Academic

What Happened to Rolling Stone's Format--And A Comment on David Foster Wallace

By propertyprof

OK.  So just in case anyone doubts the influence of studying the history of conservative thought AND property law, I've become (if I didn't start out life this way, which I probably did) an extremely tradition-bound individual.  I don't like change of any kind and that includes moving--especially moving.

So you can imagine my horror when my favorite librarian bought Rolling Stone to me the other day and said, "they've changed the format; I like it."  That latter part may or may not have been true; I'm pretty sure it was designed to pre-empt what she know would be my negative reaction to the change of format from tabloid size to plain old vanilla 8 1/2 by 11.  Like every other boring magazine.  But let's leave that aside for a moment.  (I'm sure I'm not the typical RS reader in terms of politics or music interest or anything else for that matter.  Plus, I have a life subscription, so what am I going to do?  Cancel it?)

Anyway, there's a poignant article in the most recent issue about David Foster Wallace.  (RS won't give away the full article for free on the net, but here's a link to part of  David Lipsky's "Last Days of David Foster Wallace."  RS--this is so jive--you're now part of "the system.")  I'm not a DFW fan--too weird for me, even if there are some cool moments of monument law in Infinite Jest.  In fact, I rarely read fiction unless it's related to my research in the antebellum South or Progressive-era legal thought.   Some real pathos in the RS article--like Wallace was doing ok on his meds until he decided to shift to try some new stuff, which didn't work.  Then, when he went back to his usual meds, they didn't work either.  So much for innovation.  (See the first paragraph).

There's also some happy stuff in there--or at least somewhat more positive stuff.  Like his memories of graduate school (in philosophy) at Harvard (well, at least some of it's positive).  And for me the most affecting piece is his memory of the good times had while writing.  There were times when he caught the wave and would work for hours without looking at the clock.  Entire days passed without him realizing it, it seems.  Though I have that feeling rarely these days--well, I have the sense of an entire day passing without realizing it, but that's just the sign of how much committee work and service I'm doing of late--I can remember those exciting times when I'd wake up, turn the computer on and work straight for hours without having a sense that time was passing.  Ah, single-minded focus generates real feelings of accomplishment--or at least a bunch of pages of text! :)

I used to think that I'd be found at the end of my life in a library hunched over a stack of books, with a pen in my hand--because I'd gotten so entranced that I forgot to eat.  Well, that won't be the way I go--hopefully many years from now--because I'm always ready for a feeding at lunch and dinner time now.  But, I do hope to get back to that sense again sometime soon, maybe with University, Court, and Slave.  I don't think the feeling will have to wait for Reading the Great Constitutional Dream Book or for The American Scholar in Context: Antebellum Literary Addresses and Jurisprudence.

Alfred Brophy

Full post as published by The Faculty Lounge on October 28, 2008 (boomark / email).