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DFW Remembrance
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Tuesday, 23 February 2010 |
The Winter issue of Critique: Studies in Contemporary Fiction ( Table of Contents) contains essays about fiction writers who have died over the past decade. It includes an essay David Foster Wallace: “That Distinctive Singular Stamp of Himself” by his Illinois State University colleague of 10 years, Charles B. Harris. It is an insightful piece about DFW, includes a number of moving personal anecdotes and considers his wide reaching achievements. It's not yet available freely online (I'm not sure if it will be) but if you have access to academic journals through your work you should be able to track it down.
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Conferences
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Monday, 22 February 2010 |
Scott F. Parker's Rain Taxi piece, Notes from Footnotes: New Directions in David Foster Wallace Studies is a comprehensive overview that successfully catches the energy present at the conference I attended in NY last year. Considering the depth and breadth of material covered in one day it does do a pretty good job of getting across the energy in the room during a very busy day. I have to disagree with Parker that session 2 could be seen as a low point of the day, Taveira and Hering's were a couple of my fave papers for the day... maybe I'm more visual. (Thanks, Judd)
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DFW Biography
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Thursday, 04 February 2010 |
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I've been lucky enough to receive a galley of David Lipsky's Although Of Course You End Up Becoming Yourself: A Road Trip with David Foster Wallace - I am stunned at the content. 300 pages of transcripts from 5 days of recorded conversations spent on the road with DFW on the last leg of his IJ tour. David lipsky inserts asides, thoughts, responses, and questions in a way that would not have been possible in the original piece for which this all took place. I can't wait to get home and keep reading. It is personal, and real, and moving - and best of all - it is David Foster Wallace speaking about David Foster Wallace. I am so sad he is gone. (Pre-order from Amazon) Responding to redsock's comment below: It isn't simply a straight transcription of the tapes - it's better than that. There's a neat introductory piece, and David Lipsky's thoughts and observations appear throughout the text without disrupting the conversations.
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Infinite Jest
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Friday, 29 January 2010 |
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Organiser Sam Ekwurtzel speaks about some of the multimedia aspects of the show: So all of the films in the show are for the most part short loops, maybe five to ten minute films. All of the films are played from a column of twenty-three VCRs sending out twenty-three video signals that go into a switcher and output into a large monitor and projector. So the audience is able to change what they’re seeing by turning it up. It’s sort of like an old analog television. You know how there’s that knob, you change the channel, you can still turn it infinitely so it loops on itself. It sounds super interesting. If the fantods readers that said they were attending would like to put together some thoughts on the exhibition I'll post them here.
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Critical Analysis
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Thursday, 28 January 2010 |
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The article argues that the best way to understand DFW's work is through Nietzsche's concept of oblivion, which is our consciousness's screening device. Joshua uses this concept to account for the sadness in DFW's literary journalism, which makes for a particularly interesting article due to the more common focus on the humour in his non-fiction. Well worth your time.
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Interviews with or concerning DFW
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Thursday, 28 January 2010 |
Howling Fantods reader, Lefteris, just made me aware that the 84 minute ZDF David Foster Wallace extended interview ( previously) is now hosted on YouTube in 10 parts. This makes it so much easier to digest as the zdf site only allowed viewing of the whole interview in one go. Thanks heaps, Lefteris.
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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:
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Critical Analysis
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Monday, 25 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.
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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. |
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