Home Old Site News Archive
Thursday, 18 January 2007 15:30
NOTE: This is all past news! It is here purely for the interest of those who would like to see the frequency of the updates over the years, since March 1997, many of the old links do not work, but you might have some more luck in the ordered part of the site. For the latest news scroll down the front page a bit.
2004 (below)
- March 30, 2004
- Audience for Ransom "Everything is Green" unfolded with a recorded recitation of a short story by the modern writer David Foster Wallace, loops of distorted country-music samples, wind sounds and breathy repeated vocals. Wilson and McDermott were the live variables which cut through this soundtrack.
- The Believers from the Guardian Unlimited: Gordon Burn considers what it is that Zadie Smith, Nick Hornby and David Foster Wallace have in common, and makes a case for the coterie as a creative hub.
- A work of art or a harbinger of violence? Have a read of this!
- E&M hits Slashdot Books
- Another review of E&M this time from The Sydney Morning Herald
- March 17, 2004
- OBLIVION: Stories, DFW's upcoming collection of short stories is nearing release (around June 2004) with more details about it are appearing as we close in on this date. At this stage the collection contains 8 stories:
- Mister Squishy
- The Soul is Not a Smithy
- Incarnations of Burned Children
- Another Pioneer
- Good Old Neon
- Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature
- Oblivion
- Suffering Channel
At least 5 of these have appeared in other magazines or collections, so no real surprises when we compare this trend to his two other collections of shorts and the collection of essays.
- March 3, 2004
- Some big Oblivion updates over the next few days, but first:
- CFP: David Foster Wallace's INFINITE JEST (collection; deadline 5/1/04)
Essays are invited for a proposed casebook of new essays on David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest.
The editors (Joseph Dewey and Trey Strecker) are soliciting essays from established scholars as well as newcomers, and the collection will also include essays-responses from selected novelists (perhaps even Mr. Wallace himself). In all, the project promises to be hugely attractive to a university press.
To allow contributors the freedom necessary to explore the text, this volume of essays will not be restricted by any theoretical approach or agenda.
We hope you share our enthusiasm both for Wallace’s massively-conceived text as well as for a project designed to bring that text to a wider audience.
If interested, please send a 300-500 word abstract and vita by 1 May 2004. Completed essays (15-20 pages) will be due 15 October 2004.
Please send two copies of your proposal to the editors at Trey Strecker; Department of English; Ball State University; Muncie, IN 47306-0460.
February 12, 2004
February 10, 2004
- We are very close to the comp announcement...
- The DFW reading at Cal Poly has changed from Feb 10 to Feb 13th.
- OBLIVION: STORIES, DFW's new collection of short stories will be published June 8, 2004 by Little, Brown.
- David Foster Wallace will tour to five U.S. cities this June for his new book Oblivion: Stories: Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York, Philadelphia, and Boston.
February 6, 2004
- PARODY COMP FINALISTS!
The competition result nears, to mark this occasion the finalists' entries are now available. Ten finalists have been selected, you can read the final ten here: PARODY FINALISTS.
February 3, 2004
- Competition CLOSED:
No more entries will be accepted, we are now in the process of selecting the finalists. Once the finalists are selected I'll make them available to read before the winners are announced.
January 29, 2004
- Competition Update:
We've got quite a few entries in for the comp and I know more are due on this final weekend, the quality so far is outstanding!
I know a number of you would like to use the FULL weekend to work on your piece, so as long as I receive your entry sometime on the first of Feb I'll accept it. That gives everyone Sunday as well!
Good Luck!
January 13, 2004
- Understanding David Foster Wallace Competition
Presented by www.thehowlingfantods.com and Marshall Boswell
Are you keen to win a signed copy of Marshall Boswell's 'Understanding David Foster Wallace (Understanding Contemporary American Literature) '? If so, you'll need to demonstrate YOUR understanding of David Foster Wallace through creative parody.
That's right, you'll need to write a parody of our favourite author's 'style' (how you define the style is up to you) in a MAXIMUM of 400 words. To make it a bit more challenging you'll need to include an automobile of some sort pulling into a driveway, and a very David Foster Wallace-like pop-cultural reference.
We have a couple of copies to give away, the winners will receive a copy of the book and have their entries displayed for all to read here at The Howling Fantods.
Rules and Conditions:
1. Only one entry per person.
2. The parody is to be a maximum of 400 words in length.
3. The parody must include an automobile of some sort pulling into a driveway, and a very David Foster Wallace-like pop-cultural reference.
4. You give permission for your entry to be reproduced at www.thehowlingfantods.com after the competition winners are announced.
5. The competition will be judged by Nick Maniatis and Marshall Boswell.
6. Email your plain-text entry (included in the main body of the email, no attachments allowed), along with your full name to (comp closed).
7. Entries close on February 1st, 2004.
- January 12, 2004
- January 6, 2004
- January 4, 2004
2003 (below)
- December 16, 2003
- Well, it is certainly slow news time. I am keeping an eye on DFW news, but nothing really new has cropped up recently. This is in addition to busy report writing at school. Please let me know via email if any good news shows up. I'll also take this moment to thank all those people who ordered E&M via the links on this page... so... thanks! If Christmas passes without an update have a safe and enjoyable holiday season.
- November 19, 2003
- SFGate.com review of E&M: Math meets humor for infinite wonder.
- The November issue of The Believer is out and on sale with the interview of DFW by Dave Eggers mentioned in previous updates.
- November 15, 2003
- November 12, 2003
- Salon has an article about E&M What's bigger than a kazillion?. NOTE: This article is available through Salon premium. If you are not a Salon Premium member you can view an online ad to give you a one day pass. I think the article is well worth it.
- November 6, 2003
- Welcome to the new domain and server! If you notice any problems I'd love to know, hopefully teething won't last too long.
- November 4, 2003
- The Christian Science Monitor reviews E&M When you get to the end, keep going.
- Thanks for the feedback about the crazy formatting antics in some browsers. I've made some adjustments, I hope it works for all of you now.
- November 1, 2003
- October 30, 2003
- A very positive review from Boston.com From here to infinity: Germs, math, and the beauty of discovery .
- Another review over at Guardian Unlimited Keep on tracking.
- E&M New Scientist review.
- My copy of E&M arrived from Amazon yesterday and to put it bluntly, I'm loving it. I guess it helps that I'm interested in Mathematics (it certainly does help), but I still love reading new stuff by DFW. If you don't mind maths and like DFW I'd have to recommend this one based upon what I've read so far.
- Finally, thanks to all the readers sending me links to new reviews. I couldn't do this without all of your help. If anyone comes across any new reviews don't hesitate to email me at the address at the base of the page. Cheers, Nick.
- October 29, 2003
- October 28, 2003
- An E&M review in The New Yorker To Infinity and Beyond.
- There's an interview with DFW about E&M in the Boston Globe Approaching Infinity which includes some details about the upcoming shorts collection, Oblivion.
- A brief review of E&M over at The Onion Infinite Wisdom.
- If you haven't picked it up yet, you can order Everything and More through Amazon via the links in the column to the right.
And you've probably noticed the new formatting of this page... It has not yet penetrated deeper into the site, I'm waiting for feedback and still tweaking. Feedback (if you have any) would be great (email address at the base of the page). - October 16, 2003
- October 15, 2003
The release of Everything and More is upon us! Some readers have purchased it at the Union Square Barnes & Noble in Manhattan, and there are many waiting for Amazon to ship (including myself over here in Australia). It has quite a genrous sales rank over on Amazon at present.
While waiting for your copy to arrive (or your store to stock up), check out this new review: Peter Ritter reviews Everything and More for Minneapolis City Pages.
DFW Readings and Lectures
- October 17, 2003 : New York City on at Barnes & Noble Union Square at 7:00 p.m.
- February 10, 2004 : Cal Poly Arts WriterSpeak (7:00 p.m. - venue to be announced): novelist David Foster Wallace. Some links here and here
- September 21, 2003
Marshall Boswell's Understanding David Foster Wallace (Understanding Contemporary American Literature), due for publication in December 2003 has turned up on Amazon US and Amazon UK
- September 19, 2003
For a sneak peek at DFW's new book, Web Conjunctions has an exclusive extract of Everything & More.
- September 15, 2003
Reproduced with permission from SEED Magazine, the final paragraph of Jordan Ellenberg's review of Everything and More.
*********************************
"Early in the book he makes a wise comment about the decontextualized nature of school math: "That we end up not even knowing that we don't know is the really insidious part of most math classes." And if Wallace fails to fully elucidate Cantor's great clarification, he succeeds in one equally important task: his readers will know how much they don't know about numbers, geometry, and infinity. Considering the intuition-bending nature of modern mathematics, that's no small achievement."
--From Jordan Ellenberg's review of Everyttthing and More in the Fall '03 Issue of SEED Magazine. Jordan is Assistant Professor of Mathematics at Princeton University. His first novel, The Grasshopper King, was recently published by Coffee House Press.
************************************
Check out Jordan Ellenberg's page and read about his well received book, 'The Grasshopper King'.
(Thanks Jordan and SEED!)
- September 11, 2003
As formal release approaches, Everything & More pre-release reviews/reports are starting to appear: - WIRED issue 10/03 includes a favorable review.
- Poets & Writers has a brief write-up available online.
Thankyou for all of the emails alerting me to these! Keep them coming.
- September 2, 2003
Just letting you all know that the contact email at the base of the page has changed due to excessive spam, and the guestbook seems to work again.
- August 1, 2003
Long time, no updates (I've been busy working on this. Thankyou for your continued visits in a time of very little news.) - A had a huge surprise a few weeks back when checking out the website of one of my favourite musical outfits, b(if)tek, two of the most talented electonic music makers and performers of recent years. Anyway, the surprise was finding their site linking to this one! I've been listening to their music (and catching them live) at every possible occasion since I first heard them back in 1998, and suggest you do too, you won't be sorry! (A big 'Hi!' and thanks to the b(if)tek girls.)
- How about these DFW button pins at Ebay?
- A brief DFW mention in Slate.
- I picked up a copy of the wonderful short-story collection The Burned Children of America it contains DFW's short "Incarnations of Burned Children", but is not the only highlight. Completely worth it if you have read the DFW short or not. (Available in bookshops here in Australia, Amazon.co.uk, is it available in the US yet?)
- June 29, 2003
- The new AGNI website is up, if you'd like to purchase the latest issue to get a hold of DFW's excellent new short, "The Soul is Not a Smithy".
- Issue #6 of The Readerville Journal contains a parody of DFW journalistic writing style (like ASFTINDA), a visit to the beach is the situation. Word has it that the parody is not too good, but the magazine itself is.
- This weekend's Guardian published a nice article about irony: The final irony including a little DFW reference. Even without the reference it is worth the read.
- June 22, 2003
Well, it has been a while since updates (and there will be a few bits and pieces over the next few days), but the most important is that Stephen Burn's Guide to IJ has been released. It is certainly worth the read if you like IJ, particularly for the chronology. Even 'The Howling Fantods' gets a mention.
- May 16, 2003
May 11, 2003 May 8 2003: John D’Agata (Editor of The Next American Essay, including 'Ticket to Fair' by DFW) interviewed on Michael Silverblatt's Bookworm show. Including a guest reading by DFW (the reading comes in around 15:40).
- May 10, 2003
The First Draft Version of Infinite Jest
Quite possibly the most interesting and exciting thing ever published here at The Howling Fantods! Steven Moore has written an amazingly detailed comparison of The First Draft Version of Infinite Jest with the final publication version in this excellent essay. 100% required reading for fans and scholars of Infinite Jest.
- May 8, 2003
NEW DFW SHORT!
"The Soul Is Not a Smithy" can be found in AGNI 57. Word has it running at approx. 40 pages. Does anyone have any more details?
- April 27, 2003
- April 26, 2003
Congratulations to: Marcel, Marco, Paul, Jesse and Eric!
All have won a copy of "David Foster Wallace's "Infinite Jest": A Readers Guide".
A big thankyou to Stephen Burn, Continuum Books (and David from Continuum) for making this competition possible.
