Short-a-Day: David Foster Wallace's "My Appearance"

Originally published in Girl with Curious Hair. Personal enjoyment rating (out of 100): 94.

When it comes down to media, particularly television -- or video in general -- and the ways in which it was influencing (and would influence) culture, David Foster Wallace was a genius writer. You can see this in his essays (from David Lynch to John McCain) and throughout Infinite Jest, whose essays on the rise-and-fall of the videophone and evolution of the hero still seem remarkably prescient. This is part of what makes "Small Expressionless Animals" such a potent piece down the road, for it talks about the meaninglessness of trivia (and what we sacrifice in order to fill ourselves with this nothingness) in equal strides with how all data have import, depending on their use. In turn, this is what makes "My Appearance," which turns away from Jeopardy and toward late-night "anti-shows," particularly David Letterman's, so effective: he uses the veneer of a remarkably fake talk-show ("hokeyness," he calls it) to comment on the place (or lack thereof) for sincerity in a media saturated world. Look, really look at what you're watching on these programs, or the so-called "reality" shows -- which I'm disappointed DFW didn't have more of a field day with -- and all you'll see is smugness sandwiched between self-satire, as we mock ourselves lest we ourselves be mocked.

And so but then, "My Appearance" begins as a well-employed forty-year-old television actress (who has recently been shilling for Oscar-Meyer), the mother of four children, is prepared for her upcoming appearance on NBC's Late Night With David Letterman, citing previous appearances by Teri Garr (fictitious, or at least unavailable on YouTube) as cautions for how she will be "savaged" and "ridiculed." It gets to the point that they actually give her an earpiece -- her husband and a television professional -- and attempt to give her directions during the actual interview, which rather feels like prepping for the SAT, in that you may have short-term gains, but will, in the long-term, not really exhibit much of anything. That is, by trying so hard to appear "real," she cannot help but come across as anything but fake, though she avoids this fate largely by ignoring the "advice" of her husband and living sincerely on stage: she is, after all, "a woman who acts." The tragedy, of course, comes afterward, as she cruises in a limo to dinner with her husband, who insists that things aren't what they seemed:

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Short-a-Day: David Foster Wallace's "Here and There"

Originally published in Girl With Curious Hair. Personal enjoyment rating (out of 100): 28.

[Okay, I've received my copy of The Pale King, but since I haven't finished my taxes yet -- or my catching up on Wallace's earlier work -- I'm going to hold off on starting it, difficult as that is, until the "official" release date.]

At first glance, it's a simple He Said/She Said chronicling of a breakup, with separate monologues spliced together so as to feint at actual communication, a thing that the two of them -- along with emotion, connection, actual presence -- seemed to have issues with. Then, as a doctor introduces himself, explains that "fiction therapy in order to be at all effective must locate itself and operate within a strenuously yes some might even say harshly limited defined structured space," and we learn a bit more about Bruce, a mathematical poet, the story feels as if it may be a thinly veiled attempt at autobiography. Ultimately, the story comes across like the anecdotal self-fulfilling prophecies of Infinite Jest -- with a slight glimmer of self-revealing hope -- in which a character is so afraid of something that their actions lead to the fear, which in this case is loneliness, caused because of Bruce's distance, first linguistic, then (cunni)lingual, then actual, which leads back to the title's supposition of the obvious otherness between here and there.

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Short-a-Day: David Foster Wallace's "John Billy"

Originally published in Girl With Curious Hair. Personal enjoyment rating (out of 100): 68.

Was telling the dust-watcher how C. Nunn Jr. passed up multitudes of come-hitherish cheerleaders and oriental princesses to return to Minogue and enter into serious commitment with his childhood sweetheart, the illegally buxom and tall Glory Joy duBoise, closest thing to femininity and pulchritude that to date exists in Minogue Oklahoma, eyes like geometry and a all-around bodily form of high allure and near-religious implication, and just as I was commencing a analogy relating the shape of Glory Joy's hips to the tight curve of the distant Big Dirt horizon, the door to the Outside Minogue Tavern busted inward and there against the dusty sunlight was framed the tall, angstified, and tortured frame of Glory Joy duBoise, hand to her limpid and Euclidean eyes, hips (that was similar to horizons) brushing the trauma-struck frame of the busted-inward door.

Language-wise, this is a beautiful and inventive story. Simply from the section quoted above: "illegally buxom," "eyes like geometry," "angstified," "hips (that was similar to horizons)." But at the same time, it raises a valid complaint about post-modernism's weakness for style over substance, and again, from the section above, you've got improper grammar ("Was telling the dust-watcher") right alongside highfalutin (irony intentional) words ("femininity and pulchritude"), to say nothing about the repetition of descriptions ("eyes like geometry" and "hips [that was similar to horizons]" are great; "limpid and Euclidean eyes" and "relating the shape of Glory Joy's hips to the tight curve of the distant Big Dirt horizon" aren't very good). I don't mean to dwell on the technical, because I do believe that Wallace does usually work toward something more -- particularly in his essays -- this tale which seems to get away from him. While "Lyndon" was stifled by its realism, "John Billy" is over-amplified by its increasingly surreal elements. 

