# Why you need to read David Foster Wallace's "Infinite Jest."



## Drew (Aug 31, 2006)

YEAR OF THE DEPEND ADULT UNDERGARMENT


"Hal?"
"..."
"Hey, Hal?"
"Yes Mario?"
"Are you asleep?"
"Booboo, we've been over this. I can't be asleep if we're talking."
"That's what I thought."
"Happy to reassure you."
"Boy you were on today. Boy did you ever make that guy look sick. When he hit that one down the line and you got it and fell down and hit that drop volley Pemulis said the guy looked like he was going to be sick all over the net, he said."
"Boo, I kicked a kid's ass is all. End of story. I don't think it's good to rehash it when I've kicked somebody's ass. It's like a dignity thing. I think we should just let it lie in state, quietly. Speaking of which."
"Hey Hal?"
"..."
"Hey Hal?"
"It's late, Mario. It's sleepy-time. Close your eyes and think fuzzy thoughts."
"That's what the Moms always says, too."
"Always worked for me, Boo."
"You think I think fuzzy thoughts all the time. You let me room with you because you feel sorry for me."
"Boo, I'm not even going to dignify that. I'll regard it as like a warning sign. You always get petulant when you don't get enough sleep. And here we are seeing petulance already on the western horizon, right here." 
"..."
"..."
When I asked if you were asleep I was going to ask if you felt like you believed in God, today, out there, when you were so on, making that guy look sick. 
This again? 

Really dont think midnight in a totally dark room with me so tired my hair hurts and drills in six short hours is the time and place to get into this, Mario.

You ask me this once a week. 
You never say, is why.
So tonight to shush you how about I say I have an administrative bone to pick with God, Boo. Ill say God seems to have a kind of laid-back management style Im not crazy about. Im pretty much anti-death. God looks by all accounts to be pro death. Im not seeing how we can get together on this issue, he and I, Boo. 
Youre talking about since Himself passed away. 

See? You never say. 
I do say. I just did.

I just didnt happen to say what you wanted to hear, Booboo, is all. 

Theres a difference. 
I dont get how you couldnt feel like you believed, today, out there. It was so right there. You moved like you totally believed. 

How do you feel inside, not?
Mario, you and I are mysterious to each other. We countenance each other from either side of some unbridgeable difference on this issue. Lets lie very quietly and ponder this. 
Hal?

Hey Hal?
Im going to propose I tell a joke, Boo, on the condition that afterward you shush and let me sleep.
Is it a good one?
Mario, what do you get when you cross an insomniac, an unwilling agnostic, and an dyslexic?
I give. 
You get somebody who stays up all night torturing himself mentally over the question of whether or not theres a dog.
Thats a good one!
Shush.


Hey Hal? Whats an insomniac?
Someone who rooms for you, kid, thats for sure.
"Hey Hal?"
"..."
"How come Moms never cried when Himself passed away? I cried, and you, even C.T. cried. I saw him personally cry."
"..."
"You listened to _Tosca_ over and over and cried and said you were sad. We all were."
"..."
"Hey Hal, did Moms seem like she got happier afte Himself passed away, to you?"
"..."
"It seems like she got happier. She seems even taller. She stopped travelling everywhere all the time for this thing and that thing. the corporate-grammar thing. The library-protest thing."
"Now she never goes anywhere, Boo. Now she's got the Headmaster's House and her office and the tunnel in between, and never leaves the grounds. She's a worse workaholic than she ever was. And more obsessive-compulsive. When's the last time you saw a dust-mote in that house?"
"Hey Hal?"
"Now she's just an _agoraphobic_ workaholic and obsessive-compulsive. This strikes you as happification?"
"Her eyes are better. They don't seem as sunk in. They look better. She laughs at C.T way more than she laughed at Himself. She laughs from lower down inside. She laughs more. Her jokes she tells are better ones than yours, even, now, a lot of the time."
"..."
"How come she never got sad?"
"She did get sad, Booboo. She got sad in her way instead of yours and mine. She got sad, I'm pretty sure."
"Hal?"
"You remember how he staff lowered the flag to half-mast out front by the portcullis here after it happened? Do you remember that? And it goes to half-mast every year at Convocation? Remember the flag, Boo?"
"Hey Hal?"
"Don't cry, Booboo. Remember the flag only halfway up the pole? Booboo, there are two ways to lower a flag to half-mast. Are you listening? Because no shit I really have to sleep here in a second. So listen - one way to lower the flag to half mast is just to lower the flag. There's another way though. You can also just raise the pole. You can raise the pole to like twice its original height. You get me? You understand what I mean, Mario?"
"Hal?"
'She's plenty sad, I bet."


----------



## The Dark Wolf (Aug 31, 2006)

Wow, you must be really, really, _really_ bored at work to type all that up.

Maybe you should chart out chord prgressions and engineering ideas for that album instead.


----------



## Drew (Aug 31, 2006)

Perhaps I am a bit. The book kicks ass though, doubters (such as the one directly above) be damned.


----------



## The Dark Wolf (Sep 1, 2006)

Drew said:


> Perhaps I am a bit. The book kicks ass though, doubters (such as the one directly above) be damned.


