#d.f.w.

[suffernotindoubt]

Evenges

Not another season's consummate eking out is camouflage one well-earned revenge departing viridian

[shtufffy]

An academic definition of Lynchian might be that the term 'refers to a particular kind of irony where the very macabre and the very mundane combine in such a way as to reveal the former's perpetual containment within the latter.'

David Foster Wallace

[shtufffy]

The really important kind of freedom involves attention and awareness and discipline, and being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them over and over in myriad petty, unsexy ways every day. That is real freedom. That is being educated, and understanding how to think. The alternative is unconsciousness, the default setting, the rat race, the constant gnawing sense of having had, and lost, some infinite thing.

David Foster Wallace

[shtufffy]

The truth is that the heroism of your childhood entertainments was not true valor. It was theater. The grand gesture, the moment of choice, the mortal danger, the external foe, the climactic battle whose outcome resolves all – all designed to appear heroic, to excite and gratify an audience. Gentlemen, welcome to the world of reality – there is no audience. No one to applaud, to admire. No one to see you. Do you understand? Here is the truth – actual heroism receives no ovation, entertains no one. No one queues up to see it. No one is interested.

David Foster Wallace

[shtufffy]

Why not? Why not? Why not not, then, if the best reasoning you can contrive is why not?

David Foster Wallace

[theshadowphotog]

[give-pete-a-chance]

“D.F.W.” and “Black Monday” by Ron Hawkins

I woke up on Sunday morning With a freight train on my chest Evangelically alone Just me and that old infinite jest Words can feel like stones Words can be a noose Godspeed D.F.W.

Words can take you home Words can make you choose Godspeed D.F.W.

This is a live version of with Ron explaining that DFW is for author David Foster Wallace, why he loves his writing, and how the song ended up being about him.

30 Day Song Challenge: Day #21 - A song with a name in it

[give-pete-a-chance]

“D.F.W./Black Monday” by Ron Hawkins

I woke up on Sunday mornin’ With a freight train on my chest Evangelically alone Just me and that old Infinite Jest Words can feel like stones Words can be a noose Godspeed D.F.W. Words can take you home Words can make you choose Godspeed D.F.W.

Ron gives a great story about the background of the song, about how he started writing it about the dual nature of words, and how it ended up becoming about writer David Foster Wallace.

Like most Ron’s stuff from this period, it’s hauntingly beautiful.

The clip segues into “Black Monday” from his days with Lowest of the Low, one of my favorite songs and a prime example of his lyrical playfulness. 

My friend Kate, you laugh like a tidal wave But "Charlie don't surf" on your laughter on Black Mondays And the shadows I feel are the shadows in me And not even your face or your beautiful smile Or the curve of your breasts or your laughing bright eyes Could make me believe I'm a winner tonight When Monday morning is just out of sight