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THEATER: How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying

Photos/The Hartman Group

In this bleak economic time, it's nice to have a cheery old-fashioned musical putting a fresh spin on office politics: it's still the daily grind, as evidenced by songs like "Coffee Break," and "How to Succeed," but with ballroom finesse and heel-spinning pizazz. The secretaries are as mistreated here as on Mad Men (and seem happy about it, according to "Cinderella Darling" and "Happy to Keep His Dinner Warm"), but they're well-treated by the choreography, which has them tap-dancing away in high heels. And while the lyrics of songs about office loyalty ("Company Way") may have aged poorly, the catchy tunes have not, and time after time, choreographer Rob Ashford's lively, colorful choreography steals the show.

Which leads to a valid question: in a show which stars Daniel Radcliffe as the young, making-it-up-as-he-goes entrepreneur J. Pierrepont Finch, and John Larroquette as the beset and blustery boss, J. B. Biggley, how is it that the dancers steal the show? Well, first of all, Ashford's also directing, and he's a dancer's director (which serves a high-energy show like this). Second of all, it's a matter of conviction: Radcliffe's trading on the charisma of his films rather than establishing his own, and he speaks -- particularly in the second act -- at such a clip that he frequently trips himself up. Though he throws himself into the role, particularly the athletic "Finale" and the football fantasia of "Grand Old Ivy," he's a bit reedy compared to veterans like Christopher J. Hanke (who plays his incompetent, nepotistic rival, Bud Frump) or unknown talents like Rose Hemingway (who stiffly plays the love interest, Rosemary Pilkington, but delivers with her profound pipes). On the other hand, Larroquette oozes comfort, even when singing well out of his range (in his love song to his mistress, "Love From a Heart of Gold"), but isn't on stage often enough to out-do the spectacles. (Oh, and Derek McLane's absolutely mod three-tiered honeycomb of cubicles helps to literally elevate the dancers, too.)

But here's the more important answer: it doesn't matter that the dancers are the stars here; Radcliffe's a perfectly serviceable Finch, and bound to draw in a crowd. The musical's not really about him, so much as it is about the idea of upward mobility that he represents: the thought runs, if he can do it, so can we -- so having a semi-ordinary star may actually be a boon. It's only a shame that the romance is so hackneyed: "Rosemary" and "I Believe in You" are sincerely beautiful songs, and they're a little undone by the glitter of the purely comic numbers that surround them. Still, there's nothing wrong with a frenetic comedy like this when it's done well, and thanks to a roster of well-cast supporters that include Tammy Blanchard as the air-headed secretary Hedy La Rue and Mary Faber as the voice of reason and best friend Smitty, it's done well. And after another month of performances, who's to say that Radcliffe won't join them, once he learns how to stop trying so hard, and to start really succeeding.

Short-a-Day: David Foster Wallace's "In the Arcade at the Beginning of the End (Today)"

Originally published in Brief Interviews With Hideous Men*. Personal enjoyment rating (out of 100): 75.

[Heavily footnoted story; for the sake of quoting, I've simply put the footnotes in brackets.]

He had inserted the quarter, or was about to; the silvered disc clung to those final pale inches of his fingers, fleshy whorls brushing metallic ridges, the token more than half-spent, quivering now (the hand, not the object) from the vice-like effort with which he held to those last precious seconds between deposit and purchase [the irony was not lost to him, the Player, for it was the purchase of those ever-slickening betrayers of fingers with which he prolonged the physical purchase]. Mean-mean-meanwhile, the other hand, the Claw, gripped, with its not inestimable oligodactylic strength, the vulcanized bulb of a joystick [joy, and yet it was a fist you made to hold it, he mused, the quarter slipping another millionth of an inch], lethargically sweeping it through the paces as if it were an inverted miniature music-box dancer (Beauty), and the Claw (Beast) the filigreed gear spinning along to the empty orchestra pinging through the speakers.

The novelty of this story, itself originally disseminated in novel (literal and figurative) form, has always struck me as showing a side of Wallace's playfulness -- despite the tragic ending, involving the inevitable asphyxiation of the boy's baby brother, trapped within the machine -- that we don't often see in his other work. The wordplay is admittedly more showy than in Wallace's other shorts, particularly by the final, terser, more removed stage of his writing, but in many ways, that's a necessity of the theme and setting -- an arcade on its final legs -- and one whose gaudiness helps to reflect the disfigurements of the characters and machinery (all of which, it can be said, are stand-ins for the larger city itself, in the midst of a depression that may remind modern readers of Detroit).

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