Fuck it. I didn't read this thread yesterday thinking it was just a revive and haven't seen the web/news all day and then I'm driving home and some woman is speaking about someone who had problems following up his huge 1000 page novel and now we'll never know what he had in mind and I thought 'it can't be David Foster Wallace because he's only 40-something' and yet it was.
When I had really got bored of reading fiction IJ (and to a lesser but significant extent, Broom) got me reading it again.
RIP
(and who was/is Edna Wellthorpe upthread? Using Joe Orton's nom de plume to get all 'he was NO Thomas Pynchon' on the thread...that's the kind of thing I used to do...wait...it wasn't me was it?)
― Ned Trifle II, Monday, 15 September 2008 20:32 (fifteen years ago) link
Edna Wellthorpe was Stevie Tr0uss3, I believe
― nabisco, Monday, 15 September 2008 20:37 (fifteen years ago) link
Correct.
― Ned Raggett, Monday, 15 September 2008 20:41 (fifteen years ago) link
Well, thank god it wasn't me.
― Ned Trifle II, Monday, 15 September 2008 21:04 (fifteen years ago) link
some very good and some not so good (but all heartfelt) personal tributes to DFW on the front page of mcwseeneys:
http://www.mcsweeneys.net/
― jed_, Tuesday, 16 September 2008 19:45 (fifteen years ago) link
Can't believe this!
The last thing I read by him was his intro to "The Best American Essays 2007" and it was just cracking good, for an editor intro.
― rejected FDR screen name, Tuesday, 16 September 2008 20:11 (fifteen years ago) link
and I feel incredibly sorry for the book designer who had to lay it out:
From what I'm told we tried and tried to get different color options to price out, but there was no practically satisfactory way. The whole book didn't need to be (and couldn't be) printed in color, only that section -- the color part could have been printed separately and inserted into the back of the book, but then it wouldn't be alongside the text. Etc. I guess there was a flurry of pros and cons and when it died down, what was left was the boxes-and-arrows method.
― Laurel, Tuesday, 16 September 2008 20:51 (fifteen years ago) link
What if it had been in the middle of the book, like you see sometimes with a set of photo plates? Too expensive?
― jaymc, Tuesday, 16 September 2008 20:55 (fifteen years ago) link
i don't suppose the michael joyce essay is online somewhere? i haven't found it yet and i want to send it to a friend.
― you don't make friends with salad (Jordan), Tuesday, 16 September 2008 21:38 (fifteen years ago) link
Every time I translated one of his works, I sent him questions. He was reluctant to answer, he struggled with the answers, he kept saying that that particular story was impossible to translate in a decent and faithful way—this occasionally made me shed tears—and then he would write whole pages to explain a single word or phrase, and end up declaring his complete trust in my skills as a translator
i'd love to read some of those notes
― you don't make friends with salad (Jordan), Tuesday, 16 September 2008 21:49 (fifteen years ago) link
Such terrible, sad sad news. I'm really shocked and upset to hear this. So very unexpected and a dreadful shame that he's died so young and in such a horrible way.
― krakow, Tuesday, 16 September 2008 22:15 (fifteen years ago) link
the uncollected dfw: http://www.thehowlingfantods.com/dfw/uncollected-dfw.html
― you don't make friends with salad (Jordan), Tuesday, 16 September 2008 22:26 (fifteen years ago) link
John Ziegler, subject of of "Host," remembers: http://johnziegler.com/editorials_details.asp?editorial=165
If I ever meet him I swear to God I'll spit in his eye.
― rogermexico., Wednesday, 17 September 2008 04:43 (fifteen years ago) link
Fucking disgusting.
― art tatum HOOS & chopped (BIG HOOS aka the steendriver), Wednesday, 17 September 2008 05:01 (fifteen years ago) link
Without trying to sound flippant, did you expect him to raise three cheers?
― Ned Raggett, Wednesday, 17 September 2008 05:01 (fifteen years ago) link
Isn't that exactly what he's doing?
