Episode 181: The Fraudulence Paradox (David Foster Wallace's "Good Old Neon")

[00:00:00] Very Bad Wizards is a podcast with a philosopher, my dad and psychologist, David Pizarro, having an informal discussion about issues in science and ethics. Please note that the discussion contains bad words that I'm not allowed to say, and knowing my dad some very inappropriate jokes. Nobody!

[00:00:18] Nobody knows what's going to happen to anybody besides the four long rags of growing old. The Great End of His Spouse Man! Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain! Why you? Very good man, good thoughts and with no more brains than you have.

[00:01:03] Pay no attention to anybody who can have a brain. You're a very bad man. I'm a very good man. Just a very bad wizard. Welcome to Very Bad Wizards, I'm Tamler Sommers from the University of Houston.

[00:01:18] Dave, the Oscar nominations were announced recently and some people are saying that Gretta Gerwig was snubbed not getting a Best Director nomination for Little Women. Do you think the Academy should have a separate award for Best Female Director? This is like asking you about politics.

[00:01:43] At first I was like, Gretta Thurnberg? Is that who you're asking about? Okay, Little Women. I know that that's a movie and I read the book. Yeah, and they should have one for Black directors and one for Black women directors and one for gay Black women directors.

[00:02:06] Gay directors, Best Gay Director, that would be funny. But you have to come out. You have to be out because it's not just a candidate. Best Closeted Director. Best Closeted Actor for Tom Cruise. There's some sort of canonical set of supporting actor, best actor in a leading role

[00:02:34] and then there's just a ton of shit that somebody always complains that it's either too long or that some category got snubbed. First of all, no matter, it could be an hour and you wouldn't watch it. Number one. Yeah, I used to watch it.

[00:02:51] Okay, let me just, before we move on, you made a joke, a good joke although offensive to many people about why we shouldn't have Best Female Director. Why doesn't your reasoning and you love to be consistent apply to actor and actress?

[00:03:10] Well, you don't know that it does because you didn't ask me about that. Well, does it? Do you think there should just be best actor in the inclusive sense that will be women and men?

[00:03:24] I actually have never thought about this and now that we use the term actor to refer to both men and women, then I say yes. Yes, go ahead. Nominate 10 people and give us just the best overall actor. I actually think that would be fine.

[00:03:44] I mean, I would rather see more awards given for different kinds of movies maybe like the way that Golden Globes separates out comedic and drama and then collapse gender. I mean, what's going to happen when some non-binary actor,

[00:04:11] and I'm not even joking right now, what are they going to do? It's inevitable, right? At some point, somebody is going to be non-binary and play a role that's very powerful. Yeah, so you're going to embrace the reductio. I mean, it's not like tennis, right?

[00:04:33] Where even Serena Williams would admit it's harder to defeat the top. So here's the, if there is a principle distinction between doing this for director and actor, it is that really in little women, for example, you need women to play it.

[00:04:53] You can't have Leonardo DiCaprio as one of the little women. You can't or like Robert Pattinson or something like that. James Garfield. Like our ex-president? Sorry, Andrew Garfield. You get the former president, lung disease Andrew Garfield playing Joe March or whatever in little women.

[00:05:25] But so why does that mean that we should have separate categories for their performance? Well because you can do that for director. The same director can direct, you know, like if you have a screenplay, both a woman and a man can direct that screenplay.

[00:05:41] I mean do you really think a woman could have directed, you know, like Rocky? Yeah, I understand. No, yeah, I see you're seeing my principledness and taking me one step further. Well I'm just saying that there is a distinction and as a philosopher I search,

[00:06:04] obsessed with distinctions and drawing distinctions. I've dedicated my career to that. I can see that. But to further reductio your reductio. I wasn't expecting that. Yeah, like I take it there are categories that you could draw. Right, like an old person can't play a young person role.

[00:06:28] I mean I guess now with the Irishman you can do that. But suppose that their technology weren't there. I don't, you know, like a black person can't play the role of a white person in some autobiograph, you know, in some biopic.

[00:06:47] Like unless they were in whiteface like Eddie Murphy in that one, sorry, in Life's Good. So like there are a lot of things that can't be played by actors given certain constraints. An Asian upstairs landlord can't be played by like Mickey Rooney.

[00:07:02] I feel like that everybody should know that, but just for the listeners who don't know. Watch Breakfast at, I watched Breakfast at Tiffany's like really late in life. And I thought, oh what's this classic movie all about? I couldn't fucking. Oh my god.

[00:07:40] There's a whole discussion to be had there about what roles you are and aren't allowed to play. And we've had that with your like bigoted stance against Scarlett Johansson. I mean in favor of Scarlett. I just don't think her last name is pronounced Johansson. Yeah, sorry.

[00:08:05] Let's save this talk for maybe we'll do an, you know, our annual Oscar special. Like a live, you want a live stream? A live stream. Periscope. Is that still a thing? I don't think so. I just, I feel like all the technical categories have definitely gotten snubbed.

[00:08:25] I want to know like best Foley, like that's the kind of shit that really turns me off. That's Axel Foley. I think it's Eddie Murphy. All right. So we aren't going to stray that far from movies, right?

[00:08:40] First segment, we're going to talk about four things, four pieces of pop culture that we loved from last year or at least really liked, I guess. You couldn't find four things that you loved. Yeah, love is a strong word. It is a strong word.

[00:08:58] And then one thing we hated. So four things we loved, one thing we hated from 2019. And in the second segment, we are going to talk about David Foster Wallace's short story, Good Old Neon. We put out a call on Twitter asking people for recommendations.

[00:09:18] Neither of us are big David Foster Wallace fanatics or even, I don't know. Certainly not connoisseurs at all. Connoisseurs, yeah. And we got a ton of great recommendations on Twitter and also Instagram. Good Old Neon was one probably the most recommended of any of them. So we...

[00:09:39] I think clearly the most recommended from at least my eyeballing. Yeah. So we did it. We read it and we will... I don't know. I feel a little trepidation about discussing it, but... Yeah, me too. I feel like it's one of those...

[00:09:55] Well, I used to feel this way about movies where I'm like, you know, who am I? I'm not a critic. And then clearly, like I got over that. But for something like literature of this sort, like I definitely am like, oh man, I'm like a total noob.

[00:10:09] Yeah, it's not something easy like Borges, right? Exactly. Oh, you know. The fan devotion to David Foster Wallace and the things that people will know about the story about him, about his other work that we won't is... That's right. Yeah, that's right. That'll be in the second segment.

[00:10:34] Let's talk about... I thought it was actually a really good year for popular culture, which I define as... Which I am defining as movies and TV shows. My category was far more inclusive of less easily defined things, including even just events-ish kinds of things.

[00:11:00] But that's because those were the things that I had the most feelings about. But I was wondering if you were going to force a definition of the pop part of the culture. No. And I also... Okay, good.

[00:11:14] So I also really laugh because we're getting up there in years and we have daughters who are approximately the same age. And the thought when I put myself in the... Took the perspective of my daughter of me talking about pop culture.

[00:11:28] I feel so alienated from anything that is truly pop like for large segments of the population. Like, I struggled. Well, they all just watch Friends right now. Friends in the office. Well, Friends got removed from Netflix, which I... Oh yeah, I know. Yeah. My daughter was like...

[00:11:47] Even though she doesn't really like it, it's like they're forced... They're kind of peer pressured into watching this show about like New York... Yeah, it makes more sense maybe for Bella than for all these kids here in Houston. It doesn't make sense for her either.

[00:12:02] It's like a weird attempt at fake nostalgia. I guess. Like nostalgia for what it was. Like late 80s, early 90s New York if you're like... I don't know. No, like didn't it go into the early aughts? I think it even went. Oh, maybe it did.

[00:12:22] I'm thinking of Seinfeld. It is a funny sort of... It's like the equivalent of like fashion, like 90s fashion coming back. But anyway, yeah, I'm far, far from... Like I don't have any tiktoks in my top. Yeah, okay. All right. Let me just get...

[00:12:45] I don't want to do it. I actually don't have any ties. I had this original... I was going to say you're going to be like three and then a category with five. I had a original conception was a four-way tie for number four,

[00:12:58] a three-way tie for number three and two-way tie for number two. I would have done the equivalent of hanging up the phone on Skype like hard. But so given that I'm not going to do that and I honestly just have one for each,

[00:13:12] let me just say one like honorable mention category, which is there were four movies from last year and it was just a fantastic movie year last year, the best in a long time probably 15 or 20 years. Oh, it's a bold statement.

[00:13:31] And there were four movies that I was so excited to see. Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, Quentin Tarantino's movie, Parasite by Bong Joon-ho, the director of South Korean director who I love and I've seen all of his movies. Martin Scorsese is the Irishman

[00:13:49] and the Safty Brothers movie Uncut Gems with Adam Sandler and there was so much hype, tons of good critical buzz and they're all great. They're all just fantastic movies. Oh wow. I haven't heard that much about Uncut Gems but it's good to know. Uncut Gems is great.

[00:14:10] You will like it. It is about the Diamond District, this Jewish, Adam Sandler played a middle-aged Jewish guy in the Diamond District who's like a gambler. Kevin Garnett gives what I think is uncontroversially the best performance by an athlete in any movie. He's amazing.

[00:14:30] That's just because you're a Celtic. Do you think Agoi could have played Adam Sandler's role and if not, do you think there should be a separate category for the juicest actors? Best jui actor. They don't even have to be Jewish.

[00:14:44] Well yeah, because some juis are not Jewish at all. So I know I would have been really deeply offended if they had somebody not Jewish playing. I mean it's uncut. Uncut, I didn't think of that. There you go. Alright so I got that out of the way.

[00:15:05] Now I have one for the rest of them. Wait so none of those four movies made your top four? Are you saying that this is one of your top four? Are you just cheating straight up like it is a four-way time?

[00:15:22] I am saying that I did not put them on my list because I think most people know about them. Most of our listeners have seen... How many of those movies have you seen? I have seen the Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. And what else, Little Women?