- April 18, 2003
The comp is now closed. All copies have been given away. Thanks to everyone who entered. Winners have been notified. (More info when i return from hols)
- April 13, 2003
- COMPETITION UPDATE: The comp is still running! There is still ONE book to give away. See April 12 news for more info.
I'll be AFK for just over a week, so results will be posted then. Until that time, keep trying!
- April 12, 2003
- COMPETITION NOW RUNNING: Would you like to be a proud owner of the upcoming "David Foster Wallace's "Infinite Jest": A Readers Guide (Continuum Contemporaries)" by Stephen Burn?
If so, the first FIVE emails with all answers correct will win a copy of Stephen Burn's book.
- The Questions:
- 1. How many complete circles are there on the border that runs around Hal's room at E.T.A.? (Question proposed by Stephen Burn)
- 2. In Infinite Jest, what is the name of the Assistant Mailroom Technician of the New Orleans Saints?
- 3. When did 'The Howling Fantods' first start providing David Foster Wallace based news and resources (Year and Month)?
Email your full answers to @sneakemail.com with the Subject "IJ Guide Comp". This email address will be valid for 24 hours... be quick!
GOOD LUCK!
Note: There are still a few copies waiting to be given away... the email address will stay open until then... keep hunting!
- Mar 21, 2003
- Thanks to a large submission from one of our readers the DFW Bibliography page has been updated with 29 new additions! Now there are quite a few more publications for the collectors out there to track down!
- Mar 2, 2003 Well I'm back from school camp and a HUGE thankyou to the many readers who emailed me with news over the past week and a bit.
- Feb 12, 2003 Thankyou to everyone who emailed etc over the last few days. In total opposition to my speculation on the 9th (oops, I should read JUST a little more at times) the new DFW publication Everything and More is in fact the Cantor biography. Now we only have to wait until October to read it.
- Feb 9, 2003 New DFW Book TITLE: Everything and More (Due: 9th October)
Amazon.co.uk is now listing the new DFW book (doesn't seem to be listed at amazon.com)with the title 'Everything and More'. Let's hope this is the collection of short stories we have been expecting!
Everything and More - David Foster Wallace paperback.
Hardcover - 320 pages (9 October, 2003) Weidenfeld & N.; ISBN: 0297645676
- January 20, 2003 New DFW Book Listing:
Amazon.co.uk (doesn't seem to be listed at amazon.com)has a listing for an Untitled David Foster Wallace paperback. Paperback - 304 pages (6 November, 2003) Abacus; ISBN: 0349116490
I'm not sure if it is the biography of Georg Cantor he is supposedly working on but my suspicians lean that way at this point in time.
There was also the publishers weekly wire in Feb 2002 that reported Little-Brown has bought the rights to a collection of DFW short stories. But this was slated for 2004 way back then. As the 'untitled' is listed as a paperback I find it hightly unlikely to be this one.
If you have any further details please email me at the address at the base of the page.
- January 13, 2003
- zdfKultur has some more info for German releases of DFW books. Looks like IJ is due for 2005 in german.
- "Burned Children of America", an anthology of American Fiction that minimum fax published in Italy in 2001, is going to be released by Hamish Hamilton (an imprint of Penguin) sometime in 2003. This anthology includes the story by DFW that inspired the collection, "Incarnations of Burned Children". More details can be found in the wallace-l mailing list post.
- January 11, 2003
A new interview with DFW has been published on the German website, Kultur. You'll need to translate it (with google or babelfish) to read it if German isn't a language you are fluent in... (and as per usual, the translation is... err... interesting).
- January 10, 2003
Happy New Year!!! - The wallace-l group read of Infinite Jest continues. As I am sort of co-ordinating the read (not as efficiently as I could be mind you) I've set up a page with the current schedule and reference links: The IJIJ Organisation and Reference Page.
- Marcel has put together a neat webpage for wallace-l resources. Go and have a look at and but so...com.
- I put together a (very!) rough sketch of the ETA grounds a few months back. For info about this diagram check the original Wallace-l post.
- I've fixed a couple of the resource links I was alerted to (thanks!) on the Infinite Jest page.
- As always, if you have any DFW related news to share I'd love to know. Drop me a line at the email address at the bottom of this page.
2002 (below)
- November 25 It has been just over a month and not much to report DFW wise...
- What now comes as no real surprise after recent news, Oblivion did not appear in Esquire. Does anyone have info on its publication?
- The New York Times Magazine included a piece called This Is a Headline For an Essay About Meta which includes a brief discussion of OCTET. (As always free registration is required for the NYT online)
- Jesse Hilson's Handy glossary of terms used in “MR. SQUISHY” is finally up. Check it out, it is well worth it!
- The Bibliography has had a slight update too.
- IJIJ, the Infinite Jest group read, continues over at wallace-l, sign up to the mailing list to keep up with discussions and the latest section we are reading.
- October 14
- NEW BOOK FOR DFW: A biography...
"So Mr. Atlas and Jesse Cohen, the other top editor at Atlas Books, signed up the novelist David Foster Wallace to do a biography of a Georg Cantor, a 19th-century German mathematician. As Mr. Cohen explained, 'He's the one who discovered that there are different levels of infinity, and some are bigger than others.'"
You can check out the whole article over at the New York Times Website (you need to register, for free, to read the article)
- Oblivion didn't appear in the November issue of Esquire. I am yet to hear any news about this... I guess we still have the December issue to hope for.
- You may have noticed the recent spurt of updates has totally stopped...why? Well I am organising the current group read of Infinite Jest on the wallace-l mailing list. Hit the wallace-l page for info how to subscribe or for a link to the web based archive. This is the most active the list has been in quite a while!
(Thankyou to everyone who emailed me about the biography!)
- September 10
- Well 'Oblivion' has been reported not to have appeared in the October 2002 issue of Esquire. It is due to appear in a 'Fall' issue (as word has it). Does anyone have any info? UPDATE: From what I have heard it is still 'slated' for Fall sometime. Let's all keep our fingers crossed for next issue.
- Read the Seattle Times Review of the O. Henry Prize Stories 2002. (Thanks Matt).
- And if that wasn't enough news for today I have added a number of internal links to the Bibliography and to the Web Publications pages (Links to 'Tense Present', some 'Brief Interviews' from Harpar's, the 'David Lynch' essay and some others).
- September 7
- The O. Henry Prize Stories 2002 (Prize Stories) has been released. It includes the DFW story, "Good Old Neon". Check the Howling Fantods Bookstore for a link to more details or read the Boston Globe review.
- The new DFW story Oblivion set to appear in the next issue of Esquire should start to appear around September 10. For some commentary on what to expect check out this wallace-l post.
- The New Yorker Festival DFW session appears to be sold out.
- Wallace-l discussion has been particularly interesting lately! Page 507 of IJ points to an interesting link between Gately and Hercules... Discussion has also started in the Howling Fantod Forums.
- August 21 This just arrived in my inbox, thanks for the tip! The following details are in relation to the first night of The New Yorker Festival. Dave Eggers and Zadie Smith are appearing later on that evening.
David Foster Wallace and Jonathan Franzen David Foster Wallace is the author of the novels "Infinite Jest" and "The Broom of the System," two short-story collections, and a book of essays and arguments, "A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again." Jonathan Franzen won a National Book Award for his novel "The Corrections," portions of which first appeared in The New Yorker. The book was a finalist for a Pulitzer Prize and for the PEN / Faulkner Award for Fiction. His other novels are "Strong Motion" and "The Twenty-seventh City." He won a National Magazine Award this year for "My Father's Brain," a piece about his father and Alzheimer's disease. A book of essays, "How to Be Alone," will appear in October. Date: Fri Sep 27 2002 Time: 07:00 PM Venue: New York Quarterly Meeting House Price: $15.00 Address: 15 Rutherford Place New York, NY
- August 16 Upcoming Publication News!
- Now this is exciting! Word has reached me that a new DFW short will appear in Esquire in Fall (Spring for those of us in the southern hemisphere). The working title is 'Oblivion' and it will appear in Two Parts in two consecutive issues.
It will be very interesting to see how this pans out!
- The Next O.Henry collection (Fall 2002) will include "Good Old Neon".
And the DFW Bibliography continues to expand with 5 additions today, thanks Kyösti! Keep those obscure publications and reviews written by DFW coming in.
- August 12 More minor addtitions to the DFW Bibliography. This is starting to look really good now!
- August 9 EDIT:
Check out the Audio Section on the DFW Interview page, there are some great realmedia readings and radio interviews to listen to.
Head over to the Thesis Section to read this long article I just found Television and Literature: David Foster Wallace's Concept of Image-Fiction, Don DeLillo's White Noise and Thomas Pynchon's Vineland. Considers some of ASFT and 'Little Expressionless Animals'.
Site Wide Updates everywhere!
Yes, that's right, I've been over the site fixing and noting broken links, organising stuff, getting rid of redunancies etc and in doing so I have discovered some fantastic stuff that I forgot existed!
I have managed to recover some of the broken links, and I'll be searching for new locations over the next few days, but if you know of the new location of any links I'd appreciate if you'd drop me a line so we can speed this all up!
The page most updated is the main Infinite Jest page. I have fixed a number of links, mark many as broken and added a little section, Infinite Jest Reading Resources where you will find: - IJ Notes and Speculations
- IJ Thesis Page
- IJ Scene by Scene Guide
- IJ Online Index
- IJ Chapter Reference
- IJ Vocab Glossary
- Matt Bucher's great IJ Character Profiles
- Amy Buglass' Photos of Enfield and ETA taken during a class trip.
I've also put a lot of work into the bibliography, so if you have any possible entries with bibliographic details, news, or know of a correct link drop me a line at
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
- August 8 It has been a long time coming, but due to this McSweeney's admission I am now able to formally reveal that the short "Mr Squishy" (published in McSweeney's issue 5) is actually DFW.
I know this comes as no surprise to those of you who have read the piece, but it is nice to have confirmation.
Additionally, have a listen to the excellent readings recorded during December 2000. Available at the Lannan Archives. You'll need to have realplayer installed to hear them. The recordings are of extremely high quality and very funny!
As always, if you hear anything DFW related, or think something should be posted here drop me a line via the sneakemail address at the base of this page.
- June 5 New DFW TriQuarterly #112 contains "Peoria {4}" and "Peoria {9} 'Whispering Pines' ". I still need confirmation of the titles... my email address is at the base of the page.
- May 3, 2002 Thanks to those readers that dropped me a line... this news seems to be in reference to "Good Old Neon" in issue 37 that has been around for a while.
The latest Conjunctions has a DFW piece that I believe is at least 30 pages long. If you have details drop me a line at
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
.
- Apr 28 Matt Bucher's Infinite Jest Character Profiles have been added. If you don't visit the forums the might want to take a look at these they are excellent. Thanks, Matt!
- Apr 20 I've got some nice resources appearing in the next week or so. In addition, recent discussion has revisited the Elizabeth Klemm identity thing, if you have any news drop me a line at
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
(my sneakemail.com spamblock address).
- Feb 21 Update: DFW Publication 2004? It does indeed seem that there is a new DFW publication in the works:
From the Publishers Weekly wire:
"Little, Brown editor-in-chief Michael Petsch bought world English rights for a new collection of stories by David Foster Wallace, cult author of Infinite Jest and the most recent story collection, Brief Interviews with Hideous Men. The untitled collection was bought from agent Bonnie Nadell at the Frederick Hill Bonnie Nadell agency, and publication is planned for 2004...."
Thanks to everyone who responded with info so quickly. (Do we really have to wait so long...?)
New dfw book? Well, I'm not sure as I have not had the time to check yet, but supposedly PublishersLunch has on it somewhere a reference to a new dfw publication. You need to register to get deeper into the site. I am off to work as I type...anyone got time to post more details?
- Feb 17 Current thoughts are there is no DFW story in the latest McSweeney's. The footnoted short is by William Vollmann which kinda rules out DFW! Thanks for the helpful emails and message board comments.
- Feb 16 Can anyone add evidence to the possibility that the latest McSweeney's contains a psuedonymous (ahh... that reads better 17/2) dfw short? (yes there are footnotes). More news as soon as it arises.
- Feb 9 Recap of latest dfw publications:
- Oct 2001, Essay: "The View from Mrs. Thompson's," in the October 25, issue of Rolling Stone.
