Mostly.

With about three hours left in our two-day trip home from North Carolina, Kari gave Christopher his regular medication in the form of a small chewable tablet.

Heaven knows why, maybe it was just a little bit too quiet in the back seat, but a minute or tow later it occurred to Kari to ask, "Christopher, have you taken your pill yet?"

"No," was the sheepish reply.

Now, Christopher is generally good about taking his meds, so Kari's rejoinder was somewhat incredulous: "Well?! Where is your pill?"

"In my nose."

"What??!!"

"Right here," he said, pointing to a place between his eyes.

I immediately pulled the car over into a small church parking lot, got out, circled around to Christopher's side of the car, opened the back door, and, peering up Christopher's nostril, called out to Kari like a surgeon to a nurse, "Tweezers!"

Kari, already on top of the situation, smacked the tweezers into the palm of my hand and the next thirty seconds or so were tense as I tried to extricate the slippery white tablet without shoving it deeper in. Finally, I resorted to what should have been Plan A in the first place and called to Kari, "Kleenex!"

Three blows and out it popped. Kari and I were nearly in unison: "Now pick it up and eat it!"

Ten seconds later we were back on the road, a minimal impact on the trip's overall miles-per-hour average.

Ben: On Saturday, can we go around the neighborhood and sell the paper airplanes I made? I could sell them for a dollar each!

Ken: Well, you need to know your market, right? Do you think people will want to spend a whole dollar on a paper airplane?

Ben: Why not?

Ken: You need to sell things people want. Like in the summer, kids sell lemonade because it's hot and people are thirsty, right?

Christopher (exuberant): And it's yummy!!

Ben: So, maybe...maybe we could sell...hats.

Ken: Sure! It's cold, right? And people want to keep their ears warm, right?

Christopher (silly): And it's yummy!

Ben: Yeah, Mommy could make the hats and I'll be the manager! And you guys can be my...workers!

Ken (dubious): Yeah....

Christopher: And what will I do?

Ben: You can draw the pictures, and Mommy will use the pictures to know how to make the hats.

Ken: So, you've got design, and production, and management. What else do you need?

Ben: And you can tell people to buy the hats!

Christopher: Me too!

Ken: So...now you've got sales. What about HR or Accounting?

Ben: What?

Ken: Well, you need someone to keep track of all the money you will be making and so you can pay your workers...

Ben: Right, I'll give some money to the workers and the rest I'll use to buy toys!

Ken: Right. That's called spending the profits.

In other news, we've begun teaching Christopher braille. Why braille, you ask, when he (to all outward appearances at least) is coping just fine using his (limited) vision? Well, after discussing it, Kari & I agreed that we have to be prepared for the chance that his vision will deteriorate. Might as well start training Christopher now while his brain is still so spongelike (see how quickly he picked up English!).

Another, and perhaps an even bigger, factor in the decision is that once he is actively reading and interacting in our text-rich world, he is going to need as many different kinds of inputs as he can get. Even though there are all kinds of magnifiers, large-print books, and assistive computer interfaces for those with low vision, we've learned that it is mentally and physically exhausting to have to interact with text at a large size. Imagine what it would be like to have to read a book or a newspaper article when you can only take in two or three words at a time.

On the other hand, maybe that is the kind of thing Christopher can adapt to. This video is literally the third time Christopher has interacted with a computer. Of course, it's easy to maintain a certain level of stamina when you keep shoving grapes into your mouth.

Ben and Christopher have both been crazy for Playmobile toys ever since we bought a big airplane for Ben for his sixth birthday. And, of course, it's no secret that Ben is crazy about Audrey as well. Unfortunately, the only pictures we got of the trip came at the end as we were trying to wrangle the kids together for a group photo. It's clear that Ben and Audrey were struggling with the impending departure.

I first started reading DFW's work in the mid-nineties. It was odd, bizarre even, how his writing resonated with me. Sitting there, I felt as though he had unscrewed the top of my skull and connected electrodes to my brain to channel his words directly into my head. Knowing that this voice has been silenced forever, my emotions over the past couple of days have run the entire circuit with pit-stops at shock, sorrow, anger, confusion, and regret. The regret is because I never took that extra step of reaching out to him, even just to send a postcard of thanks telling him how much his work meant to me.

