Eschaton

The Decemberists have made a music video about Eschaton, a game played by the residents of the tennis academy in Infinite Jest. This is the sort of thing that is both delightful and depressing: delightful because one of my favorite bands clearly likes one of my favorite scenes in a book by one of my favorite authors, and depressing for the same reason. I am just so predictable. Mike doesn't like it when I call myself a yuppie, but I am something for sure.

Anyway, the video is entertaining, if a heck of a lot less gory than the scene in the book, where a kid winds up with a computer monitor stuck on his head. Infinite Jest is, among many many endlessly documented other things, about how humans entertain themselves, and the dark nature of entertainment. A kids' war game is pretty fitting for this theme. The Decemberists have lots of songs about war, which is odd for pop music, but not odd when you consider that they go for the old-timey thing, and also that given how much of human history involves war, it shouldn't just be the Decemberists and 99 Luftballons covering it.

I don't really have a point. Just that this is noteworthy to me. Here's the video.