- Nov 2001, A new short: "Good Old Neon" published Conjunctions, 37; 20th anniversary ed.
- Dec 2001 Another short: "Another Pioneer" featured in the summer 2001 issue of The Colorado Review, "Special Issue: Trying Fiction"
Any more news, publications, or rumours in this time of little new dfw info? email me at: nmaniatis at yahoo.com
Oh and finally, Andrew Sandley's DFW page is back up visit it here!
- Feb 7 2002 Hi everyone! Ok, I have a few updates ready to go over the next couple of days... really I've just been sitting back waiting for info and havn't put any info in as I have been on a 5 week break from teaching and NOW I'm right back into it! There have been a couple of publications and what seems like heaps of discussion on wallace-l and the message board, and I've accidently (after an intentional extended break) picked up some dfw again (A supposedly fun thing...) and can't put it down. Updates to follow.
Once again, thanks for the constant visits, keep coming back!
2001 (below)
- November 11 New DFW! "Good Old Neon" can be found in Conjunctions, 37; 20th anniversary ed. Thanks to everyone who emailed me about this item.
- November 9 An update with a few old links sent to me by regular readers...thanks.
- "Tense Present" is online at Findarticles.com
- Amazon has put up some sample pages from BIWHM, you can read 3 complete parts of this collection. Forever Overhead, Death Is Not The End and the tennis one. Click here for the amazon page
- NPR aired a review of David Lynch's Mulholland Drive with a brief mention of DFW's take on David Lynch (for which I know the link is not working elsewhere on the page!).
- October 5 NEW WALLACE!! I just received notice that there is a new DFW essay "The View from Mrs. Thompson's," in the October 25, issue of Rolling Stone.
Additionally the Los Angeles Times on September 25 ran an article about DFW and his upcoming position at Pomona College.
Click here for the story
- September 22 I was mailed this link to another DFW short story online a little while ago. Incarnations of Burned Children from Esquire's web site. This is a good one, not too recent though. Thanks, w.
I am still trying to keep my finger on the DFW pulse but there really is no news. Either there is none, or as I suspect, DFW is keeping quiet so the net rumours and embellishments don't start. Keep checking back, reading and posting in the message board or subscribe to wallace-l and you'll know if anything new turns up. Cheers, Nick.
- July 16 Brooks Daverman has submitted his Honours Paper to the Howling Fantods for visitors to read, The Limits of the Infinite: The Use of Alcoholics Anonymous in Infinite Jest as a Narrative Solution after Postmodernism.
- July 1 I'm back! It has been a busy term and all the student reports are done... finally. I haven't been making an effort to update as there hasn't really been heaps to report. There will be a number of updates over the next few weeks starting in about 5 days... hope you keep dropping in! Nick
April 22 Little parody: Letter from Disney Corp. to David Foster Wallace. Quite funny.
And the Guestbook is working again (from this page at least...)
April 17 New Article and Thesis - Dubious Math in Infinite Jest by Mike Strong
- A recent thesis by Derek Edward Wayne, Addiction To Itself: Self-Consciousness In David Foster Wallece's Infinite Jest
Thankyou to both Mike and Derek for allowing me to post their work on the Howling Fantods.
I am not quite sure of the format of this new review (as i have not seen it) so I will quote the email from BT Henry,
" There's an "indexical book review" by DFW of _The Best of the Prose Poem_ (edited by Peter Johnson) in the new issue of _Rain Taxi Review of Books_."
Thanks, BT. Hope this update has been big enough for you all!
Additionally the guest book is up and running again for those quick comments you don't have the time to post to the message board (but the link is only working from the front page so far)
- Mar 30
- Mar 20 Almost a month...and a new update. DFW has a new article in the April 2001 Issue of Harper's "Tense Present: Democracy, English, and the Wars over Usage"
Once again thankyou everyone who emailed me personally, living in Australia means I don't find out about these things as early as US residents. I hope you enjoy it (I'm off to the national library to find a copy...)
- Feb 25 Ok it has been a while, so how about a little news?
Read the Pomona College Report about DFW's new appointment.
...and...
How about an Infinite Jest Vocabulary Glossary?
(and keep an eye out for a dubious maths in IJ submission)...
- Jan 27 Happy Australia Day for yesterday! Happy New Year for a month ago, and happy today for some news!
NEW DFW. If you want to check out a book review written by DFW in Science just visit the message board and check out the message, New DFW. Thanks to DAVIDFleissig for posting this!
2000 (below)
- Dec 26 Hi all. Okay, as you can guess news is very slow. No understatement there. Sorry JoJo, I do look at the guestbook. Please use the Message Board to air views etc until SOMETHING comes along!
As for my view on Mr. Squishy... I live in Australia and have yet to get my hands on a copy! Have a great New Year, I have time to look for news now.
- Oct 27 It is good to see lots of people are visiting the message board, but why aren't you posting? Feel free to start your own threads and discussions. You will now need to register before you post, this is so people don't use the same names etc. If anyone has big problems with this drop me a line. And thanks for the positive feedback about the look of the site!
- Oct 25 Hmmm... Remember the Premiere porn article? Well I have word that the Elizabeth Klemm story, "Mr. Squishy" in the latest McSweeney's may be DFW...here is the description from the McSweeney's site:
"Mr. Squishy," by Elizabeth Klemm This is a very long and very difficult and very rewarding piece by a new Chicago writer who has heretofore published but one story. We hope you will like it.
Has anyone read it yet? Anyone with any more details? email me or post it in the new messageboard. (see below)
AND a new look for the site, about time too!
Okay, finally I have set up a useful and usable message board, please use it to continue all those board-like discussions from the guest book. Ask questions, post news, etc. The new messageboard!.
- Oct 24 That thesis finally! Travis W. Stern's Thesis "I Am in Here": Fragmentation and the Individual in David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest. Check it out.
- Oct 22 Sorry about this update being a little late! Just spent the past week seeing The Cure in concert four times... :)
"Incarnations of Burned Children." can be found on the web at www.esquire.com Enjoy!
- Oct 17 A NEW DFW short story, "Incarnations of Burned Children." can be found in the latest "ESQUIRE". I assume this is the US publication. A sin the past, international versions have differed with other countries not running the same stuff... go have a look.
And if you shop around a bit you can get "Up Simba!" for a bit less than quoted at Barnes and Noble. If you have a Palm you can even find it in that format. As for the new thesis I have been talking about, it is ready to go (I know I have said this before) and I'll post a link soon.
- Sept 29 "Up, Simba!: 7 Days on the Trail of an Anticandidate" has been available in ebook format for a little while now...sorry it has taken so long to pass the message on. You must download microsoft reader first (6MB). The cost is US$4.95. You can download it from Barnes & Noble here.
- Sept 17 Ok, it has been ages but there is some news. DFW's long article "Up, Simba!" is due out very soon in e-book (ish) format, here is a review of it from Village Voice. Thanks to everyone who posted this news to me.
- August 10 DFW's KCRW radio interview from August 3 is now online. Listen to it here with Realplayer G2.
- August 2 Well, the news just keeps on flowing in. Thankyou to Josh for this one:
Just read that DFW's article on McCain (evidently longer than the version that appeared in Rolling Stone and retitled "Up, Simba!") will be one of the first releases from iPublish, Time-Warner's new ebook company. I believe it will only be available in this electronic format, and will come out sometime in September. Here's the press release:
ipublish.com.
- August 1 Dylan McCullough dropped me a line to say that he is "the Producer/Adaptor/Director/Actor of a new play based on selections from Brief Interviews With Hideous Men". It is fully supported by DFW and his reps. Below is the official release:
-------------------------------------
NEWS FROM SHADOWPLAY
To receive a postcard for the production with all information and some groovy artwork, please send your name and address to fac23 at (@)mindspring.com with the word POSTCARD in the subject line. Also if you have any questions, all inquiries should be sent to this address as well.
"Hideous Men," based on selected stories from the book "Brief Interviews With Hideous Men" by David Foster Wallace adapted and directed by Dylan McCullough, opens at 3:30 PM Wednesday, August 16, 2000. A part of the New York International Fringe Festival, fringeNYC, a production of the Present Company, "Hideous Men" continues at 9:45 PM Friday August 18, 2:15 Saturday August 19, 7:00 PM Tuesday August 22, 5:15 PM Thursday August 24 and 12:00 Noon Saturday August 26 at Henry Street Settlement Recital Hall, 466 Grand St (@ Pitt St.), New York, NY.
The play centers on a woman's (Carol Monda) quest for connection with herself and the modern world. This journey is enacted in the form of various "interviews" she has with men (Justin Campbell and Trevor A. Williams) across the country. Tales of love, violence, and sex propel her from place to place. However, the man (Dylan McCullough) she has left behind cannot let her go and eventually tracks her down in Florida where the couple has their final encounter. While the world of the piece is realistic, the telling of the story incorporates meta-theatrical styles, ultimately leaving the questions to the audience to answer for themselves.
"Hideous Men" is the first theatrical production of any of Wallace's writings, whose work includes the novels "Infinite Jest" and "The Broom of the System" and the collections "A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again" and "Girl With Curious Hair.
All tickets are $12 and may be obtained by calling (212) 420-8877 in New York or 1-888-FringeNYC outside New York.
- July 25 There will be a new DFW radio interview broadcast on the Bookworm on KCRW Los Angeles on August 3. The transcript will be available at the KCRW Website shortly after.
- July 19 Check out this salon transcript of Courtney Love on napster and a mention of dfw: Courtney Love does the math. The actual quote can be found on page 2. (Oh, the new thesis is ready to go, it should be up in a few days)
- July 15 A new article, "Wallace's Infinite Jest" has appeared in The Explicator v.58 no.3 Spring 2000. It compares Stendhal's "The Red and the Black" to IJ. If anyone has read this or read the red and the black drop me a line.
- JULY 7 No this page is not dead (hi jojo!). But I am extremely busy with teaching so I apologise for the few and far between updates. I am currently waiting on a new thesis to put up and hoping that people will send me news items if they find them. Unfortunately there are not many (read any) around. The IJIJ wallace-l reading is still going strong so if you haven't checked it out go and lurk for a while (you can find the relevant links below.
- May 26 COULD IT BE... NEWS! Okay, so I've been heaps busy with teaching lately but I'd like to thank eveyone who has posted the following...THANKYOU!
The best synopsis follows:
"In Chicago, there is a National Public Radio station called WBEZ. They have a syndicated show called This American Life. Last week's show had an audioexcerpt of the Rolling Stone article on the McCain campaign. Check it out at www.thislife.org."
Thanks everyone. I will keep posting news as it is sent.
- May 4 Okay, long time no update... reason... IJIJ. I haven't been participating (or even hosting as much as I should be.. ahem) but I have been lurking and re-reading IJ. Any news that ppl find would be great...just mail it to me.
April 12 And the IJIJ has begun! If you want to be part of the IJ(re-)read subscribe to wallace-l now (I cannot fathom participating on a first read...). It is going strong and slowly turning into a blizzard.
- Check out the InJesting Infinite Jest (IJIJ) page to get all of the deatils, schedules etc for the reading. Great page, Todd. Thanks for setting it up.
- There have been some letters to the Salon Editor about the DFW parody, thanks (again) Vicki.
- April 9 As we speak the crowd at wallace-l are organising a group read of Infinite Jest. Allan Wood has done (it seems) all of the initial stage organisation and the current schedule for reading (and hosts of discussion) is as follows as posted to wallace-l:
IJIJ Reading/Host Schedule:
Apr 10/Section 1 (pp. 3-37): Allan Wood
Apr 24/Section 2 (pp. 37-63):
May 8/Section 3 (pp. 65-95):
May 22/Section 4 (pp. 95-121):
June 5/Section 5 (pp. 121-151):
June 19/Section 6 (pp. 151-181):
July 3/Section 7 (pp. 181-219): Lindsay Beyerstein
July 17/Section 8 (pp. 219-258):
July 31/Section 9 (pp. 258-299):
Aug 14/Section 10 (pp. 299-317):
Aug 28/Section 11 (pp. 317-342):
Plenty of spots available. Don't be shy.