[00:15:39] Little Women. I haven't seen. I have not seen Parasite, I have not seen Uncut Jams. What was the last one? The Irishman. No and I have not seen the Irishman. I keep wanting to watch the Irishman

[00:15:50] and then I see the run time every time I see it on Netflix and it's like half a day. Is there a half a day's worth of stuff to watch on Netflix? This is the thing that frustrates me about not just you but most people.

[00:16:05] It's like there's nothing better than watching that movie. I'm saving it, I'm saving it. I'm edging myself for the right moment. You know what I'm busy, I don't know what you do with your life. I have shit going on left and right. I have so much, so much.

[00:16:25] No, I don't know. It's just fine. It's hard to find three and a half hours. And I don't want to interrupt it, right? Yeah, well, you can watch it in two days. I think that's how I watch it. We watched it over Thanksgiving.

[00:16:39] The whole family watched it and we were... It's beautiful. You have that advantage where your daughter likes films. My daughter won't watch movies with me. She just doesn't care. She's just actually just watching TV shows. And so every time I want...

[00:16:58] I would love to sit down with my family and watch a good film. But they won't do it. My daughter just doesn't care. And so I want to find things that they'll watch. So I end up totally just watching TV shows

[00:17:11] as a sacrifice to the sanctity of my family unit. Well, if you ever have another kid, you have to start young with them. That's what my mom did with me and that's what I've done with Eliza and you build it into their... The core of their being.

[00:17:31] And Eliza has seen... Actually, she hasn't seen Uncut Gems, but she's seen all of the other ones in some cases multiple times and she loves them. You know what? I will say... I agree that you have to start early

[00:17:48] and I will say that something that doesn't come often is that I am a lover of music in a way that I have shared with my daughter. So that's where we bond. And like, you know... You sort of... You have to make choices.

[00:18:08] You sort of just take what you can. And that's where I'm a Philistine when it comes to music. Yeah, you really are. And I don't push it on you. You notice I don't judge you. Yeah, well, I wish you could push it on me. Oh, shoot. Push.

[00:18:21] Push. Stop. I know where that's going. Alright, can we start this? Can we start this with Dave Matthew? Yes, we can start with him. Dave Matthew. Alright, so that was... That was neither your number one nor anything else, but why don't you give us...

[00:18:37] Do you want me to go? Why don't you go first since I just didn't give any of my hand? I'll go with... Again, this is not a movie or a TV show, but it's related to a TV show. It is... It's just baby Yoda. So the Mandalorian...

[00:18:59] You could... If you were forcing me to put TV shows, like it's not that it's the greatest TV show ever. It's that as a pop culture thing. The fact that Good Star Wars actually came out on TV as a medium, like that's actually... It's like...

[00:19:14] You might actually like it. It's like a Western, but it's like how Star Wars ought to be. And then baby Yoda is just so fucking cute and he just turned into a me or she or whatever gender Yodas are.

[00:19:28] And every time I see just little baby Yoda's eyes, I just have warm fuzzies in my heart. And I'm glad that baby Yoda exists and that there's some good Star Wars on TV. That is as pop culture as it gets. Alright, so our number four

[00:19:43] our respective number four is really kind of defines the difference between us. Yours is baby Yoda. Mine is... Well, it's a French film. It's by a French director, Claire Denis. Oh my God. He's a big name with hardcore cinephiles.

[00:20:05] This is actually the only movie of hers that I've seen but it's called High Life. And it stars Robert Pattinson and also Juliet Benoche. This is a popular culture pic? Yes, this is pop culture. It's available on Amazon Prime for free

[00:20:21] and it's got a star like a heartthrob. I don't know. Like I think he was on Twilight or something. Robert Pattinson, the Twilight series. And he's been in a bunch... He was actually in a Safty's brother's movie called Good Time which is great.

[00:20:43] But for this movie the premise is pretty simple. It's like a space movie and a group of prisoners are sent up to space as part of some sort of reproduction experiment. It's not exactly clear what the experiment is trying to achieve but they're trying to see

[00:21:01] the extent that people can reproduce in space and I guess it works to some extent. What's the name of the movie? High Life. Claire Denis. When the movie starts Robert Pattinson is just alone on the ship with his infant daughter

[00:21:17] but then we get most of the movie is this long extended flashbacks of the time on the ship with the other prisoners and also Juliet Benoche who's in charge of the experiment and it's a very surreal movie. It's beautiful filmmaking

[00:21:32] and it has one of the most fucked up masturbation scenes that you'll ever see in your life. Ooh, that's a good top five. Like discussion there. The best masturbation scenes? Yeah. Yeah, our most fucked up masturbation scene. Most fucked up, yeah. This would definitely...

[00:21:52] So Juliet Benoche goes into the fuck box. That's all I'll say about it because that's great. I probably said too much just then. Sounds hot. Yes, it's really good. I recommend it. It is... I think if you aren't familiar with this director's work

[00:22:13] it makes you want to pursue it more. You've cemented your status as superior and hoity-toity and when we discuss fraud being a fraud in the next segment we'll get back to this. I'm a man of the people in Tamler. Clearly, baby Yoda. Baby Yoda.

[00:22:35] Is your next one Avenger? Is it Endgame? No, that was a close. That was in my four-way tie. Fast and furious. But this maybe would be considered art by you but the Watchmen TV show I think that is for various reasons.

[00:22:57] We didn't talk about this but this list to me isn't necessarily what I think is the best of the year although Watchmen would certainly be up there with the best of the year. But there is something about the fact that they made a TV show about Watchmen

[00:23:13] that there were these interesting... and that it's Damon Lindelof as the showrunner who could have really fucked it up that it's based on source material by an author who really abhors the thought of anybody adapting his source material and it brings up these interesting issues

[00:23:32] ethical issues and whatever maybe even legal issues if you're into that kind of thing. But if you're not into that then it's a legal file. So all of that sort of the... just the property of the Watchmen and the things that it is...

[00:23:54] there was an actual DC comics did a run of sort of after the Watchmen like sequels in their comics that just were nothing compared to I think what Lindelof did. His work is... people have described it best as just real devoted fan fiction.

[00:24:14] It's truly the work of somebody who took the ideas and put their own spin on it. And there's just a lot of good political shit about race relations in America that he weaved in there without the heavy handedness that I've seen on some shows

[00:24:34] that sort of on-the-nose kind of bullshitty give a speech about equality or whatever like it didn't go there and so I love him for that. I am almost through I'm about three quarters of the way through the graphic novel which you generously sent me

[00:24:53] and when I'm done with that I will watch the show. Alright, my number three is another movie it's a great movie here. Wait, it's your number two... wait are you including the four movies? Well I'm starting with four. Oh, I'm sorry. It is another under-the-radar movie

[00:25:13] like High Life but it's not as hoity-toity as I don't think. It is a movie called Under the Silver Lake by David Robert Mitchell. This is also available for free on Amazon Prime it barely got a theatrical release. You would like this, it is LA Noir

[00:25:32] trippy conspiracy kind of thriller but it is a paranoid conspiracy thriller that kind of genre. It stars Andrew Garfield not James Garfield. It's a cross between the long goodbye Chinatown, Mulholland Drive, The Big Lebowski with some eyes wide shut in there too the conspiracy part of it

[00:25:56] and how far up it goes and it has deliberate homages to all those movies it's just fun to watch. It's long so you have to carve out some time I know that might be a barrier for you but it's funny, it's weird

[00:26:11] and I think you could go down rabbit holes and piece the mystery together and I think there is a big Reddit community already building about it but you don't have to do that at all to appreciate the movie.

[00:26:24] It's definitely one where you might want to take like an edible if you have them available and it will be even greater there's a scene in it and it involves music that I think you will really like a lot I could see you becoming

[00:26:41] finding that scene to be one of your favorite scenes of all time it's just totally enjoyable at every level to watch. Andrew Garfield by the way underrated Spider-Man did a good job this time The only Spider-Man that I really know is the one Spider-Man

[00:27:01] The 60s TV shows when you were a kid No, I really liked Spider-Verse that one Yeah that was just awesome Let's take a quick break and thank HelloFresh for sponsoring this episode of Very Bad Wizards Get mouth watering, seasonal recipes and pre-measured ingredients delivered

[00:27:19] right to your door with HelloFresh HelloFresh has some pretty delicious recipes They have a bunch of vegetarian recipes that I've been getting delivered every week and I actually have I think been eating better You can get locale recipes They save time and stress

[00:27:37] and I'll tell you now it's not like a long time to make my HelloFresh long considering how much time I want but what it does save is grocery store shopping which I actually hate I just don't like it and that getting the recipes

[00:27:53] with all of the food ingredients delivered to your door and if it takes 30, 40, 50 minutes to cook it I am fine with that Yeah when I go to the store there's like two types of me in the store I'm listening to a podcast and I'm not really focused

[00:28:11] so I could take like an hour and a half in the store just kind of wandering down each aisle like three or four times and just spacing out and then there is where I go and it's I'm all business and I'm focused but then I still miss

[00:28:27] like half the things on my list so I love the HelloFresh just takes that out of the weakened chores and it is flexible and it fits your lifestyle you can add extra meals or lunches to your weekly order I didn't know that

[00:28:43] or throw in yummy sides and desserts like garlic bread and cookie dough you can easily change your delivery days or food preferences and skip a week whenever you need HelloFresh is now starting from $5 and 66 cents per serving that makes it America's best value meal kit

[00:29:05] you know that part about skipping meals I was away for two weeks and all I did was go to the app and just click X on the two dates that I was going to be away and when I came back it just resumed the delivery as normal so

[00:29:21] it was actually really convenient so thank you to HelloFresh go if you want to get the discount that they are offering listeners of Very Bad Wizards go to HelloFresh.com for very bad wizards 10 and use code Very Bad Wizards 10 during HelloFresh's New Year sale for 10 free meals

