It’s a staged reading of work by David Foster Wallace! Selections from Infinite Jest are part of the lineup. And The Broom of the System. And a letter from DFW to Don DeLillo. And a bit of A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again. And, as a closer, the Kenyon commencement speech.
This night is a night of inaugurating the Harry Ransom Center’s DFW archive! It’s a night of celebrating texts that pretty much all of us know so well and have placed small portions of on our Facebook walls, office bulletin boards, and – via bright ink and steadily held tattoo gun – certain sections of our bodies.
So, yes, the above-referenced gems will be read tonight, by Doug Dorst, Jake Silverstein, Elizabeth Crane, Owen Egerton, Chris Gibson, and others, and the whole thing’s gonna be webcast and, afterward, everybody will adjourn to the HRC to eyeball the single vitrine of archival material that presages the entire collection’s unveiling. Also, cake – lots of tasty cake and, it is rumored, coffee. Come as you are; tennis gear optional; leave your bandannas and any misguided inclinations toward irony at the door.
Tue., Sept. 14, 7pm. Jessen Auditorium, UT campus.
This article appears in September 10 • 2010.