Monday, September 22, 2008

Yacht jacket and wrestling shoes

Well, this could probably be appended as a comment to the earlier post about David Foster Wallace, but I have doubts that it would get read. Also, I'm tired and I've been drinking vodka and cayenne pepper all night, because a story in Thieves Jargon told me it was a dandy cold remedy. I don't have a cold tonight, but what the hell?

A reader named Gina passed this link along to me:
http://www.playboy.com/magazine/features/david-foster-wallace/index.html

This is a David Foster Wallace story from a 1989 issue of Playboy. They say it's his first story published in a major magazine. It came out a year after his first novel was published. I'm curious if anybody has a thought.

There aren't any nudie pictures involved, so you could probably get away with reading this at work. Unless you work at the same place I do, which bans Zygote in My Coffee because of "nudity."

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

this doesn't go here but that mexican wreskaling guy looks like john mcCain.

Gina Choe said...

I had PBR, though Vodka & cayenne sounds better.

An incomplete thought: So, I don’t know whether or not I liked this story as a whole. I couldn't care less for Sue, and there was some odd imagery going on. But, DFW does well in characterizing Rudy through Sue’s perspective without skewing it any which way. He has the semblance of being the supportive husband through the great lengths he goes to prep her for the interview and in the moments where he uses touch—hand on her cheek, in her hair—to calm her. This is what throws me off because it’s almost like he is expecting her to crash and burn, but is ready to take the credit when she responds in the way that is expected. And he’s so damn patronizing.
-end-

I thought the word Xanax appeared 4 times too many (I didn’t count).

And it’s true, not as much T & A as I expected to frame the story. The banner is now advertising Golden Axe: Beast Rider. So there’s that.

Anonymous said...

Who knew they even had Xanax 20 yrs ago.

Matt DiGangi said...

If that's your incomplete thought, what do your complete thoughts look like?

What struck me the most about this story was that the author did such a thorough characterization of David Letterman, and was able to keep it completely neutral. I feel like that's very hard to do. I could see Letterman reading this story and thinking, yeah, that didn't happen, but it totally happened.

Anonymous said...

Why did he hang himself? That's a pretty crappy thing to do. When I was locked up recently I kept trying to figure out how to hang myself but it seemed like it would suck and I could picture the gaurds making fun of my dead body and how the world was better off without me. Then I thought of breaking my glasses and using the lens to slash my wrists but I know that hardly ever works and it hurts super bad but for some reason the movies make it look easy and painless. Rod Lane didn't hang himself for real, Freddy Krueger made the sheet come to life. Suicide is a very mysterious thing in some ways. Can it ever be understood? It's never the ones that threaten it or whine all the time who do it, it's always the guys who seem fine. You would never even think they needed help.

Anonymous said...

Vodka and pills would be my method.