Showing posts with label David Foster Wallace. Show all posts
Showing posts with label David Foster Wallace. Show all posts

Wednesday, July 7, 2010

Out-of/Inside Context 101.

_although of course you end up becoming yourself_, page 115:

READING LADY: I'm sure if you have any questions, David wouldn't mind answering them.
FIRST QUESTION: How do you get your ideas?

...

AFTER READING
HUNGRY MIND BOOKSTORE
THE SIGNING LINE
A LONG, EXCITED LINE

[It's not an easy process. People want to talk. They're thrilled when they get to the table: blushing, excited. David draws a smiley face next to each signature. One woman looks at hers with a frown. She's not sure what it is; she believes he's drawn a computer.]

It's a smiley face. If you want, I could put Wite-Out over it. It's your book.

[Someone pulls out a copy of _Broom of the System_]

Oh no. This old thing.

[After the signature, he does a birthday-candle blow over the ink, to dry it.]

Little, Brown taught me that.

from page xv: "He wrote with eyes and a voice that seemed to be a condensed form of everyone's lives..."

Monday, July 5, 2010

Cut/Pastries: Proof's in the Pudding.

Independent update Re: "the beauty of the light of music": "I think about this world a lot & I cry & I've seen!"... but I'm in this kitchen! WITH DON DELILLO'S _WHITE NOISE_... so everything is beautiful in the space of the language, and indeterminate outside.

A passage from said novel, that a teacher much older and wiser reminded me to remember:

"We can't answer these questions because we've read the signs, seen the people snapping the pictures. We can't get outside the aura. We're part of the aura. We're here, we're now."

I hope people are still "immensely pleased" because, like teachers and scribes before me, I feel compelled to record with accuracy and humility, but I'm unable to explain comprehensively.

The aforementioned teacher also gave me a book, _Although Of Course You End Up Becoming Yourself: A Road Trip with David Foster Wallace_. This gift made me feel terribly grateful and sad, because I feel that the brilliant voices of the generation will always either fail to impress effectively or fall silent too quickly. I hope that's just cynicism and disappointment talking...