I don't even want to speculate on the demons that drove Wallace to his desperate end. Mostly, my heart goes out to his wife, his parents and sister, and all those who were close to him. I can scarcely imagine their loss and wish for them a solace that I know is not likely to come soon.

For the rest of us, there has been an explosion of memorials, remembrances, and tributes to David Foster Wallace. The Howling Fantods site has been compiling a list of them. The ones that I have appreciated most are those written by people who actually had some, no matter how fleeting, personal contact with Wallace. It's confirmation that the actual man was kind and thoughtful and generous, exceeding even my lofty fanboy expectations:
Kathleen Fitzpatrick

McSweeney's has devoted the front page of its website to remembrances of DFW for the “forseeable future”. Here is Zadie Smith's contribution:

He was my favourite. I didn't feel he had an equal amongst living writers. We corresponded and met a few times but I stuttered and my hands shook. The books meant too much to me: I was just another howling fantod. In person, he had a great purity. I had a sense of shame in his presence, though he was meticulous about putting people at their ease. It was the exact same purity one finds in the books: If we must say something, let's at least only say true things.¹ The principle of his fiction, as I understand it. It's what made his books so beautiful to me, and so essential. The only exception was the math one, which I was too stupid to understand. One day, soon after it was published, David phoned up, sincerely apologetic, and said: "No, look ... you don't need anything more than high school math, that's all I really have." He was very funny. He was an actual genius, which is as rare in literature as being kind—and he was that, too. He was my favourite, my literary hero, I loved him and I'll always miss him.

1 - And let's say them grammatically.

If you're unfamiliar with Wallace's writing, the pieces he's written for Harper's would be a good place to start. Also: this Kenyon College commencement address provides a blueprint for living in the world today honestly and generously without compromise:

The really important kind of freedom involves attention and awareness and discipline, and being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them over and over in myriad petty, unsexy ways every day.

That is real freedom. That is being educated, and understanding how to think. The alternative is unconsciousness, the default setting, the rat race, the constant gnawing sense of having had, and lost, some infinite thing.

And so I'm mostly past all those other emotions at this point and am currently at gratitude: gratitude that a man such as David Foster Wallace lived and breathed and left behind a body of work that was able, somehow, through all the background noise, to touch the lives of others in such a positive way. Also, hope: hope that those he touched will continue to find meaning and goodness in his work and that they, we, all of us, might have the courage to further his legacy.

We knew pretty much right away what we were getting ourselves into, of course. And we wouldn't trade a single minute.

So we ordered some delicious Thai/Vietnamese takeout tonight as part of a small celebration (more about that to come). At first, I thought that it was nice of the restaurant to provide the friendly, happy “Have a Nice Day” bags, but then after looking a little closer, we're not sure they actually meant it. As Kari said, “It's just not very convincing, is it?”

Behold the before-and-after glory of the Chicken Inferno, 10th edition. Even better, check out this cool time-lapse video.

Wednesday I met Greg for the David Murray and his Black Saint Quartet. As John Nugent noted in his introduction, Murray is a true student of jazz, and you could hear it in his performance. His music drew from a variety of influences, yet was grounded in solid jazz.

While Greg took in the All-Star Jam Session at the Eastman Theater, I trekked over to the Harro East Ballroom to catch up with Seth and see the Wild Magnolias. They did their best to rev up the crowd with their NOLA party attitude and feather costumes, but as the show went on, the crowd thinned out.

Knowing that we wanted to head over to the Plaza Hotel Jam Session early enough to get a good seat, but not wanting to get there too early, we decided to grab a drink at the recently opened Abilene Bar and Lounge. As such things go, we were having too much fun to make it over to State Street in a timely fashion so we ended up standing next to Greg and Jane as a steady stream of jazz all stars (including many of the All Stars that played at Eastman earlier.) Clearly this was the night to stay out late at the after hours as Jeremy Pelt, Eric Alexander, Peter Bernstein, Kenny Washington, Steve Wilson, and crowd favorite Jake Shimabukuro all sat in. If you had to pick one night to stay out late for the jam session, this would have been the night (but, really, why limit yourself?).