[action=The Dark Wolf]drinks Mackeson's XXX while laughing at Drew.[/action]


----------



## Naren (Sep 1, 2006)

[action=Naren]laughs at Drew as well.[/action]


----------



## dpm (Sep 1, 2006)

[action=dpm]thinks Drew needs more stimulating reading material[/action]


----------



## maskofduality (Sep 1, 2006)

it'll take me too many reads to understand what this means lol and i have a college class coming up way too soon for that


----------



## Drew (Sep 1, 2006)

All ya'll suck. 

Bob, at least I've proven my taste in beer is worth trusting. 

Seriously, this novel kicks ass. It's largely about a bunch of fairly serious drug users, and the footnotes on the plethora of drugs are worth sticking it out alone - street names, chemical makeup, companies of manufacture, effects/side-effects relative to other similar chemical compounds, classifications, history, etc. It's fascinating, and largely because of this book I know more about AA than you guys would most likely think proper.


----------



## The Dark Wolf (Sep 1, 2006)

Drew said:


> All ya'll suck.
> 
> Bob, at least I've proven my taste in beer is worth trusting.
> 
> Seriously, this novel kicks ass. It's largely about a bunch of fairly serious drug users, and the footnotes on the plethora of drugs are worth sticking it out alone - street names, chemical makeup, companies of manufacture, effects/side-effects relative to other similar chemical compounds, classifications, history, etc. It's fascinating, and largely because of this book I know more about AA than you guys would most likely think proper.


I think your _taste in beer_ is why you know so much about AA, dude. 


Speaking of, I'm going to try my own version of a Black & Tan - Mackeson's and a Sleeman's Cream Ale. Should be decidedly smooth. May try it with a a Sam Adams (who also make a stout, I see) Cherry Wheat. A delicious wheat beer with a smooth, cherry taste. May mix well with the semi-sweet Mackesons. Which, I learned, is a called a milk stout, since it uses lactose, or milk sugar, in the fermenting and brewing process.

Another delicious stout to try, D, is Samuel Smith Oatmeal Stout. I got one yesterday, and it's very tasty. Imported from England, whereas Mackeson's is English owned and recipe, but brewed in Ohio.


----------



## Drew (Sep 1, 2006)

Samuel Smith's Oatmeal is quite good too, but as it's pricier than Mackeson's and IMO not quite as good, it's not my go-to stout (which is still generally Guinness, as it's the easiest to find). 

Nah, it's mostly this book, Bob - had you stuck it out to the finish you'd have seen Don Gately get pretty involved in AA, after arriving at the halfway house.


----------



## The Dark Wolf (Sep 1, 2006)

Drew said:


> Nah, it's mostly this book, Bob - had you stuck it out to the finish you'd have seen Don Gately get pretty involved in AA, after arriving at the halfway house.


Yeah... but where's the elves and swords? 

If there's no elves, magic, or swords, my eyes just sorta glaze over. Or spaceships. I can work with those, too.


----------



## Naren (Sep 1, 2006)

Hey, Drew, question. Why do they call it "Oatmeal stout" (I've never had any beer with the word "oatmeal" in the title)? Is it actually brewed from oatmeal instead of barley, etc.? I just can't imagine beer tasting like oatmeal. Or does it have the same color? Why is it called that?


----------



## The Dark Wolf (Sep 1, 2006)

Naren said:


> Hey, Drew, question. Why do they call it "Oatmeal stout" (I've never had any beer with the word "oatmeal" in the title)? Is it actually brewed from oatmeal instead of barley, etc.? I just can't imagine beer tasting like oatmeal. Or does it have the same color? Why is it called that?


I don't know (I'm not Drew, but hey.)

It does not taste like oatmeal, however.  Oats and barley are similar, maybe that's why. It tastes like Guinness. Sorta.



Update! Boink! Ok, here's why. Oats are added during the brewing. 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oatmeal_stout


----------



## Drew (Sep 1, 2006)

Yeah, as I understand it's because it's brewed with oats/oatmeal - I don't know if it's an oatmeal/barley blend or straight up oats, but it definitely doesn't taste like oatmeal. 

Erm, unless you're in the habit of putting stout on your morning Quaker's Oats, which in that case more power to you. 

EDIT - sniped by Bob. Also, I  Wikipedia.


----------



## Naren (Sep 1, 2006)

^Wow. It says that it used to be recommended to pregnant women. "Here, honey. Let's see if we can _kill_ your baby or at least make it a severe alcoholic before it's born."

When I hear "oatmeal stout", I just get this image of Little Debby's oatmeal creme pies and the oatmeal I used to eat for breakfast when I was a kid. Kind of a disappointment that the beer doesn't taste like that...  Sounds interesting and maybe pretty tasty.


----------



## Drew (Sep 5, 2006)

You fuckers are not adequately appreciating the greatness of this novel.


----------



## maskofduality (Sep 5, 2006)

how much does it cost at barnes & noble?


----------



## Drew (Sep 6, 2006)

Well, amazon.com gives it a list price of $19.95, which is probably what it'd go for in a major retailer. At over a thousand pages, that's two cents a page - what a steal!


----------

