I tried to read Infinite Jest a couple years back, maybe 2 or 3, and frankly, that's a good part of why I'm enrolled in this class. Besides being forced to read Gravity's Rainbow, which I knew I needed (or I'd never do it myself). I probably got about 200 pages in - I can't remember exactly - but I vividly remember dropping the book one time, forgetting my place, and thinking I found it, only realizing after reading TWENTY PAGES that I hadn't reached this section in the least. I was nearly 50 pages off, in fact. This led me to decide that you can open this book at any point at all and it will probably make about as much sense as if you had read up to that point. Now, I realize that Gravity's Rainbow probably would have felt that way had we not talked it out so extensively, and used the companion. Which is why I'm taking this class, really - so I can have a guided reading through this book that, last time I read it, seemed a jumbled mish mash of plots and fragmented narrative.

I think the initial "Year of the Depend Adult Undergarment" segment depicting the torturous wait for drugs in the midst of addiction is fascinating when taken in the context of the role drug use played in the other two novels, especially because his mental state comes off as somehow desperately paranoiac, though in a very different way from what we've seen thus far in the course. The idea that something like drug use becomes compulsory, something "he would force himself to do...even if he didn't want it. Even if it started to make him sizzy and ill. He would use discipline and persistence and will and make the whole experience so unpleasant, so debased and debauched and unpleasant, that...he'd never want to do it again" (22). I think this comes off as pathologically alienating because it's so teleological: I'll smoke now so I won't want to / have to smoke later. This mindset undermines the present moment completely, to the extent that we want to say, Look if you're going to smoke, you might as well enjoy it. It's like an activity that was once a guilty pleasure - pleasure now and maybe some guilt later - now induces the accompanying feeling guilt instantaneously, always-already right now, like the whole experience has been compressed into the present moment, but thereby cheapens it. Something like: overstimulated simultaneity in the present overwhelms and effectively eradicates the present. The drugs have lost their meaning as a mode of escapism, too, because the esacpe has become so routinized: "marijuana breaks" every few weeks have become a dependable part of his life. Smoking doesn't offer anything in the way of calling his subjectivity into question; it is constitutive part of that subjectivity. This reflects a larger trend that I observe in contemporary society: resistance to / disillusionment with the system is built into the system itself. Why is The Office such an hysterical show, or Office Space an hysterical movie? Because ultimately, jobs are "supposed" to be alienating. We've come to expect (and maybe even desire?) menial work as the status quo, and opposition is systemically built-in - the fact that workers or students will waste time is assumed and therefore preempted by stretching out the work day. Habits of all kinds, drugs and alcohol among them, are now just ways of coping (some more acceptable than others). Such is the production of the conditions of re-production of late capitalism. I'm not sure quite how, but I feel like this relates deeply to the idea of the action as its own antithesis or cure. The idea of taking drugs to kick the habit follows curious logic indeed. Maybe its a question of biopolitics, that is to say, how the system maintains, regulates, and distributes, bodies: if something like taking drugs is now somewhat of a requisite, or at least not a surprise, then the ultimate tool of biopolitical control would be to make the use of drugs themselves coincide always immediately with its own negation (lack of pleasure, breaking the habit, etc.). That way we offer a highly controled and ritualized, but ultimately vacuous way of dissipating behavior that threaten (are are perceived to threaten) society at large.

The medical attache's introduction, for example, as he's unwinding after work. Barring the subjugation of his wife, it's all a bit... glorious, albeit hyperbolic and (just a little) grotesque. An entertainment system that takes all the guesswork out of being entertained... anyone who's tried Pandora or even Itunes' Party shuffle is already familiar with "the procedures for ordering specific spontaneous pulses." Specific spontaneity... the idea just sounds so... nice, catering to our need for diversity or whatever but not frightening us with anything too "new"--I can handle Nirvana, and a taste of Alice in Chains, but throw Against Me or something a bit more "contemporary" into the mix and I'll panic. Or unrecordable InterLace pulse messages, single-play ROM (read only memory) self-erasing discs... yeah, we've all done the DRM thing. Initially, I was absorbed into the idea that we're delving into an alternate history / alternate reality or something. But with every page it feels a lot more like the right here and the right now, and someone's swapped my rose-tinted lenses with magnifying bifocals. Maybe Coca-Cola isn't outright sponsoring an entire year (and hopefully Depend Undergarments never will) but can we really go a day without seeing their products?

What struck me about the admissions scene was the university officials' stubborn labeling of Hal's "sounds" as "subanimalistic." They compare him to a goat, a stick of butter; this organism can be anything but human since they are incapable of understanding him. They can't see beyond his lingustic difficulties/differences and instantly feel like they have to regulate him to a "lower" species because of it. "We witnessed something only marginally mammalian in there, sir" (15).

"And who could not love that special and leonine roar of a public toilet" also seems to imply some irony. They accept that "roar" of the toilet on a regular basis, but can't take similarly animalistic sounds with actual substance behind them?

Is anyone else confused by the titles of the sections in Infinite Jest? I have noticed Trial Size Dove Bar, Year of the Depend Adult Undergarment, to name a few. First, these names seem slightly incongruous with the content in their sections, (but maybe we just haven't read enough to appreciate them), but I also just don't understand their significance. The names, like some parts of the book, seem so random, but I know, that like the similar parts of the book, that they are quite the opposite. Still, I don't quite "get" them yet. Also, I don't really understand why there are some breaks, and then the same title...

For all the confusion this novel has already invoked in me, there's at least a little bit of humor to keep me going. I thought the application scene (pages 3-10) was hilarious (maybe since it rang so close to home, as Potted Plant mentioned). I also found a bunch of little lines that struck me as particularly humorous:

Page 28: "Good lord she didn't exaggerate did she?" --the professional "conversationalist" to Hal after he recites a dictionary definition. I'm not sure why this struck me as so funny, except that I could see some dumbstruck adult sitting in a chair, shaking his head, and saying exactly this.

We spoke a bit about DeLillo’s stereotypes and how they are maybe problematic. I wonder how everyone feels about Wallace’s use of stereotypes…is it beyond just being humorous? If the “typical” arab doesn’t catch one’s eye, the section about Wardine does. The dialect and the sometimes practically unintelligible grammar seem almost excessive. Plus, it’s the ultimate “typical low class” minority: sexual abuse, incest (?), physical abuse, general dysfunction…isn’t this a little bit over the limit, perhaps? I’m not totally sure how I feel about it all, what does everyone else think?

The beginning totally took me back to the joys of the college process. I love how well Wallace has college admission people pegged. Their way of talking was spot on, and the absurdity and artificiality of the whole affair seemed all too familiar to me. I really got a kick out of the terrified kid sitting in a chair surrounded by a mob of different adults, all sort of debating and nicely arguing about his future. In a way, it was almost like he’s a young king or prince or something (no connection, but suddenly I think of Prince Hal from King Henry IV).

When Hal calls Mario Booboo, I thought about Yogi Bear. At first I figured that Mario was younger…but I think he’s older, right? Doesn’t the relationship between Hal and Mario seem strange in that case? Does being an athlete somehow make him older or more respected (Hal that is)? What’s the deal?

So "Infinite Jest" is written by a professor at Pomona. Wikipedia lists a literary criticism written by Professor Cioffi, who teaches at Scripps. Does this amuse anyone else?