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[ianmalcolm2]

^ dude, you just keep getting all the cans.

While Broom was hilariously good fun to read, I got way more crazy about Infinite Jest. That shit was just masterful, and rewarded obsession.

[dejavroom]

Man, yeah. Big up for stoner writers, always. I didn't read Broom, but will definitely check it out soon. I concur about Infinite Jest, that shit was big for me and for a close group of friends, it was really important at that particular juncture. We couldn't stop gabbing about it. And his essays, I love all of his essays (Red Son is a continuous source of awe). Bummer for the guy, right. Every piece I read about him is just heartbreaking. Reads like a horror story, dude diagnoses disease, disease kills him. (Now that's fuck*ng heavy for Christmas).

[AugustWest]

I'm about 2/3's of the way through IJ.  It's good, and I'm enjoying it, but it's not changing my life or anything.  Am I missing something?

[theinevitable]

Funny, I am attempting to read IJ and my thought was "I know immediately that déjà loves this."

I do not love it. Certain moments and phrases have definitely grabbed me.

[ianmalcolm2]

I think, like Deja, I just read it at a point in my life where it really hit me in the gut and stuck with me. Any time I reread it, I'm immediately shoved back into a really specific and nostalgic adolescent headspace, so it's tricky for me to look at the book objectively. When it comes down to it, though, it really is just a fun puzzle-y read, like Gravity's Rainbow or something.

People who know that I like IJ, though, almost unfailing suggest I read 'House of Leaves.' I tried, and honestly just hated the shit out of it. Wallace is at least, for the most part, mockingly pretentious in a fun way. HOL, on the other hand, just felt some some shit I would've slogged through in high school while being told to look for 'symbols'.

[dejavroom]

August: I admit that the greater part of the impact IJ had on me was on the technical level, which is something unusual for me (usually I'm more concerned with depth than with style -- one of my favorite writers is Dostoyevsky, whose technical side is nothing to write home about). Wallace's voice was something new to me, the at once removed and at the same time obsessively detailed way of bringing focus to the inner workings of situations, relationships, phenomena etc. It made me think of those books with exploded views of engines and structures, the feeling that he was exposing things to you with unmatched detail and clarity.

Of course what he was exposing was really the human equivalent of those engine diagrams: people that behaved and performed adequately outwardly, but who were empty and/or not animated by human life on the inside, to the point of not even being human anymore (most of the times he is showing you people to whom the pleasure principle has become the dominant factor in ther lives, little rats perpetually hitting the reward button).

To me IJ's psychological diagnostic of America is still relevant, and the stakes now are even higher, so there's that for you to look for, although Wallace unfortunately shied away from trying to offer a way out, which is why the book ended up disappointing me towards the resolution (even if still being technically brilliant to the end).

Anyway, Wallace was a stoner misfit who wore a bandana, so to this day when people ask me I say it's a "grunge book" (plus humor, which grunge sorely lacked). Now excuse while I blast Alice In Chains' "Godsmack".

(Bonus track: American literature crammed in 27 seconds: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_35sCcn66Hw)

[pmcd9]

There's no new strip today. Let's talk about broom closets instead.

[AugustWest]

I wish we had a good broom closet.  We could really use a convenient space for storing cleaning equipment in my house.  It just clutters up the mud/laundry room now.

[pmcd9]

I don't have a mudroom. I suppose I could keep the broom on the breezeway, but no, I put it in a corner of the kitchen.

[wombat]

I don't know what a mudroom is, but it sounds awesome and now I want one.

[ianmalcolm2]

yeah seriously: where do you people live where 'mudrooms' and 'breezeways' are part of your homes?

I guess the weird Atlantic Canadian place to keep a broom would be the 'dooryard,' which is just a fancy term for entry way.

[AugustWest]

I dunno what you call it.  It's a back door entryway with a washer/dryer and a chest freezer.

[KeithHernandez]

My parents have one of those, but it is mainly a pantry (and a coat closet).  They have like an outside laundry room/broomcloset off the other side of the kitchen.

The house I grew up in is just one big, non-halled circle?  It is older than the state it is in, and like, that is weird in that state (oklahoma).

[wombat]

That sounds really interesting. Do you have any photos? Is it some kind of landmark?

[jaydub]

Houses in Lake Tahoe & Truckee (Sierra Nevada mountain ski areas) have mudrooms.  You change from your muddy/snowy outside boots into something more suited for indoors there.  Also, parka hanging, snowshoe storage, gloves and the like.