August 30, 2009
[This is] one of my all-time favorite David memories and I can't believe I didn't remember this soon enough to include in my eulogy.
We were in Mrs. Davis' English class in 10th grade or so. Brad Sklar and Andy Landis were in that class. Can't remember who else. (When asked if he was cheating on a vocabulary test once, Andy famously responded, "Yes, I was.") Anyway, we had to read Ethan Frome, written, I believe, by the same people who make Ambien. David was well into his 100th Ursula Le Guin science fiction story by this point, so let's just say that he and Edith Wharton didn't see eye to eye--certainly not a tale about snowbound turn-of-the-century New Englanders doing pretty much nothing of interest.
Mrs. Davis asked the class for its thoughts on good old Ethan Frome. Not surprisingly, no one raised a hand. There was silence in the class until David said this: "That was the biggest piece of s--t I ever read."
It was then, and remains to this day, one of the bigger smiles in my life.
Matt
Showing posts with label Literature. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Literature. Show all posts
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
More Pynchon
August 30, 2009
I also bought The Watchmen on his recommendation. One of the authors we both loved and mourned was Kurt Vonnegut. I’m glad to hear that he at least got to start the latest Pynchon. My copy came in the mail a few days after he died and I remember thinking how sorry I was I wouldn’t get to hear what he had to say about it. I remember when he was reviewing Mason & Dixon: we started talking about Pynchon’s use of capitalization and he was saying that when he first read some eighteenth century novel or other (Tom Jones, maybe?) it changed the way he read books b/c of the different emphasis the capitalizations gave.
Emily Schulman
I also bought The Watchmen on his recommendation. One of the authors we both loved and mourned was Kurt Vonnegut. I’m glad to hear that he at least got to start the latest Pynchon. My copy came in the mail a few days after he died and I remember thinking how sorry I was I wouldn’t get to hear what he had to say about it. I remember when he was reviewing Mason & Dixon: we started talking about Pynchon’s use of capitalization and he was saying that when he first read some eighteenth century novel or other (Tom Jones, maybe?) it changed the way he read books b/c of the different emphasis the capitalizations gave.
Emily Schulman
Reading lists and banned books
August 30, 2009
While we were both in college David was the person who told me to read One Hundred Years of Solitude. Knowing him, he probably gave me my copy. In fact, I usually relied on him for my (summer) reading lists, since I was a Biology major with little exposure on my own to new literature. I also read a series of banned books - another David subject, probably because many of his favorite authors would appear on lists of banned books (Miller, Vonnegut, etc.). I remember we followed closely the case of Island Trees - a town on LI with an odd name that I'm sure thrilled David - which lost the right to ban books from school libraries in the Supreme Court. This gave me a new reading list. (I've just looked at the list online:
http://justlists.wordpress.com/2008/09/22/11-banned-books-in-island-trees-v-pico-1982/ - and see that I probably read half these due to the case).
Nowadays my wife has taken over most of the position of literature suggester while David remains principle culture culturer. This Spring that David loaned me his copy of Watchmen to read - in advance of the movie version. I finally saw the movie on DVD about 3 weeks ago.
Dave Ruderman
While we were both in college David was the person who told me to read One Hundred Years of Solitude. Knowing him, he probably gave me my copy. In fact, I usually relied on him for my (summer) reading lists, since I was a Biology major with little exposure on my own to new literature. I also read a series of banned books - another David subject, probably because many of his favorite authors would appear on lists of banned books (Miller, Vonnegut, etc.). I remember we followed closely the case of Island Trees - a town on LI with an odd name that I'm sure thrilled David - which lost the right to ban books from school libraries in the Supreme Court. This gave me a new reading list. (I've just looked at the list online:
http://justlists.wordpress.com/2008/09/22/11-banned-books-in-island-trees-v-pico-1982/ - and see that I probably read half these due to the case).
Nowadays my wife has taken over most of the position of literature suggester while David remains principle culture culturer. This Spring that David loaned me his copy of Watchmen to read - in advance of the movie version. I finally saw the movie on DVD about 3 weeks ago.
Dave Ruderman
Small things...
August 24, 2009
1) When I got my First Real Job (which lasted six months working for New American Library), I was living in Plainview and commuting. For the first week or two, David and I were taking the same train. He gave me all his favorite commuting tips about where to stand on the platform and so on, and he told me how many post offices (? That’s what I remember them being, but that doesn’t seem right) there were between the Hicksville station and Penn Station). I remember thinking, “Once I’m an Experienced Commuter, I too will have observed and known all these things.” Which of course didn’t happen: that was just David being a first-class noticer. I was reading One Hundred Years of Solitude and he started quoting the first line of it; a Spanish-speaking woman saw the book and overheard us, saying “To me, it is all true.” I thought, “Wow, this is great! I’ll be having literary conversations with strangers on the LIRR all the time!” and of course that was the only one….
2) I did some totally minor favor for him for which he was disproportionately grateful. Every year thenceforth, he’d send a package of dog biscuits for my dog @ Chanukah—very sweet and thoughtful gesture.
3) Exchanging emails with him and mentioning an obit which I found amusing: it was for someone who’d been the artist who’d designed the credits for a number of movies in the fifties (one of them was “The Man with the Golden Arm”). David knew who this person was by name immediately, adding, “He was incredibly stylish.” Stupid detail, but it just struck me as very David that he knew who this person was and that he could sum him up so neatly.
Emily Schulman
1) When I got my First Real Job (which lasted six months working for New American Library), I was living in Plainview and commuting. For the first week or two, David and I were taking the same train. He gave me all his favorite commuting tips about where to stand on the platform and so on, and he told me how many post offices (? That’s what I remember them being, but that doesn’t seem right) there were between the Hicksville station and Penn Station). I remember thinking, “Once I’m an Experienced Commuter, I too will have observed and known all these things.” Which of course didn’t happen: that was just David being a first-class noticer. I was reading One Hundred Years of Solitude and he started quoting the first line of it; a Spanish-speaking woman saw the book and overheard us, saying “To me, it is all true.” I thought, “Wow, this is great! I’ll be having literary conversations with strangers on the LIRR all the time!” and of course that was the only one….
2) I did some totally minor favor for him for which he was disproportionately grateful. Every year thenceforth, he’d send a package of dog biscuits for my dog @ Chanukah—very sweet and thoughtful gesture.
3) Exchanging emails with him and mentioning an obit which I found amusing: it was for someone who’d been the artist who’d designed the credits for a number of movies in the fifties (one of them was “The Man with the Golden Arm”). David knew who this person was by name immediately, adding, “He was incredibly stylish.” Stupid detail, but it just struck me as very David that he knew who this person was and that he could sum him up so neatly.
Emily Schulman
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