A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again: Essays and Arguments | 
This week we're back with another discussion about a David Foster Wallace essay. This time there is some controversy! Did Peter actually read the essay if he didn't read the footnotes? Also, we discussed Fourth of July movies and drinking six cups of coffee. Finally, we are joined by Matt's extremely intelligent and thoughtful brother. Fun episode all around. Enjoy!
https://open.spotify.com/episode/1hYM36TDxzo1vESAQZ0MIT
New episode is up and out! We review David Foster Wallace's cruise ship essay and interview a very special guest!
https://open.spotify.com/episode/1hYM36TDxzo1vESAQZ0MIT?si=F7oI3yTsRm6Pnql4Qh8cl...
DFW could write essays like no other. So smart and funny. This collection includes “Getting Away from Already Being Pretty Much Away from it All” about heading back to his native Illinois on assignment to write about the Illinois State Fair. Originally published in Harper‘s as “Ticket to the Fair.”
#Fair #SavvySettings
@Eggs @Alwaysbeenaloverofbooks
panNon mi ha coinvolta, ogni capitolo mi sembrava solo un elenco di cose (e non mi è rimasto molto).
2/5 ✨
DFW writes with a razor blade.
Not all the essays in this collection worked for me, but the title essay about a cruise was pretty entertaining.
#LitsySpringBreak. Cruise 🚢
pickDavid Foster Wallace is my favorite writer.
I like his essays better than his fiction.
This volume contains his greatest essay hits.
Just read it!
Out of work until Tuesday with a pinched nerve.
Trying to focus on my book, but it‘s a challenge when I can‘t get comfortable. 😒
#ReadingResolutions - Male Author: A light gone too soon. And with it a pure touchstone of wisdom. It‘s hard to imagine all of the truths that we shall never hear from David Foster Wallace. Infinite Jest was a beast of a book that I never finished, but I enjoyed the tagged book which is representative of his nonfiction writing & his quest to answer the reasons why. There is a void in the literary atmosphere that can never be filled. He is missed.✨
A semi-public commitment to continue reading in this book borrowed from a friend...
panA Supposedly Fun Book I'll Never Read Again. The first two essays were good but then it got boring. I considered bailing, but rather bailed essays if they failed to keep/catch my interest after 2 pages.
#TBRtemptation post 1! A 4.28 GR rating with over 27,000 rates! This is a collection of seven essays covering a range of subjects, including: television, tennis, the Illinois state fair, postmodern literary theory, traveling aboard a Caribbean luxury cruise liner, David Lynch's films. Curiosity, humor, and verbosity, are considered hallmarks of these pieces. #blameLitsy #blameMrBook 😎
Amazon has some pretty good daily deals for Labor Day. I picked a few of the books up. Worth checking out if you are a Kindle reader like me. #kindle #davidfosterwallace #joandidion #jillfilipovic
pickI am so sad Wallace is dead. His essays are the complete package: breathtakingly smart, sidesplittingly funny, and remarkably empathetic. Pick this up if you want to read opinions from a truly unique perspective.
Before joining Litsy, I was so disciplined about only reading library books and never spending money ... until seeing on here everyone's book mail, personal libraries, special editions, etc. Ever since, my book buying has been out of control, so yes, I do #blameitonLitsy
But of course, no regrets 📚📚🌈😍
#marchintoreading
Re-reading some of theses beloved essays between books. David Foster Wallace analyzing David Lynch (and Blue Velvet, specifically!) is just too good. I'm not worthy. 🙌🏻
Even his acknowledgements are perfect and hilarious. Sigh. ❤️ (Are you guys sick of my DFW obsession yet? 😉)
My signed first edition of DFW's "A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again." I saw him read from "Brief Interviews With Hideous Men" in Cambridge, 1999. RIP. #signedsundays
And then now a very strange argument indeed ensues, me v. the Lebanese porter, because it turns out I am putting this guy, who barely speaks English, in a terrible kind of sedulous-service double-bind, a paradox of pampering: viz. the The-Passenger‘s-Always-Right-versus-Never-Let-A-Passenger-Carry-His-Own-Bag paradox. Clueless at the time about what this poor little Lebanese man is going through, I wave off both his high-pitched protests ...
One of the few things I still miss from my Midwest childhood was this weird, deluded but unshakable conviction that everything around me existed all and only For Me. Am I the only one who had this queer deep sense as a kid? -- that everything exterior to me existed only insofar as it affected me somehow? -- that all things were somehow, via some occult adult activity, specially arranged for my benefit?
In school I ended up writing three different papers on "The Castaway" section of Moby-Dick, the chapter where the cabin boy Pip falls overboard and is driven mad by the empty immensity of what he finds himself floating in. And when I teach school now I always teach Crane's horrific "The Open Boat," and get all bent out of shape when the kids find the story dull or jaunty-adventurish: I want them to feel the same marrow-level dread of the oceanic..
How can even the idea of rebellion against corporate culture stay meaningful when Chrysler Inc. advertises trucks by invoking “The Dodge Rebellion”? How is one to be bona fide iconoclast when Burger King sells onion rings with “Sometimes You Gotta Break the Rules”?
The first time I saw the cover of this book I laughed so hard! The photo sums up how I feel right now about grad school applications. #funfridayphoto
Lonely people tend, rather, to be lonely because they decline to bear the psychic costs of being around other humans. They are allergic to people. People affect them too strongly.
So for #FunFridayPhoto, some of my favorite writing is in DFW essays. Not laugh out loud like funny, but sharp, smart, witty and dry humor and observations - a completely unique voice.
This was my first DFW and one of my favourite books full stop. It introduced me to reading essays for fun outside of class work and it's now genre kryptonite. DFW is an absolute master of the essay form and this covers everything from tennis to David Lynch to cruise ships and more! Wallace is mesmerising with his funny and sharp observations and I honestly could not recommend this book enough regardless of how you feel about his fiction!
pickI love DFW. He can be cerebral and theoretical and turn on a dime and reference goofy pop culture like Scooby Doo. He can make you laugh and think on the same page. And sometimes he can wow you and show you a new trick you didn't know writers could do. Highly recommended. But do read Infinite Jest.
pickJust finished listening to this and had so much fun! I keep sharing anecdotes from his observations of the Illinois State fair and sailing solo on a luxury carnival cruise. I also loved geeking out with DFW on David Lynch
"I find gifted ironists sort of wickedly fun to listen to at parties, but I always walk away feeling like I've had several radical surgical procedures."
"...if Realism called it like it saw it, Metafiction simply called it as it saw itself seeing itself see it."
I loved the title essay. However, I'd still go on another cruise.
pickWhy did I not think I would enjoy DFW? This was delightful!
