Category: Articles

“But there was something to be said for a life in the moment”

Posted by Bryan Formhals – May 17, 2009

“But there was something to be said for a life in the moment; for a dalliance in California, for concerts and failed screenplays, for a little fun before the fall. And the truth is, we were always more purposeful – more responsible – than our fathers and uncles and grandmothers realized.”

So maybe the slackers had it right after all [boston.com]

New Yorker: The Unfinished – David Foster Wallace’s struggle to surpass “Infinite Jest.”

Posted by Bryan Formhals – March 2, 2009

“I get the feeling that a lot of us, privileged Americans, as we enter our early 30s, have to find a way to put away childish things and confront stuff about spirituality and values. Probably the A.A. model isn’t the only way to do it, but it seems to me to be one of the more vigorous.”

“Bliss—a-second-by-second joy and gratitude at the gift of being alive, conscious—lies on the other side of crushing, crushing boredom. Pay close attention to the most tedious thing you can find (Tax Returns, Televised Golf) and, in waves, a boredom like you’ve never known will wash over you and just about kill you. Ride these out, and it’s like stepping from black and white into color. Like water after days in the desert. Instant bliss in every atom.”

When I read ‘Infinite Jest’ a few years ago I became fascinated with David Foster Wallace, probably like several people at the time.  Reading it, I just felt like this was an original thinker and artist, someone who could hardly contain all the ideas in his head.  Turns out he couldn’t.  

The Unfinished [New Yorker]

Must Read: How the Crash Will Reshape America

Posted by Bryan Formhals – March 1, 2009

“The places that thrive today are those with the highest velocity of ideas, the highest density of talented and creative people, the highest rate of metabolism. Velocity and density are not words that many people use when describing the suburbs. The economy is driven by key urban areas; a different geography is required.”

“What will this geography look like? It will likely be sparser in the Midwest and also, ultimately, in those parts of the Southeast that are dependent on manufacturing. Its suburbs will be thinner and its houses, perhaps, smaller. Some of its southwestern cities will grow less quickly. Its great mega-regions will rise farther upward and extend farther outward. It will feature a lower rate of homeownership, and a more mobile population of renters. In short, it will be a more concentrated geography, one that allows more people to mix more freely and interact more efficiently in a discrete number of dense, innovative mega-regions and creative cities. Serendipitously, it will be a landscape suited to a world in which petroleum is no longer cheap by any measure. But most of all, it will be a landscape that can accommodate and accelerate invention, innovation, and creation—the activities in which the U.S. still holds a big competitive advantage.”

How the crash will Reshape America [The Atlantic]