David Foster Wallace’s postcard to Don DeLillo, courtesy of Electric Literature:  9-1 (CARDS WERE GIFTS–NO OFFENSE INTENDED) DEAR D2, I AM NOW A LICENSED CA DRIVER, WHICH FROM THE SENSE I GET IS OFFICIAL STATE-CITIZENSHIP IF ANYTHING HERE IS. THERE IS A PALM TREE IN MY BACK YARD THAT’S 11 1/2 FEET AROUND. A BRICK SHITHOUSE OF A PALM TREE.  ¶ THANK YOU FOR YOUR NOTE. I HAVE NOT YET READ THE GADDIS, BUT I’M IN CONTACT WITH FRANZEN, WHO’S APPARENTLY BEEN CHARGED THE TASK OF A COMPREHENSIVE GADDIS PIECE BY THE NYer, AND IS ‘STRUGGLING’ WITH IT. ¶ THIS BLOODY MENGENLEHRE BOOK (IT INTIMIDATES ME THAT YOU KNOW THIS TERM) TURNS OUT NOT TO BE DONE — BOTH THE MATH-EDITOR AND THE GENERAL EDITOR WANT REPAIRS — OFTEN THEIR DEMANDS ARE MUTUALLY CONTRADICTORY. I WILL END UP HAVING SPENT 11 MONTHS FULL-TIME ON A PROJECT I’D PLANNED TO KNOCK OFF PART-TIME IN 4. I NEVER WANT TO SEE ANOTHER FOURIER SERIES AS LONG AS I LIVE. ¶ I’D LOVE A CHANCE TO EYEBALL YR. NEW NOVEL IF YOU DON’T OBJECT. AND I HOPE VALPARAISO IS IN GOOD HANDS WITH THE TROUPE. Y.V.T.DAVID WALLACE

David Foster Wallace’s postcard to Don DeLillo, courtesy of Electric Literature: 

9-1 (CARDS WERE GIFTS–NO OFFENSE INTENDED)

DEAR D2, I AM NOW A LICENSED CA DRIVER, WHICH FROM THE SENSE I GET IS OFFICIAL STATE-CITIZENSHIP IF ANYTHING HERE IS. THERE IS A PALM TREE IN MY BACK YARD THAT’S 11 1/2 FEET AROUND. A BRICK SHITHOUSE OF A PALM TREE.  ¶ THANK YOU FOR YOUR NOTE. I HAVE NOT YET READ THE GADDIS, BUT I’M IN CONTACT WITH FRANZEN, WHO’S APPARENTLY BEEN CHARGED THE TASK OF A COMPREHENSIVE GADDIS PIECE BY THE NYer, AND IS ‘STRUGGLING’ WITH IT. ¶ THIS BLOODY MENGENLEHRE BOOK (IT INTIMIDATES ME THAT YOU KNOW THIS TERM) TURNS OUT NOT TO BE DONE — BOTH THE MATH-EDITOR AND THE GENERAL EDITOR WANT REPAIRS — OFTEN THEIR DEMANDS ARE MUTUALLY CONTRADICTORY. I WILL END UP HAVING SPENT 11 MONTHS FULL-TIME ON A PROJECT I’D PLANNED TO KNOCK OFF PART-TIME IN 4. I NEVER WANT TO SEE ANOTHER FOURIER SERIES AS LONG AS I LIVE. ¶ I’D LOVE A CHANCE TO EYEBALL YR. NEW NOVEL IF YOU DON’T OBJECT. AND I HOPE VALPARAISO IS IN GOOD HANDS WITH THE TROUPE.

Y.V.T.
DAVID WALLACE

millionsmillions: A Previously Unpublished Scene From The Pale King by David Foster Wallace

millionsmillions:

A Previously Unpublished Scene From The Pale King by David Foster Wallace

I think one of the insidious lessons about TV is the meta-lesson that you’re dumb. This is all you can do. This is easy, and you’re the sort of person who really just wants to sit in a chair and have it easy. When in fact there are parts of us, in a way, that are a lot more ambitious than that. And what we need… is seriously engaged art that can teach again that we’re smart. And that’s the stuff that TV and movies — although they’re great at certain things — cannot give us. But that have to create the motivations for us to want to do the extra work, to get those other kinds of art… Which is tricky, because you want to seduce the reader, but you don’t want to pander or manipulate them. I mean, a good book teaches the reader how to read it.
David Foster Wallace in Although Of Course You End Up Becoming Yourself: A Road Trip with David Foster Wallace.

penamerican:

A sunflower, four more, one bowed, and horses in the distance standing ridged and still as toys. All nodding.

Celebrate David Foster Wallace’s birthday today by listening to Rick Moody read from The Pale King at Everything and More: The Pale King by David Foster Wallace, part of the 2011 PEN World Voices Festival.

I was fortunate enough to attend this panel. Moody’s voice wraps comfortably around Wallace’s sentences; it’s a wonder more novelists don’t read one another’s work in public. (That’s editor Michael Pietsch on the right.)

Yes, it’s a long video. It’s long because there’s 44min of literary gold here. Enjoy.

irunfrombears:

Guernica / Doing Everybody

Nathan Englander talks to Zadie Smith about David Foster Wallace and Infinite Jest, Saul Bellow, and morality in writing (among other things).

(via @GrantaMag)

(via nathanenglander)

mythologyofblue: David Markson’s list of the rejections of Wittgenstein’s Mistress, from the back of the program of the memorial service at NYU’s NY Institute for the Humanities. [the number is 54] David Foster Wallace later called it “pretty much the high point of experimental fiction in this country.” (Vanishing Point is also incredible.)

mythologyofblue:

David Markson’s list of the rejections of Wittgenstein’s Mistress, from the back of the program of the memorial service at NYU’s NY Institute for the Humanities.

[the number is 54]

David Foster Wallace later called it “pretty much the high point of experimental fiction in this country.” (Vanishing Point is also incredible.)

Opening page of corrected proof of Wallace’s 1996 essay “Shipping Out: On the (Nearly Lethal) Comforts of a Luxury Cruise” for Harper’s magazine. Image courtesy of the Harry Ransom Center. Get thee to Austin: the Harry Ransom Center is hosting a David Foster Wallace Symposium.

Opening page of corrected proof of Wallace’s 1996 essay “Shipping Out: On the (Nearly Lethal) Comforts of a Luxury Cruise” for Harper’s magazine. Image courtesy of the Harry Ransom Center.

Get thee to Austin: the Harry Ransom Center is hosting a David Foster Wallace Symposium.