A Cheapskate and her ipod, or A Response to "Consider the Lobster"

In my ongoing search for free content for my iPod, I downloaded from Audible.com last week a free essay called "Consider the Lobster" by David Foster Wallace. I had never heard of David Foster Wallace but Audible assured me that he was Someone Special and, as an essayist myself, (albeit not endorsed by Audible.com or any other publisher other than Blogger.com, which is famously not very selective), I made a grab for it. Yesterday being Tuesday, I had my hour in the morning for a walk on the Stowe Rec Path (about which see previous posts). It was a rainy, cool-verging-on-cold November morning. The last few dead leaves were being shaken from the trees by a steady breeze, not quite a wind, and David Foster Wallace (hereinafter "DFW")was on my ipod and in my walking plans.

It's not like I am exactly sorry I listened to it, because it gave me food for thought resulting in this insomniac essay. But it's not like I actually liked it either. Friends, it was grim. Worse, it was irritating. DFW revealed himself within a paragraph (he read the essay himself) to be a classic pointy-headed intellectual. I was going to call him humorless, but unfunny is more accurate. Inside of the first five minutes, I started wishing that the writers of The Simpsons would get him. I remembered a Simpsons episode where Springfield was taken over by all the smart people, Professor Frink, Dr. Hibbard, Lisa, Martin, and things went to hell in a handbasket. Snob that I am, I am also impatient with the intellectual class and glad that most people aren't paying much attention to them. Mayor Quimby is preferable as a leader. God save the polity from DFW and his ilk.

I do have to hand it to DFW, however, for actually forcing the reader to consider the lobster in "Consider the Lobster." If this was his objective, he met it. Listening to this essay was the literary equivalent having a living lobster thrust to within about three inches of your face and twisting it there for a full 50 minutes with its little claws scrabbling at your cheeks and its larger claws, cruelly (it is suggested) banded or pinned, giving you a slap or two. The essay was, apparently written for Gourmet Magazine. I wonder what the editors thought when the product they commissioned arrived in their offices? They could not have found it a joy and rapture unforeseen, indictment of lobster eating and the Maine Lobster Festival that it is, at bottom. I expect it touched off an editorial argument, with the high-brows playing the "art" card and winning the day. Maybe the editors asked for a little rewrite. At the end DFW talks about how he's not intending to "bait" anyone who reads Gourmet and eats lobsters, cows, lambs, chickens etc. He just wants to ask if they have thought about the moral position they are in by eating these things. Yikes.

As noted, DFW is reporting, sort of, on the Maine Lobster Festival. Despite the image the words "Maine Lobster Festival" may conjure for you, images, of a happy sunny day near the ocean in summer, DFW found it, are you sitting down, a tacky and dislikable jumped-up county fair sort of affair. The MLF features a dull parade with home-made floats (presumably a contrast to the factory made floats of Macy's Parades and the Rose Bowl?) and a guy in a bad pirate costume saying "argh" to bystanders; people wearing hats with lobster claws on springs. Porta potties. Lines. Tourists. He includes himself in this last, loathsome category. In one memorable phrase says that he, like other tourists, ruins nice places by going there becoming an "insect on a dead thing." Here's a newsflash: crowds of people eating lobster, or anything else, as cheaply as possible accompanied by gimcrack entertainments and accommodated by poor sanitation facilities is not going to be pretty. They will be an easy target for someone with a large vocabulary. What mass event, other than church, or maybe some concerts, ever allows a crowd to come off well? Picking on the details is a way for DFW to show himself superior to it all. Yawn.

Come back soon. I have to get to bed now or I'll never be up in three hours to get the kids to school. In the meantime, "Annie, Get Your iPod!" here's a link to the audiobook under discussion.

http://www.audible.com/adbl/site/enSearch/searchResults.jsp?D=david+foster+wallace&Ntt=David+Foster+Wallace&Dx=mode%2bmatchallpartial&Ntk=S_Narrator_Search&Ntx=mode%2bmatchallpartial&y=14&N=0&x=11&BV_UseBVCookie=Yes

This Weekend at the Top of Vermont

Was a quiet one. When I got up on Saturday morning to take my usual stroll on the mountain (Jay Peak of course) I arrived to find the golf course and everything else up there covered in snow! It was cold too. Luckily, I was dressed for it and had my hiking poles (it was slippery too). I wound up walking on the roads by the condos, cutting across one ski trail to get back to the main road to the resort. I was surprised to see that a few other people had already been out that morning on a route similar to mine (footprints...)

The condos there are really nice - it must be admitted. In the snow they have a Christmas jollity, with their red doors and light green color. The one bad thing about walking near dwellings, instead of on the trails, is the problem of encountering condo owners. I feel like they regard me suspicously. Also, at least one of them has a dog, whom I have nicknamed Cujo. I didn't hear him barking the instant I got within 500 yards of his condo so I thought I was in the clear on Saturday. Then (at 8 AM) a jeep pulled onto the road where I was walking. A few moments later Cujo was barking his head off and charging toward me. I stopped moving altogether (years ago a loose dog came after me on my bike and I tried to get away and wound up in the emergency room). Luckily, his owner, despite having lost control of him the moment she opened her car door, stood calling for him and, after he skidded to a stop in front of me, he turned around and went back to her. She wished me a nice day, and sounded sincere.

I noticed a Vermont plate on that jeep. Very unusual for a Vermonter to have a second home up here. I would love to have one of those condos myself.

