First, the Good Stuff: I've started reading the massive, 1079-page epic known as Infinite Jest. I am currently on page 240. My analysis so far? It's been surprisingly easy to read. I was expecting some intricately dense and complex novel that was going to be somewhat punishing to read; thankfully, it's nothing like that at all. Instead, it's quite reader-friendly. It's also hilarious. Sure, there are parts that are slower/harder to get through than others, but I've been able to plow through the first 240 pages (and about 20 pages of footnotes) in 11 days. I don't know if that's actually a fast pace or not, but the point is: it's going by quickly.

What I do know, and what I wanted to share with you, is that there are passages in this novel that are just stunning. Like, I just want to give up writing forever, because there's no way that I'm ever going to be able to craft anything as good as some of these passages. They're so good, I want to go back and re-read them, even if they're six or seven pages long (which, for this book, can take a while). I wish I could just sit here and transcribe them for you, but not only would that be copyright infringement, it would also not be as meaningful taken out of context. Thus, the best I can do is say: Read this book. It'll take a long time to finish, but I'm already ready to say it'll be worth it. And when you do, I can tell you all about those amazing parts that you'll surely also find amazing.

Now the Bad Stuff: What's up with Rock Band's DLC recently? Pantera, Deftones, Ozzy Osbourne (but Ozzy songs that no one cares about), Miley Cyrus, then, after I didn't think it could get any worse than Miley-fucking-Cyrus, Nickelback? I just hope that next week is something like Radiohead's OK Computer or something. They really need to redeem themselves. It's a good thing those Rock Band Network songs are slowly trickling onto the PS3. If it weren't for those, I would've only bought one song (a Spoon single) since mid-May. Crazy.

Allow me to explain why Fahrenheit is the superior temperature scale to Celsius.

First, let’s take a look at the men that the scales are based on. John P. Fahrenheit was a children’s doctor who rode unicorns whilst saving nuns from evil henchmen. Xavier Q. Celsius was a dirty rotten thief, and his mother was a whore.

But those two completely historically accurate facts are irrelevant! Some people like that Celsius “logically” goes from 0 (the freezing point of water) to 100 (the boiling point of water), whereas Fahrenheit’s freezing/boiling points are 32 and 212. That would be logical, if we were water! But we’re not water, we’re people. Therefore Fahrenheit’s scale of 0 (freezing nuts) to 100 (hot as balls) makes more sense for us. 100 degrees Fahrenheit is equal to about 38 degrees Celsius. 38 degrees doesn’t really have the same ring to it as 100 degrees. “Boy, it’s hot out here. It’s almost THIRTY EIGHT!”

Fahrenheit is better because there are more degrees, so it’s more accurate. Between 32 and 100, we have 68 degree options, whereas for the same temperatures Celsius has 38. That means we can be more accurate without resorting to decimals (although the rest of the world that uses Celsius also uses the Metric system, so they probably fucking love the shit out of decimals). We can easily differentiate between 65 and 66 degrees without saying 18.3 and 18.8. And we all know how big a difference there is between 65 and 66 degrees. 18 degrees Celsius could mean literally anything (between 65 and 66 degrees)!

I think I’ve illustrated pretty clearly here why America rules and why Algeria can suck it. Suck it, Algeria!

The Gaslight Anthem has grown up. That seems to be the theme of their new album, American Slang. This is an older band. One that's matured since the days they'd blaze through two-and-a-half minute punk (?) songs on their debut LP, Sink or Swim. They aren't the sentimental, reference-filled band from The '59 Sound. There are no Marias on American Slang. No Virginias. They still talk about dancing and friends and the city, but it's not the same. Which is a risky move, considering they could've rested on their laurels and released The '59 Sound: Part 2 and it would've been a huge success. Instead, they take the overall sound of what they did before, revamped it a little, tweaked the lyrical content, and released an amazing record.

(I was going to go into this whole in-depth review thing, but then I realized we aren't Pitchfork [thank god], so I'll spare you. Instead, the highlights.) "Stay Lucky," "Bring it On," "Boxer," "Old Haunts," and "We Did it When We Were Young" are the stand-outs for me. "The Diamond Church Street Choir" is pretty good, but Brian's voice (which, let's be honest, has never been the best voice in the world) kind of loses it. "The Queen of Lower Chelsea" is the only somewhat disappointing tune, to me. It's a slower jam, which I'm cool with ("Blue Jeans and White T-Shirts" is one of my favorite Gaslight songs, plus the aforementioned "We Did It"), but it just doesn't seem to ever reach a climactic point or something. I like it, but that one guitar riff kind of annoys me. Oh well.