[00:29:39] including shipping that's HelloFresh.com very bad wizards 10 and use code Very Bad Wizards 10 to get 10 free meals we'd like to thank HelloFresh for sponsoring this episode of Very Bad Wizards alright so here I go with my nebulous items in this list because neither a film nor

[00:30:03] nor a TV show not even a moment really it is just some people have referred to it as a renaissance for this actor but just the success of Keanu Reeves and the embracing of love that the internet has given him was one of my favorite things

[00:30:25] of the year I don't know if you've noticed all of the internet love like the way that eyebrows read it there is a serious fan devotion to this man that clearly supersedes any of the actual praise he should deserve as an actor because let's be honest

[00:30:49] he is Keanu Reeves in everything but John Wick 3 the John Wick series is great he actually so wait I'm not sure I'm following this you are saying that your number 3 or number 2 or whatever is the love that Keanu Reeves is getting on the internet on reddit or whatever

[00:31:09] it's hard to describe because he is a more abstract thinker than you this is not a singular product but if you just google for Keanu Reeves so you'll see there's just incredible this year just an incredible outpouring of admiration for Keanu that has led to articles and memes

[00:31:37] stories being written about him because he's such a good guy so I'm just giving you some examples we've entered the golden age of Keanu Reeves the renaissance of Keanu Reeves Keanu Reeves is too good for this world from the New Yorker he probably didn't know about Keanu Reeves

[00:31:53] Keanu Reeves wins the internet there is he's getting I think love in part because he seems to be such a good person so there are all these stories of moments in which Keanu has gone out of his way to help complete strangers

[00:32:07] who had no idea that it was Keanu he'll just like you know pull up in his motorcycle and help out a motorist who is stuck and the way that this just sort of the Keanu love hit the internet in 2019 is just made for warm fuzzies for me

[00:32:27] all of the stories that you read about him on the internet one of the things that he even like just does that shows what a good guy he is it's like when he takes pictures with women he clearly goes out of his way not to be touching them

[00:32:41] he'll show his hands he's just being very respectful so yeah that's just the Keanu renaissance this is a pop culture certainly certainly pop culture in a way that maybe french films aren't I don't even know what to say to that one I'll just move on that's

[00:33:05] you don't like Keanu I like him fine I guess I like John Wick but you know in a year where it was the best movie in the last 10 or 15 years I wouldn't put internet love for Keanu Reeves as one of my four favorite things

[00:33:25] well see now you're trying to make the list for me which is not what this is all about no this is you're the movie guy we know you're the movie guy let me be the internet guy alright you're the internet guy your french films are as puzzling

[00:33:41] as my Keanu renaissance pick alright well I have a good number 2 we'll see about that bad taste out of the listeners mouths I'm sure this is great it's a contrast this is good radio this is perfect it is Midsommar the movie

[00:34:07] kind of horror movie but also a breakup movie by the director Harry Aster who did hereditary last year this is great holy shit I love this movie we just saw it again last night and it's a great rewatch too it is about a young woman Florence Pugh

[00:34:31] also in Little Women she's gonna be a big star like you can tell from this movie that she's gonna be a big star so she's in a bad relationship she tags along with her boyfriend grad student friends and her boyfriend on a they're like grad students in anthropology

[00:34:51] and they're going on a trip to a remote village in Sweden I'm not gonna give any of the plot the less you know about this movie the better so I'm not gonna talk about the plot at all I am just gonna say that it's genuinely scary

[00:35:07] it is ridiculously well made you know I avoided it because I like tend to avoid things that are horror movies like I don't usually like them unless somebody says that they're awesome watch this with Nicky I think you'll like it it's also very funny and it

[00:35:25] and it has probably the funniest and definitely another fucked up but it's an actual sex scene not a masturbation scene but it is yeah in my the only person masturbating was you no definitely not and if you saw it you wouldn't like you would see why that's

[00:35:51] clearly not the case I saw for the first time in the theater with my daughter which is already uncomfortable well the masturbation would be really and then I said to her she told me this when we watched it again this is what sex is really like

[00:36:09] during the scene when we watched it the first time and again if you haven't seen it but if you have seen it you will I think that's pretty funny I was proud of myself for having said that anyway, Midsommar it's great, it's funny it's scary, it's just

[00:36:29] even though it got a bit of a release it is an underrated movie from last year alright, my final in my list of disappointments to you is the revenge of the Joker film so we talked about the Joker film and all of the fucking like

[00:36:51] stupid shit that was written about it my what was so deeply satisfying to me is that it became the first R rated film to surpass a billion dollars in revenue and then even though this isn't officially part of 2019 Joaquin Phoenix getting love from the academy

[00:37:13] just to me took something as a whole getting love from the academy the Joker as a whole getting a ton of love so what I think is one of the best comic book films to be made about the love that it justly deserved and more importantly my optimism

[00:37:33] and my sort of happiness that that batch of stupid critics do not in fact speak for the majority of people not that I thought they did but this was a clear fuck you to all of the naysayers it's just a good movie

[00:37:49] so this is going to disappoint you but I did see it recently and I was surprised by it and in a weird way I didn't think it was obviously I didn't think it was a rallying cry for in-cells I thought he was really good but a little I

[00:38:09] a little inconsistent it was never fully it was very hard to pin down what kind of character he was and then I get that that's part of the Joker or Joker's allure I just I was like really this is the thing that A. people were so angry

[00:38:29] about and B. that has made a billion dollars worldwide I mean in some ways it's kind of amazing because it's just a movie about a really mentally ill guy living in a world that doesn't care about him yeah so so I mean it's I think not entirely unfair

[00:38:53] to be underwhelmed given the amount of attention that it got but also it's portrayal of a particular incarnation of a comic book Joker I think was great and I think if you're not looking for that then it's obviously not going to float your boat that much

[00:39:13] but I'm intrigued by the inconsistency that you think of Joaquin Phoenix's performance because there were times where he just seemed like he was so damaged that he could barely put a sentence together and then like 30 seconds later he'll be kind of slick and almost now maybe that's

[00:39:37] there's definitely a lot that you could think is going on in his mind it's very much told from his perspective but even that is not if it's told from his perspective then the times where he seems so damaged and unable to have even remotely normal conversation

[00:39:59] with another person I don't know the juxtaposition between that and I forget the actual scene but I was like wait how did he just go from that to oh this is kind of a slick guy who knows what to say and yeah I

[00:40:15] don't know what scene you're talking about but I think that there is a lot that's supposed to be well there's one clear set of interactions that's in his own mind but I never saw I don't know what you're referring to as the parts where he can't even speak

[00:40:31] I don't know I don't have a strong opinion about it I thought he was great for the most part physically kind of amazing performance and well this is what I want to emphasize that also my pick again in my more nebulous category is

[00:40:51] not because I think it's the best movie of the year but rather just the like the resolution of all of that fizzled into both nothing politically and in that sense of controversy but also just I was happy for the filmmaker

[00:41:07] yeah now even the people who don't love the movie take steps to distance themselves from they're like it's not that I don't like it because it's like a in-cell propaganda it is because you know it's a score kind of poor Scorsese ripoff or whatever

[00:41:25] I also think I had very like I was very concerned that it was going to be a terrible movie so when I saw it I was like happy that it wasn't yeah no it's definitely not terrible like it's good I would even say good

[00:41:43] like almost good kind of feeling from it like and I wanted it to be better but yeah I'm happy for sure that like I am totally on board that that whole controversy this is also true I think of once upon a time in Hollywood like whatever

[00:41:59] annoying controversies there were well actually I'm going to save what I have to say alright we got to go let's move so my number one alright last year I haven't done any tea it's been all movies but it was also a good year for TV and one of

[00:42:17] my three favorite TV shows along with Fleabag like everybody else everyone loved that and so did I super good that almost made my list and dark obviously but there was a show by a guy named Sam Esmail which gave us just a fantastic season

[00:42:37] of television do you know what show I'm talking about um unless you're not talking about Mr. Robot are you not talking about Mr. Robot I'm not yeah I know he had that other homecoming no I haven't seen it good really you're putting that above Mr. Robot

[00:42:55] yes and I don't like it's not even that hard a decision because I loved homecoming and I didn't have I didn't have the ambivalence that I felt about the last season of Mr. Robot even though I overall liked it and we're not going to talk about

[00:43:11] like maybe at some other point we'll talk about the finale and what we think of it but this show homecoming it is stars Julia Roberts, Stefan James, Bobby Cannaval who I missed from Mr. Robot and Shay Wiggum it's like another kind of conspiracy thriller and it's

[00:43:31] based on a podcast where's our fucking TV show directed by Sam Esmail we're working on clearly I mean we must be on his radar things take time yeah that's true anyway the podcast and also the show um was created Sam Esmail directed all the episodes and it's

[00:43:53] it's brilliantly directed but it was created by Micah Bloomberg Eli Horowitz Eli Horowitz who by the way edited the first very bad wizard book of interviews when he worked for McSweeney's so you're you haven't in Sam Esmail? Except that we didn't like we ended up like

[00:44:17] not agreeing on edits and I think he probably hates me you've burned bridges it's a really amazing that we have like an eight year podcast relationship but I uh but it's a testament to the quality of the show that I still will put it as

[00:44:35] one of my four favorite things it's also half an hour you would like that aspect of it it's like the anti Irishman each episode is half an hour there I think there's eight or ten of them so you can be done with them really quick it's a fun

[00:44:49] show and it is it's got like all the good Sam Esmail directing touches I'm not a huge fan of Julie Roberts but I'll put up with her. She's good in this and you won't have a problem with her in this good alright the thing you hate

[00:45:05] the things we hate? One thing yeah I only have one thing that I like because that's what we were supposed to do the nerf the touch fun of that I understand I have one thing that I hated that again isn't a TV show or movie but it's a

[00:45:27] thing and it's I don't know if you'll understand the feelings that this caused me but Kanye West decided to go Christian and put out this like gospel album and tell the world about Jesus and for so many reasons some of which are not just

