dfw knew his family would be the ones to find him
hanging.
what was the space between the decision and the action?
in his essay farther away, his friend jonathon frazen speculates that there was planning.
there must have been.
certainly beyond good and evil.
the swinging icon
(walking right by to the deep end)
it wasn't water.
it wasn't dialectic or psychological hedonism or any sort of dualism.
it was some kind of escape.
it was animal and postmodern technology systems and a dull pain we used to call culture.
it was the worst kind of boredom.
it was even jest.
"the lie is that it's one or the other."
when i read david foster wallace
i feel a closeness
a familiarity
and often it's enough to get me through.
i wonder very much what he would have thought of that.
he might cringe.
and be uncomfortable with the whole idea.
and feel the pressure of an unequal relationship.
and he might say,
stop talking to a dead man you never met.
there are people around you with ninety or so heartbeats a minute.
"he seemed better the week before."
i read david foster wallace
past the smoke stacks and cell towers and healthy paranoia.
past the government institutions and institutionalized racism and generational self doubt.
past the cyclical utopias and seasonal panaceas and doctor prescribed placebos.
past the late-greats and the canonical and never-remembered.
past delillo and pychon and barth.
past the jest.
past the jest.
i read david foster wallace
even though the time won't slow down.
even though space is expanding and seems to be imploding.
even though nature isn't enough and other people are too much.
even though the recorded human voice and the recorded human face can only be replayed.
they can't be heard and they can't be touched.
"it's work."
maybe he wanted to see things from overhead.
and there wasn't a mountain high enough.
and he didn't much feel like climbing.
when i read david foster wallace
i feel a closeness
a familiarity
and often it's enough to get me through.
he (david foster wallace, deceased) makes me want to live.
"hello."
(up
all
night
contemplating
footnotes)
No comments:
Post a Comment