Short Story II

Will has been brainwashed by the Brompton Folding Bicycle Cult and has therefore set all other life priorities aside and has been concentrating solely on the acquisition of a Brompton folding bike. You can get them in all kinds of different configurations (apparently up to a million I think) with varying options for the handle bar type, gearing, frame, colours, seat, pedals, etc. There's even the super light version that is mainly made out of titanium. That is a pretty cool sounding element if you ask me. You can fold and unfold these bad boys in like ten seconds flat and if every single Brompton related blog on the Internet is anything to go by, they pack a mean (in the good sense) ride. Bromptons are expensive though and the bank account has been suffering a little lately due to Sandi's Japanese Calligraphy courses (5 2-hour lessons per week plus a special 8 hour workshop every other Saturday at 200€/hour adds up [but they are taught by Wang Xizhi's great-great-great-great-great-great-great granddaughter so it's probably worth it]) and Will's unhealthy addiction to rare samples of Roquefort. Since giving up the calligraphy courses or the blue cheese are both out of the question (as is not getting the folding Brompton bike, obv) Will hatches a plan to steal one from his Lithuanian friend Svetlana who is the happy proprietor of one Brompton Folding Bicycle, exactly what his brainwashed heart desires.

Svetlana's husband-to-be Van, a French-Vietnamese cook who also happens to fly in helicopters at Tour de France stages, is -- clearly -- planning on flying in just such a helicopter at the upcoming Tour de France stage that ends at Alpe d'Huez and the plan begins to unfurl in Will's brilliant and evil mind when it is made aware of said plans. The plan basically consists of getting a bunch of drunk Dutch people (not at all difficult to find on Alpe d'Huez) to create some kind of a diversion (which they will be doing anyways) that the helicopter pilot (not Van) will feel the need to investigate. When the helicopter arrives at the drawn-to location, some kind of Wile-E-Coyote device will capture the helicopter and extract Van, placing him in a temporary prison-like containment unit attached to rented Metro Vélo bikes procured through the Grenoble TAG transportation authority. These MV bicycles will require extensive modifications but it takes money to make money (or to steal a Brompton Folding Bicycle in this case). Once Van has been kidnapped and driven safely out of the country (most likely to some third party neutral country such as Montenegro) Sandi will write some kind of a ransom note using her Japanese Calligraphy skills.

Following days of planning, the fateful day arrives and the plan incredibly succeeds without a hitch (as they say). Upon their arrival in Montenegro (Will, Sandi, Van, and various Henchmen hired by the perpetrators who have been promised riches upon completing their mission [but whom will not receive anything! HA HA HA HA]), Sandi is set to set to work on her ransom note creation. Unfortunately, however, it turns out that Sandi has not at all been attending her Japanese Calligraphy courses as she claimed, but has been using the  money (and spending the noted time) working a second job at a bicycle store in Lyon that coincidentally sells Brompton bicycles and offers all employees a 20% discount. For some inane reason she keeps this a secret even throughout the whole kidnapping thing and when asked why she responds that she wanted to surprise her husband with a Brompton Folding Bicycle bought with her earnings from her part-time Bicycle Shop job where she could buy the bike at 20% off. Will then asks her where all the money has been going then and she says that since she wanted to keep it a secret and had to get all the way to Lyon and back every day she had to buy a really fast car (an Audi R8) and all the money has been going to payments on the car. This makes absolutely no sense whatsoever to Will because for the price of an Audi R8 he could have easily bought three or maybe even four Brompton Folding Bicycles even in the Titanium version with limited edition Barcelona carry bags but he doesn't want to get his wife upset so he just drops it.

Having the situation a little more clear in his mind, Will realizes that he should probably get this whole kidnapping thing over and done with and somehow get back to Grenoble because Sandi has to drive to work in Lyon. Unfortunately they blew up the helicopter that Van was flying in but luckily they filmed the explosion using Svetlana's Go Pro Hero 2 HD that she graciously lent them and so they sold that tape to Jerry Bruckheimer who would use it in an upcoming movie of which Barney Panofsky's son Saul had already received an advance to write the screenplay for. So with that money they buy some cool bad-guy ATV's and drive all the way back to France and then to Lyon so Sandi can get to work and so they can drop Van off at home. He says no hard feelings about the whole kidnapping thing and even invites Will over for some lamb and baked beans. Will says he's now a vegetarian so I'll pass on the lamb but I wouldn't mind some beans and maybe a panaché because Van always has panachés. While he's over at their house he steals Svetlana's Brompton and then when Sandi finally buys Will his secret present that she had been working towards for so long Svetlana steals that one from Will and then everyone is happy except Will because he has Svetlana's old crappy one and she has the new awesome 2013 version with all those improvements to the components and breaks and pedals and the new detailing on the frame.

Pemulis Flees to Munich?

Pemulis (whom David Foster Wallace called one of Infinite Jest's Antichrists and who is also widely seen as the book's most divisive character [1] but in this particular story is a rather obvious Jake Barnes to Hemingway device for Pemulis's blog à clef, if you will, and Pemulis allows and encourages the reader to make whatever connections he or she may wish to the fact that he raises the fact that Pemulis is a divisive character in IJ) arrives in Grenoble to the awe of the mountains that surround him at every step. He dreams of living a complex and glamorous life that will be met with envy and admiration by his enemies and peers but quickly discovers that the same problems afflict him in the Old World as in the New. This is Pemulis's Don Draper mistake. Don was created by Dick Whitman's desire to get a fresh start and when the original mistaken identity was made following the true Don Draper's death in Korea, the dream of a new start became a reality for him and Dick/Don grabbed it. Don later tries again for a new start when he divorces Betty and begins anew with his second wife, Megan. Things go well for a while but Don is eventually pulled back to his philandering ways. Most recently, Don thinks that he can solve his problems by again running away and starting over by escaping to California and again starting over with Megan. Because of this belief that starting over can fix everything (as evidenced at least by these glaring examples), Don is understandably confused when both his true brother and his business partner Lane Pryce are offered chances by Don at starting over (his brother with $5,000 of Don's money and Lane with a chance to quietly resign after getting caught stealing money from the firm) and both end up killing themselves. Neither Don's brother nor Lane see starting over as a viable solution to their lives' problems. Don's realization that if he fled to California he would lose any chance at a relationship with his children is perhaps what ultimately could save him as it forces him to realize that escaping and starting over is not always a tenable solution. Despite all that, however, Pemulis is a complex creature (or at least he wishes he was), and he can really only come up with four or five or six times where he really thought giving up on one idea and taking up another to restart was the easiest or best avenue and therefore grabbed it. But it's an easy dream to fall for. Pemulis's next reboot will be different though he thinks.

[1] http://blogs.publishersweekly.com/blogs/PWxyz/2012/04/11/the-top-10-infinite-jest-characters-3-michael-pemulis/