[00:45:51] it's not Kanye's fault I think that the world is somehow just observing a man in the midst of mental illness and still playing along with it but his album is no but he might as well I don't know I don't even have that much

[00:46:15] to say about it but that he in like from one week to another was like talking about you know fucking supermodels with bleach assholes and then talking about how he's changed as a Christian and then putting out a gospel album is just sad to me

[00:46:33] and it's just if it's a play for album sales it's sad if it's genuine it's sad it's a train wreck I feel bad for the guy but it's just he's such a otherwise and it is controversial but I don't think anybody who

[00:46:51] is a fan of hip hop music would argue with the fact that he is one of the greatest hip hop producers of all time it's sad to see him go this way like I wish he would just shut up and just get help

[00:47:03] go back to the bleach assholes go back to them at least for the pre-bleached assholes yeah I didn't like that alright I'm sorry to hear that alright here's the thing I hated so this thing managed to combine two seemingly unrelated things that I deeply dislike the first is

[00:47:31] critics who force their political agenda into their analyses of art so we talked about this in the context of Joker that's the first thing the second is the utterly inappropriate use of data or empirical investigation to assess something way too complex and messy

[00:47:51] for that data to tell us anything real so both these things had sex and had a baby and that baby was this time magazine article we counted every line in every Quentin Tarantino film to see how often women talk so this was back in

[00:48:13] I didn't even know about this it is one of the more annoying things from the last 10 years from the decade this would be the most annoying thing of the decade possibly from pop culture you don't think that can be counted is what you're saying the reason this exists

[00:48:35] is there was that period in the summer where there were a small minority of critics including Richard Brody again complaining about Quentin Tarantino's misogyny or sexism and then a bunch of other people saying look this is a guy and there's not many filmmakers like

[00:48:51] this or not many male filmmakers like this who has done a bunch of movies with very strong female central characters and so they decided to count every line in every Quentin Tarantino film to see like what's the ratio of women to men talking in his movies

[00:49:11] they decided to just count the lines not even controlling for a number of characters or anything like that no in fact they left off death proof because that's like almost entirely women talking they left it off at first with the excuse that well you know that was just

[00:49:31] half a movie along with Robert Rodriguez from Grindhouse and then one of the authors tweeted how and he was proud about it how pissed off people in the theater were to see him using his cell phone to write down the lines once upon a time in Hollywood

[00:49:49] because it was only out on the movie theater I would have lost my fucking mind not alone oh my god if I had been in that movie and this guy oh my god to the larger film world the credits the article was roundly mocked and condemned

[00:50:09] even by critics that some people would call kind of woke so it's not this wasn't like something that people celebrated aside from some you know like Twitter people but it was the thing I hated in pop culture the most last year I will

[00:50:29] go on a limb and agree with you about how that's at least I don't think that it's unquantifiable to make a claim of misogyny but like that's such a shitty way to do it it's just terrible that's like that's like the most I don't know the most

[00:50:51] basic in all the negative senses of that term way to attack our problem what were the numbers by the way I don't have them but in Jackie Brown for example apparently men talk more than women but if anybody who is a Jackie Brown

[00:51:09] will know that that movie is centrally about Pam Grier and has also just an awesome performance by Bridget Fonda and that's a denier of performance that can get the oh man he's so good at that it's not as a product it's not that obvious

[00:51:29] how good he is the first time you see it but every well it's because it looks like he could be actually doing a terrible job right it looks like it could be a really poor performance from an amateur actor totally but you know I'll put this

[00:51:45] on my mom there, denier and Pacino often get lumped together because obviously because they've been in very similar movies there is no way Pacino could ever pull off any performance like that absolutely that's exactly right alright longest segment ever we'll be back to talk about David Foster Wallace's

[00:52:07] story Good Old Neon this episode of Very Bad Wizards is also brought to you by givewell.org again as we always say one of our favorite sponsors because they just do so much good in the world so Tamara last night we had frenemy of the podcast

[00:52:25] Sean Nichols the philosopher and his girlfriend Rachna also a philosopher over to dinner last night and Nicky also a philosopher and the four of us got into an argument and the argument was about how best to communicate to another person that they should be donating

[00:52:43] their money to an effective cause do you really say like well I'm sorry buddy but your money could be better used for another charity so we actually got kind of into a heated argument about that but what none of us disagreed

[00:52:57] about was that it would be the right thing to do to go out of your way to find the most effective charity to give your money to and this is one of the reasons that I like doing givewell ads because I think

[00:53:11] this is a great forum to just say hey look you can donate to whomever you want give money to whomever you want but if you have that extra money maybe give some of it to one of the more effective charities I think that is my my approach to

[00:53:25] to givewell is I like it I use it I have donated to it now a couple of times doesn't mean it's I will won't give money to other things which I know isn't doing necessarily the greatest good for the greatest number but I love having

[00:53:43] an option where I can do that because clearly some of my charitable giving should be towards the most effective way of reducing suffering right and like we've said before I think that's a no brainer and I think givewell has noticed

[00:54:01] that this is a good effective way of communicating to people that donating some of your charitable money to an effective cause is a good thing because they've asked us to give our listeners a thank you for the past season podcast listeners like the ones

[00:54:19] here at Very Bad Wizards gave over $500,000 to givewell's recommended charities and so givewell wanted to thank all of you for helping to support some of the most effective charities in the world givewell spends more than 10,000 hours each year with their spreadsheet nerds searching for outstanding charities

[00:54:37] but it only matters at the end of the day if we can get donors like you to act on that information and how greatly appreciates your support of effective evidence backed charities these are the kinds of charities that are used to distribute things like malaria treatments

[00:54:53] insecticide treated bed nets or vitamin A supplements programs that can save a life for every few thousand dollars donated so we're here again to thank you and to make another call for you to find it in your heart to continue now that the holidays are gone to continue

[00:55:11] giving find out more about how good your donation can do go to givewell.org there you'll find all of givewell's research for free as well as a short list of the most effective charities they found you can donate directly through their website and they charge no fees

[00:55:25] and take no cut and we'll have a link on our show notes for you to go straight from our program to their website so thank you to givewell.org for sponsoring this episode of Very Bad Wizards Music Welcome back to Very Bad Wizards this is the time

[00:56:28] of the podcast where we take a moment to tell you how much we appreciate your support to thank you all for all of the ways in which you keep us going we appreciate the emails, the messages the discussions that you have on Reddit the tweets even in some

[00:56:46] cases the Instagram comments now getting more of those so thank you for taking the time to write thank you for going out of your way to let us know what you think and in fact you saw this Tamler just recently we had a listener email us

[00:57:04] tell us that they had gone back to school wholly in part like entirely 100% because of Very Bad Wizards episode that we did back in the day the grad school episode right not wholly but not at all wholly but that it played any bit of a role as I

[00:57:26] emailed back to really just made me sometimes you ponder whether or not all of the time and effort is worth it and you get an email like that and it actually makes one very happy so we really appreciate all of your

[00:57:46] communication it doesn't have to be that nice you can curse at us and tell us that we're wrong troll on Reddit and again you can troll us on Instagram yet another venue but we really do appreciate everything every way in which you guys interact with us

[00:58:06] and we encourage you to do more we can't read all of the emails I wish there were a way of like clicking a like on your emails to let you know that we had seen it but I assure you that we see your emails and it really

[00:58:18] means a lot to us if you do want to get hold of us you can email us at gmail.com you can tweet to us at very bad wizards or at tamler and at peas you can go to our Instagram page which is just very bad wizards

[00:58:36] and talk to us there or you can join our discussion on reddit.com it's not really our discussion it's more their discussion in fact that's what I love about the Reddit it's like I don't have to do anything they're just surprised that we show up sometimes but

[00:58:56] and if you would like to support us in more tangible ways you can give us a one-time donation on PayPal and you can become one of our beloved Patreon supporters I saw that we now have over 1,450 Patreon supporters which just blows me away oh wow that's great

[00:59:18] it's amazing and it means so much it keeps the lights on actually can I just interject here and say that that's one of the reasons that you might actually be sounding better today we got a microphone boom arm for Tamler so he can keep that mic

[00:59:36] straight in his face the whole time my back right now already feels so much better too I I can't believe that I've gone this long without this thing it seems it's awesome I love it so that's why you're a hunchback

[00:59:50] didn't need to be a hunchback all these years seven years of doing it with that stand just shame being mocked in the streets having things thrown at me hopefully this tragedy will turn into a comedy yes you can go to our Patreon

[01:00:08] page we have different levels of support we do bonus episodes you get volumes of Dave's beats there are already four of those available there are a bunch of bonus episodes available and you can also at one level vote on a topic that we will choose

[01:00:28] for a listener selected or a patron selected episode this was definitely one that although it didn't win it was suggested and was a close second this David Foster Wallace episode and even just getting ideas about what story or essay to do the

[01:00:54] episode on that all came from Twitter and from Instagram so all the ways in which you interact with us is indispensable it is crucial for the show and it makes us better and we couldn't be more grateful so thank you as Tamler said

[01:01:16] we've had people asking us to do a David Foster Wallace for a while and as we mentioned in the beginning maybe it's just a bit outside of our comfort zone because neither of us had read very much David Foster Wallace but I liked what I read

[01:01:32] and the voice of the listeners was strong and so we decided to bite the bullet and go ahead and do a story so this is all to say please we apologize if we butcher if there's some sort of standard interpretation

[01:01:52] of David Foster Wallace that we have no idea about and then we're just ignorant so yeah Good All Neon is the story that we are going to discuss today so Good All Neon is a short story it was originally published in 2001 in a journal called Conjunctions

[01:02:06] but then it got collected into a set of short stories for a collection called Oblivion and I think my understanding is that many have argued this story Good All Neon is not just the best of the bunch of stories in Oblivion but also one of his

