I’d never seen footage of David Foster Wallace or even heard his voice before watching this 1997 interview with Charlie Rose, filmed during the promotional tour for Wallace’s essay collection, “A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again,” possibly my favorite work of his and published at the height of his popularity (following the release of his most popular work, Infinite Jest, the previous year).
Highlights: a lot of talk about movies, the definition of “postmodernism,” Infinite Jest’s infamous footnotes and his writing routine (“I will probably write an hour a day and spend eight hours a day biting my knuckle and worry about not writing. Concutation.”).
And a lot of worry over perceptions of pretentiousness1 (“I have got news for you,” he tells Rose. “Coming on a television show stimulates your ‘What am I going to look like?’ gland like no other experience.”) and wincing.
This is what Wallace looked like when he winced:
Man, what a big, erudite nerd he was. A little sad, too, I suppose.
1 Searching around after I found the video, I happened upon this recent criticism of Wallace’s writing, comparing it with that of, er, Dave Barry. Which is interesting because they're two of my favorite writers; I don’t think liking them is mutually exclusive. [back]