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The Drunken Odyssey

Category Archives: David Foster Wallace

Episode 233: A Craft Discussion About David Foster Wallace’s “E Unibus Plurim: Television and U.S. Fiction” with Vanessa Blakeslee!

19 Saturday Nov 2016

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in David Foster Wallace, Episode, Postmodernism, Television

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Tags

David Foster Wallace, E Unibus Plurim: Television and U.S. Fiction., The Review of Contemporary Fiction

Episode 233 of The Drunken Odyssey, your favorite podcast about creative writing and literature is available on iTunes, or right click here to download.

In this week’s episode, I talk with Vanessa Blakeslee about David Foster Wallace’s “E Unibus Plurim: Television and U.S. Fiction.”

Vanessa and John 2

TEXTS DISCUSSED

Journal of Contemporary Literature

Read David Foster Wallace’s 1993 essay “E Unibus Plurim: Television and U.S. Fiction” here.


Episode 233 of The Drunken Odyssey, your favorite podcast about creative writing and literature is available on iTunes, or right click here to download.

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In Boozo Veritas # 49: Lana Del Rey Vs. The Cult of Authenticity

07 Monday Jul 2014

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in David Foster Wallace, In Boozo Veritas, Music

≈ 1 Comment

In Boozo Veritas # 49 by Teege Braune

Lana Del Rey Vs. The Cult of Authenticity

While I never went nuts for Lana Del Rey’s 2012 premier album Born to Die in its entirety, I did become obsessed with the single “Summertime Sadness.” I was captivated by a brand of pop-music that cannot be easily classified within a single genre, that is both contemporary and also nostalgic for a bygone (and possibly fictitious) era. Furthermore, Del Rey’s lyrics and smoky vocals create an atmosphere of deep longing and simultaneously celebrate a sense of wild abandon, sensations alluring not only to myself as denoted by the song’s immense popularity and success. I played the song over and over again last summer, and though I thought “Video Games” was fairly catchy as well, many of the songs on Born to Die did not appeal to me and for the most part, Del Rey herself remained only in my periphery.

The title of Del Rey’s 2014 sophomore effort Ultraviolence immediately captured my interest. Anyone who’s read In Boozo Veritas # 5 knows that I’m fascinated by violence, though I have ambivalent feelings towards my enjoyment of it. The title track is a haunting portrait of a toxic and obsessive relationship that is both complicated behind its straight-forward honesty and deeply uncomfortable in its decidedly un-P.C. romanticization of abuse. A quick survey of the tracks suggested to me more complex and daring songwriting than Born to Die, but I was particularly disappointed in the album’s single “Brooklyn Baby,” a satire of hipster posturing. In the chorus, Del Rey sings,

Well, my boyfriend’s in a band

He plays guitar while I sing Lou Reed

I’ve got feathers in my hair

I get down to Beat poetry

And my jazz collection’s rare

I can play most anything

I’m a Brooklyn baby.

This has been done, I thought. We’ve already heard all the hipster cliches. We all know phony people who interpret cool as a collection of possessions and surface style choices. Despite my reservations, I could not stop listening to it and have come to the conclusion that by taking the lyrics of the chorus out of the context of the entire song I’ve done it and myself a disservice.

The lyrics of the second verse let us know that we are in territory much richer and more meaningful than mere cliche. Here Del Rey sings,

They say I’m too young to love you

They say I’m too dumb to see

They judge me like a picture book

By the colors, like they forgot to read.

In these lines Del Rey demonstrates not only an awareness of her narrator’s flaws, but a deep empathy for her as well. There’s an aspect to the song that in undoubtedly tongue-in-cheek and humor in lines like, “My boyfriend’s pretty cool / But he’s not as cool as me,” but there is undeniable longing in it as well. This is represented by the song’s mysterious “you,” a character who is only revealed to us through his or her juxtaposition to the narrator, who sings,

I think we’re like fire and water

I think we’re like the wind and sea

You’re burning up, I’m cooling down

You’re up, I’m down

You’re blind, I see.

It is not easy to decide who’s love is being unrequited here. In the first verse she says, “They say I’m too young to love you,” and then conversely, “I think I’m too cool to know ya.” Is the narrator rejecting someone for failing to match her social status or justifying her own rejection? Her own narcissism makes it impossible to know the answer. We might laugh hearing someone like this sing the line, “You’re blind, I see,” but at the same time, there is a deep sadness in the loss of human connection that comes with this narcissism. Del Rey handles this loss with the upmost respect and compassion encapsulated best by the ever-present sorrow of her incredible voice.

