Comments on: David Foster Wallace / Rick Moody

By: Manjula

Manjula — Fri, 23 Dec 2005 20:29:43 +0000

The blog thing got me all riled up.
I mean, c’mon Rick. Don’t live up to my expectations of being a snob. Please?
That DFW, though– pleasantly surprised by his dreaminess (intellectually speaking, of course).

By: Nathan

Nathan — Thu, 22 Dec 2005 05:21:51 +0000

Purple America is something special and I admired it greatly.

“the biggest media whore of his generation”?
“loathsome”?

Cripes.

By: Biddy

Biddy — Sun, 18 Dec 2005 02:50:51 +0000

Wait a sec. So Moody makes this big show about how modest he is, and how he hates attention, and so on. And yet (a) this is, by far, the biggest media whore of his generation, and (b) he actually cites his own book as one of the five seminal works of the 90s? — And he wonders why so many people find him so loathsome.,,

By: Robert Ellis

Robert Ellis — Tue, 06 Dec 2005 20:59:15 +0000

It isn't listed yet, but the City Arts & Lectures series is broadcast in San Francisco on KQED. The schedule is posted here. You can get a list of other stations that broadcast CA&L here.

By: Tito

Tito — Fri, 02 Dec 2005 16:27:31 +0000

I had not realized the event was being recorded for a delayed radio broadcast. If anybody knows details as to when this will air, please let me know. I’d love to hear it again.

By: DFW

DFW — Thu, 01 Dec 2005 23:23:24 +0000

Please, Rick. You failed to answer my questions properly. This is what teaching is all about.

By: Terri Saul

Terri Saul — Thu, 01 Dec 2005 19:52:40 +0000

Main Entry: irÂ·reÂ·gardÂ·less
Pronunciation: “ir-i-’gÃ¤rd-l&s
Function: adverb
Etymology: probably blend of irrespective and regardless
nonstandard : REGARDLESS

I’d like to add that I loved DFW’s pregnant pauses, sighs and snorts. I’m very sorry that there wasn’t more of an even exchange between the two writers. At one point I thought DFW was going to humiliate Moody so severely that he would be forced to plug his pie-hole by cramming that apple prop between his canines.

By: ed

ed — Thu, 01 Dec 2005 18:34:43 +0000

Rick: Thanks very much for responding to our reports. I think all of us did indeed fail to consider the fact that you were also both speaking on the radio and that this, then, might have resulted in a certain hinderance in responding to questions. Even so, I should point out that you were never under any obligation to answer any questions. If you did not want to name the top five books of the 1990s, then you could have backed out with a joke suggesting that naming five choices would incriminate both you and DFW. And I’m sure that would have been fine. If you were not acquainted with the work of B.R. Myers (and it struck me that you weren’t, given that there was a lot more going on in “A Reader’s Manifesto” than what you implied), you could have easily declined to answer the question. I’m sure you have very thoughtful things to say about the state of literature and the like. (In fact, I was particularly interested in what you had to say about experimental fiction needing to be nurtured outside the establishment.) But I suppose our collective impressions were formed by the fact that you decided to answer questions you clearly weren’t prepared for.

By: Rick Moody

Rick Moody — Thu, 01 Dec 2005 16:10:20 +0000

Hey, you guys, I was alerted to this post by a friend, and, for the record, I want to correct a misapprehension about the event, so that it won’t seem that we colluded in misleading. The event was meant to be Wallace interviewing me, that was the purpose of the whole thing. It was I who was uncomfortable about that arrangement, because I too think David is the smartest, most interesting guy around. I argued that it would be stupid to have such a guy on the stage and just have him ask me questions. If the City Arts & Lectures people then baited and switched, it was without my foreknowledge. David thought he was interviewing me, I thought we were talking together in a flexible way. I agree that we never quite got the stuff about THE DIVINERS off the ground, but the real reason for this is that I have a hard time talking about myself, and especially when I would rather be talking to David Wallace about HIS interests. My attitude, during the first uncomfortable exchanges (and give us the benefit of the doubt here, we were trying to get acclimated), was that the best part was going to be when we got to the audience at the end. I argued for making MOST of the event Q&A, but we were inhibited in this by the responsibility to broadcast the thing. I personally don’t give a shit about radio broadcasts, but the organizers may have felt otherwise. Finally, I could have answered the question about books in the nineties and books in the oughts, and I can do so by e-mail if anyone is interested, but I didn’t want to get into the business of being disrespectful about the work of others in public.
In short, I didn’t think the night worked terribly well, but it didn’t work because people are people, and interactions are complicated, and there was stuff going on backstage that wasn’t apparent to the audience. We appreciated everyone coming, and I can do better and will do better another time. Thanks for responding. P.S. And apparently I do read blogs.

By: Tito

Tito — Thu, 01 Dec 2005 00:41:53 +0000

Irrespective of your irrational irritations, I revel in your irrlevance, IRREGARDLESS

have some GUTS and post anonymously!