Dangerous, Dirty, and Unfun

Winter is an unforgiving season, and New England is an unforgiving region. The only thing lower than temperature outside is our own spirits. The shortness of the days is a constant reminder of how precious little time we have here on this earth, and the nearly enveloping darkness that consumes the majority of the hours calls to mind the inevitable embrace of oblivion. A profound existential dread is not only understandable, but required to maintain even the most cursory semblance of sanity.

Ordinarily, to say that there is a light at the end of the tunnel would be the nonsensical ravings of either a dewy-eyed naif, or a lunatic mind. And yet here we are, in the depths of the most frigid of winters, somehow finding the strength to struggle on. From whence does this light shine? What is the source of our hope, however ethereal? It has emerged tonight. Gossip Girl is back.

:00 Is this for real? They had Blair miscarry over the winter break? That seems like a kind of cheap way to weasel out of Blair having a kid.

:04 Or maybe this is all a dream or a hallucination or something?

:05 The “Louis has a new reason to mistrust Blair” plot device is getting as tired as the “everyone jumps through flaming hoops to find a reason to trust Charlie” plot device.

:07 I know this will make me sound like a monster, but I’m feeling a bit of an Emma Stone backlash. What’s the big deal with her?

:12 “Jenny sends her love from London.” Ha! Hopefully that’s the last we hear from her for another season. Also, I completely forgot that Eric van der Woodsen hasn’t been on the show because he’s been tearing it up as Declan Porter on Revenge.

:14 Is that the real Vera Wang? Is there such a person? Am I supposed to know this?

:16 This hat Blair is wearing looks like an embroidered cookie.

We’re meant to believe that this secret Blair and Dan are keeping is that they’re doing it, but that’s clearly not the case. So what is it? Shmashmortion?

:22 Readers outside of the New England region might not know what I’m talking about, but everyone else, have you seen this Jordan’s commercial? Where the Jordan’s dude vacuums the old mattress, and all that dust and junk gets sucked up? Is it true that a mattress almost doubles in weight after eight years?

:24 Rule #1 of Gossip Girl: things are always exactly as they seem. Way to go, Chuck and Louis.

:28 One thing that always takes me out of a narrative is when two characters have a secret, but they never manage to explicitly say what that secret is in the course of their interactions. These are cheap, dirty tricks, GG writers.

:32 Hey look, it’s a party in the second half of the episode that brings all of the characters together.

:33 What a guy Louis is. How many times can two people endeavor to publicly humiliate one another before they realize that perhaps their union is less than sound.

:37 Dan and Blair have been going to a secret church? I’m sorry, but that secret is lamer than the crippled dude that Jesus cured at the pool of Bethesda.

:38 I dunno about you, Serena, but everything I know about Catholicism tells me that God wants people who don’t love each other to be together all the time.

:45 If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a thousand times: Dan and Serena need to get back together! It’s the only relationship on this show that makes any damn sense!

:47 Louis is the prince of Monaco, not the prince of the ladies’ room. What gives him the right to shoo people out!

:48 Interesting. I was just watching the episode of the Simpsons where Bart and Homer almost convert to Catholicism. Those wacky Catholics!

:54 Serena assuming the mantle of the new Gossip Girl is a lot like X-51 assuming the mantle of the Watcher. Let me know in comments if you get that reference!

-10 for the writers not actually showing Lily and Rufus singing “Endless Love.” Can’t get enough of that tune!

:58 Hmmmmm . . . the real Charlie Rhodes goes to Julliard. Intriguing.

:59 If Nate thinks he stands a chance matching wits with Gossip Girl, well, I don’t know what to say. He doesn’t.

Contrary to my first observation down there, I’m starting to turn on Blair. I know they’ve made it so Louis is sort of a plotter and is distrustful of Blair, but I’m apt to believe that was more to elevate Chuck than anything else. Just leave Chuck alone, Blair! Cmon! Anyway, on with the diary.

:01 I can’t lie. I dig Blair’s bangs in this dream sequence.

:02 Dorota, on Chuck: “Apology doesn’t seem so fake to me.”
Blair: “That’s because English is your second language.”

:04 Possibly not unintentional comedy of the episode: Rufus to Dan: “People who still go to bookstores are real readers.”

Diana’s plot to unseat Gossip Girl raises some questions. Is Gossip Girl (the blog) monetized? Who’s advertising on this site? Much of the labor is crowdsourced, but does GG have any paid “reporters”? Has this been explored?

