After his death, fans of David Foster Wallace canonized him as a prophet, according him a degree of benevolence shared by almost no one in American letters. In New York Magazine, Christian Lorentzen argues that Wallace himself worried about this happening, and says he’d “probably be the last person to argue for his sainthood.” His essay pairs nicely with Jonathan Russell Clark on The David Foster Wallace Reader.
The Crowning
On Hikikomoris, Etc.
Recommended Reading: Larissa Pham on Milena Michiko Flašar’s I Called Him Necktie.
Burying the Hatchet
"The Hatchet Job Award appeals, in its depressingly calculated way, to the basest and most self-serving of journalistic instincts, and seems to arise out of, and perpetuate, a misunderstanding of what criticism actually is." At Slate, our own Mark O'Connell criticizes the award for promoting the same bad criticism it claims to detest.
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Baby Belle
Precocious hardly begins to describe the early work of now-famous child fashion blogger Tavi Gevinson. If you're like me--a clueless/skeptical johnny-come-lately--check out this post, in which Tavi documents and explains the Blanche DuBois outfit she's worn to school and her take on Tennessee Williams' most famous heroine.
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The Congenital List-Maker
In true Seinfeldian fashion, Arthur Martine, the Victorian writer behind Martine’s Handbook of Etiquette, drew up a detailed taxonomy of the various species of bore. These include the Loud Talker, who “silences a whole party by his sole power of lungs;” the Malaprop, who masters the art of inappropriate conversation; and the Life-Sharer, who may be familiar to the Facebook addicts of today.