Inherent Vice

I finished Thomas Pynchon’s Inherent Vice last night and enjoyed the book thoroughly. I read his Crying of Lot 49 last year and found this book, as most did, more accessible and funnier. Much like Lot 49, the plot is intricate with many characters and all of it groped at through a marijuana/acid/heroin style California fog during the transition from the free love hippie dippie 60’s to the not so much free love hippie dippie 70’s. Is this book about the naivety of the 60’s?, is this book about the end of 60’s innocence and altruism?, with a prelude to a more corrupt, cynical, post baby boomer “who has the most toys wins” as George Carlin put it, 70’s-80’s-90’s tricade?, is this book about the fine line between reality and drug fueled reality a la Descartes?, or is this book skin deep and just a detective romp set among drugs and sex and cops and…wait for it…vice?     

I would love to see the movie version directed by Paul Thomas Anderson but with two small children and babysitting rates tantamount to supermodel rates, I may have to wait to rent it but we’ll see.

I was listening to Marc Maron’s WTF podcast yesterday and his guest was Paul Thomas Anderson and he was very engaging, funny, and very everyman, if you will, cursing and talking about his Dad getting drunk and dealing with his kids. One interesting thing I learned is that he was a student in a class of David Foster Wallace. Also, both he and Marc Maron enjoyed Don Delillo’s White Noise, which I read just before Crying of Lot 49 in a postmodern lit frenzy.

In talking about his work Anderson posed the question “What is the difference between ambition and survival?” Not the finest line but a line nonetheless. I might start that ambition won’t initiate the fight or flight response but survival, yeah that’ll kick the ole fight or flight into gear. Not to say ambition can’t feel that way. Isn’t that what Bigfoot has and Doc Sportello lacks in Vice? Maybe ambition IS a vice? 

Winter, Forever

January had turned over its fifth day and bitter cold was the pill that had to be swallowed. While the sun shone, it was through gusts of stony, miserable air that at once paralyzed and forcibly shivered you. The sun will fall down in a few hours and the darkness curl from the sky to impose winter upon and into you. The holiday of driving out the darkness has passed; nothing to save you from the black and frozen environment. A body at rest tends to stay at rest and winter covets motionlessness; covets, implores, slams its fists down in icy rages during screams of flurries amid pink, sensitive skin. Painful to the touch you become, from the inside out, while extremities numb and dull you and the sensation of you from the outside in, turning you into cold. Turning you, traitorous you, from the liar of summer and fall into the true you of winter. The true you, freezing immemorial, identical with immortality under gray drooping skies of immense, weathered, weight imposing, stopping, imposing, stopping…through a pulsating chorus of winter’s heartbeat in your pained ear and in your pained breast and in your slow heart. Cold it will be and cold it has been, cold is what you’ve know and what you will know. The summers and fall are gone, deserted you in your time of need, for they could not have helped, could not have given you what you need, for the you that you are in essence, a time tested stoppage of blood, a layered question within a question, towering over and cowering under a ubiquitous self, full of autumn lies and summer deceit…waiting….waiting…to stop.

It Gets A Little Tight

Well folks, it has been a long semester and I don’t mind telling you that I am glad it’s over. Between the 2 hour commute each day, the daily grind, and the Tuesday night grind of the Intro to Psych, I am looking forward to a little r and r and some holiday respite. 

Now this is my first xmas where my son kind of gets Santa Claus and the concept of gifts so I am especially excited to see his face when we celebrate xmas. I can recall one magical xmas morning where the dining room at 1240 central was filled to the brim with gifts and frenetically thinking to myself “he came, he came!” Ah, the magic of youth and fat guys getting down small chimneys. Ah the magic of lube.

Speaking of lube, kidding. 

Now xmas is a bit of an ss for us as…

-huh? What’s that? Oh, ss means shit show.

We have to round up everything required for a family of four to take what is basically a 5 day vacation, schlep it all to Plymouth Meeting PA, unpack it all, sleep a night, pack it again, then schlep it all to Pittsburgh PA where my wife and our two children will reside in her childhood bedroom, replete with what is generously called a “full size” bed for my wife and I to “sleep” on and 2 pack and plays for the kiddos. Oh and let’s not forget about the huge amount of luggage, clothing, toiletries and what not that needs to reside in the what is generously called a 12x12 room already stuffed with 2 dressers, a bookshelf, and a desk. 

It gets a little tight.

I also get out of routine. Routine is very important to me. I also want for alone time during this hectic time. What is a guy to do?

Drink.

I compensate by drinking copious amounts of free alcohol, courtesy of the in-laws. Now don’t go and commit the fallacy of post hoc ergo propter hoc on me: I don’t drink because of the in-laws, I drink via the in-laws. There’s a difference.

Just kidding, I try to get out for a run when I can and will also try to delve into Thomas Pynchon’s Inherent Vice over the break. I enjoyed the Crying of Lot 49 and it will be nice not to be prepping for Psych for a little while. I don’t think I can take my guitar on the trip so I won’t be able to doodle on that but cross your fingers, maybe we can fit it in the Sante Fe. 

Do you have a can opener I can borrow? The Sante Fe gets a little tight.