:08 Chuck, on his change of heart: “I like duck l’orange as much as the next person, but I didn’t think it was right to see the poor thing suffer.”

:09 Ha! Yes! Serena is going to get mixed up with Ivy’s ex-boyfriend. I’m getting the faintest whiff of comeuppance here!

:13 Of course Blair makes Chuck-related Venn diagrams with a protractor. Actually, scratch that. Of course Blair would have a protractor around in the first place.

:16 I love how Lily tries to compare Dan on a book tour to Rufus on a rock tour. Maybe they were going from town to town at the same pace, but I’m pretty sure Dan isn’t blasted out of his mind on Kappy’s brand whiskey and blow.

:24 Chuck: Maybe we’re maturing too fast.
Nate: Is that why you’re going back to Phantom of the Opera sex games?

:25 Serena, to Blair: “I think you’re too good scheme.” No, Serena, she is not.

:27 Oh hey, a party that brings all of Gossip Girl’s characters together at the end of the episode.

:31 This poor Max. He doesn’t strike me as terribly savvy. Does he have any idea what he’s in store for?

Dorota, on Blair sneaking out: “You think hiding pillows under covers fools me? You’re lumpier now!” Some welcome revenge for that English crack earlier!

:35 If there’s anything I’ve learned, it’s that you can always trust the gossip monger who would go as far as to steal the cell phones of a party-ful of Manhattan society types and who has no qualms about, quite frankly, ruining people’s lives. Good move, Nate.

:37 Oh, Blair. : (

For a performance where the rules are to remain masked at all times, there’s been a LOT of unmasking going on. And I know that all dopey boys look alike, but are Max and Nate wearing the exact same outfits? How could that slip past Ivy’s notice?

:45 Does Diana think Serena would be bothered by GG sending out a “womp womp, Serena is a loser” blast? All Serena has ever wanted was to be a loser!

:46 Fact checking Dan Humphrey: “My book Every book is a failure.”

:48 Max, instilling some rare backbone into this show.

So Ivy is being smited (smote?) by Diana, who is the season’s clear villain. But does that mean we’re supposed to feel sympathetic? Does it mean that my soul is a shriveled-up husk because I’m rooting for Ivy’s downfall?

:54 Hey, Dorota is getting in on the scheme game! Glad to see that Blair is just bad here, and is completely wrong about Chuck.

:56 Serena, to Ivy: “I’m not alone. I have you.” She’s a fake, Serena! A fake! Don’t get caught in her comeuppance!

:58 Eew. Dan texts “Call u later”? Gross.

:59 Hey, Massachusetts’s own Dom was one of the featured artists tonight. Good band!

When last we met, Dan’s book was causing problems for everybody, Blair and Louis were struggling to get on the same page, and Diana Payne was making ludicrous claims about her new website. In the interest of efficiency, I’m gonna go ahead and copy and paste this intro onto next week’s diary. Let’s do it!

7:58 I’m boycotting any brand that airs a Christmas commercial during a single digit date in November. That means you, Brigham’s ice cream.

8:02 I have some comments to make about Nate and Elizabeth Hurley doing it in the office all the time, but I’m withholding them in case my family or employers read this.

8:04 Hasn’t dream interpretation been discredited in terms of therapy? I need some of Dangerous Dirty & Unfun’s many psychology correspondents to check in here.

8:05 Dorota: “Queen Bee need last hurrah.”

And then

Blair, to Louis: “That’s why we’re a perfect match. You don’t have the scheme gene like I do.” Ha!

8:07 Giving Serena a blog! Do they give blogs to just ANYONE these days?

8:08 Blair, on her potential bridesmaids: “Even Pippa knew when to pipe down.”

Ooooooh. I LIKE this plot by Louis, paying off the psychiatrist. We need Chuck to be unleashed! But he should keep the dog. I like that lil guy.

8:10 Come on, Marshalls and TJ Maxx! Not you too, with a Christmas commercial!

8:12 Eliza Barnes: “Expressing your rage and anger are part of your healing process.” This woman is clearly speaking for the entire Gossip Girl audience.

8:15 Glee this up! Great idea! Of course Dan walks out of a meeting where someone seeks to inject the slightest bit of whimsy into his undoubtedly dour prose.

8:24 I’m disappointed they aren’t going to Glee up Dan’s book. I’m equally disappointed that they’re gonna Zuckerberg the eff out of it.

8:26 Hey, there’s a party that brings all of the cast together at the end of the episode. Wrap yourself in Gossip Girl’s tropes like a warm blanket.

