Photo
February 21, 2013
9 notes
h2oetry: Happy would’ve-been 50th birthday, David Foster Wallace. His short story ‘Forever Overhead’ begins with the words, “Happy Birthday.” It also reads, “It is a big day, big as the roof of the whole southwest sky” & “You have grown into a new fragility” & “You have decided being scared is caused mostly by thinking” & “It seems impossible that everybody could really be this bored” & “Look out past it. Look across. You can see so well” & “Hold on tight” & “Now that you’re overhead you can see the whole thing” & “The ground wants you back” & “It may, after all, be all right to do something scary without thinking, but not when the scariness is the not thinking itself” & “Holding on takes time and alters the rhythm of the machine” & “No time is passing outside you at all. It is amazing” & “If you really wanted you could stay here forever, vibrating inside so fast you float motionless in time, like a bee over something sweet” & “Where you are now is still and quiet” & “From overhead it is more real than anything” & “Everything takes time. Bees have to move very fast to stay still” & “Now that there is time there is no time” & “Did you think it over” & “So which is the lie?” & “A still, floating bee is moving faster than it can think. From overhead the sweetness drives it crazy” & “That is forever” & “Step into the skin and disappear.” “Hello.” “Happy Birthday” Rest in peace. Happy 51st year since DFW’s birth. #RIPDFW

h2oetry:

Happy would’ve-been 50th birthday, David Foster Wallace.

His short story ‘Forever Overhead’ begins with the words, “Happy Birthday.”

It also reads, “It is a big day, big as the roof of the whole southwest sky” & “You have grown into a new fragility” & “You have decided being scared is caused mostly by thinking” & “It seems impossible that everybody could really be this bored” & “Look out past it. Look across. You can see so well” & “Hold on tight” & “Now that you’re overhead you can see the whole thing” & “The ground wants you back” & “It may, after all, be all right to do something scary without thinking, but not when the scariness is the not thinking itself” & “Holding on takes time and alters the rhythm of the machine” & “No time is passing outside you at all. It is amazing” & “If you really wanted you could stay here forever, vibrating inside so fast you float motionless in time, like a bee over something sweet” & “Where you are now is still and quiet” & “From overhead it is more real than anything” & “Everything takes time. Bees have to move very fast to stay still” & “Now that there is time there is no time” & “Did you think it over” & “So which is the lie?” & “A still, floating bee is moving faster than it can think. From overhead the sweetness drives it crazy” & “That is forever” & “Step into the skin and disappear.”

“Hello.”

“Happy Birthday”

Rest in peace.

Happy 51st year since DFW’s birth. #RIPDFW

Tags: dfw David foster Wallace Infinite Jest Happy Birthday

Photo
May 30, 2012
3 notes
Go download Mitt Romney’s app “I’m With Mitt” before the fix the misspelling: “Amercia.” Then don’t ever update the app.

Go download Mitt Romney’s app “I’m With Mitt” before the fix the misspelling: “Amercia.” Then don’t ever update the app.

Tags: Amercia Romney DFW Johnny Gentle 2012 David Foster Wallace Infinite Jest USA America GOP 2012 Republican Democrat Obama President Misspelling word

Quote
May 13, 2012
3 notes
"Once the first-person pronoun creeps into your agenda you’re dead, art-wise."

— David Foster Wallace, in an interview with Larry McCaffery in the Summer 1993 issue of ‘Review of Contemporary Fiction’

Tags: DFW David Foster Wallace art I first-person pronoun larry mccaffery review of contemporary fiction

Quote
April 19, 2012
110 notes
"The next real literary ‘rebels’ in this country might well emerge as some weird bunch of anti-rebels, born oglers who dare somehow to back away from ironic watching, who have the childish gall actually to endorse and instantiate single-entendre principles. Who treat of plain old untrendy human troubles and emotions in U.S. life with reverence and conviction. Who eschew self-consciousness and hip fatigue. These anti-rebels would be outdated, of course, before they even started. Dead on the page. Too sincere. Clearly repressed. Backward, quaint, naive, anachronistic. Maybe that’ll be the point. Maybe that’s why they’ll be the next real rebels. Real rebels, as far as I can see, risk disapproval. The old postmodern insurgents risked the gasp and squeal: shock, disgust, outrage, censorship, accusations of socialism, anarchism, nihilism. Today’s risks are different. The new rebels might be artists willing to risk the yawn, the rolled eyes, the cool smile, the nudged ribs, the parody of gifted ironists, the ‘Oh how banal.’ To risk accusations of sentimentality, melodrama. Of overcredulity. Of softness. Of willingness to be suckered by a world of lurkers and starers who fear gaze and ridicule above imprisonment without law. Who knows."

— David Foster Wallace (via seventyfourspecies)

(via raynola)

Tags: DFW David Foster Wallace

Photo
April 04, 2012
5 notes
Tomorrow & Friday: DFW Symposium in Austin, Texas. Cannot wait.

Tomorrow & Friday: DFW Symposium in Austin, Texas. Cannot wait.