In her essay “Brief Interviews With Hideous Men: The Difficult Gifts of David Foster Wallace,” Zadie Smith discusses Wallace’s disdain, even fear, of solipsism. Brief Interviews with Hideous Men is filled with stories of characters who miss or almost miss the chance of true revelation and connection because of their own narcissism. Take the “fifty-six-year-old, American poet” of “Death Is Not the End” who, floating in his pool among the trappings of his insurmountable success, ceases to become anything but an extension those very trappings. “God help the man who has chosen to worship himself! Whose self really is no more than the awards he has won, the prestige he has earned, the wealth he has amassed,” Wallace through Smith warns. And then there is the “younger sister of his wife’s college roommate” in the story “Think” whose smile is “media-taught” and whose “expression is from page 18 of the Victoria’s Secret catalogue.” Her would-be affair is neither an act of unbridled passion nor self-loathing, but an reenactment of a cliche, something television has taught her she’s supposed to do. Like Wallace’s characters, the narrator of “Brooklyn Baby” insists on the legitimacy of a selfhood so dependent on the artificial qualities by which she defines herself, that the listener begins to wonder if there is anyone behind these feathers and jazz records at all.

The song is even more interesting in the context of Del Rey’s own persona and the noisome attacks of her authenticity. It has never been a secret that Lana Del Rey is a stage name for Elizabeth Grant, and yet this fact is a problem for some people. It’s true that Del Rey’s management team downplays her early, unsuccessful career as Lizzy Grant, and Del Rey herself seems blissfully unaware that such a person even existed, but I feel that both of these details are understandable from a performer who reinvented herself. Nevertheless, every aspect of Del Rey’s identity is scrutinized by her critics and detractors from her appearance (questions of plastic surgery) to her background (Grant grew up privileged) to the legitimacy of her self-proclaimed depression to her social status (apparently Grant has not always been as effortlessly cool as Del Rey). By simply ignoring Grant, Del Rey keeps the line between her fictional stage persona and real self blurry. Controversial comments she’s made in interviews and the deep sorrow embodied in her music suggest to me a person who has struggled with depression throughout most of his life, that her claims to mental health issues are honest, or at least are an aspect of both Grant and Del Rey’s personality. But then again I could be wrong. The fact is that Lana Del Rey, a person who seems to live in some nexus era of the most hip, most romantic version of several decades, who has preternaturally pouty lips and is dressed flawlessly whether she’s wearing a cocktail dress or jeans and a t-shirt, who writes devastatingly beautiful music and sings with a sultry, sad, smoky voice simply could not and will never exist. I’m even willing to concede that there may be something affected about Del Rey’s persona, but let us remember that art does not exist without artifice.

“The struggle with ego, the struggle with the self, the struggle to allow other people to exist in their genuine “otherness”–these were aspects of Wallace’s own struggle,” Smith tells us in her essay. It was a struggle that Wallace sadly could not maintain and took his life at a tragically young age. It is likely that Del Rey can be compassionate towards the narrator of “Brooklyn Baby” because she acknowledges or even laments her own lack of authenticity. Her critics may not be wrong in this regard, their criticism is simply irrelevant. By willing herself to become what she is not, what she can never really be, perhaps Grant is annihilated like the American  poet or the wife’s roommate’s younger sister, and maybe this is what she has desired in the first place. If so, Lana Del Rey is the transcendent force created, as if spontaneously, in the void left behind.

___________

teegenteege

Teege Braune (episode 72, episode 75, episode 77, episode 90, episode 102) is a writer of literary fiction, horror, essays, and poetry. Recently he has discovered the joys of drinking responsibly. He may or may not be a werewolf.

 

Episode 61: Chad Benson, or Quinn W. Shagbark!

10 Saturday Aug 2013

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in David Foster Wallace, Episode, Music, Postmodernism

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Chad Benson, Creative Writing, Fiction, Literature, Music, Writing Podcast

Episode 61 of The Drunken Odyssey, your favorite podcast about creative writing and literature, is available on iTunes, or right click here to download.

This week, I interview my friend, the fiction writer Chad Benson, who also happens to be a rock musician called Quinn W. Shagbark,

chad

plus Jesse Duthrie talks about John Barth’s The Floating Opera.

Jessie Duthrie

TEXTS DISCUSSED

Live at the Mint

Ill Shoot You Ac

The Floating Opera

NOTES

If you are writing in Denver, check out the Lighthouse Writer’s Workshop.

lighthouse writers workshop

Read about Quinn W. Shagbark in Slate.