If I can take a swing at it, believe me, so can you.
IJIJ(1) posted Sunday night (I hope).
Click the highlighted link above or to the right to go about subscribing to wallace-l.
- April 5 How about a Salon article about the recent DFW article in Rolling Stone? Thanks, Vicki
- April 2 Got this a few days ago. It is an interesting little essay about the 'futuristic' setting of IJ. And possibly useful for those still confused about parts of the plot. Read it here.Thanks, Phil!
- March 24 NEW WALLACE ARTICLE!!!!
I'll just quote Marty's email (Thanks, Marty!):
Just received my Rolling Stone Issue 838, April 13, 2000 (DMX on the cover). David Foster Wallace has a piece in it entitled, "The Weasel, Twelve Monkeys, and the Shrub". It is basically the last seven days in John McCain's candidacy, but also opens up issues as to why young people don't vote.
So there ya go! When someone finishes it completely, drop me a line.
- March 15 Some articles! (Thanks Chris)
- March 11 Ok. So it has been ages. There really has not been much news at all. I am though (like it seems everyone else on wallace-l is doing) reading the new book by eggers. It came through from amazon last week, and i think i got one of the last 1st eds. It is very good so far. Highly recommended.
Feb 21 How about another article from The Feed? An older one this time November 3 99, but I'm sure you can guess why I have it listed here...
- Feb 16 How about that message board? This is the standard geocities one, I am currently setting up the UBB freeware one on another server that should be a bit better...but you can all try this one for now (click on the button above).
- Feb 15 First update in a while...I've been busy teaching so there hasn't been time for much else. But please do keep sending me anything new you find and I'll post it. I am STILL shopping around for the best message board (that is free) any suggestions? There seems to be a real need for one, I have been keeping an eye on the guestbook.
- Main new thing is The Null Set article out at The Feed that has a look at DFW, Eggers (the new big non-dfw thing on wallace-l **grin**) and pomo-ish writing.
Thanks to everyone who sent me this link.
- Jan 28 First of all, a big thankyou to everyone who has been posting news items to me over the last week. I have just started teaching so it is a big effort to do both at the same time. On with the news:
- "The New York Review of Books," Volume XLVII, Number 2, February 10 issue, contains an article/review by A. O. Scott writing about BIWHM and David Foster Wallace.
- Fortunately it is also available at the New York Review of Books website
- Jan 18 For those that don't subscribe to wallace-l:
- ...Also, in the new Harper's, there is a roundtable discussion of the Internet and privacy issues. Mark Costello is one of the speakers. I believe this is the same M. Costello who co-authored "Sig. Rappers"...
Can anyone confirm this?
- And another post to wallace-l, has anyone read this article?
Saturday's Independent has an article about an interview with DFW that gave me the giggles. Here are a couple of excerpts. Sound familiar? -----
Given the prolixity, the density, the sheer digressive bagginess of much of David Foster Wallace's writing, it would be satisfying to be able to report that the man himself answers interview questions in snappy, pared-down soundbites. But it couldn't be that simple. Here he is responding to my suggestion that, since he's written at such length about kinds of addiction, perhaps he is addicted to writing. There's a very long pause. "I guess I'd have to ask what you mean by addiction."
***
Wallace is best known for his massive novel Infinite Jest (1079 pages, 97 of them devoted to ludic footnotes), a book that gets called Joycean or Pynchonesque by people you suspect haven't read much Joyce or Pynchon. When I make what seems to me the fairly harmless remark that this is his big book, we get into more defining of terms. He says: "By big do you mean physically large? Or do you mean a summum opus compilation?"
***
I suggest that possibly all this makes him, like many characters in Brief Interviews..., achingly self-aware. This leads us to a discussion about the differences between self-awareness and self-consciousness. Mercifully, we don't pursue that one. I prefer to ask whether he considers himself a satirist. "I don't think so... But if we're going to proceed you'll have to explain to me exactly what you mean by satire."
It is great to see people using the guestbook, but as it is being used more and more for discussions would anyone be interested in me setting up a message board so interested parties can hold threaded discussions? Leave your opinion in the guestbook.
- Jan 16 How about some news? Possibly a new piece by DFW.
From AMAZON.COM
"Ex-files" are becoming something of a folk institution on the Web, where an ever-increasing number of personal Web sites reveal stories about ex-lovers for the reading enjoyment of Websurfers. In this book, some of today's best new writers give a decidedly literary twist to this phenomenon, providing a multifaceted view of past loves and the way they haunt the present. The contributors include both established talent such as David Foster Wallace, and lesser-known but critically acclaimed newcomers like David Means, Ben Marcus, and Amy Sohn. Their stories range from nostalgic memoirs to humorous tales to dark accounts of violence and obsession. Representing voices both male and female, young and old, gay and straight, they illustrate the infinite variations of misadventures of the heart and their often unexpected consequences.
Check it out at Amazon.
- Jan 15 Just to show that I read the guestbook from time to time...
jojo wrote: "We need more news. The latest was really unsatisfying. C'mon, what's DFW working on now, what's coming out next? Things like that. Thanks."
Sorry about the most recent news being unsatisfying. I understand that some of the people and situations referred to in the SMH article are of relevance only to Australians, but as I am Australian I thought I'd post it. I found it entertaining. I understand the craving for news but unfortuantely there just isn't any.
- There have been RUMOURS that DFW is working on a novel set in the porn industry (these started circulating after "Neither Adult Nor Entertainment". Premiere. September 1998. (Under the pseudonyms Willem R. deGroot and Matt Rundlet).
- There has also been a SMALL amount of speculation about a comment made by DFW in an interview (somewhere on this site... I have it quoted somewhere in the past news section) that had something to do with Parmenides.
Both of these things are pure speculation and not at all confirmed. I strongly suspect that they are not true and as such do not often post rumours to this site. I guess you are all lucky today because things are just sooo slow. Keep coming back, surely the dam will break one day...
It is a slow time for DFW news, so why not check out wallace-l where there has recently been quite a bit of discussion about addiction in relation to IJ?.
Please do keep posting suggestions and comments to the guestbook, I do eventually read them all.
- Jan 1 Happy New Year!
I woke up on Jan 1 to find this article in the Sydney Morning Herald:
Watch This Space by Malcolm Know
It was equally portentous that the winning boat in the Sydent-to-Hobart was a hunk of advertising space for a corporation. Like Pura Milk with the Sheffield Shield, Nokia was not content to share naming rights with any real name for the boat. The corporate tagging gives us no choice but to advertise the company every time we name the boat.
This is perfectly appropriate in a year when our most influential commentators defended themselves from charges of impropriety by saying "I am just a commercial entity" as if that were just a defence.
We're all becoming advertising space.
Geelong footballer Garry Hocking realised as much when he took money to change his name to "Whiskas". The AFL, which was calling Princes Park "Optus Oval" and will call the Docklands "Colonial Stadium", refused to list him as "Whiskas" in its official program.
But the cats are barking. SOCOG has co-opted the words "Olympics" and "2000" if they're within shouting distance, and CHannel 9 almost turned our harbour into its own advertising space.
Olympians are not allowed to be photographed in the same frame as you or me if we happen to be wearing a Reebok or Adidas tracksuit. (We'd become ambush advertising without knowing it.)
The moment the Olympics are finished, Stadium Australia will be called Better Brakes Oval or Nick Scali Field. And clothes manufacturers have for a while been planting people on the streets in their new lines.
How long before the years themselves are sponsored? American author David Foster Wallace foresaw it in his 1995 novel Infinite Jest, in which the near future exists in "Year of the Trial-Sized Dove Bar", "Year of the Tucks Medicated Pad", and "Year of Glad". It's only a matter of time.
Happy New Year. I'm Roger David. Have a nice (Captain) Snooze.
1999 (below)
- December 25 Merry Christmas to everyone who celebrates this holiday! (Howdy-Ho! for those that don't...)
- The "Late Summer, Early Fall 1999" issue of McSweeney's has another DFW story on the spine, reproduced here in all of its glory:
Another Example of the Porousness of Various Borders (VI): Projected But Not Improbable Transcript of Author's Parents' Marriage's End, 1971.
'Don't love you no more.'
'Right back at you.'
'I want a divorce.'
'Suits me.'
'What about the doublewide.'
'I get the truck is all I know.'
'You're saying I get the doublewide you get the truck.'
'Alls I'm saying is that truck out there's mine.'
'Then what about the boy.'
"For the truck you mean?'
'You mean you'd want him?'
'You mean otherwise?'
'I'm asking if you're saying you'd want him.'
'You're saying you want him?'
'Look, I get the doublewide you get the truck we flip for the boy.'
'That's what you're saying?'
'Right here and now we flip for him.'
'Let's see it.'
'For Christ's sake it's just a quarter.'
'Just let's see it.'
'Jesus here then.'
'All right then.'
'I flip you call.'
'How about you flip I call?'
'Quite screwing around.'
THE END.
Thanks, HDamien! - The Brief interviews paperback is due out in March. Thanks to all the people who posted this info to me.
- And someone either posted to me, or to wallace-l, info about a secretary or something to LBJ who has been outed or something in a recent gay publication (sorry it was a quick email scan). Nice little tie in to "Lyndon" from Girl With Curious Hair...does DFW know more than we know? (I'd appreciate if it could be sent to me again so I could report it correctly!)
- December 16 Thankyou to Tim Wright who posted DFW's 'millenium' comments from the most recent issue of Rolling Stone. For those that don't subscribe:
"We're all-- especially those of us who are educated and have read a lot and have watched TV critically-- in a very self-conscious and sort of worldly and sophisticated time, but also a time when we seem terribly afraid of other people's reactions to us and very desperate to control how people interpret us. Everyone is extremely conscious of manipulating how they come off in the media; they want to structure what they say so that the reader or audience will interpret it in the way that is most favorable to them. What's interesting to me is that this isn't all that new. This was the project of the Sophists in Athens, and this is what Socrates and Plato thought was so completely evil. The Sophists had this idea: Forget this idea of what's true or not-- what you want to do is rhetoric; you want to be able to persuade the audience and have the audience think you're smart and cool. And Socrates and Plato, basically their whole idea is, 'Bullshit. There is such a thing as truth, and it's not all just how to say what you say so that you get a good job or get laid, or whatever it is people think they want.'"
- December 15An anon. comment frokm the guestbook suggests the latest Rolling Stone has some DFW content...anyone seen this yet?
- December 4 MINI SITE UPDATE: I have just finished putting all of the interviews and BIWHM reviews on their respective pages, either click on the links to the left or try these:
DFW Interviews
Brief Interviews with Hideous Men Resources
And to anyone maybe wondering what happened to the Urban Myths and IJ list I was compiling... it is on the way, sooner rather than later I hope.
- December 3 Summer is here, and boy is it getting hot (for those of us in the southern hemisphere that is...)
And now for today's news: A DFW discussion group has been set up at deja.com. It is very bare currently, if you don't like the wallace-l format this might be your thing... - November 25 Thankyou all for continually checking back. There is still a dfw news drought and it doesn't help that I am trying to fit in mon-fri relief teaching for the first time in my life. Thankyou for the emails about the Entertainment Weekly website (news nov 13), the link is a weird one...once you have been to the page it works...I am working on it. For now try entering through the EW front page and exploring a bit, i hope it hasn't disappeared. If you haven't looked at the guest book recently I have reproduced mikel's latest entry below, and please email me any news you find.:
in a recent issue of entertainment weekly i two references to dfw, one which includes BIWHM in a short list of recommended current short fiction collections. it tauts the book as a "tour through a brilliant demented mind and 800pp shorter than infinite jest." later in the issue while discussing the video release of adamsandler's "big Daddy" Mike D'Angelo concludes by quoting IJ to liken sandler unto Wallace's "'hero of non-action, the catatonic hero, the one beyond calm . . .'" what a score.
Cheers, mikel.
- November 13 DFW has made #2 on Entertainment Weekly's Online vote for authors of the century. Thanks, Travis. :)
- November 8 Check out a review of BIWHM at the Italian online magazine Pickwick.it
- November 5 Some news to break the current drought: The November 3 Feed webzine has a little article that discusses DFW and Ken Kalfus.
