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July 2009

The Archives

• Summaries

  Infinite Summery – Week 3

  07.11.09 | Permalink | 14 Comments

  Milestone Reached: Page 221 (22%) Chapters Read: Page 151: Drug tests at E.T.A; Mike Pemulis sells sterile urine. Page 157 – WINTER B.S. 1960 — TUCSON AZ: Himself’s father (Hal’s grandfather) prepares to teach Himself how to play tennis, tells of the incident that ended his own tennis career, and drinks heavily. Page 169 – [...]

• Guests

  Nick Maniatis: The Howling Fantods

  07.10.09 | Permalink | 101 Comments

  Nick Maniatis is the owner/maintainer of the David Foster Wallace web resource The Howling Fantods as well as a high school English and Media teacher. Once he finished Infinite Jest for the fourth time he stopped counting. The Howling Fantods was inspired by Infinite Jest. I bought a discounted first edition of Infinite Jest in [...]

• Avery Edison

  Post of the Pop-Tart Brown Sugar Cinnamon Toaster Pastry

  07.09.09 | Permalink | 56 Comments

  This post subsidized by Kellogg’s.26 Everyone knows that Sunday evening feeling.27 The pit in your stomach that grows and grows while you watch crappy TV shows that you’re not really watching because school is tomorrow and you have. Not. Done. Your. Homework. Those who read my post last week (“Not the best student“) will not [...]

• Kevin Guilfoile

  We’re Together Everybody Knows And Here’s How The Story Goes

  07.08.09 | Permalink | 72 Comments

  So, the bricklayer story. On page 139, Wallace gives us a very funny memo sent from one State Farm employee to another. The memo quotes from an insurance claim. Because I know there are folks who aren’t quite caught up yet, and because this discussion is specifically about Wallace’s choices in telling it, here is [...]

• Eden M. Kennedy

  The Trick is Keeping the Truth Up-Front

  07.07.09 | Permalink | 28 Comments

  Thanks for all your comments last week — despite the fact that my question (“how the fuck are you people finding time to read?”) was fundamentally rhetorical, your descriptions of how you’re fitting Infinite Jest into your lives were fascinating. I am still behind, but thanks to a weekend spent back and forth from LAX [...]

• Matthew Baldwin

  Letters of Acceptance

  07.06.09 | Permalink | 49 Comments

  Fifteen years ago I told an acquaintance of my aspiration to become a Peace Corps volunteer. “Good luck,” was her reply. “Did you know that only one out of every nine people who apply gets in?” As this was five years before the Internet-As-We-Know-It, and even more before the debut of Snopes, there was no [...]

• Elsewhere Jest

  Roundup

  07.05.09 | Permalink | 13 Comments

  Jacket Copy, the LA Times literary organ, interviewed Matthew Baldwin. The Story Behind Infinite Summer. The Valve, meanwhile, finds the project “a little morbid“. Unbeknownst to us, Infinite Summer was mentioned on television at some point. Mark Flannigan, the Contemporary Literature Guide of About.com, is on-board. Says Whitney of Feet on Polished Floor: “Reading David [...]

• Summaries

  Infinite Summery – Week 2

  07.04.09 | Permalink | 37 Comments

  Milestone Reached: Page 147 (14%) Chapters Read: Chapter Beginning Page Synopsis YEAR OF THE DEPEND ADULT UNDERGARMENT 85 Tiny Ewell travels to the Enfield Marine VA Hospital Complex via cab. A list of people gathered in the living room of the medical attaché house watching the Entertainment. 30 APRIL — YEAR OF THE DEPEND ADULT [...]

• Guests

  Michael Pietsch: Editing Infinite Jest

  07.03.09 | Permalink | 20 Comments

  Michael Pietsch is Executive Vice President and Publisher of Little, Brown and Company, and was David Foster Wallace’s editor. He adapted the following from “Editing Wallace,” a Q&A with Rick Moody, published in Sonora Review 55, May 2009. In April 1992 I received on submission from David Wallace’s agent, Bonnie Nadell, around 150 pages of [...]

• Avery Edison

  Not the Best Student

  07.02.09 | Permalink | 22 Comments

  The figure of Death (Heath) presides over the front entrance of a carnival sideshow whose spectators watch performers undergo unspeakable degradations so grotesquely compelling that the spectators’ eyes become larger and larger until the spectators themselves are transformed into gigantic eyeballs in chairs, while on the other side of the sideshow tent the figure of [...]

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the challenge

Join endurance bibliophiles from around the world in reading Infinite Jest over the summer of 2009, June 21st to September 22nd. A thousand pages¹ ÷ 92 days = 75 pages a week. No sweat.

1. Plus endnotes^a.
a. A lot of them.

The Sponsors

The Queue

In October we are reading Bram Stoker's Dracula in October. See the announcement.

In January & February of 2010 we are reading 2666, the paperback of which was just released.

At some point in between we are reading a novel TBD.

The Search

The Last 10 Posts

• Infinite Index
• Acknowledgements
• Summer’s End Roundtable, Part IV
• Summer’s End Roundtable, Part III
• Summer’s End Roundtable, Part II
• Summer’s End Roundtable, Part I
• The End
• Roundup
• Greg Carlisle: Reading Infinite Jest Changed My Life (and Now It Will Change Yours)
• Mission Improbable

The Last 10 Comments

• Pemulis' Yachting Cap on Mission Improbable: Ooh, I’m thinking maybe Gately’s ginormous head has to do...
• Pemulis' Yachting Cap on I Got This Fire In My Heart, Won’t Let Me Sleep, Can’t Concentrate…: Nucks...
• Pemulis' Yachting Cap on Summer’s End Roundtable, Part III: I just realized that Mario reminds me a bit of Owen...
• Pemulis' Yachting Cap on Summer’s End Roundtable, Part III: I’m finished! I’d started last summer...
• Tao Joannes on Infinite Index: So, are we doing it again this summer as an official thing? I’ve got some...
• Melissa on Infinite Index: Thanks, Matthew. I was keeping pace with y’all last year up until August, when I had...
• Peer on Acknowledgements: Thanks for the link. I will check it out. I was just hoping for some announcements here...
• Prolixian on Acknowledgements: Peer – if you are interested in 2666, check out bolanobolano.com. A group read...
• Peer on Acknowledgements: When will we start the new book?
• Todeswalzer on Acknowledgements: RIP Infinite Summer. It was great while it lasted.

The Directory