[01:02:24] best short stories or at least most powerful or impactful short stories and that may be in part because of what it's about which we'll get to in a second but in that shell the story is told from the perspective of a guy named Neil he's a 29 year old

[01:02:42] yuppie I don't even know if we use that term still yuppie young urban professional who is it's stream of consciousness he is telling us about his life he's currently in therapy and he is he's telling us from the perspective of having already killed himself right? he keeps

[01:03:12] hinting to the fact that he's already dead and the way that he's telling us about how he got there is essentially a life story it's meandering a bit but I think on purpose a story about how he considers himself his personality considers himself a fraud

[01:03:36] so to be completely inauthentic he sees himself as he can't let go of the idea that everything that he's done or said ever since he was a child in fact like the earliest story of him being just a toddler that everything was this sort of

[01:03:52] pathetic attempt at getting other people to like him or to think highly of him has been not to do things because he wants to do them but slowly over time just falling into only doing things for the sake of appearances so he deeply suspects well he's convinced

[01:04:10] that he's a fraud and this leads to him taking his own life by crashing his car and the way in which we're told we're taken through his journey of I don't know if there's a whole lot of insight but perhaps a mediocre therapist to him who

[01:04:30] himself then dies of cancer but who he's fond of he's fond of yeah it's a funny mix of fondness and the fact that he's a fraud and he's a fraud and he's a fraud and he's a fraud and he's a fraud and he's a fraud

[01:04:52] and he's a fraud it's a funny mix of fondness I think it starts off as fondness and then almost gets to some sort of antipathy at times and also condescending like the fondness is kind of dripping with condescension but yeah and then it becomes I didn't see

[01:05:14] antipathy as much as disappointment like maybe had his hopes up that the therapist could help him understand something and then coming to realize or at least think that no the therapist couldn't help him antipathy maybe isn't the right word because one of the things

[01:05:38] that seems to be true of this character is that his feelings for people are at least the way that he reports them aren't strong either way so it's not that he hates his therapist it's that I think disappointment is the right word too but it's a

[01:05:54] devoid of too much emotion he had like the tiny bit of hope that this therapist would actually be able to cure him of this thought that he was a fraud but realized quickly that no he was just stringing the therapist along just in the same way

[01:06:10] that he strings everybody else along yeah it's a hard story to know how to talk about because it has all kind of a twist at the end that I think we're going to talk a lot about but I mean the basic setup of this is

[01:06:28] a story told by a man who has already died by suicide in his car and who is aware that it sounds impossible that he could be narrating this story given that he's already dead and it has this kind of Holden Caulfield like Catcher in the Wry

[01:06:50] kind of style where it really involves the reader and brings the reader in in a very conversational way and the theme of authenticity it has a lot of underground man a lot of underground man and I don't know actually let's start with the therapy

[01:07:10] so I'm someone who has never been to therapy I have not done that have you done in therapy I don't know if we've ever talked about this no we've never talked about it but I'm not surprised Tamler I'm not surprised I'm not so I did some

[01:07:30] this is as close to personal as I ever get talking about my personal life I did therapy for once I realized that my marriage was over like we had already decided to end the marriage and so we basically went to couples therapy in order to be able to

[01:07:50] navigate the the split up in a way we already had a young infant daughter and that was very helpful and then I tried to go on my own and this is where a lot of this story I really can't relate to like we can get to this

[01:08:06] the way that he is I like super self involved and I think pretty narcissistic but the part that he's not sure whether he is manipulating the therapist to have a particular view of him of Neil is something that I couldn't get out of my head either

[01:08:28] that it felt like it might be a game where I was trying to get the therapist to believe things about me that I wanted them to believe even when they were bad things like the character Neil does so like you know he says that he would offer up

[01:08:44] false confessions to make himself sympathetic that kind of thing so that I could relate to that was my very limited experience with only one therapist but yeah I was thinking that that seems like something that I would do like I would have a hard time separating

[01:09:04] like me actually talking and me trying to create this impression in the therapist almost like a little cat and mouse game yeah because it is it's built to the therapeutic experiences so much of it is you decide what you're going to tell to this person that you

[01:09:24] are from scratch building up a view of you that you are trying to give to the therapist and I take that in the therapy you get past this but it is very much like a situation that's made probably like specifically praise on this fear that you are

[01:09:46] that we are nothing all of what we are is nothing but what we're trying to convince other people that we are and that's maybe the biggest theme in this whole story and I think I don't know I can relate to this to some extent being trapped

[01:10:02] in your own head constantly to the point where you don't know what's real and what is a front and you can't separate who you are from who you're trying to appear to be to other people or the impression you're trying to make which itself the impression that you're

[01:10:20] trying to make is sort of constructed by popular culture or drama or theater or fiction or whatever and so you really have this sense of there's no actual me here I feel this sometimes where again at a more micro scale you do sometimes say things

[01:10:44] in a way that you know the person is going to be impressed like self deprecating remarks that you know are actually gonna make the person find you more likeable or something like that teaching is a bit like this I was gonna say yeah

[01:11:00] I mean there is a way in which like and I assume this is probably the case in a lot of professions in which you have to interact with people on a regular basis but yeah you're clearly presenting some idea of yourself when you're teaching your lecturing

[01:11:22] and that persona like it feels like a persona and then that can carry over when you're meeting with students so like a large part of I often find it exhausting after a day of teaching and then long meetings with students that I come home and I feel like

[01:11:40] I've been playing the role of David Pizarro professor of psychology that now like I can shed it a little bit but at the same time I also feel this kind of I'm actually trying to be who I am at the same time

[01:12:00] even while I try to be real I try to be who I am I try to let my actual what I think of as my actual personality shine through in the teaching and meeting with students but at the same time I'm also aware that it's creating an impression

[01:12:18] and I want to fine tune that impression sometimes and then yeah it's that tension that can be exhausting too it's this this guy that's taking notes giving you notes on how you're presenting yourself like you're giving a theatrical performance and I think this is, we're teachers

[01:12:38] so there is that sort of built in audience but I think this is true no matter what kind of job that you have as long as you work with other people and this is not like this it's not the posture syndrome that he's describing I think it's

[01:12:54] different and in some ways just more pernicious it's not that he knows who he is and he thinks that who he is doesn't belong there he's not quite sure who he is if he is anything at all because everything that he has done he is coming to realize

[01:13:14] has been done solely for the sake of portraying whatever character he is trying to portray and it gets this is the part that I enjoyed that it gets meta so he points out that the problem with viewing yourself as a fraud is that if you try harder

[01:13:34] to not be a fraud then just that trying makes you feel like you're being even more of a fraud what does it mean to try to be authentic or try to be your true self there's a point where he says being your true self

[01:13:48] so it's the kind of thinking that can only lead to or at least the way that it's presented here can only lead to further thoughts that you are not an authentic person this kind of cycle that keeps building on itself he calls this like the fraudulence

[01:14:06] paradox I think he said the more of a fraud you felt like the harder you tried to convey an impression so that other people wouldn't find out what a hollow fraudulent person you really were logically you would think that the moment of supposedly intelligent 19 year old

[01:14:22] became aware of this paradox he'd stop being a fraud and just settle for being himself whatever that was because he'd figured out that being a fraud was a vicious infinite regress that ultimately resulted in being frightened, lonely alienated etc but then that's definitely something where awareness

[01:14:44] of the problem not only doesn't make it better but it makes it worse before you get to the end as you were reading it neither of us knew anything about like how what the turn that it takes at the very end like how did you like

[01:15:00] this character what were you thinking about the story yeah good good good I'm glad you asked because that's like all I've been wanting to say this whole time even as I was giving the summary because I again not knowing right

[01:15:14] there's a turn at the end that changed this but I found this character to be insufferable like I actually thought you know there is a way you point to the underground the notes from the underground man his sort of obsessive focus is his the levels of neurosis that

[01:15:38] he has in that story they're like this this character is self-involved and it's very much his obsessing over this idea that he's a fraud but this is different this is not so much the kind of neurosis that you see in underground man but like a deep self-involvement

[01:16:00] that I found to be utterly just unlikable and all I could think was like fucking don't stop thinking of yourself so much like there's no like everybody is you know we're all playing a role we played different roles for different people

[01:16:20] that is who we are like there is like you alone isn't anymore you than you in front of your loved ones or you know in front of your kids or students this just always you like he knows that you're thinking that so I didn't know much about

[01:16:36] David Foster Wallace's writing so I was thinking to myself like wait this is like this is taken as deep by people like this is like this seems like actually you know even all his talk of logical paradoxes and putting things in logic terms it just reminded

[01:16:54] me of like the most annoying know-it-all like Dunning Kruger undergrad who thinks he has it all figured out. It's sophomoric it almost seems like inside is totally sophomoric and there's a lot of like it's a long short story and so a large part of this

[01:17:14] story is having to deal with somebody obsessing over their shitty self. Yeah I mean I don't know if I found him quite as unsympathetic and I thought the writing and the energy carries part of the story but he definitely it was starting to grate on me

[01:17:38] and again and the character is very aware that he's starting to grate on you and he knows what you think of him before you even think it you know and that's one of the frustrating aspects of his character. Very self-fulfilling. Yes. And I think all this stuff

[01:17:58] is in that sense I think kind of a brave story I think it has to be written by somebody who you have some trust in because you might just give it up but because I think that is built so deeply into the

[01:18:14] themes of the story is this idea that not only are you going to have this impression of this character but he knows you're gonna have this impression and he's one step ahead of you and he also knows that it's really annoying

[01:18:28] to have you like he was with the therapist and you know and it's like why doesn't he just go volunteer for Habitat for Humanity or something get outside of yourself for one fucking second and and it is interesting that that's one thing that sort of never he never

[01:18:44] tries No, that's right. Well, it's unclear like he says he has a list of things that he ended up trying so he says I was disgusted with myself for always being such a fraud but I couldn't seem to help it

