2009

The Archives

Elsewhere Jest
Roundup
07.12.09 | Permalink | 32 Comments

Infinite Summer was mentioned in Newsweek, both the online and print edition. Related: hello one zillion new visitors. More info about the event can be found here, and the forums are over yonder. And in case you are wondering: a dedicated reader could pick up Infinite Jest today and still finish by September 21st if […]
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 […]