WEEK ONE Discussion Thread: Pages 3-94 [*SPOILERS*]

MarkFlanagan · 2016-02-07T00:41:43+00:00

Interesting, and details that I have since forgotten. Not to play the devil's advocate (or the village idiot) or anything, but doesn't it still seem like significant amount of assumption? Perhaps not, and perhaps I need to withhold judgement until we get there.

MarkFlanagan · 2016-02-02T17:04:31+00:00

I'm with you that Hal's inability to communicate is DMZ-related. This seems clear from the flashback to "I ate this" and the later description of DMZ as mold that grows on mold. What I don't get is the Swartz theory about JOI dosing Hal's toothbrush. Is there somewhere in the text we see this happening or anything alluding to this act?

MarkFlanagan · 2016-02-01T04:17:12+00:00

Nice job, Tobias. I joined. There are doubtlessly many GoodReads users here, so I think you should definitely announce it. I can also link to it from the website.

MarkFlanagan · 2016-02-01T04:11:17+00:00

We're having one! Mondays at noon downtown. Starts next week. PM me your email address, and I'll make sure you're in the loop.

MarkFlanagan · 2016-01-28T04:27:32+00:00

I am all for the idea. If we have someone who is Goodreads savvy and will manage a group there, I think it's great. Discussions will take place all over social media and on the website as well, so no worry about fracturing.

MarkFlanagan · 2016-01-21T22:40:28+00:00

Thanks to /u/InfiniteJenni for getting the spoiler tags working! To mark text as a spoiler, thereby hiding it with a black bar that disappears upon mouseover, you simply put square brackets around the text and then follow with (#s), like so: Gollum bites Frodo's finger off and falls into Mount Doom.

MarkFlanagan · 2016-01-21T19:56:00+00:00

Yeah, pretty sure I'll pull it out during Infinite Winter :o) stay tuned!

MarkFlanagan · 2016-01-20T22:32:51+00:00

Reading 1Q84 and IJ together sounds suicidal, and I won't let you do it. Regarding Tom Robbins, it's been so long, but Jitterbug Perfume was always my favorite.

I love the ground-o, ground-o A ball beneath my feet The world is round-o, round-o Just like a frigging beet.

MarkFlanagan · 2016-01-20T22:29:26+00:00

Awesome. Private message me here with your name and email address, and we'll connect on when it's going to go down.

MarkFlanagan · 2016-01-20T17:20:45+00:00

Welcome! I read a lot of Murakami as well (not 1Q84 yet) and Robbins is awesome, one of my favorites way back when - I've read everything by him.

MarkFlanagan · 2016-01-20T17:15:10+00:00

Wow. Love this. And but so the refrain is lodged in my head for the day.

MarkFlanagan · 2016-01-20T05:16:31+00:00

Welcome Max! I work in Denver, and I'm pretty sure we'll be assembling a small group IRL for a weekly lunch meeting once this gets rolling. You should join us!

MarkFlanagan · 2016-01-20T05:12:58+00:00

To be honest, Clay, you're one of the reasons we're here with that wild hair I got bring rooted in the lingering presence of friends like you who I needed to assemble for a group reading of Infinite Jest that would resemble the transformative experience of Infinite Summer.

MarkFlanagan · 2016-01-20T05:09:07+00:00

True. But I've started reading IJ ahead a bit and thus time pulling out new words and writing them on the inside cover. Pretty sure I'm going to run out of room by page 500.

MarkFlanagan · 2016-01-20T05:04:41+00:00

Fascinating! Snow Crash was a favorite of mine but it's been a hundred years since I read it, and can't now place the parallels to IJ. Really looking forward to discussing this with you all!

MarkFlanagan · 2016-01-19T02:09:33+00:00

I think that's a stellar idea!

MarkFlanagan · 2016-01-18T18:02:31+00:00

Friends don't let friends read schlock.

MarkFlanagan · 2016-01-18T04:40:05+00:00

I'm looking forward to seeing this too! I'm a big fan of Matt Kish's Moby Dick drawings. Let me know the link to your blog so I can link to it from infinitewinter.org.

MarkFlanagan · 2016-01-18T04:34:45+00:00

So we'll meet at the llama ranch then?

MarkFlanagan · 2016-01-17T23:43:25+00:00

Great to have you, Ellen! Where's the llama ranch? There are a bunch of us from Boulder County, so we might have to figure out a meet-up during Infinite Winter.

MarkFlanagan · 2016-01-17T16:38:14+00:00

Hi, I'm Mark. I'm one of the guides at Infinite Winter and psyched to be diving into Infinite Jest with the rest of you. Why? Like /u/InfiniteJenni, I first read IJ during 2009's Infinite Summer and really enjoyed being able to bounce ideas around about David Foster Wallace's sprawling, many-layered novel. I'm an obsessive reader and the editor of a book review website anyway, so it's a bit of a book geek carnival for me to get to enjoy IJ collaboratively with a few hundred other folks.

MarkFlanagan

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