Woolfoot Kid 2 this weekend discovered the joys of chopping vegetables for salads. He spent a couple of hours on both days of the weekend reducing cherry tomtoes and a few bits of onion to mouse bite sizes. Then we made a salad. He wanted me to take a picture and I was happy to do it, of course.

A Day At Home

Well. Mostly at home. I and the kids hit the golf course (just the golf cart path) early. It was cold and beautiful. Lots of son in the last house today. As it's hunting season (and the gas station owner and his son were hunting here all weekend) we had to be careful about when we went out on our own place (not during the early morning or evening). We did walk down to the river and I kept my camera with me.

Halloween on the Border Hops - Who Knew?

For the first time in all our years in the last house we did our trick or treating in the little village of North Troy - in which we live. If it has a claim to fame, other than sitting on the Canadian border and being a Port of Entry, it is as as rough sort of workingman's town. I suppose that's better than the neighboring town of Richford, over the mountain. A client of mine once told me that some of his Canadian friends think of Richford as the Tiajuana of Vermont. Funny, but kinda true.

Wanting to avoid gangs of vandals and cretins that I sometimes believe dominate the local population, we usually go somewhere else for trick or treat. This proved impractical this year so our kids and some of their friends in the villageall went out last night for the North Troy Halloween experience.

The local gas station/restaurant/convenience store had a way-station of coffee, donuts, cider and play doh and treats for the kids (the proprieters were dressed as Robin Hood and Maid Marion). The firemen were giving out glowing safety bracelets and candy and also manning all the streets to serve as crossing guards. The place was literally jumping. I have never seen so much activity in this little village. A couple of gay couples located here years ago (I tip my hat - I wish they'd persuade some friends to move in) their houses are the nicest in town. The garden at one of these places was like a movie set. Queer Eye for North Troy? I guess this wouldn't be universally supported but I'm all for it.

One of the parents we went with last night told me that lots of VT towns around here have banned trick or treating and ours, which is compact and has a (barely) surviving center is one of the few places to go so lots of people come from neighboring towns. People were mostly friendly and well behaved. It had a Norman Rockwell quality for the most part. A nice surprise. Happy Halloween.

A Few Flakes Today

What interesting thing is this? Nothing was in there actually but I have a thing for tree roots and I asked Kid 2 to check it out. Read below for more exciting news !

It's true. Woolfoot Kid 2 and I went out for a walk at about 8 AM on the just-now-closed-for-the-season Jay Peak Golf Course. You would think with such a huge investment (they carved that course out of the woods in the last two or three years at a cost of millions) that they would be playing golf on it til the last possible second. In fact, that is probably just what was done because the top of the mountain, though shrouded by a cloud this morning, showed white with a little frost or snow. And the wind. If people around here said "boy howdy" about the weather, they would be saying that today.

Game little spirit that he is, my little boy and tromped with me down the golf cart path to the raging Jay Brook. It poured yesterday all day (the temparature plummeted overnight, yesterday was mild, thank goodness or we would have had a real snowstorm on our hands with that much rain). So, a quiet day at home with some of the kids' friends visiting and a little kite flying in the afternoon.

Woolfoot Kid 2's Vision

Here's a picture my six-year-old took tonight of his money. The composition is all his. It has a certain something...

Today's Little Events

Our California-beautiful weather continues. Two weekends in a row of spectacular Northern New England fall. The friends we visited last weekend over in Derby, VT returned our visit yesterday (admittedly, it rained yesterday but it was sort of nice and made everything very fresh for this morning).

I slept in (til 8 AM) and went for a walk on Jay Peak this morning. I couldn't find my camera first thing so I didn't get to take any pictures. I suppose Jay Peak subjects are getting a little wearisome anyway. Suffice it to say that even though I didn't even get to the half way point on the mountain (it is way steeper than it looks from the road when you are on foot on its sides) the scenery below was beyond words. After picking my way donw in the way of a middle aged fat woman, I stopped bythe Jay Peak craft fair that is going on today. I avoided eyecontact with most of the vendors (fleece hats, bad paintings, maple syrup, fudge, signs that say "Moose" and "I Love Skiing" - the best "art" was on offer from a sullen looking guy for Woolcott who had some beautifully worked stone pieces along with the kitcshy "Believe" and "My Garden" inscribed stones). I bought a jar of hot pickles from a lady from Alburgh who has a very impressive collection of canned goods for sale. I bought something from her last year as well - can't think what. Corn relish maybe?

Robertson Davies, a famous Canadian writer whose book Fifth Business we had to read for Can. Lit. long ago (a book I much admired and still think of often), wrote an essay once suggesting that diarists should record the simple facts of every day living. Davies advised that these are the things that are of the most interest to future generations. How much things cost; a regular day at home or at work, this is what the future wants to know. So, in that spirit I'll record that this jar of Vermont grown and canned pickles cost $7. Not unfair. A supermarket jar probably would cost $2 but it wouldn't have been handed over the counter to me by the lady who grew and and canned the stuff at a farm about an hour and 15 minutes from here. There's this growing movement, esp. in Vermont, for people to eat stuff that comes from close to home. When the organic farmer who rents our land first talked to me about that it seemed like the usual hippy claptrap. I find my sympathy for the idea growing. I'd like to get a few farm animals for our own little family next spring, and a bee hive. Note to self..

Here are a couple of pictures to provide evidence of the beauty that has been ours here on the Quebec/Vermont border: the first one is by my friend, Brenda, that she took last week while we were out for a walk with our kids near her place and one I took not half an hour ago in the woods here at the last house.