Thursday night was a quick one for me. Local legend Joe Locke at the Kilbourn, where the crowd (deservedly) gave him all the love he could stand. Then it was more Nordic jazz with Beady Belle. Actually, it was more of a soul/r&b/funk/jazz kind of thing, akin to the Stephanie McKay show I saw earlier in the week. Beady Belle definitely wasn't as hard-edged as McKay and not quite as engaging, but there was a darkness underlying the soulful melodies that, even while they got your head bobbing and foot tapping, was still a bit unsettling. A bit like Portishead, maybe, only not quite so much. Anyway, I headed home for bed shortly afterward, to recuperate for the final two nights.

Friday night began a little late for me, but I still was able to meet up with Greg on jazz street. Our indecision coupled with a desire for food that was not served from an outdoor stall prompted us to grab a couple of sandwiches from Java's and snag a table on the sidewalk, where we were able to ear some of the local acts on the Jazz St. stage.

Finally, we stretched our legs and headed toward Alexander to catch some of the Skatelites before heading back to join Jane in line at the Montage. Jane, trooper that she is, had been waiting first in line for hours. Thankfully, we got prime seating up close to see Billy's Band, who was more or less a Russian Tom Waits cover band. Not that this is a bad thing. The show was a blast, easily one of the festival highlights. We wound up the night at Abilene listening to reggae in the peaceful back patio area.

Saturday I got another late start, but I only ad two items on my agenda: Medeski Martin and Wood and the Bob Sneider jam session. MMW was fun, but unfortunately not as fun as they were when I had seen them earlier in the year; however, the after hours jam session made up for it as Bob, Mike Melito, and Phil Flanigan brought the festival to a close in style, complete with the traditional Mordecai Lipshutz swan song.

Another great festival. Final thoughts to come in the next few days. Meanwhile, check out Greg's wrapup and his plenitude of links to other jazz commentators and fans.

After that, we sprinted over to the Reformation Lutheran Church for some solo piano by Jacob Anderskov. This was definitely the most cerebral music I've heard so far. In part, it reminded me of some of Keith Jarrett's solo work, “The Köln Concert,” for example. I really liked about a third of his music, especially the passages where his right hand worked melodies over the almost Steve-Reich-like ostinatos from his left. Unfortunately, the third day of the festival was catching up with me and I mostly drifted away with the other two-thirds of his music (although not a bad experience in itself). Check out Seth's musings on the under-appreciated genius of Anderskov.

For something completely different, we the caught the beginning of an energetic JazzKamikaze, before the sprinkles of rain chased us away. These guys let it all hang out, and maybe it was the contrast to Anderskov, or maybe it was just me, but I felt they let it hang out a bit too far. They definitely had the crowd going, but with the sky about to open up, we timed our exit well and headed over to the after hours jam session for a couple of sets with the Bob Sneider Trio. Lucky for us, we got to see Howard Alden sit in for a couple of tunes. He was magical at the Montage earlier in the night, but his interplay with Sneider was at times breathtaking.

Day 4 was a early night for me as I had a work project that I needed to finish up for the next morning. Still, I was glad I made the effort to get out and catch Cindy Blackman. She wasn't quite what I expected after hearing of her work with Lenny Kravitz--maybe if more people hadn't had similar expectations, she might have drawn a bigger crowd for her first set. But what a set. She's a definite monster on the drums, but she also has a subtlety and intelligence wen playing in support of her other talented band mates.

We decided that food would be our next priority and our discussion of the various options intermingled with more high-minded philosophical topics as we meandered back to Jazz St and eventually to a table at The Golden Port. Mmmmm, edamame...

I wrapped up my early night with just a couple of tunes by the Todd Londagin Band. Mr. Londagin aims to please: he'll sing, play trombone, tap dance, swallow swords, and do your taxes. I frankly would have liked to hear more trombone myself, but I didn't stay long enough to form a fair opinion before running home to tuck the kids into bed.

Day 5...Well, Day 5 was a day off from the festival. I'll be back for Day 6.