Tags: dfw David Foster Wallace harry ransom center symposium austin texas infinite jest

Photo
April 02, 2012
3 notes
Last night I met comedian Rob Delaney (his twitter feed is incredible: @robdelaney); he noticed my Enfield Tennis Academy shirt. David Foster Wallace/Infinite Jest fans unite! After the show he was talking w/ fans and taking pics, so I went over and he immediately said “Great shirt!” — it registered to me that I had my Infinite Jest-inspired Enfield Tennis Academy shirt. So we geeked out for a few minutes talking DFW. He read selections of his latest novel ‘The Pale King’ at a reading in LA last year, etc. I told him I was heading to Austin for the DFW Symposium later this week, etc. It was a fun, unexpected turn of events, because I didn’t even realize he was in SLC until 15 minutes before the show, when my friend Jennie tweeted about the first show of the day. Luckily I live a mere 2 blocks away from Wise Guys at Trolley Square.

Last night I met comedian Rob Delaney (his twitter feed is incredible: @robdelaney); he noticed my Enfield Tennis Academy shirt. David Foster Wallace/Infinite Jest fans unite!

After the show he was talking w/ fans and taking pics, so I went over and he immediately said “Great shirt!” — it registered to me that I had my Infinite Jest-inspired Enfield Tennis Academy shirt. So we geeked out for a few minutes talking DFW. He read selections of his latest novel ‘The Pale King’ at a reading in LA last year, etc. I told him I was heading to Austin for the DFW Symposium later this week, etc.

It was a fun, unexpected turn of events, because I didn’t even realize he was in SLC until 15 minutes before the show, when my friend Jennie tweeted about the first show of the day. Luckily I live a mere 2 blocks away from Wise Guys at Trolley Square.

Tags: Rob Delaney Comedy Comedian DFW David Foster Wallace Infinite Jest IJ Pale King SLC Salt Lake City Wise Guys Trolley Square

Photo
March 31, 2012
4 notes
Reading = a sport; a sprint; an Everestian climb w/o oxygen; calibrating the target for neural arrows flung from afar. Commencing a marathon (re-)reading of David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest.

Reading = a sport; a sprint; an Everestian climb w/o oxygen; calibrating the target for neural arrows flung from afar. Commencing a marathon (re-)reading of David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest.

Tags: David Foster Wallace Infinite Jest DFW IJ Bryan Garner Usage Stephen Burn Marshall Boswell David Lipsky Now Reading LIT book

Photo
March 31, 2012
3 notes
@h2oetry: Rockstar + C18H21NO3 = trying to blaze through Infinite Jest between now and Thursday. #PuttingThePossibleInImpossible

@h2oetry: Rockstar + C18H21NO3 = trying to blaze through Infinite Jest between now and Thursday. #PuttingThePossibleInImpossible

Tags: DFW Infinite Jest David Foster Wallace IJ caffeine codeine Harry Ransom Center DFW Symposium Austin Texas Salt Lake City SLC Utah

Quote
March 11, 2012
6 notes
"It’s like there’s some rule that real stuff can only get mentioned if everybody rolls their eyes or laughs in a way that isn’t happy."

— David Foster Wallace, ‘Infinite Jest,’ page 592

Tags: dfw david foster wallace infinite jest sincerity

Photo
February 21, 2012
9 notes
Happy would’ve-been 50th birthday, David Foster Wallace. His short story ‘Forever Overhead’ begins with the words, “Happy Birthday.” It also reads, “It is a big day, big as the roof of the whole southwest sky” & “You have grown into a new fragility” & “You have decided being scared is caused mostly by thinking” & “It seems impossible that everybody could really be this bored” & “Look out past it. Look across. You can see so well” & “Hold on tight” & “Now that you’re overhead you can see the whole thing” & “The ground wants you back” & “It may, after all, be all right to do something scary without thinking, but not when the scariness is the not thinking itself” & “Holding on takes time and alters the rhythm of the machine” & “No time is passing outside you at all. It is amazing” & “If you really wanted you could stay here forever, vibrating inside so fast you float motionless in time, like a bee over something sweet” & “Where you are now is still and quiet” & “From overhead it is more real than anything” & “Everything takes time. Bees have to move very fast to stay still” & “Now that there is time there is no time” & “Did you think it over” & “So which is the lie?” & “A still, floating bee is moving faster than it can think. From overhead the sweetness drives it crazy” & “That is forever” & “Step into the skin and disappear.” “Hello.” “Happy Birthday” Rest in peace.

Happy would’ve-been 50th birthday, David Foster Wallace.

His short story ‘Forever Overhead’ begins with the words, “Happy Birthday.”

It also reads, “It is a big day, big as the roof of the whole southwest sky” & “You have grown into a new fragility” & “You have decided being scared is caused mostly by thinking” & “It seems impossible that everybody could really be this bored” & “Look out past it. Look across. You can see so well” & “Hold on tight” & “Now that you’re overhead you can see the whole thing” & “The ground wants you back” & “It may, after all, be all right to do something scary without thinking, but not when the scariness is the not thinking itself” & “Holding on takes time and alters the rhythm of the machine” & “No time is passing outside you at all. It is amazing” & “If you really wanted you could stay here forever, vibrating inside so fast you float motionless in time, like a bee over something sweet” & “Where you are now is still and quiet” & “From overhead it is more real than anything” & “Everything takes time. Bees have to move very fast to stay still” & “Now that there is time there is no time” & “Did you think it over” & “So which is the lie?” & “A still, floating bee is moving faster than it can think. From overhead the sweetness drives it crazy” & “That is forever” & “Step into the skin and disappear.”

“Hello.”

“Happy Birthday”

Rest in peace.

Tags: david foster wallace dfw happy birthday forever overhead rip rest in peace brief interviews with hideous men BIWHM howling fantods IJ infinite jest