David Foster Wallace Dead at 46

It's not UNC related, or even college-athletics related, but I feel compelled to mention it anyway. David Foster Wallace was found dead tonight.

I associate my graduation from Carolina in some ways with Infinite Jest, his behemoth of a novel I was reading at the time, filled with endnotes that would stretch from pages. And while I was unhappy with the work at the end - yeah, fiction is as addictive as a drug, and it's so cute that you never returned to the flashback at the beginning of the novel or resolved anything - his prose was jaw-droppingly incredible to read, and his short works uniformly excellent. I remember giving an ex a copy of A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again: Essays and Arguments for her graduation, completing a circle, as it were; of course, I read beforehand, and his essays on youth tennis and state fairs still stick with me. It's a hell of a loss.

Anyway, if you want a taste of his work, you can't do better than his profile of right-wing radio in Orange County for the Atlantic Monthly. And if you're ever annoyed by my comment/footnotes[*], well he's an inspiration for that as well. Hope your in a better place, or a better absence.