#infinite jest liveblogging

[appretiartis]

Finally reading Infinite jest and I was not expecting a thousand pages book, much less a hundred of those being Notes and errata

[iphigeniacomplex]

fondly remembering the time i had a two-day edible high and started liveblogging infinite jest

[mtsainthelens]

ive decided im gonna do Infinite Summer (where you read infinite jest the entire summer).

its actually pretty easy you only need to read like 12 pages a day to finish in time. i already started a while ago but never finished so im just gonna start from the beginning to refresh my mind. im also gonna liveblog some of it using what i learn from the infinite summer forum and see if i find anything good. :)

[exerciseinknowingwhatyoulike]

LIVEBLOG by Megan Boyle

I already wrote abt this on goodreads but i thought it was super memorable and unique and I want to write about it again.

I was really curious about this going into it after seeing comparisons to like crazy maximalist fiction like infinite jest but also knowing that it was auto-biographical and written moment to moment and not retrospectively. Something felt subversive and kind of funny about competing with these massive novels that try to express a complete worldview with super detailed and expressive characters and dense yet intricate interweaving plot lines and yada yada by giving a hyper-detailed play by play account of your own life.

Megan Boyle gives you every sensory building block that makes up her lived experience for the ~5 months this book spans so you get a pretty complete picture of what she was going through, but on the other hand knowing that she was actually living through all that and typing it up as she went it feels voyeuristic knowing that much about it, especially when you can tell and/or she outright says that writing about herself in liveblog is actively changing the way she acts. I don't how to articulate it but there's something so conceptually interesting about this book, it reads like and presents as a novel while being as literally autobiographical as you can get, but it almost feels like her using liveblog to induce positive change in herself is imposing a character arc typical of a novel onto her own life as it happens. IDK,, like what came first the Liveblog or the life?

On top of everything it's also very funny and cathartic and relatable, even amidst seemingly ridiculous levels of drug use and insomnia she really breathes life into the world around her with her writing, and it's difficult to not also feel relief and happiness when a stranger gives her $20 for gas when her credit card stops working, or any other of the other countless, human interactions detailed throughout the book.

Final thought the slice of the early 2010s blog/VICE/alt-lit scene or whatever that forms the backdrop for this time in Megan Boyle's life was interesting to read about as someone too young to have engaged with it at the time. The descriptions of living online and how that plays into your real life relationships and art feels unmistakably like a precursor of what social media was to become, and despite this book having happened only like 10 years ago it all feels inaccessibly far away. This part is definitely me just being silly and nostalgic for basically anything buuuut the intersection of real life and the internet in this book and the things around it feel so human but unavoidably ephemeral. For so much of what happens in this book there's a corresponding picture on an old tumblr page, or hours of youtube footage of Megan Boyle and Tao Lin, or an article written about the party that just happened and so on and so forth. It makes everything before the advent of the macbook and twitter feel uselessly ancient, and everything after it sterile and impersonal. Obviously the lifestyle habits described are far from healthy, but it feels possible that connecting with people via the internet can serve as a life raft when nothing else is going in; it's not an alternative to normal real life human interaction, but a supplement to what would otherwise be true isolation.

Anywayyyyyyy this book is incredible and has so much to offer everyone should read it.

[billysniffer]

Now, TV didn’t invent human loneliness. Eleanor Rigby was darning her socks well before we got all these channels. But TV watching seems to interest Wallace in particular because it meets the criteria for an addiction — it creates/exacerbates a condition of loneliness and separation in its watchers, and then offers the cure in programming that plugs us into human communities and active lives being lived, though strictly as a watcher. Watching TV in excess leads to isolation and loneliness, but is also something very lonely people can do to feel less alone. The way television deals with this apparent contradiction is to become a purveyor of a sardonic, detached, irony, and a self-referential, chummy knowingness. To keep us from feeling so lonely as constant watchers, TV had to convince us that it was our only friend, and the only place where we could get away from the slack-jawed pack of other humans and enjoy (passively) the company of clever, good-looking and like-minded people. The ultimate result was that shared sentiment was out; individual smugness and disapproval were in. TV watchers were convinced, through commercials etc, that they are not lonely because they spend so much time alone, but because they are unique, special, rebellious, misunderstood snowflakes, and are repeatedly comforted that they have transcended the herd mentality of their sheepish peers while they spend six hours a day as part of the largest group behavior in human history. Let me note, as Wallace does often, that this wasn’t malicious or sinister, but more of an organic response to keep viewers watching more and more TV.

Michael Moats (The Infinite Jest Liveblog: What Happened, Pt. 2)

[sufferbravely]

Right, watching Steins;Gate. Mist & I have tried to get into this about 4 times? But I think we’re going to actually watch it all the way through this time. I believe in us. We’re already at episode 4 - so, in my old tumblr tradition, I’m going to liveblog all of our shit jokes.

Anyway, Steins;Gate makes me think of Infinite Jest. Like. I haven’t read infinite jest either, but it just has that vibe - aka, cunts think they’re enlightened for having experienced it. Maybe they are, what can I say?

So ok so 4 eps in: There’s this weird wee age-re girl who I really do find endearing but I dinnae know if she’s meant to just be really young or if it is supposed to be immaturity. We don’t know where her parents are and she’s living with Rick from Rick & Morty?? 

Rick is like. Well. Rick from Rick & Morty. He’s a mess but thinks he’s really important and no one cares about him except his big otaku pal. He might be age-re too? He seems to be a little bit. People in Mist’s anime club used to hardcore stan him in the same way people stan Rick - like, unironically thinking he’s Cool.

Big Otaku really reminds me of an old pal which adds a wee laugh to the pot. Him, Rick and wee girl are all roommates in a really shitey wee apartment which is my absolute fav tbh?  

There’s also been some other cunts but I cannae remember much about them. Rick has a boner for a wee red haired lassie who is smarter than him. I’m pretty sure he wants to be femdom’d by her? We will see if this is relevant. There’s also a wee trans lassie???? I think she’s trans anyway. Let’s see how that is handled.