8:29 Let’s just take for granted that Charlie can keep up her own fake identity while also engaging in all manner of subterfuge and secret plots. Meanwhile, I have a hard time remembering to pay my bills. Mmm, that’s some good suspension of disbelief.

What a loyal sidekick that dog is. He’s helping Chuck expose schemes!

8:38 Diana: “The Spectator is only going to print facts.” lol

GG: “Don’t worry B. You’re still marrying a prince . . . of fools.” Gossip Girl went on to add “Also, your face!”

8:45 I don’t think Louis trusts Blair.

Is it just me, or would I not mind a “hatchet job” if it meant that my bestselling novel got turned into a movie written by Aaron Sorkin.

8:47 There’s too many schemers and grifters this season. Serena and Diana and Charlie and Nate and Chuck and Blair. How are we supposed to keep up?

8:53 Serena to Diana: I know I owe you a favor for ruining my friend’s movie deal and getting me fired from my job.

The fundamental flaw behind Diana’s plan to bring down Gossip Girl is that Serena blogging about herself wouldn’t make GG irrelevant: she would just start printing gossip about high school socialites like she did in the first couple seasons. Is the NYSpectator going to employ every student at Constance Ballard as a blogger?

8:56 Sorry, Lana del Rey was distracting me from that emotional Blair and Chuck scene. “Video Games” would be a much better song if it were peppier and its vocals weren’t sung through a bowl of cool grits. I’m waiting for the upbeat punk rock cover. Still, <3 you bb!

My mom told me earlier today that my dad had to put our dog, Angel, down.

I don’t think it’s a controversial statement to say that Angel wasn’t the greatest dog. She came home from the shelter ornery, and eventually settled into a routine of aloofness and avoidance that lasted, more or less, the rest of her life. Angel was slow and sluggish to the point of earning the nickname “The Brick.” I’m not trying to be mean-spirited here; I’m just trying to explain why I never really thought twice about Angel, until it was too late.

When my little brother was 8, he wanted a dog. I honestly forget what he did to “earn” a dog, except that it wasn’t like in the movies, where a kid has to get a paper route or paint the garage or something. (Or maybe it was. My parents made us paint the garage all the time, compelling us with all manner of carrots.) We had another dog, Snoopy, at home, and for four years it was me, my folks, my older and younger brothers, and the two dogs.

Then I went away to college, coming back first for the summers, and then very rarely at all. My older brother moved out and got married. Snoopy died. And now Angel is gone.

I try not to make this the kind of blog where I pour things out and make an emotional mess of things, or expose a lot of personal business, but I needed to figure out why, for 13 years, Angel was at worst an annoyance and at best a nonentity, but now that she’s gone I’m having a tough time keeping it together. Angel was my little brother’s dog, so when I think of her, I think of him. I left home when he was 12, still not much different from the kid who beamed downright radiantly on the way home from the shelter with his new dog. In the intervening years, he shot up like bamboo to the point that every time I came home, I recognized him a little less.

This isn’t a bad thing, of course. Quite frankly, he’s grown into a better person than me; he’ll probably be surprised to learn that I look up to him. And he did it without me being around. So while I’m proud as hell of the man he is, it was also comforting to me to come home every now and then and be reminded of the kid I knew. I didn’t realize it until this morning, but that’s what Angel represented.

Families change. Members grow up, or move out, or die. The last time mine was all together, under the same roof, Angel was there. And now she’s gone. I’m sorry I didn’t love her for the dog she was, but I think I appreciate her for something more important now. So, goodbye, Angel. You were a good dog.

The culprit

Look for the nail clippers. Undoubtedly, I’ll have been clipping the nails on my right hand by using the clippers in my left hand, and I’ll have brutally maimed myself. You’ll be like Columbo at the crime scene. It’ll be fun.

Seriously, though, how do people do it! I’ve been clipping my nails for years now, and I’ve yet to get the hang of using my non-dominant hand. Every grooming session is an adventure fraught with all manner of peril! And don’t say the solution is to have someone else do it. I’d rather have those freaky gross long fingernails that I have to carry around in bags!

Being a savvy urban mover, one of my favorite games is to keep an eye out for people on the inbound B line who look like they’re not paying close attention once the train gets to Park Street. When the train finally stops, I rush out onto the platform and I turn around to look at these absent-minded folks, sitting there, minding their own business in a completely empty, unmoving train. The window is like a big TV. Then either the driver will yell over the PA system that the train has been taken out of service, or a conscientious fellow passenger will remind them of such. Either way, these folks all shoot up out of their seats with the same sheepish and confused look. That I’m not that conscientious passenger used to bother me, but now it doesn’t. It’s a fun game.