On Tuesday, August 13th, at Urban ReThink in downtown Orlando, I will read with

JOSEFINE KLOUGART,

DAN LAUER, &

DREW JOHNSON

in Jesse Bradley’s series, There Will Be Words, which was just named the best reading series in Orlando by Orlando Weekly.

Two days later, I will be reading an art-inspired piece in this event:

AvalonGalleryPoster

Episode 60 of The Drunken Odyssey, your favorite podcast about creative writing and literature, is available on iTunes, or right click here to download.

Episode 40: Tony Hoagland!

15 Friday Mar 2013

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in Craft of Fiction Writing, David Foster Wallace, Drinking, Episode

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Chuck Wachtel, Craft of Writing, Creative Writing, David Foster Wallace, Ernest Hemingway, Fiction, Literature, Poetry, Robert Paul Lamb, Tony Hoagland, Writing Podcast

Episode 40 of The Drunken Odyssey, your favorite podcast about creative writing, literature, and drinking, is available on iTunes, or right click here to download.

On this week’s show, I talk to the poet Tony Hoagland,

Tony Hoagland

Plus Bob Lamb Explains How Ernest Hemingway saved him from Rendition.

Bob Lamb

Texts Discussed

Sweet Ruin

Donkey Gospel

What Narcissism Means to MeReal Sofistikashun

Unicorproated Persons in the Late Honda Dynasty

Stupid HopeArt Matters Hemingway

Complete Stories of Hemingway

Show Notes

This episode begins with a limerick written and read by Chris Booth, in honor of our pal Steve Kelly:

Just a few, and Steve’s eyes ‘gan to wander;
Then day next he was mute and a-ponder:
When he saw where he woke,
In sad tones, thus he spoke:
“It’s Absinthe makes the heart to grow fonder.”

Tonight, Saturday, and Sunday are the last days in Orlando to see Charlie Bethel’s awesome performance of The Odyssey.

Charlie Bethel's Odyssey
Saturday (March 16th) is also the last day to see this season’s superb Othello at Orlando Shakespeare Theatre.

Othello

Episode 40 of The Drunken Odyssey, your favorite podcast about creative writing, literature, and drinking, is available on iTunes, or right click here to download.

Episode 32: Terry Cronin!

19 Saturday Jan 2013

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in David Foster Wallace, Disney, Episode, Literary rizes, Shakespeare

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Craft of Writing, Creative Writing, Crime Fiction, David Foster Wallace, Fiction, Francesca Lia Block, Miami Book Fair International, Writing Podcast

Episode 32 of The Drunken Odyssey, your favorite podcast about creative writing, literature, and drinking, is available on iTunes, or right click here to download.

On this week’s show, I interview novelist Terry Cronin,

Terry Cronin

And Jean Davis offers one amazing essay about Write is a Verb.

Jean Davis

Texts Discussed

Skinvestigator Part 1: Tramp Stamp

Skinvestigator Part 2: Rash Guard

Skinvestigator Part 3: Sunburn

Students of the Unusual

Write is a Verb

Notes

Susan Lilley will be reading from her new book of poems, Satellite Beach, on Thursday, January 24th, at Rollins College.  For more info, click here.

Show contributor Alise Hamilton (episode 7) discusses bingers and plodders, and the merits of the former as writers, at Bill and Dave’s Cocktail Hour.

A history of the Coppertone sign.

Episode 32 of The Drunken Odyssey, your favorite podcast about creative writing, literature, and drinking, is available on iTunes, or right click here to download.

Episode 19: Don Peteroy!

13 Saturday Oct 2012

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in Craft of Fiction Writing, David Foster Wallace, Episode, James Joyce

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Burrow Press, Craft of Writing, Creative Writing, Don Peteroy, J.R.R. Tolkien, Literary Magazines, Literature, The Silmarillion, Writing Podcast

Episode 19 of The Drunken Odyssey, your favorite podcast about creative writing, literature, and drinking, is available on iTunes, or right click here to download.

On this week’s show, I interview fiction writer Don Peteroy,

K.C. Wilson discusses J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Silmarillion,

And I answer mail while listening to The Intoxicators!

Texts Discussed:

For my Central Florida listeners: Go see Lauren Butler, TDO‘s announcer,  in Orlando Shakespeare Theatre’s Studio production of The Exit Interview!  Now playing through October 21.

 
For my Boston listeners: on Thursday, October 18th at 7:00pm, Andover Book Store presents, An Evening of Fiction with JULIANNA BAGGOTT and LAURIE FOOS.
 
For my Central Florida listeners (again): Don Peteroy—who is this week’s guest—will be participating in two events.

