Friday, November 19, 2010

David Foster Wallace in Newsweek

From Newsweek, a story about the David Foster Wallace archive, a sampling of materials (a childhood story with an strangely Infinite Jest-like family, annotations, notebooks, drafts), and some outtakes from Infinite Jest. Don’t miss footnote 81 (on panhandling) and Hal Incandenza’s essay on pennies. A sample:

My thesis is that pennies are most interesting, however, because their primary value is that they keep you from geting more pennies. You either get rid of your pennies or you’re forced to accumulate even more pennies for your jar. Woe betide the penniless at the point of purchase. Totals tend to be, eg., $16.01 or $1.17. “Darn it all,” says the customer, “I have no pennies.” The cashier grins, happy to get rid of some pennies.
[Caution: for someone who hasn’t read Infinite Jest, there are spoilers at Newsweek.]

Related reading
All David Foster Wallace posts (via Pinboard)

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