I have to apologize, precious readers. I had some friends in town last week, and the hustle and bustle of the succeeding days prevented me from watching the last two episodes of Gossip Girl until this evening. Since it’s not Monday, and you’re all probably GG-recapped out, I’ve eschewed a diary this week. Which is probably for the best, because I would have worn out my “Cmon!”, “You’ve got to be kidding me!”, and “Really? Really?!” keys. Cmon! We’ve got brand new characters in Charlie and her mom, and GG is cramming them into the same tired plots! Although good job by Dan for finally tossing the new Jenny, Vanessa, to the curb. Ding ding ding! We’ll be back next week with a new Gossip Girl running diary.

In the meantime, vote for me!

This one has been percolating for a while, precious readers. And it’s funny, because I was convinced that there would be one final, egregious offense that would make it impossible to contain my fury any longer. But that’s not how it played out.

Regular readers of Dangerous, Dirty, and Unfun understand how intensely I abhor umbrellas. (I don’t want to alarm you, but that post was sarcastic all along.) And it didn’t even rain yesterday, but there was a threat of rain. So, as I was walking home, crossing Hanover Street, I saw an older gentleman and his companion, taking a stroll to dinner, perhaps. And there he was, ambling through my neighborhood, umbrella under his arm, the sharp, spear-like end pointing straight up in the air.

You could be next.

That’s right. I’m talking about the Guy Who Holds His Pointy Umbrella Way Up in the Air. This clueless idiot is one of the most dangerous sidewalk menaces we have, because unless he has backwards vision (which I assure you, he does NOT), he’s got no clue where he’s waving that umbrella-dagger! I know it’s just good sense to keep your eyes peeled on the street, but with all of the reckless drivers, slow-walking pedestrians, and low-flying pigeons in this burg, my attention is more or less occupied. And, speaking as a proud taxpaying American, I don’t think it’s unreasonable to assume that I’m relatively safe from inadvertent facial stabbings.

But here we are! And the only thing that can make Guy Who Holds His Pointy Umbrella Way Up in the Air more dangerous than he already is? When he transforms into Guy Who Holds His Pointy Umbrella Way Up in the Air on the Escalator. At this point, we’re talking about a straight up spear being pointed inches away from the groin of your face. There’s probably not a more perilous urban walking experience that doesn’t include actual criminality.

The whole unfortunate situation is exacerbated by one question: why the hell do these things even exist? It’s not like an umbrella NEEDS a sharp point on the end. Plenty of people get by with smaller fold-up umbrellas that have little nubs instead of points. And to be quite frank, treasured reader, I’d feel much better about those purse-sized umbrellas having pointy ends. There’s a very minimal risk that that kind of thing is going to be thrust violently into my most sensitive organs. But no, for whatever inexplicable, criminally negligent reason, we put spearheads on our longest, most lance-like umbrellas. Why! This is a public safety issue, people!

I’m watching the Yanks play the Socks and talking to my buddy Chris, and I express incredulity that Eric Chavez, in his first start in forever, just banged an RBI double off the Green Monster. “Look at our roster,” he said, “how good would we have been in 2003?” He was, of course, referring to the fact that the Yankees’ bench/bullpen/minor league system also includes former stalwarts like Andruw Jones, Bartolo Colon, Freddy Garcia, and Kevin Millwood.

Well, later on in the broadcast, we learned that the Yankees have just signed former Cubs pitcher Carlos Silva to a minor league contract, and after laughing for a bit, I decided to see just how good the Yankees would have been in 2003. The answer is, pretty good, but nothing to write home about. However, comma, 2005 would have been a banner year! Here’s the 2005 stats for the Clearance Rack:

Colon: 21 wins, 8 losses, 3.48 ERA, 1.16 WHIP
Millwood: 9 wins, 11 losses, 2.86 ERA, 1.22 WHIP
Garcia: 14 wins, 8 losses, 3.87 ERA, 1.25 WHIP
Sivla: 9 wins, 8 losses, 3.44 ERA, 1.173 WHIP

Jones: 51 HR, 128 RBI, .347 OBP, 95 R
Chavez: 27 HR, 101 RBI, .329 OBP, 92 R

Not bad!

This is it.

