Have a safe, happy, and, above all, FUN, Halloween. And remember to send in pics from your parties!

I have long been a fan of Hunter S. Thompson. While some friends and colleagues will insist that his work forms an essential contribution to the life of American letters, I must admit that I tend to treat his books as light reading, in much the same way older academics will read mysteries while on vacation (I’m convinced younger ones watch television). I read Kingdom of Fear in Las Vegas last week. I quite enjoyed it, largely because Thompson’s works tend to stop and start so regularly that they are easy to read on a plane or while waiting for breakfast in the morning.

It occurred to me that after his first book, Hell’s Angels, which was his longest continuous effort, and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, his second longest continuous effort, he tended toward both fragmentation and a type of gigantism. This was first exhibited in Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail ‘72, which I understand required titanic efforts to winnow and arrange into any semblance of a finished book.

After Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail ‘72, which itself runs to 500 pages, Thompson’s books grow to many hundreds of pages, while the entries remain short and fail to hang together for more than a few pages or a chapter. I recognize that some interesting organizational principles begin to emerge in the longer ones, like Kingdom of Fear and the various door-stop volumes of the Gonzo Papers (The Great Shark Hunt is over 600 pages), but I sense behind them the hand of an editor or assistant attempting to bring coherence to a mass of interviews, journal entries, published articles, short ruminations, legal briefs, etc.

Earlier this week, I picked up (only physically, for a few seconds) The Gonzo Tapes while visiting a record store whose windows were smashed out on Wednesday night during the Dionysian victory celebrations for the World Series-Winning Philadelphia Phillies. I picked it up, then set it down. I found its price prohibitive (though that didn’t stop me from buying a 30-CD set of Vaughan Williams recordings, Schoenberg’s Pelleas und Melisande and Erwartung, and two Charles Mingus records . . .), but I still would love to have it someday. I have added it to my Amazon wish list. Christmas is right around the corner, everyone. I bet it’s really cool. Does anyone out there have it?

Over 2,000,000 drunken revelers have begun to gather in the blocks around the building today for the victory parade, which will resemble nothing so much as an imperial Roman triumpus. All we lack are gibbeted and chained members of the Tampa Bay Rays driven before the celebratory victors down the choked streets of the city, where the Lawrentian “dark gods of the blood” have bubbled up and will surely burst forth in a twisted orgy of ecstatic triumphalism before nightfall. I can hear the growing din of the crowds all the way up here in the penthouse, and I will descend soon to join them . . .