DFW

Because I spend a fraction of the time I used to on the internet, and most of that is used downloading podcasts, I tend to miss out on any news that isn't relayed secondhand to me about pig lipstick or how everyone's money is going to shit. So I missed David Foster Wallace's death. I mean totally.
Last night over dinner I was recommending an essay of his to friends of my mother's who were going to Maine next week. When I borrowed a computer to find and print it, I first came across a eulogy to the man. He hung himself a week ago in Claremont.
I have to state here that I am at best an intermittent fan of his writing. I think his verbosity, occasionally meandering train of thought, and barrage of footnotes have always distracted me from the meat of the stories he tells. Which isn't to say I dislike all his work. His essay on 9/11 remains my favorite piece ever written on the Horror. His Girl With Curious Hair is a fantastic collection of short fiction, "Lyndon" in particular being a personal favorite. But I still have yet to find the meaning of god in Infinite Jest, as many others seem to have, particularly in my writing seminar late in college*. I think it may have had somewhat of a serious impact on my opinion of him, since not long after I began to view him more as
pretentious hipster lit. a Proto-Eggers. and While I wasn't wrong, I was much further from being right. Backlash is backlash and just as stupid as anything that inspires it.
In any case, about two weeks ago I'd downloaded the audio version of his Brief Interviews with Hideous Men, which I'd read very casually years ago but regained an interest in when I saw that John Krasinski from the Office was adapting it for film. I'm curious to see how this project turns out. In any case, I've been listening to it between newscasts and music binges. The thing about audio books is that I rarely get entranced by them like I do actual books. They're more like background music.
In any case, I was enjoying my favorite coffee on the planet yesterday and running a few errands when I had to stop and scribble down a line of his in my pocket notebook. I do this relatively often, and recalling through it later I find lines from movies, notes from news clippings, and pieces of conversation overheard in line at the sandwich shop. But every once in awhile it's something that I just can't shake, and know I'm going to try to steal and use for something else at some point. More often than not, I don't, but it still functions as inspiration.
So, last night, as I read of this author's death, who I've recommended persistently and followed with an interest for the past ten years, I pulled the notebook out and looked down to my half-assed and completely unintentional nod to the man:

"It seems impossible that everybody could really be this bored"

in my clumsy script, written on my knee while crouching on 19th Street yesterday afternoon.
I don't really have much else to say, other than really, go download that 9/11 essay linked above if you've never read it or heard it. It really is an amazing piece of writing. And while I always appreciate it when an author will read their own audio books, I especially enjoy his voice, which has such a genteel quality to it.

P.S. I know the picture above is completely tasteless, but it also cracks me up. As does the Onion headline about NASCAR cancelling the rest of the season in his memory.

*As someone suggested to me the other day, if The Stand is the heavy metal of books, Infinite Jest is the Aja. I know how stupid that sounds, but it made sense in the context it was in. (Yes, I like footnotes, too).