So, is American Slang better than The '59 Sound? Hard for me to say right now. I do know I like it a helluva lot. They faced a daunting task, following up an album as strong as The '59 Sound. And they complicate matters even more by establishing a change in tone. Thankfully, they pulled it off. I think American Slang might be a transitional album for The Gaslight Anthem. I wouldn't be surprised if, a few years from now, we get an even more polished, an even more mature band.

(Also, bravo to Against Me! I agree with Adam -- their new album rocks. I have to tell myself it's a different band from the Axl Rose days, but Tom's still got it. He knows how to write a hook, that's for sure. With White Crosses, Against Me! was either going to go by the indie-label-to-major-label wayside, or reinstate their relevance. I'm glad they're still around.)

Your pretentious, “worldly” friends who love anything other countries appreciate have probably told you the World Cup is happening, and you probably (hopefully) looked at them kind of cockeyed and went back to not giving a shit about soccer (which, by the way, those friends will call football, even though this is America and the sport is called soccer here, because we speak American English). People who are trying desperately to be cultured by pretending to appreciate soccer will always come to you with their one point – soccer is the most popular sport in the world, so it must be worth liking. “Untrue!” I say. McDonalds is like the most popular restaurant in the world, but does that make the food good? No. It’s popular because it’s cheap and fast. The same reasons soccer is popular.

That’s right. Soccer is the disgusting fast food of sports. It’s popular because it can be thrown together for six cents and anyone can play it. Have a field? Have anything to kick? Then you can play soccer! You don’t need a bat, or a special stadium, or any sticks or any talent, or even a ball! You could play soccer with a chicken, or a rock. Literally all you need to be able to do is run. Or in the case of being a goalie, all you need to be able to do is stand in the way of things. How could soccer not be the most popular sport in the world when it can be played everywhere from the richest cities in the world to the poorest villages? That’s also why youth soccer is so popular. Before kids have any kind of coordination, they’re able to run after a ball and tire themselves out.

But eventually, we grow up and like more complex things. Soccer is just too simplistic. There are some rules, such as:
1. If a team kicks a ball into a goal, they score
2. The team who scores the most wins
3. Don’t use your hands
4. If someone looks at you, fall down on the ground and start crying like a bitch and writhing in pain

Far as I can tell, that’s about it. And as far as strategy goes, it seems to be “run faster than the other guys, and if you can’t do that, then try a pass in front of the goal and hope someone who’s standing there can bonk it with his head into the net” because for some reason you can use literally any part of your body except the hands.

Soccer also blows because its penalties are stupid. Aside from the aforementioned “hand ball,” you can get penalized for touching someone while trying to steal the ball from them. You slide to get the ball, you accidentally touch the other guy, and then we spend 15 minutes watching him cry for mommy, then pop right back up and start running around again. I’d love to see some of these pussies actually take a hit, like in real sports. And to top that all off, if you actually get someone out in front of all his defenders and you pass to him, you get called for offsides! Unbelievably, in the world’s most boring, lowest scoring sport, they actually penalize you for creating a good scoring chance. It’s like soccer fans are really just in it for the running, and not so much the scoring. Soccer is like watching a 90 minute long race that doesn’t have a finish line and nobody wins.

Speaking of 90 minutes, the clock in soccer anticlimactically climbs upwards to 90 minutes, never stopping, before some arbitrary amount of “stoppage time” is added by a referee. So when they’re resetting the ball after it goes out of bounds for the 750th time that game, or some wiener is laying there acting hurt, the game is technically still going on, so there’s no kind of strategizing with the clock. Just kicking the ball back and forth lazily until 90 minutes has gone by. There’s a half time so these distance runners can adjust their shin guards, but aside from that, nothing. And just to sap any excitement that might be left out of the sport, you don’t even get thrilling countdown moments where the clock has entered the last minute of play and it’s counting down…ten…nine…eight… Nope! After the clock counts UP to 90 minutes, the game goes on for a few more minutes and then it just ends when a ref has decided he’s ready to go home.