On November 1st at 6 P.M., he will be giving a reading from his new novella, Wally, in room 316 of the University of Central Florida Student Union.

And On Saturday, November 3rd at 7 P.M., he’ll participate in Functionally Literate: A Literary Function, a new reading series organized by Burrow Press and The Kerouac Project, held at Urban ReThink.

N.B.: Please sign my petition requesting Disney Online to offer Disney historian Jeff Kurtti (our guest on episode 15) something like a straightforward, sensible space to blog in.

 
 
Check out this fine magazine from this week’s sponsor:
 
My short story “The Stars Are Bouncing Tonight” appeared in issue #20.
 
 
Episode 19 of The Drunken Odyssey, your favorite podcast about creative writing, literature, and drinking, is available on iTunes, or right click here to download.

Episode 14: Susan Hubbard Interview

07 Friday Sep 2012

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in Craft of Fiction Writing, David Foster Wallace, Episode, Literature of Florida

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Craft of Writing, Creative Writing, David Foster Wallace, Fiction, Literature, Writing Podcast

Episode 14 of The Drunken Odyssey, your favorite podcast about creative writing, literature, and drinking, is available on iTunes, or right click here to download.

_______________________________________

On episode 14, I talk to the novelist Susan Hubbard,

Nate Rankin discusses David Foster Wallace,

and I answer mail.

_______________________________________

Texts Discussed

_______________________________________

Here is a link to Susan Hubbard’s Reading on September 8th.

_______________________________________

Episode 14 of The Drunken Odyssey, your favorite podcast about creative writing, literature, and drinking, is available on iTunes, or right click here to download.

A Midweek’s Blog

11 Wednesday Jul 2012

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in David Foster Wallace, Drinking, Literary Prizes, Recommendation

≈ Leave a comment

Fellow Odysseers of the Word and of the Drink, here’s a midweek update from your favorite podcast about creative writing, literature, drinking, and the Life:

Episode 6, in which Jaroslav Kalfar and I discuss Stephen King’s On Writing, will appear this weekend.  In this book, Stephen King (no relation to me, as far as I know) gives his readers homework, which Jaroslav and I did like good (if petulant) little boys.  Plus Debbie Weaver shares one hell of an essay.

Outside of my narcissistic orbit, Michael Cunningham (of The Hours fame) published a grandiloquent, two-part screed in The New Yorker’s blog on his role as a Pulitzer jurist in this frustrating year without an actual Pulitzer prize winner.

Part 1, a Letter from the Pulitzer Fiction Jury: What Really Happened This Year, offers abundant behind-the-scenes insight into the process of the jury, whose purpose is to select three books out of about three hundred to present to the Pulitzer prize committee as finalists, but doesn’t really explain what really happened, since it is the committee that selects the winner, or the non-winner.  Apparently not all of the protocols were followed by the committee; when a committee refuses all three selections, it is supposed to ask for an alternate, which the jury has at the ready.  But reading Michael Cunningham’s discussion of his passion for reading, and the transcendence of literature, is breathtaking.

Part 2, How to Define Greatness?, puts this travesty into historical perspective, and meditates upon the cultural meaning of the prize itself.

Michael Cunningham won the Pulitzer himself in 1999 for The Hours.

I adore this man, incidentally.  He was especially kind to me when I was an MFA student at NYU.  Of course, it helped that I snagged him a glass of wine before the MFA students guzzled all of it down at the reception after his reading.

One of the Pulitzer finalists this year was David Foster Wallace for his posthumous novel, The Pale King.  I have to confess that I have not yet read this book.  To me, David Foster Wallace simply means too fucking much to come even close to saying goodbye to.  To me, DFW is is like what John Lennon was to hippies, what Kurt Cobain was to Generation X.  Through his writing, Wallace taught me that I could be smart and silly and grand and emotional and somehow sincere in this unbelievably exhausted, pre-bought-and-sold culture.  As Wallace Stevens said of poetry, David Foster Wallace helped me to live.  He still does.

I still haven’t read DFW’s Everything and More (his tome on the idea of infinity [2003]), nor his commencement speech (published as This is Water [2009]) or all the stories in Oblivion (2004).  I must brace myself for the posthumous release of his essay collection, Both Flesh and Not (which drops on November 27).  I need the idea that there is still a new DFW book out there for me to read.  That’s not too crazy, is it?

In September, Urban ReThink in downtown Orlando will be having an evening of DFW readings.  I will be there, and hopefully I will be quite drunk.

If you get the chance, get a hold of the audio-book of Consider the Lobster.  It’s a delicious companion.

That’s all until this weekend, gang.

As ever,

John

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