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Lots of running around, and not nearly enough time to post about stuff. Have changed locations, and am currently staying in the Best Hostel Ever – I know that’s a low bar to set, but trust me on this. Anyway, here’s what I’ve been up to, along with the relative likelihood that I’ll expand in any detail before I get back, and a handful of pics.
1. Visited the utterly fantastic La Recoleta Cemetery, where Evita and virtually every other luminary from Argentina’s political or cultural history is buried (sadly, unlikely)
2. Was lucky enough to catch the overlap of the first day of spring (Feliz Primavera) y La Feria Mataderos, a celebration of gaucho culture, with the result that I ate myself utterly retarded on freshly-prepared empanadas. (more likely)
3. Flew to Puerto Iguazu in northeastern Argentina, where I rented a colossally shitty Volkswagen with crank windows and a sticky gearshift. On the other hand, this was counterbalanced by the fact that we subsequently watched the sun set simultaneously over Argentina, Paraguay and Brazil, and then went back to our hotel to eat steak and drink bottomless caipirinhas while watching a dazzling tango exhibition, all for $10. (certain)
I’ll get better about this whole ‘posting on time’ thing eventually. Honest.
I was fairly gobsmacked this morning when I started leafing through the news, only to read about the untimely passing of one of my favorite writers, David Foster Wallace.
The first time I tried to slog through Infinite Jest – and slog is the operative term here – I pooped out by around page 75 or 80, fed up with the migraines resulting from too many footnotes and too much elliptical prose. But after a couple of months had passed, I decided to brave it once again, risking permanent shoulder strain as I lugged it onto the T morning after morning, chipping away at it on my commute and during lunch breaks. And unlike some other “difficult classics” – I’m looking at you, Pynchon and Faulkner – I got the momentum I needed to make it all the way through.
In fact, I found it deeply rewarding the second time around… enough so that I would give it at least two more full reads over the next five years, and turned to it when I came up with my longstanding email username and my moniker throughout the Internets. Sure IJ was bloated, messy, difficult, and teetering on the edge of pretentiousness – but it was also visionary, alive, and deeply deeply human, and touched throughout with Wallace’s sprawling intellect. Sure, it made me feel a little bit stupid, but I didn’t feel that bad about it. And I still consider it one of the most penetrating analyses of addiction I’ve yet come across…
In later years, I read a lot of his other books and essays – some of which I liked quite a bit more than others – but none of which was ever less than uniquely crafted and conceptually interesting. And a few years back, I had the pleasure of watching him in an inspiring and highly entertaining writers’ dialogue with George Saunders at the Public Theater, where the two kept at it until the theater staff were ready to kick them out… it almost made me want to be a fiction writer. Almost.
He was a sharp observer, an inventive wordsmith, and a sly social commentator – and I’ll miss looking forward to his next book.
So the story so far. I’m leaving the full-time world behind as of the first week of September: the week of Labor Day, fittingly. Why? The short version is: no matter how good/bad, interesting/dull, important/mundane the job I’ve performed at any given moment in my working career, I’ve never felt cut out for the (any) office.
In exchange, I’m banking that my humble writing skills, scattershot work experiences, keen awareness of the scientific zeitgeist, and sheer reserves of gumption and elbow-grease will be enough to sustain me as a full-time freelance writer and editor. WIll it work? Check back in four months to find out.
In the meantime, I’m celebrating by taking my first non-work, non-wedding trip in several years, an extended vacation to South America that will consist of several weeks of rambling through Argentina and Chile, beginning in Buenos Aires and making my way through jungles, along canyons, across deserts and over glaciers before returning me (hopefully) safely back to Santiago. And that’s how this blog was born – I’m finally doing something I consider interesting enough to write about.
Where am I now? Enmeshed in the very least fun part of the process. I’ve planned my itinerary and mapped my route, and given notice at my job, so now it’s all the trivial boooolsheet… making and confirming various reservations, getting vaccinations, buying essential supplies, and of course, getting my house in order at my old job and making the initial preparations for having work waiting for me when I return.
On the plus side, in the past two weeks, I have:
* successfully navigated the Herculean trial that is purchasing tickets via LAN
* reserved the three cars and six internal flights I’ll be needing to make my way around in-country
* received the sweet-ass mini-laptop that I’m writing this blogpost from, and which will become my erstwhile companion in the many weeks ahead. w00t!
So bear with me through the dull shit and I’ll try to post as much good stuff as I can in the meantime.
This is the grand opening of what is now my third attempt at blogging (yeah, you just try to find those old blogs…). I’m not going to get too ambitious with this post, or try to establish any grandiose context for what I’m doing here. Mainly I just wanted something to replace that silly ‘Hello World’ post that WordPress starts every blog with.
But there’s a bunch of stuff going on, and I’ll get around to writing about it soon, so until then just watch this spot.
