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Excerpts from a Conversation with David Foster Wallace – The New Inquiry

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Excerpts from a conversation with David Foster Wallace during the last leg of his Infinite Jest book tour in 1996. From Although of Course You End Up Becoming Yourself: A Road Trip with David Foster Wallace by David Lipsky. I think one of the reasons that I feel empty after watching a lot of TV, and one of the things that makes TV seductive, is that it gives the illusion of relationships with people. It’s a way to have people in the room talking and being entertaining, but it doesn’t require anything of me. I mean, I can see them, they can’t see me. And that they’re there for me, and I can, I can receive from the TV, I can receive entertainment and stimulation. Without having to give anything back but the most tangential kind of attention. And that is very seductive. The problem is it’s also very empty. Because one of the differences about having a real person there is that number one, I’ve gotta do some work. Like, he pays attention to me, I gotta pay attention to him. You know: I wat

Excerpts from a conversation with David Foster Wallace during the last leg of his Infinite Jest book tour in 1996. From Although of Course You End Up Becoming Yourself: A Road Trip with David Foster Wallace by David Lipsky. I think one of the reasons that I feel empty after watching a lot of TV, and one of the things that makes TV seductive, is that it gives the illusion of relationships with people. It’s a way to have people in the room talking and being entertaining, but it doesn’t require anything of me. I mean, I can see them, they can’t see me. And that they’re there for me, and I can, I

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