The Howling Fantods has concluded its David Foster Wallace motivational poster contest. (via)

Gasp. DFW killed himself yesterday. How awful.

This MetaFilter thread collects some of his inimitable work:

• Incarnations of burned children, Esquire
• Good People, The New Yorker
• Host, The Atlantic
• Roger Federer as religious experience, The New York Times
• Tense present, Harper’s (and, to be fair, languagehat’s takedown of same)
• His interview with Charlie Rose
• A good description of that fascinating interview

Hee. I loved House of Leaves, too. (Via Bookslut.)

Mpls wonder-blogger Max Sparber offers a peek at some of the most fascinating esoterica in the permanent collection of my beloved Walker Arts Center. Sample:

The Walker has dozens of pieces by Pettibon; this particular one is an ink-spattered sketch of the most self-reflective character in the history of comics, Batman, facing a woman with a gun while disconnected passaged from his endless internal monologues crowd his head. Most of the quotes a vaguely sexual, or explicit, such as a comment from Robin saying, “I have studied the bats trying to understand Batman’s complex psycho-sexuality.” This actually seems intended as a retort to Batman’s first quote. “Robin,” he says, “you came too soon.”

I’ve gone back and read through eight of the major speeches from the past two weeks (Joe Biden | Bill Clinton | Hillary Clinton | Barack Obama | Rudy Giuliani | Mitt Romney | Sarah Palin | John McCain). Among the two sets of familiar and predictable elephant-and-donkey-tinged themes expressed, all the speakers paint one surprisingly consistent portrait of America. I find that portrait significant and a bit sad for how much of America it excludes. This is nothing new, of course, but it stands out for me after two straight weeks of this stuff.

You are eligible for positive mention in a convention speech if you are a member of the middle class. Fortunately, “middle class” is a vague enough term that it might characterize as much as 73 percent of the American population. Still, with John Edwards in exile, it’s striking how infrequently the poor are mentioned, given how much poverty is a part of America. Convention-watchers may also be surprised to discover that several Americans are quite rich.

You may also merit positive mention if you labor in one of the following professions: steel working, the clergy, farming, loading dock operation, military service, politics, small business entrepreneurship or pre-secondary education. Employees of the service or retail industries, information technology companies, the media, higher education, science, medicine or law — to name a few examples — are unfortunately invisible.

Read more…

Random Twitterer is right, yo. Sarah Palin’s suit is the surprise hit of the night. I’m the guy that has long hated coverage of female candidates that insisted on mentioning their clothing choices, but seriously, I want that suit. Even my potential appearance in Steve Schmidt’s talking points about male blogger misogyny cannot prevent me from complimenting that fierce piece of gun-metal grey hottness.

If you haven’t already, definitely check out Josh Marshall’s recently [re?]posted interview with Joe Biden from summer ’04. Fascinating. A snippet, from when Biden describes meeting Qaddafi shortly after the announcement of the dismantlement deal:

I said, “Yeah, why, why the change of heart?” And he says, “The real question is” — through an interpreter — “The real question is, why did we get off this way, why did you sanction me in the first place?”

I looked at him and said, “That’s easy. You’re a terrorist.” I didn’t mince, I said, “You are a terrorist.” I said, you know I leaned to him and said, “You’ve engaged in supporting terrorists. Matter of fact, you blew up 35 of the kids who went to my alma mater along with another hundred or so people. You’re a terrorist, that’s why.”

He sits there and he goes like this, he goes, “That’s logical.” (laughs) I mean the guy was great! And I said, “So, Okay. Tell me why.” And he went, Well — I’m paraphrasing — “Nuclear weapons didn’t help you very much in Vietnam, they didn’t help you in Iraq and if I ever used them you’d blow me away.”

The Believer interviews Matt Bai. (Oh, and speaking of the NYT Magazine, I highly recommend David Leonhardt’s cover story on Obamanomics if you haven’t read it.)

Richard Just’s lengthy explanation of why Darfur is still engulfed in genocide five years after it caught the world’s attention is the most spellbinding, heartrending thing I’ve read in quite a bit. A surprising brew of circumstances have paralyzed us from stopping this tragedy, departing from the Problem from Hell template in a few key particulars. Do take a look.

… and it’s good. (Don’t miss the running tally of good reads in the sidebar.) Keep it up, Mr. Kuntz.

The Walker Art Center recently concluded a spectacular exhibit called “Worlds Away: New Suburban Landscapes” (they’ve helpfully catalogued the whole exhibit in a wiki; oh Walker, how I love you). Among the highlights of the exhibit was this photo collection by Paho Mann, images of former Circle K convenience stores that have been transformed into other types of businesses — tattoo parlors, Mexican restaurants, tuxedo rental places — all taken from the same distance in similar light, all bearing the Circle K’s suprisingly distinct form. (Also available as a Google Maps mashup, natch.)

I mentioned this to an architect friend, and he pointed me to the delightful NotFoolingAnybody.com: “a chronicle of bad conversions and storefronts past” — photos of former chain restaurants lightly altered to house new businesses. (Such as “China Hut,” the bastard offspring of — what else? — Pizza Hut.)

OMG I love the Web sometimes.