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David Foster Wallace

Celebrity

15 of the Greatest Celebrity Commencement Speeches

By Tyler Coates on

We’re almost through the month of May, and you know what that means: it’s college commencement speech season! While some of us had boring academics speak at our college graduations, there are a lot of other people who get to listen to folks like Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert, Amy Poehler, or Meryl Streep. So if you’re like me and are still annoyed that the creator of Joan of Arcadia was the celebrated guest who spoke while you baked in your black polyester cap and gown, take a short break and listen to these famous (and, generally, hilarious) people give advice to 22-year-olds. … Read More

Books

10 Highbrow Books for Smart Stoners

By Emily Temple on

Rejoice, habitual imbibers of the magic herb. This year, the smoke-filled 4/20 falls on a Saturday, so you can celebrate the holiday unencumbered by the work day. If you’d like to supplement today’s festivities with a little bit of quality reading but can’t bear the obvious drug-addled narratives or trippy lit, we’ve got you covered with a list of highbrow books for smarty-pants… Read More

Books

9 Famous Authors Who Did Stints in Mental Institutions

By Emily Temple on

Everyone knows that all authors are totally crazy, right? After all, that’s what makes so many of them so brilliant. But today, on the anniversary of Ezra Pound’s federally mandated release from St. Elizabeth’s Hospital for the criminally insane, where he had been held for 13 years following his arrest on charges of treason, we celebrate those authors who have actually been institutionalized for their mental illnesses (or, in some cases, for what others thought was mental illness). … Read More

Art

Mikko Kuorinki Elevates the “Quote of the Day” to High Art

By Julia Pugachevsky on

Did you ever think you’d see the Mitch Hedberg quote “My fake plants died because I did not pretend to water them” displayed in a museum? The late comedian’s joke made its fine-art debut in Wall Piece with 200 Letters, a project that found artist Mikko Kuorinki posting short phrases by a variety of writers on the wall of Finland’s Museum of Contemporary Art Kiasma, switching out her quotes every week for ten months. Click through to see which pieces you recognize, and visit Kuorinki’s website for more of her work. … Read More

Books

Your Favorite Authors’ Favorite Musicians

By Tom Hawking on

Here at Flavorwire of late, we’ve been looking at what some of our favorite creative types have appreciated in the work of their peers — our favorite actors’ favorite actors, etc. We do like a bit of genre cross-pollination, though, so we thought we’d extend the remit of the idea across genre lines, starting with some of our favorite authors discussing the work of the musicians who inspire, excite, or just generally impress… Read More

Books

33 Wonderful Fan-Designed Covers for Famous Novels

By Emily Temple on

Here at Flavorwire, we’re suckers for a great book cover — even if that book cover never actually made it into production. After all, it’s not too much of a stretch to imagine that sometimes the best book covers come from those designing without the constraints of publicity departments or authorial preferences. To that end, after the jump you will find a collection of unofficial book covers for famous works — created by students, career designers, or mysterious people on the Internet — that we totally love. Publishing houses, take note: we would buy these if ever we saw them in the pulpy flesh. Did we miss your favorite (or your own)? Link us to more literary design goodness in the comments. … Read More

Television

An Annotated Guide to Last Nights ‘Parks and Recreation’ David Foster Wallace References

By Emily Temple on

Yesterday, Parks and Recreation showrunner Michael Schur alerted us via tweet that last night’s episode would include “a few IJ references. ["A few" = like 18]).” While it seems a little strange for the show — we can’t imagine any of the characters (other than Ben, maybe) having a working knowledge of David Foster Wallace’s epic postmodern novel — it makes total sense for Michael Schur, an established fan, who directed The Decemberists’s Eschaton-themed video. Ultimately, the references amounted to name dropping, with only one really good joke, but we still got a lot of nerdy fun out of looking for them. After the jump, we break down all the David Foster Wallace references we spotted in last night’s episode of Parks and Rec. Did we miss any? Let us know what else you noticed in the comments. … Read More

Books

Former Students’ Recollections of Classes Taught by Famous Authors

By Emily Temple on

This week, we read a wonderful essay at The New York Review of Books from a former student of Vladimir Nabokov, a juicy read for anyone who wishes that they could have taken one of the genius writer’s classes (i.e., everyone). Inspired, we hunted around for more first-person recollections of classes taken with famous writers — whether they were famous at the time or only later on. Read through a few of the ones we found after the jump, and add your own memories (if you’re lucky enough to have them) in the comments. … Read More

Books

The 25 Greatest Essay Collections of All Time

By Emily Temple on

This week marks the release of Aleksandar Hemon’s excellent book of personal essays, The Book of My Lives, which we loved, and which we’re convinced deserves a place in the literary canon. To that end, we were inspired to put together our list of the greatest essay collections of all time, from the classic to the contemporary, from the personal to the critical. In making our choices, we’ve steered away from posthumous omnibuses and multi-author compilations, and given what might be undue weight to our favorite writers (as one does). Click through to see our nominations for the 25 greatest essay collections of all… Read More

Books

30 Gorgeous and Delicious Literary Cakes

By Emily Temple on

This week, our mouths (and minds!) watered looking at a few delightful book cakes over at Shelf Life. Hungry as we are, we couldn’t resist scouring the Internet for more, from highbrow tomes to children’s books to full-scale collections in vanilla frosting. After the jump, check out 30 delicious looking literary cakes — and let us know which one you’d most like to bake (or eat) in the comments. … Read More