[01:19:02] here are some of the various things I tried EST which I don't know what EST is writing a 10 speed to Nova Scotia and back hypnosis, cocaine, sacroservical chiropractic, joining a charismatic church jogging, pro bono work for the ad council meditation classes the mason's analysis, the landmark forum

[01:19:22] the course in miracles, a right brain drawing bookshop drawing workshop, celibacy collecting and restoring vintage corvettes and trying to sleep with a different girl every night for two straight months I racked up a total of 36 for 61 and I also got chlamydia which I told

[01:19:38] friends about acting like I was embarrassed but secretly expecting most of them to be impressed right and everyone can relate to some of that you know like that to the chlamydia is the chlamydia but like that like kind of I don't know I was someone who in my

[01:19:54] it's also like I thought I was like how old was he when he wrote this it sounds like somebody in his 20s writing or something like that I was hopping from phase to phase but in that long list of things I guess aside from the pro bono

[01:20:10] there's not anything that isn't some sort of like self improvement or self like it's all kind of magnetically focused on himself rather than the other people and yet this is the very thing that plagues him and you know at a certain point he comes to the conclusion that

[01:20:34] he doesn't know how to love while at the same time being sickened by the cliche of it all you know not knowing how to love that actually leads him to take his own life when he sees a cheers episode of that makes fun of that

[01:20:50] but which is great but it's not great you know what I mean you maybe relate to him a little bit more like I didn't have a youth that was characterized by a lot of that stuff and that's not to say that I wasn't

[01:21:04] searching for who I was but it's you know my problems feel different than the problems that he's describing and the methods that he used to try to get around them I guess the method like the I had that phase period of my life where I was

[01:21:24] into caroac and I was into you know traveling and drinking a lot I'd stayed with that stuck with that one and and a little too focused on myself not enough focused on other people and a little kind of proud of myself about certain things but and way too

[01:21:46] worried about what other people thought of me and very aware of that and trying to you know I was also trying to write novels and like I feel like I obviously I'm not I was I'm not 1% of the writer that he is and this is like I started

[01:22:04] reading out loud this is a very well written story I I thought the the passage that I thought kind of summed up what his problem was is really perceptive and beautiful and it's when he is writing the suicide note to his sister and he's already worried about

[01:22:28] the how the suicide note will look to the sister and he tries to in the suicide note tell his sister that he's aware that he's probably trying to make an impression on her but there's this beautiful little passage in the middle that I caught on

[01:22:44] the reread he says when you consider as I did sitting there at the breakfast nook that the reason seems like this will seem stale or manipulative to an audience is that we've already seen so many of them in dramas and yet the reason we've seen

[01:23:00] so many of them in dramas is that the scenes really are dramatic and compelling and let people communicate very deep and that's what I've been trying to do is to create a lot of a lot of a lot of the things that I've created emotional realities

[01:23:18] that are almost impossible to articulate in any other way and at the same time still another facet or part of me realizing that from this perspective my own basic problem was that at an early age I'd somehow chosen to cast my lot with my life's perfectly capture

[01:23:38] what it was that he's suffering from. He's always focused on the audience and the impression and not the actual drama that is occurring around him all the time. Yeah, yeah, no that is you know he reaches these moments of insight and that I think is a nice one

[01:24:00] and then he dips dips back down into thinking of his audience again which is a great way to describe this feeling because he's writing to us so of course he's trying to put these thoughts in our mind. So the minute he has insight that he's sharing

[01:24:20] it seems that he can't help but now fall back on the fact that he shared that insight because he wanted us to think this was insightful of him he can't let it go and choosing to drive into a wall after taking a

[01:24:36] handful of Benadryl is the only way he can seem to let his self go and that's the resolution that he has to this fraudulent paradox. He can't pop out of this but let's take a quick break to talk about better health Dave what were we just

[01:25:02] saying? Neither of us have very much experience in therapy I have exactly none but were I to seek that out better health offers a very convenient way to match up with the counselor online in a safe and private online environment. That makes it very convenient especially for

[01:25:26] our listeners who might live in rural areas and have a hard time finding a therapist that they like and can meet conveniently face to face. With better help you can get help on your own time and at your own pace. You can schedule secure video or phone

[01:25:46] sessions plus chat and text with your therapist. Licensed professional counselors are at better help who specialize in depression, stress, anxiety relationships, sleeping, trauma anger, family conflicts LGBT matters grief and self-esteem. Anything you say is confidential if you're not happy with your counselor

[01:26:12] for any reason you can request a new one at any time at no additional charge. 3000 US licensed therapist across 50 states and again you can you can do text, you can chat phone and video. Would you want to text with your therapist Dave? You know I know

[01:26:32] some people who do you know it's not for me but hey there is financial aid available for those who qualify it's secure, convenient and affordable it is not however a crisis line. Better help is not a crisis line. Yeah and I want to emphasize

[01:26:50] that it's not you know there are various crisis lines that you should call if you're really feeling like something bad is going on and moreover Tamler and I are not licensed professional psychologists I'm a psychologist but not that kind so I've been telling you my problems forever

[01:27:08] I know what we said well when I was looking it up I was like relationships can you and I go on better help together? Do we have to pay double? Can we just can you hop in the tech? Can it be a group tech? Podcast couples therapy that's

[01:27:26] what we need best of all it is a truly affordable option and very bad wizards listeners will get 10% off your first month with discount code VBW so go to betterhelp.com slash VBW simply fill out a questionnaire to help them assess your needs

[01:27:48] and get matched with a counselor you'll love once again that's betterhelp.com slash VBW thanks to Better Help for sponsoring this episode by the way just as an aside I'm certainly not the literary man that you are but I wasn't struck at all that the writing was

[01:28:10] brilliant it read to me like somebody trying to write like somebody brilliant would the lot of really long sentences and a lot of sentence structures that are trying to show off so in all sort of charitable interpreting of this because I think Foster Wallace was a good writer

[01:28:36] I can't help but think that he's trying to do this as part of the way in which he's communicating that this guy cares so much about what we think of him okay now this so we keep putting off discussing them but I want to say something about

[01:28:52] the writing which is that I normally hate long sentences with a passion and I find it very frustrating even in authors that I love I had initially a reaction to this as not a David Foster Wallace fanboy like oh god these sentences

[01:29:12] are going on forever there's no rest this is a hot shot author trying to show you how virtuosic he can be but then I read it out loud so then I started reading it out loud just certain passages and when you read it out loud

[01:29:26] you get the rhythm of it and when you do that the rhythm of the sentences I don't know like I stand by that this is a brilliantly written story it just requires that you somehow get in touch with the rhythm of these long endless sentences

[01:29:46] and I don't know like I see what you're saying it's not just the length of the sentences that I'm saying that was just an example but the asides and the like it's like it's trying to impress you and in that sense that's intentional but I don't think

[01:30:04] that he's trying to come across as a worse writer than he is and I think that's a good bridge to the twist of it because in the twist of it you find out that this guy probably isn't writing it but a guy named David Wallace is writing it

[01:30:26] and we haven't talked about this at all how we interpret this twist but like late in the story as he's talking right about the as he's about to go into the actual moment of his death he mentions a man David Wallace who went to the same high school

[01:30:52] as him he says David Wallace blinks in the myths of idly scanning class photos from his 1980 Aurora West High School yearbook H.S. Yearbook and seeing my photo and trying through the tiny little keyhole of himself to imagine what all must have happened to lead up

[01:31:08] to my death in the fiery single car accident he'd read about in 1991 like what sorts of pains or problems might have driven the guy to get in his electric blue Corvette and try to drive with all that OTC medication in his bloodstream and then goes on to describe

[01:31:24] this David Wallace happening to have this huge and totally unorganizable set of inner thoughts, feelings, memories and impressions of this little photo of this guy a year ahead of him in school and then this is how it ends is this David Wallace character you realize is trying

[01:31:40] to figure out what could have led this guy who was kind of the Chad of his high school take his own life in that way or at least that's one way of ending it ends with David Wallace not with Neil anymore so how do you interpret that

[01:32:00] I interpreted it as so one of the things that I think that he mentions over and over again kind of hints at is this the notion of time as passing and as being at least like passing in the colloquial sense in which we talk about past present future

[01:32:18] being illusory and that things aren't like that especially from his perspective in the afterlife so he's talking about you can get these impressions that are almost instantaneous and he tries to define what he means by instantaneous here like insights or bits of information flowing through the human mind

[01:32:42] take no time at all and so he describes David Wallace blinking and in that blink is the only time he's giving David Wallace here to have this whole set of thoughts about reading about this car accident and realizing that this was a guy from his high school and

[01:33:00] wondering and creating in his head an entire narrative about why this as you say this Chad this seemingly successful guy how he could have gotten to the point where he committed suicide and then David Wallace taking a step back and looking

[01:33:16] at his own life and his own struggles and I read it is like a David foster Wallace creating the David Wallace character and saying something like human beings are so incredibly hard to know we barely ever get like the smallest of windows into this huge complex

[01:33:42] rich inner life every one of us has this nearly infinite infinitely rich inner life that we only present to each other in these ways in which we could we couldn't possibly communicate every detail of the richness of our lives that is just like

[01:34:00] the human predicament we are we're living in this way where of course maybe we think we're frauds like you Tamler can't know all of the things that I am I'm in charge of telling you what I am I got in charge of creating in you the thought of

[01:34:16] who I am but that is what seems to be weighing down on this Neil character and so the way that I read it is David Wallace in that moment of that blink realizes that he himself has had this struggle and

[01:34:32] at the very end where he says and David Wallace having emerged from years of literally indescribable war against himself with quite a bit more firepower than he'd had at Aurora West his high school that he says I'm not going to go out that way like I will deal

[01:34:46] with all of this in a different way which of course in an even more meta sense is distressing thought since David I don't know if we mentioned that David Wallace took his own life. Yeah which is a very hard thing to separate

[01:35:04] from reading the story and also sort of propelled you know that however frustrated you got with this character it was definitely in the back of my mind as as very sad I think I have a slightly slightly different take so there is this thing