If you like your sports played in binary, soccer is the score for you. Let’s take a look at the scores from the first round or whatever of the World Cup. 1-1, 1-0, 1-1, 0-1, 0-1, 1-0, 1-1, 0-0 (!!). Granted, every once in a while you get a blowout like South Korea over Greece (2-0), or you’ll have a game where a continent forgets to send players (Germany’s 4-0 over Australia). But the vast majority end in some variation of 1-0, with some games even ending with no score, which would make a normal person feel like they’d just wasted hours of their life watching it. And that’s another thing. Ties!? In a tournament!? I mean it makes sense in that if we had to play to a win, games could take months, years even. But I feel like the World Cup is essentially the playoffs of soccer, and what other sport lets a game tie in the playoffs?

Look, even if we ignore the God-awful fans of the sport, soccer blows. It’s engineered to be as boring as possible, with penalties for anything exciting and a clock that counts up. If you love watching people run, just watch track and field. At least someone wins every time.

I had been thinking about writing this article on Against Me! for about a week now, but I decided I'd wait until I had the new album in my hands. From the songs I'd heard from it, I expected to be writing about how another band hand been claimed by the soul sucking major label curse, writing songs that are 90% chorus and 10% verse. But, I thought I'd give the new album a listen before I started to prattle on about how great they used to be and how mediocre modern rock they are now.

Against Me! has undergone quite the change musically and lyrically since they started as Tom Gabel and a drummer. "Crime," their first real, non-shitty release, was blistering acoustic folk-punk, with Tom screaming through songs like What We Worked For, and Impact, which is one of the single greatest songs you could ever hope to see live (especially in a tiny hot room in Houston after the band hasn't played it in years).

"Crime" segued easily into "Reinventing Axl Rose," which long-time readers of this blog will know is one of my absolute favorite albums of all time. It's all dirty anarchistic punk rock. It sounds like it was recorded at a party in the basement, and its lyrical content is absolutely some of the best I've ever heard. From "Pints of Guinness" about Tom's grandparents' deaths ("If we're never together, if I'm never back again, I swear to God that I'll love you forever") to We Laugh at Danger ("And I cannot help but hold on to a handful of times, when what was spoken was a revolution in itself, and what we were doing was the only thing that mattered. And how good it felt to kill the memory of nights spent holding your shirt for the smell. I heard you used to cry when you made love to him. This band will play on. Because all we can do is what we've always done"). From I Still Love You Julie ("Last night a room full drunk sang along to the songs I never had the courage to write. Given the chance I'd stay in this chorus forever, where everything ugly in this world is sadly beautiful in our desperate memories") to the title track ("We want a band that plays loud and hard every night. That doesn't care how many people are counted at the door. That would travel one million miles and ask for nothing but a plate of food and a place to rest. They'd strike chords that cut like a knife. It would mean so much more than a t-shirt or ticket stub. They would stop at nothing short of a massacre. Everyone would leave with the memory that there was no place else in the world and this was where they always belonged"). The entire album captures what every young outcast feels. The EP "The Disco Before the Breakdown" (AKA: The Single Best EP EVER!) then gave us three amazing songs, including Tonight We're Gonna Give it 35%, which at various points in my life has been the best song ever written by anyone, ever.

In hindsight, now that Against Me! is on a major label, their production is glossed up, and people know who they are, songs like Baby, I'm An Anarchist and Reinventing Axl Rose have hurt their credibility with the punk scene, because they've changed their opinions and musical style so much. No more acoustic guitars and screamed vocals, no more songs about playing basement shows and feeling out of place. But first, there was "...As the Eternal Cowboy," which plugged AM! into an amp and turned that amp up to about 30. "Cowboy" is an amazing punk rock album that starts with the headbanging right out of the gate and continues that momentum to the end, even though a couple of pretty breather songs.

The next album, Searching for a Former Clarity, was the album that first started to divide their fan base. To me, it's a sprawling masterpiece that is the most diverse set they've put to tape to this day. Not every song works (Justin), but most do, and some (the title track, Violence, Even At Our Worst, etc) are some of the best songs they've made. But it's a rock album, not a punk album, and the "scene" started getting worried.

