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General Updates
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Tuesday, 26 January 2010 |
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Dear readers, Just in case you were wondering why I am participating in The Great Australian Internet Blackout, I'll just remind you all that I am (and always have been) an Australian resident and citizen. If all goes well you've already seen the 'blackout' version of The Howling Fantods. It is setup to display only once, although if you clear cookies fanatically - like I believe everyone should - then you might see it once a day until the end of the week. Thanks for your patience and understanding.
This protest is a small part of a bigger general initiative by Australians who are greatly concerned about the proposed Australian Internet Filter, this week's blackout is already gaining significant media attention. Cheers, Nick More info: | | This item includes 1 comment |
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Critical Analysis
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Tuesday, 26 January 2010 |
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I want to concentrate on Wallace’s understanding of the fictionist as, essentially and necessarily, an artist concerned with ethics, with how and why we do the things we do, with aesthetics as absolute freedom, with evil and with personal truth–truth concealed by a lie. And I want to ask why we are not more concerned with his vision. Why we do not, by and large, see aesthetics as ethics, as an ethical act, a metapolitics, for which we, as writers with the power and duty to transform, are deeply and inescapably responsible. And how we get from ethics to moral literature: literature with deep conviction and passion toward the event of truth. | | This item includes 1 comment |
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General Updates
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Monday, 25 January 2010 |
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Ryan Blanck blank made a new year's resolution to read all of David Foster Wallace's book this year. For each piece he is writing letters to DFW in response. I'm really enjoying his journey so far. Read along over at Letters to DFW. | | This item includes 1 comment |
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DFW Remembrance
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Saturday, 23 January 2010 |
Somewhat disappointingly for me (as I read the submissions last year), but fantastic for David Foster Wallace readers, the Five Dials David Foster Wallace special Issue #10 (.pdf) is out. It is a reproduction of the tiny, wonderfully designed (by the amazing Marie Mundaca) Little Brown NY Memorial publication, Celebrating the Life and Work of David Foster Wallace. (Update: Reading over this today, the words above are a pretty poor response from me after all the work the Five Dials team did to get this out. I guess I was hoping for something 'new' when really, to many people this is something new and I was just lucky to be able to read this stuff last year. I was greatly moved by these remembrances when I first read them, so I encourage you to sign up to Five Dials to grab them. Even though a quick web search will find you the .pdf in no time, they have asked for people not to, so I won't. Subscribe!) The Five Dials edition has some additional artwork by Michael Schmelling and it is totally worth your free email subscription to Five Dials to read the submissions (although, for completists, it is missing Deborah Treisman's reading from DFW's Derivate Sport in Tornado Alley). In the words of the Five Dials team:
Inside you’ll find an issue dedicated to one of our favourite writers, David Foster Wallace, featuring remembrances from Jonathan Franzen, Don DeLillo, George Saunders, Zadie Smith and others. We hope it moves you to tears, which is exactly what happened when we read the contributions. One of our favourite Five Dials artists, a longtime DFW fan named Michael Schmelling, retreated to his New York studio and came up with a handful of beautiful visuals that celebrate both the playful and cerebral sides of Wallace’s writing. Savour them. We did. At the bottom of the email you’ll find a link to the issue. Plug it into your browser and download. This treat is meant only for subscribers. Now, you don’t need to be Matthew Broderick in War Games to figure out a way to forward the link to non-subscribers. You don’t need to be Kevin Mitnick (look him up) to attach the PDF to an email and send it out to everyone in your address book, but, you know, we like our subscription list to keep growing, so please tell interested DFW fans to sign up. We’ll happily point them in the right direction.
(Link removed, please subscribe!)
Subscribe to Five Dials here. | | No comments for this item |
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The Pale King
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Thursday, 21 January 2010 |
Issue 6 of The Lifted Brow arrived today containing a previously unpublished excerpt from David Foster Wallace's upcoming unfinished novel, The Pale King. It is titled A New Examiner and subtitled The Midwest. I think because the theme for this issue is an atlas and every piece in the collection is linked to a location on our planet). A New Examiner features Lane Dean, Jr. taking a 15 minute break from processing tax returns at his workplace - that's all I'll reveal, I don't want to spoil it. It's not terribly long, but it does help to develop the character of Lane Dean, Jr. we've read in the various excerpts so far. Stylistically it is very similar to the other excerpts - measured pace, careful and matter of fact description, focus on small details of specific things. It is very restrained. Which means I am even more excited for the arrival of The Pale King - I want to know more about Lane Dean, Jr. The quality of the issue of The Lifted Brow is great. 300 pages of fiction, art, and 2 CDs of music. I'm looking forward to picking it up for a closer read later tonight. | | No comments for this item |
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Infinite Jest
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Saturday, 09 January 2010 |
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First I've heard of this, sounds pretty interesting - I'd be keen to see some of the interpretations.
A FAILED ENTERTAINMENT Selections from the filmography of James O. Incandenza Exhibition Dates: Jan 29 - Feb 19th Opening Reception: Friday, Jan 29th, 6-8 pm Film Screening to take place during opening reception. The LeRoy Neiman Gallery has commissioned artists and filmmakers to re-create seminal works from Incandenza's filmography. (Thanks, Ron)
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