[01:35:26] that I don't understand this time how so much can be condensed into in a single moment and how time is to some extent illusory and but the impact that ending had when I first read it was whoa wait a minute this isn't about

[01:35:50] not chat now yeah this isn't about Neil at all this isn't about Neil at all this is about David Foster Wallace and I mean when you actually think of who Neil was and the kind of person that he was the actual stream

[01:36:10] of consciousness writing sounds a lot more in the limited amount of of David Foster Wallace that I've read it sounds a lot more like David Foster Wallace than it sounds like this guy and it's it starts to seem like he just projected his own neuroses

[01:36:30] onto this guy who he barely knew like 20 years ago or 25 years ago and so it's it doesn't it didn't seem to me like this is somebody who tried honestly to engage with somebody else and try to understand their perspective because it doesn't feel like he did beyond

[01:36:56] just well he had an older sister who David Wallace seemed like he was kind of attracted to and he was better than him in baseball and he the witchy red egg and he was good with the ladies he barely he just takes those basic facts

[01:37:12] and then just says well what if I had that life kind of you know yeah I like I actually don't disagree at all with you like I'm like that's your you're describing a different part of of my thoughts about this like where I was trying more to describe

[01:37:30] in that blink of an eye what he's thinking about what what must have gone through Neil's head but I just want to agree with you that the only thing that David Wallace the character in this story can do is project his own neuroses on

[01:37:46] Neil to figure out like well what would make me if I were him take his own life and but you can't really do that like he can't the only thing you can really do is try is try and project your own thoughts on to

[01:38:06] what somebody else would have been thinking in those moments even if it's totally inappropriate which it seems like it probably was in this case you know well he makes them to be that's why the turn is a bit like gave me a much better

[01:38:20] interpretation of the story because it seems as if there was a little bit of like yeah this guy was kind of a Chad or maybe I didn't like him that much and like he even thought that like how is this guy taking for granted

[01:38:36] all of the shit that went his way and like here I am like barely striking out looking dropping balls in right field and he's the one who off himself like shit like so the way that he portrays him is maybe a mix of what would

[01:38:56] drive me to kill myself and what would Neil the kind of jerk from high school be thinking about like how self-involved must he have been yeah right but like and it's funny because I had this it's not funny it's sad but when

[01:39:14] David Foster Wallace took his own life I remember thinking I may even said this with Matt Nock when we had him on the show on suicide like here's a guy he had a great job at Pomona he was considered to be one of the

[01:39:34] you know three or four best writers in like living writers in the world by many people and he still did this you know I had that same thought that I think this David Wallace is supposedly having about Neil right like it is this now what I

[01:39:54] what I didn't do is try to imagine how that would have gone down but that's I think the difference between somebody who doesn't have suicidal ideations and somebody who does it's like you and I think this David Wallace first character does and clearly the author did

[01:40:16] but I think that this is the deepest one of the deepest and most saddest aspects of the story is this idea that to have a real connection with other people to really understand where they're coming from and their perspective it's just it's not possible

[01:40:36] and the best we get is like copies of copies of copies so it's like a play-doh thing where it's like and it's me on all of that is mediated through all this fraudulence and bullshit and we're sort of trapped in our own perspective and

[01:40:54] we worry that there's no breaking out of that and what David Wallace is doing is barely even trying it seems like well that's that's why I like I think that he was just such a such a great turn such a great little stroke there to say that

[01:41:14] yeah like David Wallace is here's about this guy this guy killing himself and it's not so much that he took days to obsess over why he must have done it even though obviously David took like however long to obsess over writing this story he says that it was

[01:41:42] in between the the it was in the duration of a blink that he had all of these thoughts and so that's when you were saying that like you know when you heard about David Foster Wallace like I remember having those same thoughts like you know

[01:41:56] it's a little close to home he's he was a professor who like seemingly had all of the things that we would want as a professor thing including things that not most professors could never have and in that brief moment when we formed that impression

[01:42:12] of what we thought David Foster Wallace must have been thinking David Wallace in the story is taking all of that like in that moment fleshing it out like and as Neil is trying to say sometimes you have these like very rich you cannot describe it

[01:42:30] in linear time like these these thoughts all happening at once it's just it's just the nature of our human limitations that we have to write it all out which is why he's taking so long to say everything and why he's constantly apologizing I think for the meandering he's

[01:42:48] all of this is happening in literally just the blink of an eye. Yeah but now I have not read much secondary literature on this we both came across you came across the abstract I came across an abstract and then just like a couple hours before read the paper

[01:43:08] so there are some people that think that this is David Foster Wallace you know so he's writing this story and it's almost like a heroic or courageous attempt to try to connect with somebody and try to understand what it must have felt like to be them

[01:43:24] and what this author argues and this was definitely the sense I got is that it's much darker than that this story it is about the impossibility of doing that and even trying it doesn't seem like in that blink of an eye David Wallace even tried to imagine

[01:43:46] that and you know one thing I didn't do is try to imagine what was going through David Wallace's David Foster Wallace's head when I heard about his death. Right. I knew I had no idea that was one of the reasons we wanted to have Matt on is

[01:44:02] to try to understand this what could what causes people to do this and it seems like this David Wallace just he does try to do that but in a way that's so transparently about him rather than about Neil the guy and if you

[01:44:22] you get the sense that in the reality of this story that the character Neil is just nothing like how he's portrayed in the first three quarters of the story just well yeah we are where it's undone our impression of Neil is undone as at least a realistic

[01:44:42] impression of him given that we find out that it is David Wallace's impression of him but I think that's right I think the right this is not a masterful like tale about connecting with somebody else's pain it is this is the one and

[01:45:00] the only reason I can think of for him to describe it as having been the blink of an eye like sure he has to write down all of the words sequentially for us to understand it but he's David Wallace in the story has literally given him a blink

[01:45:14] of time to like judge jury and executioner like he's basically that created that and so while of course he has to make this a lengthy story I think we're supposed to be understanding that it wasn't the effort of David Wallace in the story

[01:45:32] was not the effort of David Foster Wallace in writing the story but I don't even but I think the effort of David Foster Wallace is also not supposed to be something that we are supposed to applaud as a triumph of connecting with somebody else

[01:45:48] because it just sounds like David Foster Wallace to you know and his own neuroses and you know you can see the optimism that I think some people get out of this story is in that last little bit right the real or more enduring

[01:46:06] and sentimental part of him commanding that other part to be silent as if looking at Levely in the eye and saying almost aloud not another word like he's trying to quiet now this David Wallace is trying to quiet the voice in his own head yeah the other

[01:46:22] thing I read today again was the this is water commencement speech and that it's very much just about that right it's about quieting the voice in your own head so you can take in what's around you so you can take in what's outside yourself and this

[01:46:38] story has a lot of that too of these moments that Neil is grasping for where his personality his self is almost obliterated because he's actually focused on the world outside of him that does seem to me the sense I get of David Foster Wallace is that

[01:47:00] he was a person trapped in his own head to a greater extent than most people are even though I think all of us are to large extent but desperately wanting to not be that way and you know there's a very there's very almost Buddhist sense of

[01:47:18] I want to actually be the world and be aware of the world and connect that world and less with my own running monologue in my head but I can't and that's the tragedy of it and and yeah yeah they I love the part where he he tries

[01:47:38] meditation and he finds that he's so good at it because he's just trying to impress the the like meditation teacher meditation teacher saw through him yeah he's like convinced that the meditation teacher is like completely saw through which is probably not praise was just like

[01:47:52] yeah exactly he's mocking yeah the image that I get and like just to clarify it's not that I think that David Wallace David Foster Wallace taking a long time to write down this story means that he was empathizing right I agree that he's not empathy it's just that

[01:48:06] he's describing David Wallace as having this impression in the blink of an eye and he's writing down the impression in this very literary way and it's funny because he says again not funny the real or more during incendimental part of him commanding that other

[01:48:20] to be silent as if looking at level in the eye and saying almost allowed not another word because that's the only way to get out of this this regress of focusing on your inner thoughts is just it is him trying to quell that you know yeah

[01:48:38] I have an image of you like flushing an insect down a toilet bowl like how they keep trying and trying and trying to get to get out of that toilet bowl and the Neil as described by David Wallace doesn't seem to even know

[01:48:54] how to do it right he just it's he's getting further and further and every time he reaches for that branch to try to pull himself out he's quickly reminded that his reaching for the branch has some sort of meaning about how he wants to appear to himself

[01:49:08] and he can't see out of it and so to end it with not another word is is I think at least what David Foster Wallace might have wanted to be a hopeful and optimistic interpretation at least about his own struggle even though he was

[01:49:26] probably being addicted to Neil yeah it is about his own struggle and how you read the ending as either optimistic or pessimistic is and obviously it can be a little bit of both but I take I guess I get more of a pessimistic sense

[01:49:44] of it in the sense that it seems like this character didn't try to get outside of himself that I take it as much more just about the impossibility of doing that and while at the same time that yearning which I associate with David Foster Wallace

[01:50:10] the real person the author for just being like a good person that can connect with other people in a very minimal way and that doesn't expect too much out of that and that just appreciates the beauty of life but find so many obstacles in the way between him

[01:50:32] and the appreciation of it yeah it's interesting because in his like I think that the the the meta point that we cannot ever know another person is like one clear point the other point is that in his shitty attempt at knowing who Neil was

[01:51:00] takes the blink of an eye he then outlines like this total he's trying really hard to describe an internal struggle that might be right in that last sentence he says David Wallace having emerged from years of literally indescribable war against himself which I don't think is

[01:51:20] very very purposeful to say literally indescribable war where you could take this story as being Dave Foster Wallace reaching like trying to reach for that branch when he's swirling down the toilet bowl and maybe thinking that at least for today when he says

[01:51:38] when he's consilenced that part of his head he can say not another word today but it's his own struggle right like this is a very David Foster Wallace style struggle like Neil to you know like if I had like I don't know like maybe Neil drove into