The "scene" left when they heard "New Wave," the first major label release. Partly, I can't blame them. The anarcho-punks who screamed against the system were now a part of it, so the kids who care more about ethos than music had to bail. And partly, I can't blame them because the music wasn't as good. There were a couple absolute winners (New Wave, Thrash Unreal), but overall the quality of songs here isn't as strong. I don't think anyone's going to be counting Piss and Vinegar or Americans Abroad amongst the great songs that this band has done. Another concerning thing about the album is that lyrically it's pretty weak. They did songs about the music business on Clarity, and they retread that theme here to less effect.

Which brings me to today. Going into "White Crosses" my expectations were low. Having listened to it constantly since yesterday afternoon, I am pretty much blown away. It explodes out of the gates with "White Crosses" and "I Was A Teenage Anarchist," both chorus heavy songs, but both faster and harder and more straightforward than the majority of "New Wave." Then - a piano - and my heart sinks, until the guitars kick in and Because of the Shame blasts out at me and it's one of the single best songs AM! has ever done. An emotionally honest and touching song about going to an ex-girlfriend's funeral and the memories it brings back. Suffocation follows, and it's a pretty straightforward rock song with a simple chorus, but it works. We're Breaking Up is a forgettable mid tempo ballad that would have been better left off. High Pressure Low picks things back up for another straightforward rocker before Ache With Me takes us into a middle of the road acoustic jam. Spanish Moss then rocks, and Rapid Decompression becomes the hardest song they've done since Cowboy. Bamboo Bones as the closer deserves its own sentence, because it is the most inspirational song AM! have done in years, and maybe one of the ten best songs they've ever written ("What god doesn’t give to you, you’ve got to go and get for yourself").

There are also four bonus tracks on my album that are all good additions, and really should have replaced We're Breaking Up and Ache With Me on the album proper. "White Crosses" really surprised me. The middle sags a bit, but it is a far, far stronger effort than "New Wave." The production is too polished for a punk rock band, but then, this isn't really a punk band anymore, and the music sounds very "full." Lyrically and musically it's a step up from "New Wave," and I find my love and admiration for these guys renewed in full. Well done.

So I had Crazy Heart from Netflix for about a month and finally decided I’d watch it. Here’s my review: It’s The Wrestler, except instead of Mickey Rourke as a washed up wrestler, it stars Jeff Bridges as a washed up country singer. Instead of Rourke trying to reconnect with his young daughter, Bridges tries to find love with a young reporter. And… that’s about it. Bridges was very good, just like Rourke was. The movie was deliberately paced and not a lot happened, just like in The Wrestler. The end actually had a resolution, kind of, unlike The Wrestler, which really didn’t. So, in the end, if you want to make a movie that will win you acclaim and get your lead actor an award, cast an older actor in a role where he has to play a washed up (insert profession here), have him try to create a relationship with a younger woman (lover, daughter, whatever works), have two or three bad things happen, and then end the movie on a note of redemption (but not too strong, just enough to make you feel like maybe there’s a reason he shouldn’t put a bullet through his brain quite yet).

I got a few new CDs over the weekend. A couple albums by Metric (Grow Up and Blow Away, Live it Out), Anchors Aweigh by The Bouncing Souls, Boys and Girls in America by The Hold Steady, and Good Views, Bad News by Broadway Calls. Here are my thoughts: Metric consistently has really cool album art. The Bouncing Souls album is surprisingly punky, where for some reason I was under the impression it was going to be less punky. Yes, I know they’re a punk band. The Hold Steady are a strange band but I like them. I can’t decide if I like this one or Stay Positive better though. Broadway Calls takes me back to a simpler time, when I would listen to poppy punk rock on a sunny day, and I really like it. It also features the catchiest song about Obama’s election that has ever been written, “Election Day,” which effectively takes me back to when we were all swept up in Obama fever and the history that was made when he was elected. That was before he became president and we all went “Meh.” But yeah, “Election Day” has really been stuck in my head for three days now, and I want it out.

Cam and I went to see The Black Keys at the Fillmore last Thursday, and this is what I thought about it: The opening act was called Brian Olive. Which makes you think that it will be a guy named Brian Olive playing an acoustic guitar and singing, or something. Well, we did get Brian Olive, and he did play a guitar and sing, but he also had a backing band of FIVE PEOPLE. So this guy has the nerve to go on tour as a six piece and not even mention the fact that he has a lead guitarist, an acoustic guitarist, a drummer, a keyboardist, and a bass player backing him up. I feel like he should at least go on tour as The Brian Olive Band, or The Brian Olives. There’s just something about guys named Brian, though, I guess. Anyway, they started off okay, but the third song was the slowest, most boring song any band has ever dared play live, and they never really recovered from that. The female backing vocals were annoying, but it did give the girls a chance to shake every instrument that is allowed to be shaken (two kinds of tambourine, maracas, a couple kinds of sticks and rattles), and play a keyboard that you blow into, whatever the hell that was.

