So yesterday I was hung over and emo, suffering from mud butt and sitting on the shitter for extended perids of time, because I was too lazy to get up and come back. I read some Joseph Conrad, but dude is always kind of a bummer: he pulled an Elliott Smith way before it was cool (he used a gun instead of a knife, and lived to write another day, but close enough). In search of something hopefully a little more uplifting, I set into the copy of Mark Oliver Everett’s Things the Grandchildren Should Know sent to me last week by the wonderful folks at St. Martin’s. Everett, of course, is better known to the masses as E, the mad genius behind rock band Eels. He is also perhaps lesser known as the son of legendary physicist Hugh Everett III, who coined the Many Worlds interpretation of quantum physics, the idea -to put it much too simply- that everything that could possibly happen is happening, and/or has already happened in some other parallel world running simultaneous in time to ours (take a bong rip of Salvia and it’ll make way more sense). Anyways, Mark Everett is definitely an interesting person, so his book sounded like some nice light Sunday reading, right? Within the first couple of pages, his sister’s boyfriend attacks him with a knife, his sister attempts suicide for the first time (it took a couple tries before she got it right) E finds his dad dead of a heart attack at 51, and contemplates suicide himself as he visualizes driving off a bridge: Not exactly Chicken Soup for the Soul. That being said though, E’s self-effacing, conversational writing style, coupled with the already stated unique aspects of his life make Things the Grandchildren Should Know the kind of book you can’t, and won’t put down (I didn’t until I fell asleep). Though I’m only halfway through, I can already tell this will be a book I’ll be including in my yearly effort to make my friends and family smarter by buying them books for Christmas. It’s up for pre-order now on Amazon, and comes out next Monday. If you’re not really a book person (which isn’t likely since you’ve read this post this far) you can also get the gist of Everett’s life in the PBS special “Parallel Worlds, Parallel Lives” airing October 21st at 8 PM. Or you could just watch the video for “Novocaine for the Soul” and call it good. Your call.

Tags: amazon | band eels | bummer | chicken soup for the soul | Elliott Smith | grandchildren | heart attack | hugh everett | joseph conrad | legendary physicist | mad genius | mark everett | mark oliver | Novocaine for the Soul | Parallel Lives | parallel world | Parallel Worlds | quantum physics | reading right | rock band | salvia | shitter | Things the Grandchildren Should Know | writing style

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