- October 27 Just as I was editing this news item to say, "sorry for the lack of updates, I have seen the guestbook, it is a current DFW news drought, AND I'm completing all of the final assessment for my Graduate Dip.Ed. etc. etc.", in pops a message in my mailbox from matt slotkin (thankyou) with the following:
"The new issue of The Review of Contemporary Fiction (Fall 1999) has a review of Brief Interviews"
Cheers, Matt. You've broken the drought. If you have any DFW news mail it to me,
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
- October 4 The October 99 Issue of Vogue (US) mentions that Little Expressionless Animals (in the GWCH collection) is to be made into a movie. The same complany is also producing the movie of Prozac Nation. Thanks, Vicki.
- September 26
- A June review of BIWHM can be found at The Village Voice (cheers Chris)
- I have been searching and hunting etc, but there hasn't been any news lately...sorry! I am busily (ish) putting together an 'Urban Myths that appear in IJ' page...
- September 13 Another audio interview...This time at The Afternoon Magazine. Scroll down to the June 16 Interview to find it.
- September 6
- AN UPDATE!
- The most recent (3rd) Issue of McSweeney's has printed Yet Another Example Of The Porousness of Certain Borders (VI) [Hardback BI p 180], I believe an excerpt is printed on the spine!
- A FANTASTIC new Infinite Jest Page, Infinite Jest: a scene-by-scene guide has appeared. Go and check it out. A fabulous resource, I have wanted to do this for ages...but the time it would take...
- (Just re-posting.. the address has been changed) The Eye-Shot Review lit site has an interesting editorial on generosity incorporating BIWHM, Giving to Get: 2037 Words on Generosity, et al
- August 31 DFW recently appeared on Michael Silverblatt's Bookworm show. You can find the link to listen (real audio) to the interview here. It goes for a good 35 minutes... and some of it is very interesting. An earlier Bookworm interview (ASFT-1997) can be heard as well.
- August 25 I'm sorry to report that I haven't found or heard anything new, dfw related, in a couple of weeks now... I am still looking and hoping. Feel free to send me any obscure web things you find or recent publications etc.
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
Remove 'thecure' to mail me (silly spam block thing).
...LATER...Ok, so I've found a totally wacked out 'only on the web' DFW related link at Mathew's House Page. Check out the DFW inspired House Minutes...satisfied? :)
- August 11
- The Eye-Shot Review lit site has an interesting editorial on generosity incorporating BIWHM, Giving to Get: 2037 Words on Generosity, et al
- The rant mentioned on the 9th was the publication of "On his deathbed..." from BI in the first issue of the new magazine Tin House. Thanks, Rob.
- A good transcript of the Kafka lecture (better than the one I have listed elsewhere) DFW participated in can be found at the New York Times. You need to register with the NYT (free) to read this. Thanks, Lee.
- August 9
- Check out the Culturevulture.net review of BI, it is worth the read.
- And an email from Chris, "In a recent issue of details, they made mention of a 25 page rant by DFW, but were vague about where it could be found? Do you have info on this?" Sorry, I don't. But does anyone else?
- August 3 Check out the latest Harper's for an article on the rise and fall and rise of the American short story, by vince passaro. It mentions many authors including DFW.
- July 30
- Sorry I haven't reported this earlier, Read the first part of the Book Magazine interview with DFW. I haven't seen Book over here in Aus. (haven't checked the national library yet...) but I'm told it is quite a good interview.
- Thankyou Wendi: "DFW is mentioned in Allure magazine on a list of sexy people. Not worth buying, but worth mentioning." !!!
- Keep an eye on the Illinois Times for a review of BI by Pete Sherman. Thanks, Mikel.
- July 28 First an answer to mikel weisser's question, "what happened to the rest of the guest book? has there been any new news concerning the rumored release of a volume of erotica/erratia by dfw?":
The guestbook crashed when Geocities was changed to Y!Geocities (Yahoo Geocities... doesn't AOL own Yahoo!?) all of the past entries are still alive and I will be making them available in the future. As for the volume of erotica by DFW...I believe (at this point in time) this info to be a HOAX. Someone (named DFW) left a message in the guestbook with this information and I have no reason whatsoever to believe it. Sorry!
- July 26 In the July 18 Issue of the LA Times in the Book Review section was a review of BI by Jonathon Levi. The html link is now out of date. Did anyone read it?
- July 15
- An old DFW interview at Dalkeyarchive.com
- Sorry about the problems with reading the guestbook...it has something to do with the changeover from geocities to yahoogeocities...I hope it will be fixed shortly...
- July 12
- Check out this cool little Brief Interview inspired DFW interview at Boston Pheonix
- Try out the new Chat Room to talk to others on the site.
- July 5 It is a slow time for news...sorry there still isn't anything new that I have come up with. Thanks for all of the support, last month was the biggest month ever for The Howling Fantods, 6200+ hits! Thankyou everyone.
- June 22 A new review of BI review can be found in the June 20 1999 issue of the NYT. (You may have to register with NYT to read this)
- June 20 I am so sorry about all the Java Script errors! I think I have fixed them all up now. It seems that when uploading the java script some lines got saved with carriage returns in them and that caused the problems...
- June 19 It should be a little easier to navigate around some of the new pages now with the new bar to the left...
Two new things today: - June 16
- The first phase of the update has been completed. Yay!
- Links repaired and added (in some cases) on all of the specific book pages.
- The Brief Interviews with Hideous Men page is up and in readable form. Currently only links to reviews are up.
- The Thesis page is up. The Howling Fantods now holds three IJ Theses in the archives.
- Did anyone notice this web site mentioned in an article/interview with DFW that ran in a number of daily papers in Chicago on the weekend? It will hopefully appear in the Springfield, IL and Peoria, IL newspapers sometime soon...
Read it HERE. - The latest issue of New Yorker is a summer fiction issue including Rick Moody, Donald Antrim, William T. Vollmann and DFW. The DFW piece is the withered arm BI. Supposedly there are some "goofy" group photos to check out though! Thanks, Sean.
- June 15 There should be a big update sometime in the next week...keep an eye open... How does two more theses to read sound while you wait? Check them out via the new thesis page.
- June 4 How about a completely different opinion of BI? Check out the review that can be found at www.slate.com.
- May 30 Thankyou to everyone who emailed the PW interview address and the new links.
- May 27
- A short review of BI from GQ
- I believe a recent issue of "Publisher's Weekly" ran a fun interview with DFW... does anyone know of any more specific details?
- May 25 Another BI review can be found at The New York Observer. This is a transcript of the column that ran in the 5/24/99 edition of The New York Observer.
- May 24
- I have just spent the weekend reading BI. I was very impressed with (and still recovering from) most of the stories in the collection (except for the obscure and difficult (...to me anyway...why do this to mythology?) "Tri-Stan: I Sold Sissee Nar to Ecko") Some of the previously unpublished Interviews are unnerving to say the least.
- A new review of BI can be found at leisuresuit.net. As always, it is worth a look.
- May 17 You can find a new review of BIWHM in the SF Chronicle Book Review.
- May 7 I have been so busy that I managed to miss that Amazon.Com are shipping DFW's new book, "Brief Interviews with Hideous Men".
Brief Interviews with Hideous Men, Stories.
There are also couple of updates on the Little Brown page.
Click here to find a real audio reading from the audio version of Brief Interviews (it is in the bar on the left)
And here to find an updated list of DFW appearances.
- May 5 Wow! It has been a while since the last update. I've known this for a little while now so,
Look for the May Issue of GQ for a new review of Brief Interviews. Oh, and keep checking back over the next week or so for a new thesis to get your teeth into.
Thanks for reading, if anyone has any new info don't hesitate to email me and I'll put it up ASAP.
- April 13 Three things of interest today...
- The latest issue of SPIN has a review of 'Brief Interviews with Hideous Men'.
- DFW has a small column at Salon.com, "Overlooked: Five direly underappreciated U.S. novels >1960. " Well worth a look...
- And the THIRD thing (missing yesterday..oops!), For boston/cambridge based dfw fans... DFW will be reading/signing in cambridge on may 25th at 6:00 p.m. at the carpenter center on quincy street.
Any bibliographic details or whatever would be appreciated at
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Remove 'thecure' to mail me (silly spam block thing).
Thanks to everyone who emailed me with the above info.
- April 12 About those bibliographic details...it has been pointed out that "Pop Quiz" already appears in the DFW Bibliography as of Spelunker April-ish last year... Err... I don't know if yesterday's news is a new printing or not but I suspect not. So, my mistake for not checking my own info!
Is everyone getting excited about "Brief Interviews..."?
- April 11 Wow...more news. How about a NEW DFW short story? "Pop Quiz" has appeared in the latest issue of "Spelunker". Thankyou Eric for this little tidbit. Bibliographic details to follow soon.
- March 31 NEW NEWS!!!! I am currently very busy out on my first run of prac teaching so updates will not be so regular... (not that they have been recently!)
Okay now for the great news... There WILL be an author read version of Brief Interviews! Check out the Amazon.com page for ordering info and prices etc. A release date is not clear as yet...
- March 14 TOUR DATES. Thankyou to those of you who emailed with the tour date info! I would suggest anyone interested in DFW tour dates check out the Little Brown page. This currently has three dates listed and hopefully will be kept updated in the future...
- March 9 Not a lot of news lately. People have been enquiring about DFW tour dates, I am trying to put some dates together. But it is difficult to collect all of the dates etc posted to wallace-l. If anyone is aware of specific dates I would love an email with the/some details at :
Nick Maniatis
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- Feb 24 Some fun today. Go and check out Jeff Slutzky's "Infinite Jest v. Mason & Dixon: A Comparison of Two Reading Ordeals." It is well worth the visit and funny too!
- Feb 22 Hopefully you all noticed the Brief Interviews with Hideous Men cover above! I think it is a cool cover. Thankyou Allan for pointing out the location at Amazon. Visit the Amazon Page...
- Feb 6 Hey all, for those who don't subscribe to wallace-l Jamie Smith posted this info about the upcoming book earlier in the week:
From:
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(Jamie Smith)Subject: wallace-l: Brief Interviews
I managed to get my hands on a copy of the uncorrected advance proofsfor Brief Interviews with Hideous Men. According to the promo material, release date is May 28 and the bookwill cost $24. The author will tour New York, Boston, Chicago, Seattle andSan Francisco.
Just began reading the book and will let you know how it is. Many of the stories have already appeared in Harper's, Esquire, Paris Review, etc., and are only one or two pages long. For those interested, here's a list of all the titles:
A Radically Condensed History of Postindustrial Life
Death Is Not the End
Forever Overheard
Brief Interviews With Hideous Men
Yet Another Example of the Porousness of Certain Borders (XI)
The Depressed Person
The Devil Is a Busy Man
Think
Signifying Nothing Brief Interviews With Hideous Men
Datum Centurio
Octet
Adult World (I)
Adult World (II)
The Devil Is a Busy Man
Church Not Made with Hands
Yet Another Example of the Porousness of Certain Borders (VI)
Brief Interviews With Hideous Men
Tri-Stan: I Sold Sissee Nar to Ecko
On His Deathbed, Holding Your Hand, the Acclaimed New Young Off-Broadway Playwright's Father Begs a Boon
Suicide as a Sort of Present
Brief Interviews With Hideous Men
Yet Another Example of the Porousness of Certain Borders (XXIV)
- Feb 2 Matt's essay Two Months in Infinite Jest can now be found at a new location, thanks for dropping me a line, Matt.
And... Have a look at this for a quick chuckle.
Oh, I've made the little DFW bookstore link look a bit nicer and will add Brief Interviews with Hideous Men when it becomes available.
- Jan 24 A big hello to Jest a Fan! Mr/Ms Fan left this interesting little fact in the guestbook on Jan 20: Nick - Just a little insider's tip. DFW is recording the audio version of the new collection of short stories to be released in May. Fans can expect a couple hours at least of DFW reading to them on tape!
Is it true? We won't know for a bit I guess, but I hope it is true!
- Jan 20 Check out the work in progress of Toon Theuwis' senior thesis. So far it is quite interesting. Toon is promising to update with further chapters as they become (I guess) web-publishable! Comments are welcome etc, so check the page out. (Thanks for the link Toon!)
