David Foster Wallace

It is odd that both Richard Powers and David Foster Wallace have lived in Urbana, something about the twin cities, something about the corn, fertilizes a certain way of thinking, perhaps. The obituaries say too little about DFW's mother, Sally. A few years older than me, she acted on the stage at Parkland College where we both taught. Her hair was naturally white, not from age. She was a fine actor, a very keen mind, and kind. She always resisted the fame of her son, rolled her eyes. But I couldn't read DFW and still cannot. He says he wanted to write something sad; most people called his work funny. Not me. He was right the first time. It was sad. All those cultural references and bizarre combinations and complications of culture. I think the event of Sarah Palin killed him, something so absurd he couldn't have invented it even in his wildest dreams, and coming on the heels of eight years of cultural, theocratic chaos and war, following in the footsteps of September 11, by days. I understand his sensibility, even without having read him, much. He had stopped giving readings. I saw him read at Pages for All Ages back when he did. He wore a leather jacket. We share only a nicotine addiction in common, a smokeless tobacco affliction. My basement is still flooded. This old house is crumbling and we will sit in it and watch the world float away for the years to come. We cannot leave. Days like this I am relieved to be an appreciator more than an artist, a critic more than a creator.