"...to stay conscious and alive, day in and day out."

October 19, 2014 12:50 PM

Endnotes: David Foster Wallace, BBC Documentary.

A collection of various interviews, videos, & recordings from and about David Foster Wallace.

- David Foster Wallace uncut interview (11/2003) German television station, ZDF.
- Speech: 'This is Water' given by David Foster Wallace to Kenyon College's 2005 graduating class.
- David Foster Wallace's interview with Leonard Lopate on WNYC.
- Charlie Rose interviews David Foster Wallace Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4.
- Last Bookworm interview with David, discussing the superlative essay collection "Consider the Lobster."
- David Foster Wallace on Gen X, "Infinite Jest" and a life of writing (1996)
- Amy Wallace speaks about her brother David Foster Wallace.
- Rereading David Foster Wallace - The New Yorker Festival - The New Yorker
- Zadie Smith's essay "Brief Interviews with Hideous Men: The Difficult Gifts of David Foster Wallace," from her 2009 collection Changing My Mind: Occasional Essays. Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8, Part 9, Part 10, Part 11, Part 12.

posted by Fizz (5 comments total)

Thanks for putting all these together Fizz - I especially love the Rose interview.
posted by stinkfoot at 2:42 PM on October 19, 2014 [2 favorites]

I find myself occasionally watching the German interview as I would a movie and wonder whether it might be the truest DFW movie we can expect - the pitiless gaze of the camera, the way he shifts from querulousness to bewilderment to irritation to honestly trying to help the interviewer out and back to irritation (with the genuinely irritating cameraman). Perhaps all interviews are like that, and I've only ever seen the edited versions. I'd be very interested to know what the interviewer thinks of it. Less interested, but not uninterested, to know what the cameraman thinks of it.
posted by Grangousier at 3:57 PM on October 19, 2014

Hey Fizz, I just wanted to thank you for this. I'm listening to the interview with Chris Lydon (1996) right now. Really good.
posted by Harvey Kilobit at 11:37 PM on October 19, 2014 [1 favorite]

here's another interview I can't seem to find an actual source for (one comment says Fresh Air) including DFW reading an excerpt from "The Soul is Not a Smithy": part one, part two
posted by headless at 11:56 PM on October 19, 2014 [1 favorite]

I'm almost done reading The Pale King. The first link (near the end) talks about what an amazing novel it is. I couldn't agree more.
posted by popaopee at 10:25 AM on October 20, 2014