Lobsters hurt. And so do I.

Forget, won't you, the questionable grammar of that title. My point is this: After having re-read David Foster Wallace's essay "Consider the Lobster" for the class I teach, I'm reminded of the extraordinary loss we* experienced last fall when the aforementioned author took his own life. He was 46 years old.

A. J. Liebling, another thinker/humorist/journalist, albeit one with a seemingly happier life than DFW, wrote a vast quantity of his most-beloved books after age 46, included The Sweet Science, The Earl of Louisiana, and Between Meals.

John Updike, prolific and revered, wrote nearly half his oeuvre after his fiftieth birthday: the latter two Rabbit books, eight short-story collections, four books of poetry, both Eastwick novels, seven other novels, and eight collected works of essays and nonfiction.

Joan Didion, still with us, published her vaunted collection The White Album in her forty-fifth year. Two novels and six nonfiction tomes came after, including After Henry, Salvador, and The Year of Magical Thinking.

The exercise could continue. But imagine: All this, erased, never put down on the page. Others would have filled those lines, somehow. I can't believe they would have matched the energy and vigor with which these writers continued to document their surroundings. Maybe this is a fruitless thought-drama: "Take away Shakespeare, and.... go!" Maybe I'm holding up DFW to unfairly high standards, to peers in higher echelons. I don't think so. But it makes me slightly ill to predict what the guy might have conjured up as his acerbic and athletic mind grew sharper with age. And that's what hurts the most: We have no idea what these conjurings might have been. We will never know.

----
*"we" = readers, eaters, state-fair attendees, cruise-ship travelers, tennis players, mathematicians, Lynch devotees, Adult movie watchers, jesters, interviewers, hideous men, Illinoisians, Pomona grads-to-be, those with reactive sweat glands, unpretentious polyglots, bandana-aficionados, i.e., literate and up-right human beings.

The Cheese is Mightier than the Pen?

So I'm at Panera Bread in beautiful, closed-minded Quincy, MA. In front of me: the remnants of a toasted Dutch Apple Raisin bagel, with a smidgen of butter and a layer of strawberry jam. Also: A tall mug of coffee that is 2 parts Dark Roast, 2 parts Hazelnut, and 1 part Decaf. Normally I'd wax digestive on the crunchy, brown sugar topping, or the moist succulence of the embedded raisins. But this is not what interests me today. There is a sign on the wall directly across from my table, about 6" x 8", and this is what it says:

"Asiago Speaks
Louder Than Words."

It's an advertisement for their Sourdough bread with chunks of asiago cheese baked right in. And yes, I agree, this is a tasty combo. Many a high school lunch was dominated by the cheesy girth of an Asiago bagel, which I then pronounced ah-ZAH-gee-oh before a cashier took pity on me and called out the order for me properly. Because of this abundance of bagel, and the requisite chewing, my jaw now cracks and clicks anytime I chew, with the decibal output ranging from a Whisper in a Quiet Library (30 dB) to a Telephone Dial-tone (80 db) to, if the submerged morsel is particularly tough, Sandblasting or a Loud Rock Concert (115 dB). This becomes worrisome when you learn that the level of volume at which sustained exposure may result in hearing loss is a paltry 90-95 dB. This same list explains that "Pain begins" at 125 dB, the same volume as hearing a Pneumatic riveter at a distance of four feet away.

Does it get this bad? When I chew, has pain ever begun? For the answer to this, I point you thusly: Ask my ladyfriend companion.

[LfC response forthcoming]

ANYway... I take slight umbrage (if umbrage may be slight) with this sign, stating the alleged power of this pungent, hard to pronounce cheese.

Louder than words, you say? Scoffing, I stuff the last of the Dutch Apple Raisin in my mouth and spout, "Nothing is louder than words! Words bear witness to the truth of history! Words have crumbled empires! Words have stricken down the influence of false gods, stripped Kings of their bejeweled crowns, stripped women of their underthings, confused readers of congressional bills! Words are power! Asiago? Asiago is but a puddle of old milk left to rot. Nothing is louder than words."

Nothing, that is, except my chewing jaw.

Why drink Hot Cocoa...

.... when you can enjoy a delicious, steaming hot cup of Chicken Broth!

So I'm checking out the soup aisle for some casserole ingredients. Lo and behold, a bevy of stock and broth options lay before me. I pick one up. Swanson. No MSG, check. 99% fat free, check. Then I read this:

"Use in your favorite recipes or serve as a piping hot beverage." (italics mine)

People drink this stuff straight? On a cold wintry night, people actually shove aside the Nestle's or the Swiss Miss and grab that carton of Swanson's Chicken Broth to quench their chilled thirst? And enough of them do so to necessitate printing the idea on its very package?








I can't believe this is true. But, let's face it, perhaps nobody else out there cares too much about this strange, atypical recipe. So. Here's the deal. If I get over ten comments to this post, I will call Swanson's Question/Comment Line (1-800-44-BROTH) and ask them about this very issue. Together, we can stop the proliferation of disgusting drink ideas everywhere.