- Jan 5 I'm back with a few updates...
A big thanks to the "Reviews, Articles, & Miscellany" site for making available the text of "The Nature of the Fun". A little piece by DFW about writing fiction and just published in a Little Brown collection called "Why I write" edited by Will Blythe.
How about a hypertext publication which parodies along with other authors, dfw? Find The Unknown here.
Are you surprised that it was written by three guys who completed their M.A. English degress and also undertook dfw's writing workshop?
1998 (below)
- December 15 Wallace-l discussions have revealed an essay by DFW that was supposed to be in the ASFT collection but that didn't make the final cut. It concerns Dostoevsky. From those who have read it it sounds quite good. If I am able I will try to make it available on this site.
Most things are now in the new colour scheme, it is good to have a less messy site (cough cough). Yes, as you may have noticed things are getting out of hand and I hope that spring cleaning type organisation will occur soon...ish...ly. I have updated the web publications page to include all available complete DFW publications on the web that I am aware of.
And... I have performed a recent dredge of the Suck.com archives and have updated my Suck page!
December 1 There hasn't been much news lately so there haven't been any updates, sorry. Thankyou everyone who responded in some way to the colour change. There have been enough positives to the extent that for now, the green will be staying.
Check out Steve's IJ Page it has some useful info on it. Thanks for the address, Steve!
- November 12 Comments concerning the New Colour Scheme would be very welcome.
Is it (a) more readable now and (b) not disgusting?
(Only the nav. bar and main page are the new green, everything else is still the brown, a full change will go ahead if no-one cares or there is a positive response.)
Mail me (Nick Maniatis)
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with comments...
- November 9 Two questions:
1. "Do you like David Foster Wallace?"
2. "Can you read Italian?"
If you answered yes to both Questions you might like to visit either Trax, an Italian DFW page, or check out this review of what looks like the Italian translation of Girl with Curious Hair. Check out the cover too.
DFW has recently published two variations of "Yet Another Example of the Porousness of Certain Borders" (VIII and XII see the Bibliography for details. I have just realised that of the two DFW short stories published in Conjunctions 28 in Spring 97, and listed as Two Stories on the web site there are actually titled "Yet Another Instance of the Porousness of Certain Borders (XXI)" and "Think". I have updated the bibliography and if you want you can read them both here.
Amy Vechione emailed me the message reproduced below for anyone interseted:
I just thought that you might want to know about a class that i am co-facilitating at UCBerkeley that is set up in an effort to discuss Inifite jest starting from nowhere, and hopefully ending up with something like a more concrete understanding of the book.
it will be offered Spring semester jan-may TTh 6-730 pm and we don't know where on campus it will be yet, although at least one week it will be on tennis courts, indoor i hope.
we are still not sure how to approach the class yet, and are trying to leave it as open ended as possible, even open beginnings...
If anyone has any suggestions contact Amy at
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- November 4 Sorry for the lack of updates. I am currently in exam period so there hasn't been that much time. As for updates... there aren't really any. Except for yet another conformation by Harper's with his new Brief Interviews piece, that there will be a collection of short stories published by Little Brown next April.
- October 21 I have updated the Bibliography to include the latest DFW publications. I am also working on a background that makes the site more readable...
- October 16 Another DFW short story has been published!
This time it is in the November issue of US Esquire, titled "Yet Another Example of the Porousness of Certain Borders (XII)"
- October 5 Okay, the big news is that there is another DFW story in print, "Yet Another Example of the Porousness of Certain Borders (VIII)." Does this kind of title remind anyone of the types of part of infinite jest type except thingies? I haven't read it so wouldn't know, but thought it was worth mentioning. It can be found in the first issue of McSweeney's Quarterly Concern which was only a print run of 2,500, US$8 I have been informed.
Though get this, it is listed in the index as, "In Which David Foster Wallace, who recently bought his father's car for $1, weaves his spell, in this case with a host of grammatical horrors, which a reader should assume to be outside the control of this journal's editing staff, which could not necessarily be counted on to notice and fix them, even had they been charged with the task of doing so."!!!
If anyone can help be out by sending me a copy or whatever please email me at
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Thankyou very much to Benjamin Aaron Kessler for mailing the above info to me!!
- September 21 The new Harper's Story, "Brief Interviews with Hideous Men -- What They Talk About When They Talk About Themselves." is different to the Paris Review story.
Is anyone having problems with reading the text on this page? I have had only a couple of mails concerning this over the past few months, but if it is a big problem I will consider changing things to make the text easier to read. It should be fine if you use netscape and are viewing things in 256 colours or greater. Thanks.
September 15 Well, I've been surfing around a bit and literally (well maybe not literally, but you know what I mean) stumbled over this beauty thanks to a link on alix korova's dfw page. The Millitant Grammarians of Massachusetts. They exist. You have been warned.
And news just in... Jeanne M. Reitz just posted to wallace-l that October Harper's has printed DFW's "Brief Interviews with Hideous Men -- What They Talk About When They Talk About Themselves." Is this the same as the Paris Review "brief interviews" story from last year? I don't know...yet.
Oh...and at the end of the Harper's piece it is mentioned that the new book of short stories is to appear in Little Brown around April next year.
- September 14 A few new additions to the DFW bibliography.
- September 10 Time for another update:
- In a post by Steve Wood to wallace-l: DFW is mentioned in a Weekly Week (Boston-based satirical newspaper) article
- JoAnn Ross posted this fascinating article to wallace-l concerning a lawsuit against dfw:
The Recorder (a daily legal newspaper)
September 8, 1998, Tuesday
FACT MEETS FICTION IN TRULY NOVEL DISPUTE
Talk about art imitating life. Or law imitating art imitating life. . . .
Whatever you want to call it, the case of _Gompert v. Wallace_ pending before San Jose U.S. District Judge James Ware, has taken on a somewhat surreal quality because of what it alleges and who it is before.
Katherine A. Gompert, a former professional tennis player, is suing best-selling author David Foster Wallace for libel because his 1997 novel _Infinite Jest_ portrays a sexually promiscuous, drug-abusing character with severe psychiatric problems named "Katherine A. Gompert."
Judge Ware, of course, was disciplined last month by the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals for creating a fiction of his own by misappropriating the life story of another, unrelated, James Ware. On several occasions the judge told others that he watched his brother Virgil get gunned down by two white racists in Birmingham, Ala., in 1963. While Virgil Ware did indeed get murdered and did have a brother named James, the judge is not related to the family.
The _Gompert_ case was filed in Santa Clara County Superior Court in December, immediately after the book's paperback release. Wallace and the book's Boston-based publisher -- Little, Brown and Co. -- and its corporate parent, Time Warner Inc. of New York, had the case removed to federal court in January, where it was assigned to Ware.
In May, Ware issued an order denying a defense effort to throw the case out.
"Plaintiff was a successful junior and college tennis player and then competed on the professional tour," Ware wrote. "She enjoys a good reputation and has often spoken to younger tennis players regarding the importance of leading a drug-free lifestyle. Plaintiffs allege that David Wallace, the author, purposely defamed her to satisfy his own feelings of hatred and malice towards her. Mr. Wallace apparently participated in the competitive junior tennis world in which plaintiff was well known." Wallace indeed competed on the junior circuit at the same time Gompert did.
Wallace, represented by Landels Ripley & Diamond partner Neil Shapiro, denies Gompert's assertions and claims that fiction writers have wide protection from libel claims. Not only that, the defendants argue, no reasonable person would think the fictional Gompert was supposed to reflect the real Gompert.
"Here the novel is set at some unstated time in the next millennium," Shapiro argues in court papers. "No specific years are mentioned, primarily because the setting is so futuristic that years are no longer numbered but rather bear the names of commercial sponsorship."
Shapiro also notes that the book contains the usual disclaimer.
That disclaimer, counters Stephen Vernon of Palo Alto's Knapp & Vernon, is anything but boilerplate and he considers it a "taunt" of his client.
- There have been a few posts to wallace-l about some earlier short stories that are not in the bibliography, this will be updated sometime in the next couple of days to take these into account. Bye for now.
- September 3 Sorry I've taken so long to add another update , but there's heaps today!
- A big hi to Andrew Sandley, and congrats for graduating! Unfortunatlely graduating means Andrew no longer has a web page etc. so his page is down until he is settled down and has the new one ready, which will not be a the same address.
- I mentioned earlier that the Rush and Molloy gossip coloumn from the New York Daily News had something to say about DFW's "Neither Adult Nor Entertainment" piece in Premiere, well here it is. It was actually posted to wallace-l three-ish weeks ago by JoAnn Ross (thanks!) but without a reference so I had no idea at the time where it came from:
The man of many words Bandana-wearing writer David Foster Wallace didn't appreciate our scoop last week that he was the secret author of an article in the new Premiere about the porn business.
It wasn't that hard to unmask Foster as the authors, "subculturalists Willem R. deGroot and Matt Rundlet," since the piece was littered with the same long-winded footnotes Foster used in his much-praised 1,079-page novel, "Infinite Jest."
Even with such obvious clues, Foster doesn't think it was his writing style that exposed him, but rather that someone at Premiere ratted him out. He's also irked that Premiere's editors pruned some raunchy passages which, it was felt, might have offended readers and advertisers.
"They assigned the story and then, at the last minute, they got cold feet," said Wallace's agent, Bonnie Nadell.
It now looks unlikely that Foster, who's working on a novel set in the porn arena, will write for Premiere again.
Premiere editor Jim Meigs said he was contractually bound not to talk about the identity of the article's "authors." But one source said: "The changes were needed to make the article publishable in a mainstream magazine. It's still a brilliant piece." - How about a response from Adult Vidoe News concerning DFW's article? Dave Brett Wasser was kind enough to post to wallace-l the AVN response from their website. Read it here
- August 27 I hear that dfw's agent, Bonnie Nadell, pretty much confirmed his authorship of the premiere piece in the New York Daily News gossip column, Rush and Molloy. Sorry no dates for this article as yet. Also mentioned is premiere's sorry handling of the piece with respect to the 'bleeping' by using dashes and such.
More tomorrow? I hope so!
August 26 A big hello to Dick Filth who has been helping me out enquiry wise concerning the premiere piece. Regardless if it was dfw who co-wrote it or not, the reason for the pseudonyms was not due to the subject matter, rather it was likely due to the number of solicitations from other mags for material. But "Jest a fan" who-ever you are is right in saying that in the time period that the article was written dfw was suffering from a cold or something! Would "Jest" like to email me?
- August 25 Over the last few days exciting stuff has been happening concerning the Premiere piece... I have some cool stuff to mention concerning dfw's possible involvement but I am currently making sure these claims are valid before I do so, so please persevere. Apart from that there is not much else to say except for word via quotes on wallace-l that dfw has been doing research for a novel that may involve aspects of the porn industry!
Also, check out the guestbook. I cannot confirm or deny the info that is written there, but the "Jest a fan" entry is supposedly right on the ball concerning the premiere piece... (this whole thing is sounding more and more like the x-files...)
- August 17 Okay, there is some news... I've been sitting on this for a few days and reading conversation etc. on wallace-l. It seems there may be a new DFW article in the September 98 issue of Premiere. The problem though is that is does not have DFW's name to it... it is written under the names "Willem R. DeGroot & Matt Rundlet" which are acknowledged as being psuedonyms. The question is....is it DFW? Current discussion seem sto lean on the 'yes it must be' side of things due to style, pace and footnote presence/use. On the other hand, (to kinda paraphrase Bob Wake) why use a pseudonym and not disguise your style enough? The article (which I have not yet read) is about the pornographic movie awards in Las Vegas, titled "Neither Adult nor Entertainment" ... is the subject matter the reason for the pseudonym? I'm not sure.
Thanks for the emails about this, especially Will, Mike and Tavis (from the guestbook. See, I do look at it...!)
- August 3 Thanks to Keith who sent me the following email: (I think it sums things up better than I could.)