Also, for those of you who’ve never been to the Fillmore in Denver, let me describe it as a big empty room with a stage in the front. Technically there are raised portions along the side, and a balcony WAAAAAY back in the back, but if you want to be able to see, you have to stand on the floor, which is great for the seven foot tall monsters that feel like they have to stand in the front of the crowd, but not so great for me. I can never really see at the Fillmore. Every other venue in town has different levels, and since we usually get to concerts early, I can go stand at the front of a level and be able to see over people. Not here. I do not like the Fillmore. On the plus side, there was a girl standing next to me who kept asking everyone who came by for weed, which really amused me. Eventually her friend was able to con some horny guy into giving them some weed. They promptly smoked it and disappeared, leaving the guy behind. Nice.

Anyway, The Black Keys were really good. The band is two people, drums and guitar/vocals. They make an astonishing amount of noise for being two guys, and that guitarist can really shred. It’s deceptively good guitar, as it’s not all technical solos, but goes from ambient to riffs to solos effortlessly. Cam described it as like “water” and I think that’s a good way to put it. It flows all over you. People were swaying and dancing all over. The drummer looks like he’s in excruciating pain the whole time, and looks like a freakishly tall and stretched out version of Christopher Mintz Plasse (McLovin). He also looks like he really hates the drums and is trying to beat them to death with sticks. They rocked through about every song I wanted to hear in a nice long set. The only issue was, strangely, with the new album material. The new album on record is really strong, but it requires more than two people to play live. This causes two problems. First, they have to play the new material in a long “new album” segment, where they bring two other people on stage for a group of new songs. This is the only time they play the new stuff, and as such it keeps it from integrating into the rest of the set. Second, the two other instruments (bass and keyboard) actually take away from their sound. It muddles together and distracts from the guitar and drums. The new songs really lacked the energy that the two-piece songs had, which is a shame, because I really do like the new album. Overall though, it was a solid show, and I got to see my friend Sarai there, which was a nice treat.

Here's a post that, if I still updated it, I would've put on my That's Fucked Up blog. I'm gong to tell the story backwards, just since it's so weird. Here goes: A guy died falling off a cliff. He died falling off a cliff because he got tased by police officers. He got tased by police officers because he had been "[keeping the police officers] at bay for eight hours." He had been "[keeping the police officers] at bay for eight hours" because he had attacked three of his coworkers. He attacked three of his coworkers with a samurai sword. He had a samurai sword because it was a prop on the set of the movie he was working on. The movie he was working on was a porno.

Yeah. Porn star uses samurai sword to attack three coworkers, flees, stands off with the police, gets tased, and dies. The story, which doesn't offer many other details, is here. And since it's CNN, you can expect all sorts of lucid, well-argued statements in the comments section.

First up, a slew of stupid/crude puns, such as:

Hugh G. Rekshun: This probably wasn't the kind of money shot this poor chap was expecting!!

Those are, for the most part, tasteless and unfunny. Just people mocking somoene's death. Next up, people who apparently have a vendetta against our justice system:

SmarterThanYOU: Another million and a half saved by keeping him out of prison... hey FINALLY learning how to save the states money... Samurai Sword $100. Tazer and batteries $400. Seeing the schmuck fall off the cliff while being electrocuted PRICELESS

Jeff: This should happen more often. No courts, No Jail, NO $$$$$$. California just SAVED over $1,000,000 or more. Give that officer a bonus.

This kind of scare me. They're apparently so fiscally conservative that they're willing to cut spending on things like, you know, trials. Whatever. Next up are cop haters:

Matt: Cops really are complete morons. It's like watching the circus every time I see a video of the bumbling idiots. Cops in the United States are completely out of control, militarized, roided up, and psychotic. Honestly, I think the answer is to get some new, non-military minds involved in policing and make being a police officer an elite accomplishment. If we're going to have people making life and death decisions they should be paid well, educated, and not from a military background.

