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I didn’t really like the title of this post and thus I changed it.  I never really got the sense that DFW was [...]]]> I really enjoy David Foster Wallace’s writing: the short stuff and the long stuff.  Dead, apparently at his own hand, his writing genius is no longer among us.  Rest well David.

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I didn’t really like the title of this post and thus I changed it.  I never really got the sense that DFW was toying with his readers and laughing as they struggled through his works.  That being said I do feel like he had a real sense that his readers were out there nearly close enough to touch.

Currently, McSweeney’s is collecting people’s memories and stories about his.  Check it out.

I worry that the stock of American masters is dwindling. Warren Zevon is gone. Kurt Vonnegut is now gone. Hunter S. Thompson is gone. Someday Lou Reed will be gone.

I worry that Saul Williams words in his piece, Bloodletting, are too true:

the greatest americans have not been [...]]]> Kurt Vonnegut has died.

I worry that the stock of American masters is dwindling. Warren Zevon is gone. Kurt Vonnegut is now gone. Hunter S. Thompson is gone. Someday Lou Reed will be gone.

I worry that Saul Williams words in his piece, Bloodletting, are too true:

the greatest americans
have not been born yet

Who will take up the mantle? Who is our next Twain? Who will be the new Vonnegut? Who will take up where Warren left off? Who will be the new Richard Feynman?

What if these greats cannot be replaced? What does it say about our society if we cannot replenish our artistic stock?

I hope that artists like Saul Williams, David Eggers, DJ Spooky,and Kev Russell, Jimmy Smith and the rest of The Gourds are those next American Masters.

I hope we as a society have the foresight to invest in our culture as a form of national security.