Infinite Book Club
Also Under Review: American history, the film that should’ve won Best Foreign Language Film, and the latest Top Chef spinoff.
By Ned Resnikoff, Emily Rutherford, Jake Blumgart, and Kay Steiger
June 26, 2009
The most postmodern book club ever.
Infinite Summer
June 21-Sept. 22, 2009
Reading a book is usually a solitary experience—different people read at wildly different paces and you can’t talk and read at the same time. Besides, nobody reads anymore, now that the kids have got their crazy reality TV, text messaging, and Facebook.
But reading can be a communal experience if someone’s willing to make the effort to turn it into one. Enter Infinite Summer, a suitably postmodern and non-linear book club experience for one of the towering, postmodern, non-linear works of the late twentieth century.
Reading Infinite Jest along with the club (although I confess I’ve already read far, far ahead of the schedule) is a delight, but it’s hard to separate how much of that is thanks to the group itself from how much can be attributed to the work of David Foster Wallace. If I were reviewing the book instead of the book club, then the rating at the bottom would look something like 10^6 out of 10 Howling Fantods. But the club itself, at least so far, isn’t quite so revelatory. We’re still in the introductory stages, so most of the posts revolve around the reader’s personal relationships to the massive tome. Well-written, funny stuff, but it doesn’t shed a lot of insight on the book itself. And I’ve got to say, some of the bloggers get a little too cute affecting Wallace’s endnote-heavy style.
But there are a handful of posts that usefully serve as a guide for getting through the text. Special mention should go to How to Read Infinite Jest, without which I would probably already be hopelessly lost. The posts clearly indicate that this book club is worth sticking around for when they really start to dig in. And since it’s only the first week, it’s not too late for any of you to run down to the local bookstore to pick up a copy. I advise joining in on one of the few worthwhile communal reading experiences you’ll see for a while.
8 out of 10 very long endnotes<
-Ned Resnikoff
It’s time for some real patriotism. (Flickr/wallyg)
Smithsonian National Museum of American History
Washington, D.C.
Visited: June 20, 2009
When I went to visit the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History last weekend, I was pleasantly surprised by the degree to which it represented a diverse set of American experiences and a balanced view of politically controversial time periods such that included both the Cold War and Vietnam. It was refreshing that the exhibits didn’t gloss over the disenfranchisement of women or minorities—and there was even a small display commemorating the 40th anniversary of the Stonewall riots.
It was pretty cool to realize that the Smithsonian saw LGBT history as part of America’s history, and it was also cool to see exhibits that addressed other potentially controversial social issues in a balanced way. I’ve never seen a museum that covered a wall in packages of oral contraceptives. The exhibits were so well-designed that after I realized that no one seemed to mind flash photography, I definitely regretted having forgotten my camera.
But I had plenty of issues with the military history exhibit, which tended to glorify armed conflict. I was surprised by the lack of criticism of anti-communist hysteria: one blurb said that Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were arrested and tried in the course of a “legitimate search for spies.” The Vietnam exhibit did a good job juxtaposing the actual land war of military strategy with the social war going on at home, but it didn’t really explain why people might have opposed the war, or even so much as caption the litany of iconic images of peace signs and Woodstock and dead and dying Vietnamese people that covered a wall. Things felt progressively weirder as I went through an exhibit about the post-Vietnam wars—some display cases in the room enshrined photographs and military memorabilia from Afghanistan and Iraq, and it seemed so strange to designate as history two wars that are still ongoing.
7 out of 10 pieces of patriotic memorabilia
-Emily Rutherford
The film that should’ve won.
Waltz With Bashir
Sony Pictures Classics
Release: June 23, 2009
Ari Folman’s Oscar-nominated Waltz With Bashir opens with a pack of 26 hellhounds tearing through the streets of Tel Aviv under a canopy of bilious yellow clouds. Eyes reflecting the sickening amber color of the sky, tongues lolling grossly, they are too intent upon their quarry to maul the terrified bystanders. The scene immerses the viewer in Folman’s nightmarish reality, tearing down any expectations the words ‘animated film’ conjure up, and plunging us down the rabbit hole of a foot soldier’s fragmented remembrance of war.
Waltz is a documentary, the characters are all real people, remembering (or not) actual events from the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon, a conflict in which they all participated. It is told through a series of interviews, the results of which are animated to capture the surrealistic horror of human minds scarred by war, a feat which would have been nearly impossible to film, not to mention prohibitively expensive.
At heart Waltz is a deeply pessimistic film. There are no smart bombs or carefully executed missions just shells lobbed indiscriminately into neighborhoods, families murdered in their cars, machine guns chattering into the night, with no target and no purpose. War is futile and capricious and cruel and it isn’t going away. “It will always be up-to-date because something will always happen again,” Folman explained in an interview with the New York Times as shells fell on Gaza.
While you dwell on that depressing thought, there are some cool DVD extras. There is a dubbed English version of the film which is quite good and an excellent commentary track with Folman. The feature which shows the original interviews next to their animated counterparts helps bring home the reality of the film, which our Disney dulled palates may have had trouble processing.
10 out of 10 movies that should have won Best Foreign Language Film
-Jake Blumgart
Step aside, amateurs.
Top Chef Masters
Bravo
Premiered: June 10, 2009
A few people have asked me recently, presumably because of my hobby gig over at the Internet Food Association, if I’ve seem the “horrible” new Top Chef spinoff called Top Chef Masters. I confess: I actually like it.
Perhaps my affection for the new show stems from some of my critiques of the original Top Chef, which seems to be getting worse with each passing season. At first, the show is teaming with amateur chefs who often make mistakes that are mind-bogglingly stupid. I also have trouble keeping track of the contestants because they start with so many. The last season also bordered on Real World-style drama, with two contestants starting a flirtatious affair.
The new series, which brings a cast of four well-known chefs per episode, is a refreshing change. The challenges are more creative and less product-placement laden than the original series. And these chefs have got skills. In a challenge where Napa Valley chef Cindy Pawlcyn gets tripe (stomach) she proudly proclaims that she’s part of a cooking club called “Girls who Eat Guts,” but still came in last because, it turns out, tripe is really hard to cook. But even the mess-ups look tasty. It’s a higher caliber of cooking and overall a more grown-up version of the show.
Much as I like it, the show isn’t perfect. Kelly Choi, who seems more akin to alien than human, is a rather passive and uninteresting host. (She ain’t no Padma!) Also, some of the chefs choose rather odd charities. Last week’s winner, Rick Bayless, chose to donate the winnings to a charity he founded that gives money to small farmers. Another agriculture subsidy? Weird. Still, I think I’ll be enjoying the diversion until regular Top Chef is back on.
7 out of 10 challenging proteins
-Kay Steiger
Jake Blumgart and Ned Resnikoff are staff writers for Campus Progress. Emily Rutherford is an editorial intern at Campus Progress. Kay Steiger is an associate editor for Campus Progress.
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