David Foster Wallace Documentary “End Notes”

Audio from David Foster Wallace documentary c/o of BBC. Includes insight into his childhood and interviews with peers Rick Moody, Mark Costello (Wallace’s college roommate), Don DeLillo, Michael Pietsch (editor of Infinite Jest) Bonnie Nadell (Wallace’s editor) and his sister, Amy Wallace.

Roundup of LA Lit Journals @ LAist

New article up at LAist:

So maybe our city isn’t host to regal literary journals like Harper’s, Granta, or The Paris Review. And, yes, elite literary parlors with Merlot and Camembert on doilies seem somewhat amiss in a city where flames seize shrubs more often than fireplaces. But that doesn’t mean LA’s literary publications fall short. It just means we’re not stuck up. In truth, several esteemed lit journals prevail in our unassuming city. And with good reason: like many things considered pompous elsewhere (tattoos, indie music, modern art, the color black), literary magazines are cooler in Los Angeles.

Introducing our key players…

Lit Event Review @ LAist

“Burt Reynolds, Car Crashes, and Suicidal Depression: A Literary Event” New article on New American Writing Series featuring Sarah Manguso and Jennifer Knox at the Hammer last week.

Suspension of Disbelief: LA Is (really) Literary [@LAist]

My article at LAist, in defense of LA lit:

Los Angeles is home to many things “unliterary.” Hollywood celebrities, the porn industry, and paparazzi perpetuate this fact. So, when held against definitive bookish cities Seattle, New York, and San Francisco, LA’s literary credibility falls understandably short. But Central Connecticut State University’s recent list of 75 national literary cities banished Los Angeles to number 61. LA’s literary rating fell behind those of Miami, Phoenix, and Las Vegas. No offense intended toward Sin City, but this can’t be right.

Read the rest here.

My Dreams Are Made of Libraries Like This One

What a library. Behold the Havana Library of Capitol. Courtesy of Bookshelf Porn (amazing site).

Book Soup Reading 4/23

Susan Sontag Forces Me to Contemplate Marriage For No Good Reason

I know how that sounds. But a new memoir of hers just came out–well actually it’s the first volume compiling her journals. They are very intriguing, dense, and almost mesmerizing. I’ve long be fond of Sontag, although it seemed that everyone else had read a different book of hers than I had, or that people felt her philosophy on a different plane than I could. However, this journal has instilled in me a real affinity for the writer/thinker/anthropologist/ad infinitum. I’m about a third of the way in and the journals of her first marriage are particularly interesting. She describes marriage as a dulling of the emotions–stating that ‘all desires become decisions.’ Prompting me to question the necessity of marriage, or even of monogamy? Why is it that society seems to force this idea of one plus one equating two to such illogical and irrational realms as the emotions and desires? I’m not suggesting polygamy (or am I?), but the idea that one is supposed to ‘settle down’ (which already has a negative connotation; inferring that one cannot settle without someone else) into one relationship for the entirety of their lives. Now obviously this has been proven to be rarely efficient. With the divorce rate afflicting more than half of all marriages, it would seem that the notion of monogamy is not as natural as people conclude.

I suppose it’s because the idea of marriage is instilled into the onset of coupling. That is, when adolescents begin to date, they are taught that they have to commit to one, they are quite literally in practice for ‘the one.’ And there is supposed to be a one, correct? How can that be if we are able to love and grow affinities for a variety of different people. The guy I dated my senior year of high school was ‘the one’ at that time, and then in college ‘the one’ at that time. How can ‘one’ transcend so much time when my personality can hardly manage to stay in tact? I am quite definitely a different person than I had been four years ago. This being said, how would I manage to maintain a relationship with someone, while growing, and expecting the relationship to remain the same throughout the change. Perhaps I change into someone the other person doesn’t like? Maybe the other person refuses to change and is an anchor to my evolution. Whatever the case, it seems natural to question whether monogamy may actually hinder an individuals evolution and progression as a human being.

It’s also strange that when I try to talk about this subject, I am called cold or jaded, emotionally-detached or deficient. But maybe it’s just because I’m changing and the change requires that you either change in exactly the same way so as to complement my changing self (which is a completely ridiculous and probably impossible request) or that it is alright to move on and away from a person because your paths verge away from each others–as they will do with everyone else you are with.

This seems harsh, I know. But reading Sontag’s book has really got me thinking about this institution that connects–legally–your life to someone else’s. Why we must feel safe and complete when we have the very real and very legal support and connection to another human being. Is it true that we need one other person to make us happy? Is this the missing link? And why is it that there is never an easy way to relay this fluxing, this weaving of relationships through the core of one’s self? Marriage and marriage-bound relationships seem to produce an increase in jealousy, insecurity, competition, and judgment. It seems unrealistic–and quite cruel–that one should endure a relationship of this magnitude and weight for the duration implied (till death do us part.)

I’ve had the experience of coming in and out of love or affinity for an individual, but not in a consistent and exclusive way. It’s as if there are lines side by side that tend to intersect, run over one another and touch perpendicularly. But the duration of the eight years we’ve known each other, the conditions are hot/cold and filled with periods of silence and a disconnect of communication. There’s a reuniting with the help of nostalgia and a deep-seeded fondness, but often times the circumstances provide that we be different, separated, detached (at least sometimes).

And then there are friendships that can last a lifetime. Well, yes. But because there is a very clear distinction between a relationship of camaraderie and one of romantic intimacy. It seems as though this occurs because one places more weight on the intimate relationship with such things as trust, loyalty, devotion, etc. Would these things exist without our imposition of them? In reaction to the breaking or tarnishing of these expectations comes jealousy, anger, betrayal, etc. These things can happen and do happen in congenial relationships, but it seems to a lesser degree than in the intimate ones.

I believe in intimacy, monogamy (to a degree), and love. But marriage? Well marriage seems to eradicate the emotional charge of the relationship. If there is a union of two people who trust, love, and are loyal to one another, why is there a need for an official document binding them to one another? This would seem to indicate a lack of trust or an underlying suspicion. And there are people who want to marry in order to prove their love for one another, but is it really love if proof is required?

Anyway, blame Sontag’s genius for this one (and read her journals titled ‘Reborn’). It can’t be this depressing, but I see (quite clearly) the importance in her observations. And who knows? Life could also be a fairy tale and every one will live happily ever after, I’ve just never seen it.