4 ms·

I had never heard of David Foster Wallace before this. Thanks for sharing it, has really made my day.

• brentvwilliams 17y ago
  If you haven't checked it out yet, you should definitely read his essay "A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again." http://harpers.org/media/pdf/dfw/HarpersMagazine-1996-01-0007859.pdf http://harpers.org/media/pdf/dfw/HarpersMagazine-1996-01-000...
  • tptacek 17y ago
    You should buy the book; the Illinois State Fair essay is worth the price alone. Also highly recommended is the audio version of "Consider The Lobster", in which DFW implements inline footnotes in audio. I'm halfway through Infinite Jest right now (putting me many weeks behind http://infinitesummer.org http://infinitesummer.org, and I recommend it as well.
    • jraines 17y ago
      The opening essay on television (E Unibus Pluram) is a great read as well. Another great one (from "Consider The Lobster"), if you're interested in linguistics and who gets to decide what is "acceptable" English, is here: http://instruct.westvalley.edu/lafave/DFW_present_tense.html http://instruct.westvalley.edu/lafave/DFW_present_tense.html (Extremely long -- if any of the shorter pieces really grab you, you really should just go to Amazon and snag both nonfiction collections.)