In light of the recent dearth of dfw news, i thought it would be worth mentioning that he appears oh-so-briefly in this week's newsweek (aug. 3) in connection with the brouhaha surrounding the modern library's top 100 list. aside from the general silliness of the list, the author of the article complained that infinite jest should have made the cut (amen!). apparently he/she/they phoned dfw's editor, michael pietsch, to ask for his reaction to the list--mr. pietsch offered only his disgust that everyone was being suckered in by the hype. it's worth a look at any rate.
Also, Jamie Smith posted this message to wallace-l concerning a new DFW short story:
Excerpt from the media column "Dog Bites" of the Bay Area alternative rag SF Weekly:
Magazine world gossip being what it is, Dog Bites wasn't sure what to think when we saw Dave Eggers' name floated as a possible replacement for departing New Yorker Editor Tina Brown. Eggers, the guy who used to edit Might mag-azine and draw SF Weekly's Smarter Feller, is now an editor at large at Esquire in New York.
But no, he's not headed to The New Yorker. Instead, he's launching McSweeny's, a magazine named after a man who apparently wrote long, tortured, and often incomprehensible letters to Eggers' family. The first 200-page, perfect-bound, black-and-white issue, planned for mid-August, features a short story by David Foster Wallace; an essay about the television Yule log by Rick Moody, accompanied by an explanation of why the essay was killed by the New York Times Magazine; and a feature that explains the cultural references behind newspaper headlines culled from the Examiner and the Chronicle. "It's going to be a very weird product," says Eggers. "It makes Might look normal."
Oh, I finally got to read Adult World from Esquire (takes a while to get stuff out here...) and I was very impressed. I recommend it to everyone.
- July 29 Alix has put together a great new DFW page... check it out.
- July 19 There really hasn't been any news of late... but what has been discussed on wallace-l is the possibility of the paperback version of IJ (not the softback versions of the hardcover...you know, like from book clubs) differing in little ways. For example corrections that DFW may have made as suggested in the Dazed & Confused interview. More on this soon.
- June 30 For those who haven't looked recently, the DFW Bibliography has a few updates and also has links to stories that can be read online.
June 25 It hasn't taken Bob Wake long at all to post DFW's Kafka piece at his great homepage.... Thanks Bob!! Oh, he did mention there might be some typos that he hasn't fixed yet.
Thankyou to Benjamin for pointing out that the contributors page in the July Esquire lists DFW's upcoming short story collection as being titled after his short story, 'Brief Interviews with Hideous Men'.
- June 22 Exams are over for the semester so expect a few updates...
- First, a big thanks to everyone who emailed me updates and news over the weekend: Hudson, Marie, James, Brandon, Jeff and Keith (and anyone I forgot).
- There is a new story out in the July edition of Esquire (US edition only) 'Adult World I-II'.
- In the July edition of Harper's is a short DFW thing 'from a speech given . . . in March at "Metamorphosis: A New Kafka," a symposium sponsored by the PEN American Center in NYC.'
On the same topic Marie has written her own bit on this but unfortunately I have not yet read it because I can't access it(I can now!) Give it a try at here at members.aol.com/melpomenex/wallace7.htm. - Tidbits of information in recent interviews suggest DFW is working on a collection of short stories for publication for example see the Gus van Sant interview Dazed & Confused at Bob's page.
- June 11 Brian L, emailed me his experiences at one of DFW's book reading appearences for the ASFT tour:
DFW had his hair cut short, was wearing glasses, jeans and big work boots (what we used to call "shitkickers" in Vermont, where I grew up). He looked very much out of place (a tourist, a hick, whatever) in ultra-chic NYC.
He read two passages from "Getting Away from Pretty Much...," the entry for 08/13/1150h and 08/15/0930h. Lots of laughter throughout the readings.
Afterwards there were three questions. The first was "What do Gately, John Wayne, and Hal find when they dig up himself's grave?" DFW said that the answer was too long and complicated, but to ask him afterwards, during the signing. Drats! He responded essentially the same way to a question about his opinions on the current state of men's professional tennis, but added that his opinions on the subject were "many and varied." The third question concerned his essay on David Lynch's "Lost Highway." ("David Lynch Keeps His Head"). DFW said that the essay was written after seeing only dailies of the film. His opinion of "Lost Highway" has changed dramatically for the worse upon seeing the finished film.
After the reading, I had about an hour and a half wait to get both my first editions of "Infinite Jest" and "ASFTINDA" signed. When I got up there, I was pretty nervous and didn't know what to say. I told him how much I liked the book, but how the ending left me, well, hanging. (Duh, I couldn't think of what to say). He turned to his friend and said, "See, everybody has to get their knocks! You just get one chance, and you have to get your knocks in!"
Tongue in cheek, I presume. Then he turned to me and said, "It depends on what you want from an ending."
What I wanted to say was, "Well I wanted to know if these characters whom I have been reading about for the past week or two and have come to really care about quite a bit--so much so that I wouldn't have minded another 1000 pages--are alive and healthy. What happened to Mario? Is Hal going to be okay?"
Instead a sound kind of like "GgguRRgg" erupted from my throat. Then my friend started encouraging him to sign my books "To a complete bastard" (a long story involving a Graham Chapman autograph), but I just said "Write whatever you want." I've attached a JPEG [I've uploaded the amusing image: Nick] file, a scan of my copy of "ASFTINDA." Notice how he crossed out his printed name. Weird.
Also, I asked him if he was going to appear in Harper's again soon. He said, "There are no magazine plans at present," and from his tone of voice and expression on his face, it seemed like a sore point.
- June 9Sorry about the lack of updates, exams are near as are essay due dates... To tide you all over until I'm all finished for another semester why not read DFW being interviewed by Gus Van Sant from Dazed & Confused May 1998 which Bob Wake has placed on his page (thanks Bob!)
- May 20
- Norton publishing has released a book titled Postmodern American Fiction which includes DFW's Lyndon (which can be found in the GWCH collection).
- I found a site that has a DFW web postcard(??!!) maybe you want to send it to someone...(or probably not..)
- An old IJ review you might want to read:
- Bob Wake has kindly reproduced DFW's essay F/X PORN from Waterstone's Magazine Winter/Spring 1998, which I personally think is pretty good and very funny.
- May 19
- Hi everyone! There has been heaps (and I mean heaps!) of discussion on wallace-l about many theories and ideas in IJ. Including (this is what I find most interesting) a quote concerning a lunar subsidized time calendar and possible connections to those little moon-like circles that appear in the text. I hope to have some of these little snippets put together and added to the IJ notes section over the next few weeks.
- In issue 42 of Dazed and Confused magazine DFW was interviewed by Gus van Sant! Thanks to Marcus for posting this to wallace-l.
- A rough version of the DFW Bibliography is up. Please email me with any additions.
- Here is the new DFW short-short story which appeared in the Ploughshares spring issue (thanks for posting this Bob.):
A RADICALLY CONDENSED HISTORY OF POSTINDUSTRIAL LIFE
David Foster Wallace Plougshares, Spring 1998 Issue
When they were introduced, he made a witticism, hoping to be liked. She laughed very hard, hoping to be liked. Then each drove home alone, staring straight ahead, with the very same twist to their faces.
The man who'd introduced them didn't much like either of them, though he acted as if he did, anxious as he was to preserve good relations at all times. One never knew, after all, now did one.
A response to this story on wallace-l resulted in the writing of this beauty by Stephen Wood...
A RADICALLY CONDENSED VERSION OF INFINITE JEST
David Foster Wallace
"I want to tell you..." Hal is a tennis player at ETA. A drug addict named Madame Psychosis tries to kill herself. Gately is an ex-addict at AA. Hal's dad made a film that kills people if they watch it. Madame Psychosis is deformed. (Or is she???) North America is now named ONAN. Gately gets shot. Government operatives try to find the film. But so Gately is recovering in the hospital. And then...
Hee, hee!! - May 12 Sorry for the lack of updates but not a lot has been happening in the DFW scene. There has been a lot of activity and discussion on the wallace-l mailing list though. Thankyou to those of you who have sent me updated link addresses, they will be implemented over the next few days. Oh, as yet the bibliography is not online, it will be soon...
You can find a reproduction of "A radically Condensed History of Postindustrial Life." on Bob Wake's page. It is ummmm.. disappointing.
April 29 - New DFW Short-story: "A Radically Condensed History of Postindustrial Life." It can be found in the Spring 1998 issue of Ploughshares. Thanks to Paul Maliszewski for posting this info to wallace-l
- The menu bar has been updated a bit, hopefully it is now easier to navigate the site.
- April 22An interesting new feature of The Howling Fantods, to appear hopefully within the week, is the association I have set up with Amazon.com! Yes, you will be able to order DFW books from amazon.com via this web-site, some will be discounted by 30%! Look at the New Bookstore here!
- April 21Hi everyone! It's a "lecture free period" at uni now so I have a few updates that I've just found based on my long un-read email and reading of walace-l.
Here we go... -
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is running an IJ reading group! It actually started a few days ago... sorry for the slow response Chris. Check out what to read and when at http://www.rdrop.com/users/chrisd/. The discussions are occuring at the salon message board.
- Wallace-l had a bit of a thread concerning a DFW bibliography so I am putting together the most up to date and all inclusive one possible... if anyone would like to contribute mail me
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.
- Also, as posted by Keith Johnson to wallace-l a new DFW short appeared in Spelunker (volume 1 number 4) titled 'Pop Quiz'
- DFW won the Aga Kahn Prize for Fiction for his short story, "Interviews with Hideous Men" which appeared in the Paris Review.
- Keep those comments coming, via email or the guestbook. I try to reply, honest! Hopefully over the next few weeks the backlog of links that appears in the old news section will appear in the related book and story link sections... try the Other Pages for a start, there are a few new things there.
New Stuff Bibliography - April 9 There is a brand new interview with DFW at the Oregon Voice, where DFW discusses many things including his new work (novel?): (I quote here from the interview)
OV: So what are you working on right now? What's the subject?
DFW: Well, if you ever take an ancient philosophy class, there was an ancient philosopher named Parmenides. Parmenides talked about things that are and things that are not. And he said things that are not, do not exist and . . . it's kind of hard to explain. I could give you a short answer.
OV: Okay. Short answer.
DFW: Parmenides was a pre-Socratic philosopher and well worth reading. Do like half a gram of mushrooms and then read some Parmenides.
!!!!!! Sounds interesting!
- April 5 Hi everyone! In response to the emails and questions in the guestbook about the IJ index I have got some exciting news!! Thamer Abanami has htmled Tim Ware's IJ index and it can be found at the Infinite Jest Online Index Page!! In a word, it is awesome! Great work, Thamer. There are also links to Tim's original index and a printable version. Have Fun!
- March 23 Thankyou to Eric Martens who made me aware that Order and Flux in Northampton(a DFW short story from Conjunctions 17 fall 1991) is available to read on the web! Check it out.
- March 17 Andrew Sandley has added a new update to his page, the first in months! There is a nice little list there of the books DFW has contributed blurbs to.
- March 10 Bob Wake has kindly reproduced the text of the DFW story found in Open City No. 5 Nothing Happened.
He plans to leave it there for only a few days, so have a look. I am considering putting it up on this site with a disclaimer when it disappears...
Bob also has listed a fabulous piece written by Melpomene Whitehead, titled The Age of Irony or Deconstructing Fosty. It is a great little read! Oh! and a big "Hello!!" and "Aw Shucks" thankyou to Melpomene for (and here I quote) "I think if you can't find what you're looking for between these two pages [Bob's and Mine] it probably doesn't exist." !!!
- March 3! Okay, so there haven't been any updates for a while... I'm still trying to get hold of and read the new short stories. Thanks for all the comments in the guestbook, sorry I don't have time to reply to you all individually (it is now first week back at uni: busy, busy , busy (in theory!!)).
- Feb 3
Finally I have added the Mario and Joelle sections to the IJ Notes Page.
Scotch from wallace-l posted the address to this quirky little article at Mining co. The Beer Underneath All This Metafictional Foam: Metaphor in Book Reviews of David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest. It is quite funny.
- Jan 30
By now I guess you've seen the new look Howling Fantods. I think the Nav bar on the left is easier to read and looks a bit nicer now. Chris' Thesis and the guestbook when viewed will still look blue... I'm working on those.