[01:51:56] a wall because he had embezzled money and he was about to get caught and you know like or just as we do took too much Benadryl just say right exactly right and so he essentially becomes just a vehicle for the David Wallace character

[01:52:16] and maybe the David Foster Wallace author to work out his own shit and with a little bit of distance you know that allows him to make fun of himself and condemn himself but also praise himself and all of that and this other thing that is definitely

[01:52:38] true of this and it's also true of this is water this appreciation of cliches so worrying that cliches are cliches and so they're trite and pathetic and everybody's going to make fun of them but at the same time feeling that they're deeply true and if we would

[01:52:58] just let ourselves understand that truth we would be happier but all this bullshit and worries about being fraudulent and worries about being just cliched and dull and lame just gets in the way of us actually getting to simple beautiful truths about the world

[01:53:20] yeah that's a good point and it's consistent with at least my understanding of of David Foster Wallace his concerns about irony and the degeneration that was so ironic where it's like well now you just shut yourself off from this certain amount of just authenticity

[01:53:40] that you can achieve through these what might be considered hackneyed by this post modern or this generation of irony and it's hilarious in I think a real sense that it is sarcasm of Lilith from Cheers that throws him over the edge

[01:54:04] and I can't help but thinking to myself too oh god like you're not that important you're self obsessed like I'm reminded of we may have had friends like this in college that who get drunk some dude gets drunk and he starts talking about how nobody knows his pain

[01:54:22] and you're just like shut the fuck up Phil like you're doing fine like your life is not a tragedy but that's you know as we seem like it actually might be even though you think the guys should get over himself

[01:54:38] that's the kind of pain and it's very much about we haven't talked about this that much but the inability of language to communicate a person's inner life is a prominent theme in this story and that's why I think it's meandering in purposeful ways where

[01:54:58] he's clearly making an effort and noting over and over again in this sort of meadow way like I can't I know I'm doing a bad job of this but like stay with me I know this is boring and tedious and probably

[01:55:14] hate me and you just want to get to the part where I kill myself but you know stick with that I was just going to say though that I think that there is something deep about that line is the idea that from an early age I'd somehow chosen

[01:55:32] to cast my lot with my life's drama's supposed audience instead of with the drama itself it's like he's so worried about how the drama will be perceived will it be perceived as trite will it be perceived as deep that he just forgets about the actual drama

[01:55:50] the actual feelings that come with being a person that has relationships and struggles and joys and it's like he's already he jumped to being from being concerned about those actual things to being concerned about how they'll be perceived and there's something so sad about that it's totally

[01:56:20] sad and there's a lot of wisdom in this and you know what another section that is like so beautiful and tragic also given what happened is when he is describing and I know that at least I've heard that people who decide to kill themselves kind of have like

[01:56:46] can have I should say a moment of cheery mood before once they've already decided and he's talking about now that I know I'm going to die everything that I'm experiencing is just wonderful and like amazing and you know this

[01:57:06] since this is the last time I'm going to see whatever you know a computer screen and a microphone in front of me and the last time I'm going to see it when you're in that mental state all of a sudden you realize how much you take for granted

[01:57:20] in life of course this isn't enough to stop him from doing it but just that set of observations was is really powerful and tragic that he couldn't have appreciated those things earlier you know without knowing that he was going to

[01:57:38] that it was going to be the last time that he would experience them that's right there is a medanist that maybe that's what our listeners like one of the reasons some of our listeners pointed us to this story where you know I hesitate to say

[01:57:57] Borgesian but I think Borgesian for sure there is at least three levels of this shit and whichever level you want to focus on can give you a different kind of appreciation and insight for what's going on I think there's a level at which you can take Neil's story

[01:58:15] as a true story about a true person named Neil then there is this taking the character of David Wallace and what it says about him that he gives the story of Neil a blink of an eye and has all these thoughts about him and then there's the

[01:58:29] meta-David Foster Wallace writing all this down and us trying to guess which parts are him are him describing Neil failing to understand you know making a point about failing to understand other people or making really keen observations about what it's like to be human and therefore

[01:58:45] understanding all people in some way right I think one of the things that people love about David Foster Wallace is that at least it seems like he did try even if he would felt himself ultimately incapable of connecting with others and being a better person

[01:59:07] than the way that he imagined a good person should be he did want to do it and he wanted to help other people do it and and yet I don't totally see that from this story you know and I think that's why I think this is

[01:59:25] a story that is he's being self-critical to a large degree well it's the thing you know it gives the safety of distance and I'm not talking about me dude I'm talking about Neil and moreover this David Wallace might not even be me but I'm going to tell you

[01:59:43] that it's David Wallace so you know that there's enough me in there you know in reading some article about this that I've put a link to a couple of articles in show notes but without saying the words they described the solution of of being caught in this

[02:00:07] solipsistic ever growing knot it's like a Gordian knot and the way out was to take a sword to it right and that's the way that Neil got himself out of this cycle I thought that was a nice way of putting it because he is getting us into

[02:00:25] this knot like this tied up all about him and he's just very matter-of-factly like I drove my fucking Corvette into a wall and it's like he thought that was the only way to get out of his of the cycle of get out of the spiral of his solipsism

[02:00:43] and actually it's after that in it you know in the narrative he says that he is actually able to connect with the therapist right not in life but only in death is he able to it's a super interesting way of saying

[02:00:59] like I don't know what he's saying but it's like the limitations he's saying like the limitations of the afterlife I mean of life go away in the afterlife but he's doing it as a way to just point to the real limitations of life right or

[02:01:15] or possibly the kind of obliteration of self you know like you could then understand everything then then that opens the door for real compassion you know real connection you and I are one now like all your shit is my shit yeah I now love baby Yoda and

[02:01:35] Keanu Reeves internet fan fiction or whatever I also like douchey cinephiles um I wanted to ask you how much you thought because we can't help but think about this but but maybe sort of as a way to wrap this up like do you think there's no right

[02:01:55] answer to this but how much do you think we ought to take the David Foster Wallace killing himself as a way to understand this text my temptation is that we shouldn't at all that we should treat it as it's a thing on its own that

[02:02:11] whatever they whatever ended up happening to David Foster Wallace doesn't bear much on what he's telling us here but that is my temptation and it's but it is also very hard to do that I think I yeah like I it's I it's

[02:02:32] sort of what I believe just in general that you should try to separate the author's light unless it's something like the Irishman which is very much about Martin Scorsese's past career but the thing that we are taking into account with this story is David Foster Wallace's future

[02:02:54] and I think that's that's something that I that maybe I'm more resistant to the one way I would guess I would we can at least see that this is somebody who is deeply struggling with suicidal thoughts and me I wonder I wonder how much

[02:03:14] that would have come across having not read this before David Foster Wallace died by suicide like I wonder how much like you know now we're like red flag yeah I mean I think a lot of it like this is where other people would who have read

[02:03:32] way more of his work will know better like to what extent his other work signaled he definitely written some stuff about depression and right but I yeah I don't know I think it does a bit of a disservice and I say this because I I know that

[02:03:50] he was a human being and what happened to him does matter but I do some sometimes think it does a disservice to the author to not take the text just alone and yeah and I think yeah it's super tempting to but you know the truth is that

[02:04:10] had he lived a completely different life we wouldn't we like the text stands on its own as a powerful as a moving piece of art no matter what even if David Foster Wallace was like you know some rich asshole who loved life so much

[02:04:26] or killed you know like it doesn't matter yeah I agree it's just I would say that it's it's almost asking too much of the reader to have the reader at this point just completely separate that from the text so and I know I didn't

[02:04:44] and at some and I agree about the disservice but then at some point it kind of kept me going in parts where I would have been it yeah especially frustrated you know with the story yeah kind of it's funny what kept me going too was you said

[02:05:00] you were talking about having faith in the author and we've talked about this before where you just have to have faith in like whatever the artist is that they're gonna not lead you astray and and I couldn't help but think that since I was

[02:05:14] you know what I read of David Foster Wallace I really enjoyed but I read nonfiction and I in reading this it was actually faith in our audience that kept me going that's true they wouldn't have recommended this if right if it was you know if there wasn't something

[02:05:34] about it that it's true I feel like they know us so well at this point that that there's no way that they could have recommended it I absolutely agree I will say it's interesting that some of like I have really loved some of

[02:05:52] his nonfiction pieces and the Roger Federer one is I think so brilliant and part of the reason I think that it's so brilliant and that he's so good at it have you read that one yeah yeah I think I did that's right it's that

[02:06:06] he is describing something that is not him at all you know it is just something that is exists in the world and that's beautiful that isn't underground man wrapped up in his own bullshit at least that's my memory of it I haven't

[02:06:24] read it in a while but I remember that being just a perfect description of Roger Federer and what it's like to watch him play tennis rather than you know about his own recursive fantasies or whatever yeah well thanks for the recommendation I enjoyed it

[02:06:42] I did too I'm gonna dip into more David Foster Wallace I imagine we'll do another episode at some point on him that's right hopefully I bought the book so I don't want to waste my money we didn't say what Goodall Neon was

[02:06:58] about but it's explained in a footnote marginally the reason for the title well it's not a fucking right because he said he has a neon aura around him yeah but the footnote really explains it I think that's a weird footnote that I

[02:07:18] that I know of but it's like two nice car by the way nice the Corvette because as if the present were this car nice car by the way and the past is like just there's a lot of stylistic it's a little like walking Phoenix's performance like stylistic inconsistencies

[02:07:40] that's not a bad way to describe it yeah like they and the walking Phoenix you know now that you say that way like I the walking Phoenix performance is in some ways the performance of someone kind of trying to find what the person's

[02:07:56] voice what the Joker's voice would be and this might be just that like trying to find what this character of Neil might be um yeah it's a nice it's a good insight good job well let's end there let's quit while we're ahead

[02:08:14] join us next time on Very Bad

[02:08:59] Wizard