4 Responses to “Afternoon Viewing: David Foster Wallace, Part 7”

1. Carol Says:
   April 25th, 2010 at 9:10 am

   The man listens with his whole body and stays present for the entire conversation. A rare and beautiful sight. How could he remove that from us?

2. Jamie Mason Says:
   April 25th, 2010 at 9:35 am

   I am not going to want this interview to end. I wish he’d been happy or content enough to stay. He, at least in this discussion, is brilliant in such an accessible way.

   But he’s making me a little neurotic because I have to keep stopping myself from talking out loud to my computer screen in agreement or addendum to what he’s saying.

   Cuckoo. I’m a sad case.

3. Carol Says:
   April 25th, 2010 at 9:52 am

   As I was watching this interview, I couldn’t help comparing it to Harlan Ellison’s abrasive “Pay the Writer” interview. It’s now impossible for me to believe those two men share the same profession.

   I’m so with you on the end of this moment. It will be difficult to let go.

4. Jamie Mason Says:
   April 25th, 2010 at 10:03 am

   Ha! The Ellison rant is hilarious and pointed and useful in its own right, but David Foster Wallace is just saying the things that I love to talk about that are too geeky for general company, and saying them in a way that I know I could sit for hours and chew to tatters.

   Just last night, I went to a book club. I hated the assigned book and had only made it a third of the way through with gritted teeth. The group was split on the overall value of the book, but when I started in on the mechanical sins of the piece (subjective, of course, I know) I started earning the bemused and discomfited looks and comments of the oddball specialist. I didn’t mind and everyone was very nice.

   It’s sadly not often you encounter people who like to talk the way he did.

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