― rogermexico., Wednesday, 17 September 2008 05:50 (fifteen years ago) link
Poorly phrased, admittedly. Even so -- gotta say, his reaction doesn't surprise me at all.
― Ned Raggett, Wednesday, 17 September 2008 05:58 (fifteen years ago) link
Frankly I'm just shocked to see him speak quite that viciously of the recently deceased, his opinion of DFW notwithstanding. Then again, he notes with some glee on his front page that the editorial "is sure to be among the most controversial opinions on Wallace that you'll read" or somesuch similar garbage.
― art tatum HOOS & chopped (BIG HOOS aka the steendriver), Wednesday, 17 September 2008 06:01 (fifteen years ago) link
Not to mention, if you imagine the kindest possible treatment of Ziegler you'd get something very much like "Host" and he wants BEEF?
"He fooled the knobhead literary elites but he didn't fool ME" is obtuse and classless (which is to say: Ziegler). "He offed himself in a calculated move to ensure his literary reputation" is grounds for tar and feathers.
― rogermexico., Wednesday, 17 September 2008 06:01 (fifteen years ago) link
Frankly, if I don't get ripped by a right-wing talk radio personality days after my untimely death, I'm going to have to admit I didn't live up to my potential.
― TOMBOT, Wednesday, 17 September 2008 06:08 (fifteen years ago) link
Ziegler's little spitty obit there has already gotten him more attention than he deserves, so let's be bigger and just stop discussing it.
― TOMBOT, Wednesday, 17 September 2008 06:10 (fifteen years ago) link
i wonder if celebrity cruises inc. will issue a statement. or the illinois state fair.
― tipsy mothra, Wednesday, 17 September 2008 06:12 (fifteen years ago) link
lol. thank you for that.
― rogermexico., Wednesday, 17 September 2008 06:13 (fifteen years ago) link
"That last one’s of especial value, I think. Asexquisite verbal art, yes, but also as a modelfor what free, informed adulthood might looklike in the context of Total Noise: not justthe intelligence to discern one’s own error orstupidity, but the humility to address it, absorbit, and move on and out there from,bravely, toward the next revealed error. This isprobably the sincerest, most biased account of‘Best’ your Decider can give: these pieces aremodels—not templates, but models—of waysI wish I could think and live in what seems tome this world."
― thomp, Wednesday, 17 September 2008 16:39 (fifteen years ago) link
i would read all this david foster wallace, why because he look interstin
― ctrl-s, Friday, 19 September 2008 10:10 (fifteen years ago) link
weird - I have just learned that my DFW was in my dad's AA group
― Shakey Mo Collier, Friday, 19 September 2008 15:21 (fifteen years ago) link
you had your own dfw?
― THE GAMBLER (max), Friday, 19 September 2008 15:41 (fifteen years ago) link
unreleased, uncollected essay from the 1996 US Open
http://www.tennis.com/features/general/features.aspx?id=145230
― Mr. Que, Friday, 19 September 2008 15:44 (fifteen years ago) link
I kept him in the garage next to my PKD replica
― Shakey Mo Collier, Friday, 19 September 2008 15:44 (fifteen years ago) link
some interviews: http://www.kcrw.com/etc/david-foster-wallace
― how to TASTE beer. how to TALK about beer. (Jordan), Friday, 19 September 2008 17:09 (fifteen years ago) link
from the "supposedly fun thing" era interview: "i am in cold turkey from footnotes. i am not doing them anymore."
― how to TASTE beer. how to TALK about beer. (Jordan), Friday, 19 September 2008 17:19 (fifteen years ago) link
"people who think they're very bright are a--...buttholes."
― how to TASTE beer. how to TALK about beer. (Jordan), Friday, 19 September 2008 17:33 (fifteen years ago) link
The Wall Street Journal is running an adapted version of the Kenyon commencement speech under the title "David Foster Wallace on Life and Work":
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122178211966454607.html
― o. nate, Friday, 19 September 2008 18:05 (fifteen years ago) link
From the 1996 KCRW interview:
"When I was in my 20s - deep down underneath all the bullshit - what I really believed was that the point of all fiction was to show that the writer was really smart."
