I Am In Here

Recently I bought a copy of The Best American Essays 2007. It's a copy signed by it's editor: David Foster Wallace. I've never bought a book signed after the fact: either signed when I was not in the presence of the writer or obtained after the writer was no longer present. But inexplicably, I've found myself wanting a copy of something he'd written - with his signature - and found a little corner of the web where the desired signature wasn't selling for $300 to $1000. In fact, there was no mark up at all. That corner vanished about a week later.

So anyway, I bought my copy and opened it to the title page and there it is written in blue ink: David Foster Wallace. It kind of freaks me out. My heart jumps a little every time I turn to that page. But that's not even the best part. The best part is his introduction: Deciderization 2007 - a Special Report. You can read it here. Do the clicky clicky now and just read it. Read it. (pdf versions which are more readable than in html available here.)

I happen to think it's the most brilliant and beautiful thing written in like 9 years. It brought me heartstopping joy and a relief of sorts like nothing else I've read. If I had owned a copy of this essay in 2007, my general outlook on life and art (especially theater) would perhaps be/have been less dark and grim and despairing (I didn't/don't despair for theater, it's life I'm talking about). Then again, if I had felt better about things I probably wouldn't feel the need to write this play called Dumb Puppy.

It's not just the intro that does it. Even better, oh better still, is his editing or, as DFW puts it, his deciderization of which essays from 2006 to include. The content itself combined with his intro make this little volume one of the most direct and public and, since it's in print, lasting, responses by an American artist to the "Post-911" U.S. and its myriad of considerations and conundrums and outrages that I've seen. It is, for lack of a better descriptor: political. I didn't think it could actually be done anymore. But, there it is - a real statement - intelligent, rational, opinionated and, of the moment, political. And now, beyond that, here really is the best part of all, the part that makes me calm and steady and feeling that not only was there at least one person who might have shared my reality of that time, but here also is someone who was able to compose a clear, individual response to it. And not only that, but to make this statement and inhabit this world as an adult. An adult.

What do I mean by that exactly? Gosh. What does it mean to be an adult? Why do I equate the ability to perceive and parse reality as belonging strictly to adults. I guess I'm talking about a level of maturity where one can see things for what they are and respond to them with some real intelligence and bite as opposed to ironic, cynical remove which more and more seems like the realm of extended adolescence, and which wore thin for me these past 9 years*. I like John Stewart as much as anyone (kind of), but after awhile, watching him and listening to others talk about getting their news from his show just made me feel sad and diminished. I guess because, unlike the comedy of Bill Hicks, which had an underlying or at times an over-riding sense of outrage, this sort of Weekend Update/Saturday Night Live humor now just seemed/seems like an impotent response to what for me was/is a very disturbing reality.**

*Or am I deluding myself? Is this what adulthood and maturity have been reduced to? Or what they've always been?

** That is not to compare Bill Hicks with either Saturday Night Live or John Stewart.