten Indians," I chanced upon the hitherto overlooked (by me) story "Summer People." As chance and luck would have it, "Summer People" is, like "Ten Indians," a Nick Adams story about girls and the manly art of emotional repression.

Lazy summer nights seem to bring out the worst in callow existentialists and young Nick is no exception. Over the course of one gloriously indifferent evening, Nick shows off his diving skills, holds his breath, muses on the sensual possibilities of fucking a mermaid, decides he must be the best swimmer in Michigan, and for a shallow coup de grace screws his friend Odgar's girlfriend in an apple orchard - afterwards they eat fried chicken and pie.

Favorite passages:

"What are we going to do tomorrow?" Odgar said, his voice becoming husky, near to Kate again.
"Oh, hell, let's not talk about tomorrow," Nick said. "Let's talk about my mermaid."
"We're through with your mermaid."
"All right," Nick said. "You and Odgar go and talk. I'm going to think about her."
"You're immoral, Wemedge. You're disgustingly immoral."
"No, I'm not. I'm honest." Then lying with his eyes shut, he said, "Don't bother me. I'm thinking about her."

and

"Is it good this way?" he said.
"I love it. I love it. I love it. Oh, come, Wemedge. Please come. Come, come. Please, Wemedge. Please, please, Wemedge."
"There it is," Nick said.
He was suddenly conscious of the blanket rough against his bare body.
"Was I bad, Wemedge?" Kate said.
"No, you were good," Nick said. His mind was working very hard and clear. He saw everything very sharp and clear. "I'm hungry," he said.

Wonderfully blunt and unadorned, "Summer People" is a deceptively kind portrayal of erotic self-absorption. Indifference, whether feigned or genuine, disappears when Nick immerses himself in the sensual world, returning only when he comes up for air and in an act of authorial benevolence that transcends forgiveness or affection, Hemingway abstains from any judgment or defense.

Recommended for aficionados of summer nights, swimming underwater and the simple eroticism of an e.e. cummings poem.

Sally Who?

Best performance by an actress in a supporting role in a film I watched recently: Sally Hawkins.


Despite being given little to do in Woody Allen's Cassandra's Dream but provide a sweet and unwordly counterpoint to Hayley Atwell's sexpot classassin, Ms. Hawkins turns in a lovely, quietly memorable performance.

Don't be offended. I have had a bad week.

So my father ended up in the hospital yesterday. He has COPD (Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease) from smoking. Basically one of his lungs isn't working so well and he will probably be on oxygen from now on. As a result of this our (my mother, father and myself) arrival back to New England will be delayed by an undetermined number of days. In the meantime I have been feeling rather creative. After watching an episode of "True Life: I Work In The Sex Industry" my brother, David and I were inspired by one subject, a young man named Aaron who did gay porn, blew dudes, took cum shots to the face, etc. but was convinced that this wasn't "homosexual" and in fact it was just " a day job" and he "does it for the money". Aaron was conflicted about this complex he had and so he decided to tell all of his friends and family the truth about his "job". As a result no one really thought it was that great and everyone agreed that in fact it was "Gay". One man sucking on another man's erect penis is gay. There is no argument. So I decided to come up with some possible gay porn movie titles (inspired by actual Hollywood movies). Boredom increased and the titles expanded to heterosexual porn titles and even some possible porn television shows. Here is a list of some of my favorite titles:

"Butt Pirates of the Caribbean"
"Lord of the Cock Rings"
"Who Flamed Roger Rabbit?"
"Bum Rush Hour (1,2,3)"
"A Cockwork Orange"
"Good Will Grunting"
"Assablanca"
"Hot Teen Boyz in the Hood"
"Homo Alone"
"Homo Alone 2: Lost in the Pork"
"Citizen Cum Stain"
"Finding Nympho" or "Fucking Nemo"
"Monster Balls"
"Meat the Parents"
"Around the World With 80 Gays"
"Gayzed and Confused"
"Glory Hole Road"
"The Fast and the Curious: Tokyo Stiffies"
"Field of Wet Dreams"
"Gay Pride and Prejudice"
"Gaylords of Dogtown"
"There Will Be Studs/Cum"
"Malcolm XXX"
"The Trannysporter"
"The Tranny Diaries"
"Riding Miss Daisy"
"One in the Stink, Two in the Pink Panther"
"Bi-Bi Love"
"Primal Queer"
"Uncle Buckwild"
"The Bath House on the Left"
"The Chronicles of Big Dick"
"I Know Who You Did Last Summer"
"The Girl With the Pearl Necklace"
"Requiem for a Cream Pie"
"Hardened State"
"Peeing on John Malkovich"
"Five Easy Pieces (of Ass)"
"John Tucker Must Likes Guys"
"Romeo Must Be Bi"
"Rub Down and Out in LA"
"Limpseabisucuit"
"A Few Gay Men"--you can't handle the cock!
"Freak Me Friday"
"Fifty First Date Rapes"
"Mona Lisa's Wild"
"Ferris Bueler Gets Off"
"The Gang Bangs of New York"
"Ass Blast From the Past"
"Don't Tell Mom the Babysitter Gives Great Head" or "Don't Tell Mom the Babysitter's Hot"
"Dante Peeks"
"Lake Flacid"
"Mary Cockblockins"
"Missionary Position Impossile"
"Sword Fight Club"
"Saturday Night Beaver"
"There's Something Inside Mary"
"20,000 Leagues Under the Seamen"
"Lost in Penetration"
"The Longest Nards"
"Nookie of the Year"
"Barely Legally Blond"


It's rather easy (I think to see which movies I am porn-parodying). See if you can come up with some. It's fun!

Whaaaa?

I was just poking around on youtube for some videos of reptilian shape-shifters and UFOs, and I stumbled on this vast series of videos titled "Signs of the Dajjal Antichrist Reptilian Shapeshifter". There's well over 300 installments, and I'm not clear on the author's agenda, but some of the clips are very interesting. These two I thought played off each other well:


I had heard a lot about Charles Manson's parole hearings (he's been up for parole 11 times since 1978) prior to seeing this, but...yikes.