― Rob Bolton, Friday, 19 September 2008 18:09 (fifteen years ago) link
http://www.theonion.com/content/news/nascar_cancels_remainder_of_season
― El Tomboto, Friday, 19 September 2008 18:12 (fifteen years ago) link
Apparently, his first fiction piece for a major magazine was for Playboy in 1988, republished here.
― casino royale with cheese (Roz), Friday, 19 September 2008 18:39 (fifteen years ago) link
I'd like to think DFW would have enjoyed that Onion piece.
Here's another one that I don't remember seeing at the time. Pretty funny:
http://www.theonion.com/content/node/27769
― Everything is Highlighted (Hurting 2), Friday, 19 September 2008 18:48 (fifteen years ago) link
the first joke that came to mind when i heard about this was basically that onion article, but about his suicide note (that was probably the first joke that came to everyones mind, huh)
― Mohammed Butt (max), Friday, 19 September 2008 19:02 (fifteen years ago) link
I wonder if he left a footnote. And but so what do you think it said?
― booty tweet (rejected FDR screen name), Saturday, 20 September 2008 20:33 (fifteen years ago) link
this is terribly sad, his death and learning how ill he had been beforehand. his writing was so full of personality that i'm not sure how much feeling the loss of the authorial persona is linked to feeling the loss of the person, but it is hard not to link them.
― Maria, Sunday, 21 September 2008 04:19 (fifteen years ago) link
wow
http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/graphics/092108_infinite_jest/
― Mr. Que, Sunday, 21 September 2008 18:58 (fifteen years ago) link
has anyone read the math book? i was thinking of getting it (i did math at university but that was over 5 yrs ago and i cant remember any of it)buttut that review that caek linked to up above made it sound pretty bad (i didnt get the general idea that the review was favourable at all)
― t_g, Friday, 26 September 2008 10:11 (fifteen years ago) link
it's certainly the weakest of his books that i've read (still haven't read signifying rappers). it's still his prose, though, so it's still good in that sense - but on the other hand if you don't understand the math it'd be heavy going, and if you do the fact that a lot of it is if not wrong then at least has the wrong emphasis is annoying.
― toby, Friday, 26 September 2008 10:35 (fifteen years ago) link
ok thanks, i do like his prose so maybe i'll pick it up and see. can you recommend any other math books? that are relatively easy to read but arent totally rubbish?
― t_g, Friday, 26 September 2008 10:41 (fifteen years ago) link
It's been a long time since I've read any "popular" math books. I used to love Martin Gardner's books as a kid, but they're essays rather than a whole book. "A Mathematician's Apology" is great, I think, though again I haven't looked at it for a while. This might be helpful:
http://quomodocumque.wordpress.com/2008/07/06/reader-survey-what-makes-a-good-popular-math-book-good/
― toby, Friday, 26 September 2008 11:39 (fifteen years ago) link
Best popular math book I read recently was Zero: Biography of a Dangerous Idea by Charles Seife, but you can never go wrong with Martin Gardner.
― caek, Friday, 26 September 2008 11:45 (fifteen years ago) link
i know it's chickenshit 2 crap on a dude who just merc'd himself, but i cant really get mad @ ziegler for that piece. if u take it @ face value (i never read DFW's essay on him), he seems 2 b comin from a place of real vulnerability and frustration there, so i cant blame him 4 wantin 2 take a few potshots imo~~~
― cankles, Friday, 26 September 2008 12:29 (fifteen years ago) link
cheers caek + toby, i'll have a look at those
― t_g, Friday, 26 September 2008 12:36 (fifteen years ago) link
sad stuff
http://www.salon.com/books/feature/2008/09/26/david_foster_wallace/
― Mr. Que, Friday, 26 September 2008 14:33 (fifteen years ago) link
good interview on the math stuff: http://www.believermag.com/issues/200311/?read=interview_wallace
― Jordan, Friday, 26 September 2008 14:56 (fifteen years ago) link