A few people have asked for clarification about how a Deathmarch works. So here’s the deal:
Every Monday I will post a new entry here giving the target for that week. Usually in the past we have done about 50 pgs/week, but given the relative simplicity of Vonnegutian prose, we’ll probably up that a bit this time. For instance, I think we’ll try to knock off Cat’s Cradle — 188 pages in the Library of America edition — in three weeks.
Throughout the week people will discuss that week’s reading in the Comments thread. No spoilers, please, assuming spoilage is even possible here.
If at the end of the March you have commented every week, there is some sort of prize. Sometimes it is just the knowledge of a job well done, and sometimes it is some piece of swag like a mug or magnet. This time, we’ll see how it goes.
11 years ago (!), my sibling Cecil Vortex introduced the concept of the “Deathmarch,” in which a group of brave souls work together to tackle some formidable piece of literature. In this way we conquered tomes including Gravity’s Rainbow, The Brothers Karamazov, Don Quixote, and many (OK, several) more.
The Deathmarch has been dormant since the 2011 battle of Infinite Jest, which resulted in quite a few casualties. But I talked to Cecil yesterday and we decided it’s time.
In part this is inspired by my recent Kurt Vonnegut kick (see four posts ago), and by the fact that two…or was it three?…Christmases ago I received a lovely edition of all Vonnegut 1963-73, which has been moldering in a cabinet as I make my way through the endless Pile of the Unread.
You are not necessarily required to own this edition to participate. The novels covered will be:
Cat’s Cradle God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater Slaughterhouse Five Breakfast of Champions
But there are also some stories and essays at the end of the big book. I think we’ll decide whether to include these in the March when the time comes.
Of course, reading the work of Kurt Vonnegut scarcely deserves the name “Deathmarch”; his stuff goes down like popcorn compared to the weighty prose of a Pynchon or Wallace. But, you know, branding.
I’m thinking we’ll start next Monday, September 5. Who’s in?
Mark Twain once famously said that “The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco.” The good people of San Francisco apparently took this as a challenge. Unsatisfied with the opportunities for frostbite offered by, say, the perpetually fogbound Inner Sunset, in 1958 they decided to build a stadium on an exposed, windswept point south of the city.
This was Candlestick Park, where the Giants and the 49ers played for many years, and where the final show of The Beatles’ 1966 U.S. tour took place. I went to Candlestick several times, and I can tell you from experience that even on a good day you had to bundle up to avoid freezing. And August 29, by all accounts, was not a good day. Says Bob Spitz:
Gusts whipped through the stands with almost biblical vengeance. Banners strung around the stadium flapped ferociously against the squall and drafts picked up great clouds of dust and blew them volcanically across the infield.
That may be why Candlestick was only about half full. If you ever choose to time-travel to San Francisco on 8.29.66, you’ll be able to walk right up to the box office and buy a ticket. Be sure to take a parka. (more…)
So it’s come to this — here I am posting a video of an Eagles song. Sorry, Dude.
Amazingly, I did not learn until this week that what I thought of as the theme song from the original radio series of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy — one of my favorite things in the history of recorded sound — was actually “Journey of the Sorcerer,” a track from the Eagles’ 1975 album “One of These Nights.” It was written by Bernie Leadon, who quit the band soon after the album was released and was replaced by Joe Walsh.
I’ve always had mixed feelings about the Eagles, to say the least. I have a soft spot for “Hotel California,” and really enjoy it if I hear it about once a year. There was a period there when I was seemingly hearing it every day, and got sick of it unto death. But that was a long time ago.
As for “Journey of the Sorceror,” I dig it. Apparently I’ve been digging it for almost 40 years without my knowledge. Live and learn, live and learn.