Matt [responding to someone who tries to rationalize with Matt]: Oh please save me the over dramatic BS. Seriously. I don't think our forefathers envisioned jack booted gestapo thugs kicking down the doors of people for small amounts of hemp and executing their family dogs in front of 7 year olds. Save it. I'm not an idiot, you can't spew you're "going home to their kids", or "brave men and women" ridiculous rhetoric at me. You can't pull the wool over my eyes.

kelley: Give someone a badge and a little power and look what they do with it ...

Let the sweeping generalizations begin! But if all cops are pigs, what are all Californians?

vinnie R: Another one of the loose people of California meets an appropriate end. Serves him right!

Patrick: Just desserts.

peter: and hore mongers and fornicators will God judge...the bible

Oh, right. Godless, amoral heathens.

Look. I like cops. I have a friend who's one. Maybe that's why I show them a bit more empathy. They're not perfect -- far from it, in some cases. But you can't go around hating all police. That's ridiculous. They also do good work, too. Again, maybe because I happen to live in New York and they've had some good PR recently. Some of them may bust kids for doing pot, which is dumb, but they're also doing meaningful work, too.

And can we please leave religion out of this, for once? Jesus. I didn't plan on tackling the issue of pornography when I started this off, but hell, here goes: Porn is a part of our society. It's lucrative. People like it. Therefore, it's not going anywhere. If you don't like it, that's cool. Porn can definitely be degrading to women. But not all porn is evil. There's stuff I don't like, sure, but I know to avoid it. So why does everyone else who doesn't like porn have such a problem doing the same? (Boom! Blatant generalization while dismissing people who make blatant generalizations? Well done, Brian!)

This is long and rambly and I don't know if I ever made a point. But here's what I'll leave you with: Some voices of reason from the comments section of the article.

Its Da Poleece: It's only a short story right now while the details haven't been released. Once we find out what the coworkers were discussing before he snapped, find out if he had been having problems with his coworkers, or in other aspects of his life, we'll find out more. And why the hell is the word "karma" being thrown around, like we know what prompted this assault? Thank God you people are NOT the judicial system throwing around the word 'guilty' and 'karma' and 'poetic justice'.

Kevin: Once again CNN opens up a story for commentary that there is no discernable reason for it. Only to further evidence the idiocy of the general population which winds up being fun for all I guess . CNN show a little class(tall order I know) and exercise a little discretion in what stories warrant public comment.

Then, of course, three responses to Kevin:

Ryan: who the hell are you or anyone else to decide which stories can be commented on? are you communist or something?

kelley: Yes your highness!!!!

Matt: Cop, I can smell you from here.

To further add to the "this blog isn't about TV shows, but we're gonna talk about TV shows a helluva lot" (Firefox's spell check is super cool with "helluva," by the way, but still not "Barack" or "Obama." WTF?), what's up with America's Got Talent? I've never seen this show, but apparently I'm missing out on THE MOST AMAZING TV EVER. I've seen a few commercials for a few different seasons, and each promo features the judges with near-teary eyes, mouths agape, and saying how "that was the most amazing thing I've ever seen." Hey, judges: The compliment kind of loses its effect when every single thing you see is the most amazing thing you've ever seen.

But, moreover, why do we even need a show called America's Got Talent? It's the whole Susan Boyle thing all over again. (Did I talk about that before? Or Adam? I've forgotten.) You mean that people from diverse/adverse backgrounds also possess some demonstrable skill? But that can't be! They're just supposed to be poor and stupid and sterile (if only!). Any time I meet someone who's different from me, I immediately assume they have absolutely nothing worth contributing to society. And certainly not a skill of some sort. God, no.

Look. It's cool that you're showcasing how people are neat in their own ways. But come on, do we really need to make a show out of it? Or a contest? (It is a contest, right?) But hey, I'm clearly not part of their target audience, so they probably don't care.

So that's the bad TV. As for the good TV, I've started watching Party Down, which is streaming on Netflix. Pretty funny show. Not amazingly hysterical, but funny. Some great guest stars, too. The 25 minutes go by very quickly. So check out a few episodes -- that's my recommendation.

My goal this summer is to read Infinite Jest. I really think I can do it. I'm attempting Nabokov's Pale Fire first, as a warm-up. It's going well so far. Liked the Forward and the poem itself, now it's on to the Commentary. I'm expecting it to get really weird and wacky soon. "Weird and wacky." I'm sure that made the book's dust-cover blurb.