Consider The Lobster D
DAVID
FOSTER
•
WALLACE
I
where one imagines "the real John McCain" still lives. And but now the paradox here is that this box that makes McCain "real" is, by definition, locked. Impenetrable.
Nobody
huge, too; you should keep it in mind. behind-the-scenes gets in or out. This is
It is why, however many
pencils get put on the case, a "profile" of John
McCain is going to be just that: one side, exterior,
split and dif-
fracted by so many lenses there's way more than one man to see.
Salesman or leader or neither
or both,
the final paradox -
the
really tiny central one, way down deep inside all the other campaign puzzles' spinning boxes and squares that layer McCain that whether he's truly "for real" now depends
is
CONSIDER
less on what is in his
THE LOBSTER
heart than on what might be in yours. Try to stay awake.
2000
THE
pungent.
ENORMOUS,
and extremely well-marketed Maine
Lobster Festival is held every late July in the state's midcoast region, meaning the western side of Penobscot Bay, the nerve stem of
Maine's lobster industry. What's called the midcoast runs from Owl's
Head and Thomaston
in the south to Belfast in the north. (Actually,
it might extend all the way up to Bucksport, but we were never able to get farther north than Belfast on Route 1, whose summer traffic is,
..
main commuas you can imagine, unimaginable.) The region s two nities are Camden, with its very old money and yachty harbor and
al
bl
I
five-star restaurants
and phenomenal B&Bs, and Rockland, a serious
old fishing town that hosts the festival every summer in historic
Harbor Park, right along the water.'
id
. n's two main indusTourism and lobster are the rot coast regie
. e and the Maine tries, and they're both warm-weather enterpns 5,
.
.
.
tion of the mdustnes
Lobster Festival represents less an mtersec
.
I d I rative and loud. The than a deliberate collision, jojfu an uc I
There's a comprehensive
native apothegm:"Cam
235
234
I
d by the sea Rockland by
FOSTER
•
WALLACE
I
where one imagines "the real John McCain" still lives. And but now the paradox here is that this box that makes McCain "real" is, by definition, locked. Impenetrable.
Nobody
huge, too; you should keep it in mind. behind-the-scenes gets in or out. This is
It is why, however many
pencils get put on the case, a "profile" of John
McCain is going to be just that: one side, exterior,
split and dif-
fracted by so many lenses there's way more than one man to see.
Salesman or leader or neither
or both,
the final paradox -
the
really tiny central one, way down deep inside all the other campaign puzzles' spinning boxes and squares that layer McCain that whether he's truly "for real" now depends
is
CONSIDER
less on what is in his
THE LOBSTER
heart than on what might be in yours. Try to stay awake.
2000
THE
pungent.
ENORMOUS,
and extremely well-marketed Maine
Lobster Festival is held every late July in the state's midcoast region, meaning the western side of Penobscot Bay, the nerve stem of
Maine's lobster industry. What's called the midcoast runs from Owl's
Head and Thomaston
in the south to Belfast in the north. (Actually,
it might extend all the way up to Bucksport, but we were never able to get farther north than Belfast on Route 1, whose summer traffic is,
..
main commuas you can imagine, unimaginable.) The region s two nities are Camden, with its very old money and yachty harbor and
al
bl
I
five-star restaurants
and phenomenal B&Bs, and Rockland, a serious
old fishing town that hosts the festival every summer in historic
Harbor Park, right along the water.'
id
. n's two main indusTourism and lobster are the rot coast regie
. e and the Maine tries, and they're both warm-weather enterpns 5,
.
.
.
tion of the mdustnes
Lobster Festival represents less an mtersec
.
I d I rative and loud. The than a deliberate collision, jojfu an uc I
There's a comprehensive
native apothegm:"Cam
235
234
I
d by the sea Rockland by