Infinite Jest and outcomes not best.

Well, I haven't yet had the time to figure out how to manage to get two seperate profiles for the two seperate blogs. So, i'll keep it off for now to prevent confusion. I've tried to move my toxic lady to another place and that should be done soon.

I use AOL for e-mail and so news items often pop up on me. Today, there was a link that popped up on the aol welcome screen and it said, "Literary star found dead. believed to be suicide." The literary world being as it is-- I was sure that I wouldn't even know who it was. Norman Mailer died and the 24 hour news cycle cou'dn't find the time to cover that. The days of dick cavett, david susskind, even Charlie Rose are long past.

I must admit when it comes to fiction I stick with the classics-- rereading or getting those I haven't yet read . I have a beef with the literary establishment of the last 10 years or so and I very very rarely read fiction written by postmodern writers. I was compelled to Read the "Corrections" by Jonathan Franzen. I found it very lacking and i'm aware that most get published nowadays if they go to the right M.F.A program and meet the right writing instructor. My sister wrote a brilliant novel that should have been swept up and was ultimately not. I tried to read Eggers but couldn't and that's that. Also, life has become so very much stranger than fiction and I read tons of non fiction on every subject imaginable. But, some writers, in spite of the complete lack of media that is associated with writers-- sneak through wires, and end up on your radar. Enter David Foster Wallace. I'd always wanted to get around to reading him but I didn't. When i clicked on that link and saw his name, I started to cry. It's that Richard Corey thing and it never fails to cause me great pain. The suicide of Spalding gray left me relatively devastated. I'm not a crier but hearing of a suicide never fails to lay me low. Or as delmont klein wrote:

I most grieve
the no show
of the last repreive

David Foster Wallace was a man of words and thougts and I mourn his loss without knowing his work. I will read him now and I do hope I don't find him a genius because then his loss will be the more painful. I don't want to love him posthumously my own selfish reasons.

I still can't get over the fact that Elliot Smith or Kurt Cobain won't put out another album or that I'll never get to meet Spalding Gray.

I'm no stranger to the ideation or even the sincere desire and logistical consideration that would allow me an endless sleep.

Be it the black dog of churchill or the darkness visible of styron or the bell jar of plath -- these cruel guests don't follow the niceties of invitation. They will and do show up and in these cases they are the last guest the suicide will ever see.

In short: Too sad.

They've done studies that every suicide studied in the morgue shows a too low sernontonin level. And, that's the real tragedy. Modern science has the tools to raise those levels and there isn't enough of an outcry or "Change." that makes this a priority. I've noticed that so many of the homeless I see in L.A, (there are so many!) rarely look glum. They often talk of jesus and seem to believe in him. That's because, I'm pretty sure, that they're schizophrenic, or in a manic episode and so they are not depressed. It's when the depression hits(if they're manic) that they'll really be in existensial trouble. When I'm president, I will make the alleviation(or even the amelioration) of depression my number one concern. Because nothing is as deadly and nothing takes away the lives of some of our most valuable members.

Well, how's that for a stump speech. The library is closed today, but tomorrow, I will get "Infinite Jest."

More later...