Your latest obsession

For most of my life I’ve considered myself a little obsessive, in the sense that I have a tendency to get really deep into things that interest me. The first example that comes to mind is my favorite band, Modest Mouse. Anyone who knows me knows I’ve loved them since I was fourteen when I first heard the songs “Float On” and “The Ocean Breathes Salty” on the radio. After years of listening to my favorite songs repeatedly and seeing the band live about seven times (I’ve almost lost count), I still listen to their music regularly and keep up with their new album releases which, happily for me, still occur every five years or so. Oh, and I totally lost my cool and embarrassed myself when I met the lead singer, but that’s a different story.

While Modest Mouse is definitely the longest-lasting obsession of mine, a number of other seemingly random interests have had strong impacts on my life, even if the obsession period itself was rather short. I probably wouldn’t be writing this right now if it weren’t for David Foster Wallace, who I discovered as a result of my love for actor Jason Segel. When I learned back in 2015-ish that Jason Segel would be taking on his first “serious” role by portraying David Foster Wallace in The End of the Tour, I decided to read The Pale King and was shocked to discover an entirely new writing style that resonated with me even more strongly than The Catcher in the Rye did when I was a teenager. I eventually read almost everything that Wallace has published (that I know of) and frequently find myself longing for him to be alive so he could keep writing. 

I’m still mildly obsessed with Wallace, but at some point I was led from him to one of his inspirations: David Lynch. This brought me to a brief phase of watching any David Lynch film I could get a hold of–including his somewhat unfortunate version of Dune (thank goodness for the 2021 version). And I’m just realizing as I write this that maybe obsession is the wrong word, after all. I think it would be more apt to use the word inspiration, which sounds less fanatical and perhaps is a better description, since the fascination usually involves an artist of some kind and usually provides me with a source of inspiration–either to make my own art (as seen in my Wallace-inspired writing bouts) or to view the world in new and interesting ways. Or, to follow a trail to some other form of inspiration, e.g. from Segal to Wallace to Lynch.

Anyway, I recently noticed that it’s been a while since I last jumped into a frenzy to devour everything created by a particular person or entity. The latest I can think of is Bo Burnham, thanks to his Netflix special, Inside, which I’ve watched at least a dozen times in addition to reading his book, adding his songs to my Spotify playlist, and watching his other comedy specials and some movies he either directed or acted in. Phew! But honestly, I’m looking forward to the next bout of inspiration. Obsessions, phases, whatever you want to call them–they make my life more interesting and give me a positive outlet for my energy. Hopefully I’ll have a new one to write about soon!