When I heard that David Foster Wallace’s unfinished novel about a cast of characters in a Midwestern IRS office was going to be released in 2011, I was excited for all the usual reasons that a fan would be excited, but also because it was a chance to be a small part of a genuine Literary Event. So when they announced that The Pale King was set to be released on April 15 (the exact type of marketing exec gimmick that Wallace would have rolled his eyes at but inevitably gone along with), I imagined I would be standing in some long line outside the bookstore at midnight, nose pressed against the window, waiting for some factotum to take a crowbar to the giant wooden crate filled with copies of the book. But what really happened is that there was a kind of soft release, and I walked into Brookline Booksmith this afternoon and bought it. The same mundane, banal transaction I’ve engaged in every other time I’ve bought a book. And from what I understand so far about The Pale King, that might be the point.

The reviews and commentary that I’ve read have been pretty breathless, but not completely so. In a rather unsentimental post, Slate’s Tom Scocca takes existential issue with the new “David Foster Wallace” “novel”:

It’s not so much a problem of Art—David Foster Wallace took himself out of the conversation about what David Foster Wallace wanted, after all—as a problem of craft. The Pale King is not a finished object. Reviewing it as a novel is like eating whatever was in a dead person’s fridge and calling it a dinner party and comparing it to the dinner parties the deceased gave in the past.

And as much as I love Tom Scocca and as much as I want him to adore Wallace as much as I do, he’s not wrong. So picking up my copy of The Pale King, the giddy enthusiasm I’d been feeling for the past few months was replaced with a peculiar sense of anticlimax. All this time, I thought I was going to read David Foster Wallace’s last novel. All it took was 600 words for me to realize that I’d already read David Foster Wallace’s last novel a year and a half ago.

Thinking back, though, there was always a little bit of anxiety in anticipating the book, an anxiety that GQ’s John Jeremiah Sullivan articulates in his review of The Pale King:

Rumors of posthumous work started almost immediately after [Wallace's] death, and it’s safe to say that loyal readers have been clinging to the promise of this new book over the last couple of years, almost as a means of fending off the reality and violence of what happened. Some of the collective grief for the man got sublimated into excitement for the book. I myself was surprised, on finishing the review copy, to have the wind sucked out of me by the thought—long delayed—that there would be no more Wallace books.

This is the same feeling that undergirds what I coined the Infinite Test. Remember that one?

I might be the only person who feels this way, but there are a few reactions that I get when I’m reading a bit of prose. A bad story, I’ll just let go, maybe without even finishing it, because meh. A good story, I’ll blow through as fast as I can, because I want to see how it ends! But a great story? Well, a great story, I’ll read a little slower, draw out a little longer. Partially to savor it, but moreso because I want to spend as much time as I can with more left to read.

Imagine the Infinite Test expanded to a whole oeuvre. This anxiety, the knowledge that a writer’s catalogue all of a sudden has a cap on it, is the reason why I leave A Supposedly Fun Thing That I’ll Never Do Again in the bathroom so I don’t just blow through it on a bus trip or something; why I jammed a bookmark into the middle of Everything and More and popped it back onto the shelf; why I kind of wish I hadn’t read “Tense Present. Democracy, English, and the Wars over Usage,” if only so I could have the pleasure of reading it for the first time again. With the Franzens and Lahiris, and even the Roths and the DeLillos, of the world, there’s the potential for more material. With Wallace, this, for the most part, is it. I’m going to read The Pale King, because I love David Foster Wallace and I want to be part of the zeitgeist. But the book isn’t just sitting on my nightstand. It’s looming.

Scocca and Sullivan touch on something that presents a critical problem, too. Because The Pale King is an unfinished, posthumous work based on an incomplete manuscript and Wallace’s notes, when we come across an issue in the text, we get to second guess the editor (Michael Pietsch, Wallace’s editor on Infinite Jest) and not the lost, beloved genius Wallace. Or as Sullivan puts it:

Also, there’s something about the posthumous thing. It robs you of a certain pleasure that you take in reading, of being in dialogue with the author’s decisions, judging them and at the same time having the excitement of witnessing them, which is part of the drama of a book. Here you don’t know what they were. Every word you read and don’t like, you think, “Well, he would have changed that.” Whereas everything that does work, that’s the real Wallace.

It’s amusing, maybe even ironic, in its way. Wallace’s project can be seen as a rejection of navel-gazery and solipsism, and yet the unfinished nature of The Pale King, at least as Sullivan describes it, encourages us to indulge in our most comfortably held conceptions of the author and his abilities.

Or maybe not. I haven’t read it yet.