Faculty Retirement: Constant on DFW

-Paul Constant has an excellent piece in The Stranger regarding the recent death of David Foster Wallace. He reflects on the inevitable side effects of DFW's suicide, most notably the creation of "A Finite Collection of Books Written by a Suicide," through which we will search for anything that may have foreshadowed the tragic event.
-As Chuck Klosterman explored in his book Killing Yourself to Live, "death can be the greatest career move" an artist can ever make. It's why 2Pac is considered the best rapper ever despite his obvious mediocrity, or why Jeff Buckley's "Hallelujah" is the most popular version, or why "Needle In The Hay" is, in retrospect, the best possible song for the bathtub scene in The Royal Tenenbaums. David Foster Wallace was a brilliant writer who deserved more recognition than he got. Let's just hope he can get that recognition because of his work, not his death. more

Faculty Retirement: RIP DFW

-According to The LA Times, novelist, essayist, and philosopher David Foster Wallace was found dead of an apparent suicide Friday night. Wallace published several novels, along with musings on everything from porn to infinity, and was considered by many to be the best writer in America. He was 46.
-A film version of DFW's collection of short stories, Brief Interviews with Hideous Men, was adapted by The Office's John Krasinski, and features the likes of Lou Pucci, and Death Cab's Ben Gibbard. The film is currently in post-production.
-DFW is not to be confused with fellow philosopher DPW, who is very much alive as far as we know. more