Michael Ian Black’s recent New York Times column cemented my decision to never take a cruise. So Uncool, It’s Cool. Not. He liked the mindless ordinariness. All I could focus on were the stairs, elevators and confining crowded decks, “surrounded by a thousand fleshy strangers in swimsuits”,   yuk!  Everything I thought bad seems to be true.

However, he linked a 1997 essay by David Foster Wallace, Shipping Out, A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again. Wallace’s solo adventure on the megaliner Zenith, which he dubbed the Nadir. It was one of the funniest best written pieces I’ve ever read. A self-proclaimed “semi-agoraphobe” who stayed in his cabin a lot. Since he eventually committed suicide, I won’t say I could relate. But. It was hilarious. The footnotes were priceless. It was like a great short story. Highly recommend. Will be exploring other of this Amherst College alum’s works.