A few weeks back Spencer Thiel posted a piece written by Mark Leyner in the New York Times...read it here! For those who haven't read it, I'll let you work out why I have placed this here...
If you have any comments (especially about the new look) please sign the guestbook!(look in the nav bar to the left).
- Jan 21 Some more news!!
Okay, to start with Hudson dropped me a line (hi! and thankyou) mentioning not only 'The Depressed Person' but another DFW short story, 'Brief Interviews with Hideous Men' (!!), it can be found in the latest issue of 'The Paris Review' #144. I'm told it's great.
In an email from eddie (err. hi!)there was some info about what the Open City thing was...or might be...
hey there i could be totally wrong about this, but if i remember correctly, _open city_ is a literary magazine that was published a while back, and included a very anticlimactic short story by dfw called "nothing happened" (or something like that)..the story was about some kid who has a traumatic memory about his father whipping out his dick and waggling it in front of the kid's face, and then the subsequent estrangement of father and son b/c this memory
like i said, i'm not for sure about this, but i think that litmag was called _open city_
eddie
I found this great page Contemporary American Authors: Resource page. Have a look.
And finally a little hello to Mark. Hi! - January 10 Check out the new (well...Dec 18..)little Suck.com tidbit concerning his new story 'The Depressed Person', or have a look at my Suck.com Page listing all of the amusing and harsh DFW comments printed there.
- January 9 Hi!!!!! I Hope everyone had a merry Christmas and Happy New Year.
There is a new DFW short story in the latest Harper's, "The Depressed Person", supposedly it is quite good!
The bookshop I order internationally through called me to say that they cannot acquire the Open City with the DFW new material. I have yet to go in and speak to them but it seems it is completely out of print... does anyone have a copy?
1997 (below)
- December 2 Thankyou all for visiting. I apologise for the lack of promised updates, the IJ reviews should be appearing by the end of the week, I have finished entries in the IJ Notes page on Joelle and Mario, but I haven't put them up yet...
- November 25 Exams are over for this year...yay!!!
Some news: Open City got printed and subsequently went out of print, I have ordered my copy from over here in Aus. but as yet have not received it.
The counter has gone absolutely nuts!!!!! I'm working on a new one. For the record it reached about 4500 before going nutty.
Peter McArthur has set up a WWW based archive of wallace-l, the mailing list: Here!!
I have heaps of old but fun Infinite Jest reviews to put up, keep looking...
- October 22 For publication info about the new DFW book, Open City: The Age of Anxiety, which was supposed to be published on October 1st visit www.amazon.com.
Hopefully I'll be making to tool bar on the left a bit neater in the next few days... and look out for updates to the IJ notes and theories after a flurry of conversation on wallace-l.
- October 13 "What?!" I hear you exclaim, "An update?".
Okay, so I have been a bit out of the DFW loop lately, so much so that I haven't been checking email etc. What I did come across was a lovely little post from Matt Sturges (Hi Matt!) who asked if I'd like to read an essay he wrote about reading Infinite Jest.
Matt's great essay can be found here (Just click on the IJ cover on his page to read it.)
I'll be surprised if anyone who has read and enjoyed IJ cannot relate to some of this...enjoy!
- September 23 Ok.....So the Harper's cover was a joke...I got sucked in too...
I'm trying out a new (hopefully more efficient) guestbook, Sign It Here
- September 22 Thankyou all for visiting so much! Sorry about the lack of updates over the last few weeks, there are quite a few things that now need to be updated around here, some of the links are not working anymore. eg The Little Brownn DFW site (that I have listed) no longer exists.
You can find the listing for the new publication,"Open City" at www.amazon.com if you wish to find more details.
A post to wallace-l from Deborah anounced the inclusion of a Harper's round table about Princess Di, of which DFW plays a part. Check out the November Harper's for that article.
There will hopefully be plenty of updates over the next few days! Bye!
- September 12 An exciting post hit wallace-l from Deborah Fidler yesterday:(and I quote)
"Books In Print lists a new book coauthored by DFW called "The Age of Anxiety" or something like that. It should be coming out in October I think. Anyone know anything about it?" Thanks Deborah!
A little bit of hunting the web showed that the book
Open City: The Age of Anxiety is Vol. 6 of a suspect a series published by Distributed Art Publishing. It is listed as having the authors DFW and Mary Gaitkill. It is NOT YET published... more info soon.
- September 23 Ok.....So the Harper's cover was a joke...I got sucked in too...
I'm trying out a new (hopefully more efficient) guestbook, Sign It Here - September 22 Thankyou all for visiting so much! Sorry about the lack of updates over the last few weeks, there are quite a few things that now need to be updated around here, some of the links are not working anymore. eg The Little Brownn DFW site (that I have listed) no longer exists.
You can find the listing for the new publication,"Open City" at www.amazon.com if you wish to find more details.
A post to wallace-l from Deborah anounced the inclusion of a Harper's round table about Princess Di, of which DFW plays a part. Check out the November Harper's for that article.
There will hopefully be plenty of updates over the next few days! Bye! - September 12 An exciting post hit wallace-l from Deborah Fidler yesterday:(and I quote)
"Books In Print lists a new book coauthored by DFW called "The Age of Anxiety" or something like that. It should be coming out in October I think. Anyone know anything about it?" Thanks Deborah!
A little bit of hunting the web showed that the book
Open City: The Age of Anxiety is Vol. 6 of a suspect a series published by Distributed Art Publishing. It is listed as having the authors DFW and Mary Gaitkill. It is NOT YET published... more info soon. - September 10 wow. Has it been that long since an update? Regardless, there is word of an IJ tv movie or something...hmmm...
I received an email from Elise Davis (hi!) about a lecture DFW will give in Seattle:
"DFW will be part of a "young writer's" lecture put on by Seattle Arts and Lecture in February. Main floor tickets are $18, balcony $15. Visit the web site for more info or call 206-621-2230." Thanks Elise! - August 16
- Portland seems to be the place to be on Tues. 3 Feb 1998. DFW along with some other young-ish new authors will be lecturing as part of the Portland Arts & Lecture series. Tickets in the general seating area are US$100!
- A relatively unfunny article titled "DAVID FOSTER WALLACE'S MY BANDANNA / BY MADONNA". ummmm...
- Another IJ Review. It isn't particularly positive about IJ, but this one IS a good read.
- August 12 Have a look at the new Suck.com page I have put together. I guess I just wanted to stand on my little podium and shout...
The NY-Times Page for DFW reviews etc.
The iMote Bookskellar DFW page.
- August 11 BIG UPDATE!!! I hope everyone finds the frames setup easier to use... Thankyou for all the nice comments in the Guestbook!
Things might look messy for a few days, it will all be cleaned up soon! - August 8
- I don't know what happened to the Shift Shockwave interview (it doesn't seem to be there anymore, can anyone help?) ,look back here soon for WAV conversions of the interview (i just have to put them up).
- More of the same from Suck about David...
- Here is an old review of Infinite Jest I just found from The College Hall Independent
- Another old and mildly interesting article about advertising and IJ by Daryl Lease
- The ancient Salon IJ message board
- Another OLD reference to IJ,this time a connection to a show in production by Dana Carvey!
- August 3 Thankyou to the author of the Postmodern Fiction Writers Web Links page for including this DFW page along with some other pages for notable authors. Go and have a look for some fine links to DeLillo, Pynchon etc.
- July 28Hit Suck for more brainless DFW comments...
Cool shockwave interview with DFW at Shift magazine. Try clicking on Dave's face... - July 10 Two Stories by DFW at Conjunctions. Hmmm, I'm not sure what I think yet...
Sorry about the lack of updates, I have been taking a well earned break after exams...more soon! - June 18 Thankyou everyone for visiting, the counter has now clocked over 1000 visitors!!
It would be lovely if those of you visiting would Sign The Guestbook once you have had a look...Thankyou!
I have exams over the next week or so and have spent the last few days studying, so updates will probably be in chunks like below. Here are some updates and news and stuff, not ordered that have come about or I have found in the last few days: - David Foster Wallace has won one of the MacArthur Foundation Grants!! This entitles him to $US230,000 on which to live for 5 years! Congratulations, David! For more info on the foundation look HERE
- A request from Jordan Ellenberg (Hi Jordan!) has made me check and fix the IJ index link. Find this index at ftp://ftp.best.com/pub/redbug/ in various formats.
- Thanks to Andrew Sandley (via a link on his page) I am now familiar with Premiere Magazine's online version of David Lynch Keeps His Head
- June 9 I have finally placed Chris Hager's Thesis, "On Speculation: Infinite Jest and American Fiction after Postmodernism" up on the page! I think it is great, have a good read.
- June 6 A review of Infinite Jest at Ed's Internet Book Review
- June 3 Look here for the beginnings of an IJ Notes and Speculations page. So far it concerns just stuff about Hal, have a look and tell me what you think.
- June 2 There has been much discussion on wallace-l (the mailing list) about what happened in IJ. There will soon be a page up here concerning all the views etc. Until then, check out Dan Schmidt's ideas about IJ. He has posted them to wallace-l before, for those who haven't seen them this is a direct link.
- May 22 The transcript of the NPR interview with DFW.
- May 16 A New Background! I think things are easier to read and it looks nicer. Thankyou Chris for the SR cover scan! There are many new links to reviews and interviews to be found. Once you have had a look around you might like to sign the NEW Guestbook (Please!). The Counter has reached 500 hits!!! Yay!! (Thankyou to everyone who is visiting)
- May 14 New Stuff from DFW! Death is not the end. Go and have a look!
- May 11 A New Background! I think things are easier to read and it looks nicer. There are many new links to reviews and interviews to be found. Once you have had a look around you might like to sign the NEW Guestbook (Please!). The Counter is approaching 500 hits... (Thankyou to everyone who is visiting)
- May 5 Many new things appearing soon... Check out the new guestbook! I just finished reading A supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again , look for a review soon... Sorry about some of the links, I'll fix those soon (especially the IJ index), AND is it just me, or is Andrew Sandley's DFW page unreachable?
- April 17 The Guestbook is up again, LPage had a hardware failure it seems, unfortunately all entries have been lost for now :(
I will be able to access these at a later date and will make the old entires available as soon as possible. - April 15 Complete Overhaul of the whole page! Look below for the clickable contents. Click on the book jackets for the book info or text for the appropriate page. Please sign the guestbook while you are here!
- April 11 Not sure that this is so new, but the DFW page at Little Brown has been worked on and looks very nifty. Sound clips are available too...
Found a review of ASFT at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel - April 9 Added Internet Link Exchange Banner to attract surfers to my site...hope it doesn't bother anyone too much!
- April 8 Various link fixing (thanks Marcy)... Guestbook is now (logically) at the bottom of the page, and the counter is back up for interests sake...
- March 30 Whilst Net Surfing I found this alternate view of IJ and ASFT at Metro Active.
- March 21 I have a guestbook! Please, please, please, please sign it...Thankyou!!
- March 20 Have a look at this... WWW.SUCK.COM has a go at misinterpreting DFW, David Wiley's interview and the essay in ASFT, "E Unibus Pluram". Here is a text version if you can't get through.
Also, try out the Quick Links for more detailed info about the novels, plus a little bit from me... - March 13 I Just recieved a lovely mail from Bob Wake regarding this page. He has set up a page of Reviews, articles, & miscellany concerning IJ. Thankyou very much for the reciprocal link, Bob!
- March 13 later I have removed the counter, it was driving me nuts! I'm sure 95% of the count was from me...
- March 13 Tim Ware mailed me (march 12 on the other side of the dateline!)regarding an index he has created for Infinite Jest. It is well worth a look. Find it in txt,dos, and hqx formats here!
- GRAPHICS!!! As of 8:34pm, March 12 this page has graphics. Please inform me if the background is slowing things down too much, it will be a small gif instead of a 16 million colour jpg soon. The gif for TBOTS is dodgy 'cause I drew it myself (no scanner).
- Many thanks to Andrew Sandley for the link from his DFW page to mine
- I now have a counter that seems to work (march 11)
- A new interview plus reviews from the Minnesota Daily, thanks to David Wiley
Last Updated on Thursday, 18 January 2007 15:32