― Josh (Josh), Sunday, 30 April 2006 18:15 (eighteen years ago) link
- thing learnt from rereading 'A Supposedly Fun Thing ...' (by which quote marks i mean to say, the essay not the whole collection): he was once a lifeguard.
another thing: he mentions dealing with gunk as the only bad thing about lobster, which ah.
also: dude's like 44 now? good god.
― tom west (thomp), Monday, 1 May 2006 01:22 (eighteen years ago) link
― tom west (thomp), Monday, 1 May 2006 02:15 (eighteen years ago) link
― Gravel Puzzleworth (Gregory Henry), Monday, 26 June 2006 03:04 (seventeen years ago) link
― ramon fernandez (ramon fernandez), Thursday, 29 June 2006 11:55 (seventeen years ago) link
― W i l l (common_person), Monday, 3 July 2006 04:33 (seventeen years ago) link
wallace's only got his own fawning jacket-blurb on AHWOSG to blame for that ...
― literalisp (literalisp), Wednesday, 23 August 2006 01:14 (seventeen years ago) link
my desire to reread girl... has passed, disappointingly.
― tom west (thomp), Wednesday, 23 August 2006 11:29 (seventeen years ago) link
― Jerry the Nipper (Jerrynipper), Wednesday, 23 August 2006 13:25 (seventeen years ago) link
― Laurel (Laurel), Wednesday, 23 August 2006 15:28 (seventeen years ago) link
― Casuistry (Chris P), Wednesday, 23 August 2006 19:14 (seventeen years ago) link
― toby (tsg20), Wednesday, 23 August 2006 20:14 (seventeen years ago) link
― tom west (thomp), Wednesday, 23 August 2006 21:42 (seventeen years ago) link
― W i l l (common_person), Wednesday, 23 August 2006 22:08 (seventeen years ago) link
― W i l l (common_person), Wednesday, 23 August 2006 22:09 (seventeen years ago) link
://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/20/sports/playmagazine/20federer.html
― a little knowledge can go a long way (lfam2), Thursday, 24 August 2006 15:48 (seventeen years ago) link
― tom west (thomp), Thursday, 24 August 2006 21:20 (seventeen years ago) link
And damn I never realized so many people were down on DFW! I can't think of another living writer whom I look forward to reading more.
― Suzy Creemcheese (SuzyCreemcheese), Friday, 25 August 2006 03:07 (seventeen years ago) link
Amy "Just How Much Reader Annoyance Are You Going For Anyway" Wallace.
― Mr. Que (Mr.Que), Friday, 25 August 2006 13:04 (seventeen years ago) link
― tom west (thomp), Friday, 25 August 2006 14:09 (seventeen years ago) link
― a little knowledge can go a long way (lfam2), Friday, 25 August 2006 18:41 (seventeen years ago) link
― gypsy mothra (gypsy mothra), Saturday, 26 August 2006 03:19 (seventeen years ago) link
― gypsy mothra (gypsy mothra), Saturday, 26 August 2006 03:20 (seventeen years ago) link
― Jerry the Nipper (Jerrynipper), Saturday, 26 August 2006 13:03 (seventeen years ago) link
― W i l l (common_person), Saturday, 26 August 2006 16:25 (seventeen years ago) link
― tom west (thomp), Saturday, 26 August 2006 17:58 (seventeen years ago) link
i could be 100 percent wrong, of course. and i think the essay is too rough on '90s on pop culture -- dfw is too quick to dismiss a lot of interesting things, and he also misses some counterpoints that were already emerging at the time he wrote it. but as a reflection on/of the era, it's close to peerless.
― gypsy mothra (gypsy mothra), Saturday, 26 August 2006 18:07 (seventeen years ago) link
i've been wanting to read this essay again all summer but my friend (who claims "e unibus" shattered a part of him) still has my copy of ASFTINDA
― W i l l (common_person), Saturday, 26 August 2006 19:00 (seventeen years ago) link
― gypsy mothra (gypsy mothra), Saturday, 26 August 2006 19:25 (seventeen years ago) link
― tom west (thomp), Sunday, 27 August 2006 11:04 (seventeen years ago) link
― tom west (thomp), Sunday, 27 August 2006 11:43 (seventeen years ago) link
― Casuistry (Chris P), Sunday, 27 August 2006 15:47 (seventeen years ago) link
(it's an inversion of e pluribus unum, one of our competing national mottos.)
(xpost)
― gypsy mothra (gypsy mothra), Sunday, 27 August 2006 15:54 (seventeen years ago) link
― Casuistry (Chris P), Sunday, 27 August 2006 15:56 (seventeen years ago) link
― Casuistry (Chris P), Sunday, 27 August 2006 15:57 (seventeen years ago) link
― gypsy mothra (gypsy mothra), Sunday, 27 August 2006 15:59 (seventeen years ago) link
― Aimless (Aimless), Sunday, 27 August 2006 16:42 (seventeen years ago) link
Unless I'm misreading your irony.
― Casuistry (Chris P), Sunday, 27 August 2006 17:06 (seventeen years ago) link
― gypsy mothra (gypsy mothra), Sunday, 27 August 2006 17:15 (seventeen years ago) link
oh good, i was right. as far as it went. thanks for the latin lesson, though, and i mean that sincerely.
― tom west (thomp), Sunday, 27 August 2006 19:02 (seventeen years ago) link
― tom west (thomp), Monday, 28 August 2006 00:01 (seventeen years ago) link
― tom west (thomp), Monday, 28 August 2006 00:08 (seventeen years ago) link
― Casuistry (Chris P), Monday, 28 August 2006 00:13 (seventeen years ago) link
― tom west (thomp), Monday, 28 August 2006 00:33 (seventeen years ago) link
― tom west (thomp), Monday, 28 August 2006 00:54 (seventeen years ago) link
― Ray (Ray), Monday, 28 August 2006 06:41 (seventeen years ago) link
― Casuistry (Chris P), Monday, 28 August 2006 06:48 (seventeen years ago) link
― tom west (thomp), Monday, 28 August 2006 16:53 (seventeen years ago) link
What's doubly funny, though, is that at some point it becomes hard to separate DFW being self-conscious from DFW writing about self-consciousness. For instance, toward the beginning of Infinite Jest there is an incredibly long section narrating a man's sitting absolutely still and watching a bug on the wall while waiting for someone to bring him weed, and getting increasingly neurotic about when this will finally happen, and mentally reviewing a whole bunch of totally obsessive steps he takes to control his weed-binging -- all of which would read to most people as being exactly the kind of self-conscious or clever or even ironic styling that the essay seems so wary of. But on another level that's a hard argument to support, because it's not so much that he's doing that stuff so much as making you think about it; apart from the sheer level of detail devoted to a short period of this guy's consciousness, there's nothing particularly unusual or arch or insincere about the scene. You get overloaded with that vibe not because he's selling it to you, but just because he's thinking about it, and making certain of his characters actually go around dealing with it directly.
Not that this helps! It's still there and problematic, and I think the original statement is most of the time the true one, and while some of his short stories nip over at the kind of naturalism we associate with sincerity, it's nevertheless really really hard to imagine him sitting down and writing, you know, That Way. Which is fine; that's not what he's for, and that's fine; but the result really has been his essays shining brighter than his fiction, a lot of the time.
― nabisco (nabisco), Monday, 28 August 2006 22:14 (seventeen years ago) link
― tom west (thomp), Monday, 28 August 2006 23:11 (seventeen years ago) link