This is cross-posted to the forums. We’ll be featuring guests for the remainder of the week, but I’m appropriating my Monday slot for a discussion on the future of Infinite Summer. the sub-14 E.T.A.s historically have a kind of Tunnel Club. Like many small boys’ clubs, the Tunnel Club’s unifying raison d’etre is kind of […]
And welcome to week 10. Milestone Reached: 738 (75%) Sections Read: Page 666 The Tunnel Club searches the catacombs under E.T.A. for rats. Page 673: Thierry Poutrincourt joins Steeply and deLint in watching the Hal Incandenza v. Ortho Stice match. Page 682 – 14 NOVEMBER / YEAR OF THE DEPEND ADULT UNDERGARMENT: Matty Pemulis, prostitute […]
Avery Edison is in transit today, so Nick Douglas is subbing in. Nick Douglas is the editor of Twitter Wit: Brilliance in 140 Characters or Less, a collection of witty tweets, which was released earlier this week. I’m an atheist – if I were in AA, I’d get on my knees with far less openness […]
Someone recently sent me an unpublished manuscript to read and while the book itself had many things to recommend it, there was one sentence that made me laugh. I won’t use the same context because I don’t want to embarrass the author, but the gist of it was something like, “It’s so ironic that you […]
Matt Bucher is the administrator of the David Foster Wallace mailing list and publisher of Elegant Complexity: A Study of David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest. He is an editor at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, runs a weblog about writer Roberto Bolaño and the novel 2666, and has read Infinite Jest at least three times. Infinite Jest […]
Two months ago Matthew Baldwin told the Guides that August 24-28 would be devoted to guest posts and Kevin Guilfoile, who is a professional, wrote this on a calendar, and Matthew Baldwin, who is not, did not, and, long story short, Kevin doesn’t have a post prepared, so we’re running the weekly guest post today […]
As your least insightful and hands-down laziest guide, I fully admit that I’m 100 pages behind this week and I’m not even going to try to fake it. But I did spend a fruitful hour this morning browsing DFW reviews and interviews. This from Newsweek: NEWSWEEK: What’s your history with tennis? WALLACE: I played serious […]
As details emerge about The Pale King, it’s becoming clear that the 2005 commencement speech David Foster Wallace gave at Kenyon College is something of a bridge between Infinite Jest and his final, unfinished novel. Michael Piesch, Wallace’s editor, goes so far as to call “This Is Water” (as the commencement speech is commonly known) […]
Man, everyone is doing this Infinite Summer thing. Here is a still from this week’s episode of Weeds. “I’ll do that delivery for mom after I finish my chapter.I’m sure this Erdedy guy won’t mind waiting ten minutes.” (Thanks to Ed for sending us the screenshot.) Matt of Wood-Tang is on page 700 of the […]
Milestone Reached: 664 (67%) Sections Read: Page 575:: Randy Lenz and Bruce Green continue strolling around Boston. We learn that Green’s mother died of fright after opening a novelty snake-in-a-fake-can-of-nuts gift that young Bruce had given her at his father’s urging, and that Green’s father went insane (and was executed for sending out deadly exploding […]