Sweetness, I was only joking...

Obsessed, possessed, repressed... by Mel Whitehead

An amazing, all-inclusive David Foster Wallace site is now at: David Foster Wallace: A Collection of Online Resources

But check out what's said about me!
A few of the pages I've linked to are in somewhat questionable taste. One review of Infinite Jest includes as much swearing as reviewing, but I included it simply because I thought it was sort of funny. The same goes for three pages done by a woman whose obsession with Wallace frightens me a little. I hope, for his sake, that The Year of Stalking David Foster Wallace ends soon. I, for one, want him to live to finish his next book. Her pages are extremely funny, though, and I appreciate her openness about her, umm, interests.

I find this funny. It's like this: I grew up in a hyper-competitive household, but I never had any chance at being the best at anything because my brother is like Wile E. Coyote, supergenius, but I mean for real. He doesn't screw up like Wile E. It was a very Franny and Zooeyhousehold (which is a weird analogy to make, because this was the book where I first learned of the Vedic text Mundaka Upanishad... anyway.). The brother was a chess champion, played sports, had artistic talent, etc etc. I could never win at Monopoly or Trivial Pursuit. But I tried. There was so little left for me to get excited about that the brother hadn't already tainted that the few things I found I became very enthusiastic about. Unfortunately they're all useless things. Like I know just about everything you can imagine about late 70s punk rock. I can quote lines from Dr. Strangelove and Lolita and 2001: A Space Odyssey. I used have a tremendous collection of early 80s b/w independent comic books. This strange form of competitiveness has carried over into my alleged adult stages. I know I know, you're saying where is she going with this horse... I guess what I'm trying to say is, when I find something/someone I like I just want to immerse myself in it/him/her in my quest to be the best. At something. This year it was David Foster Wallace. And he'll probably continue to be an obsession of mine. It's very beneficial to me to soak in his prose because little by little it rubs off on me and makes me a much better writer. And I think that's cool.

So, to wrap it up:
1. If I was really stalking him, would I tell y'all?
2. If I was really stalking him, wouldn't I at least take a road trip out to Bloomington, IL? And finally
3. I got a man. I'm not trying to hear that.

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