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June 18, 2004
The Girl Was Curiously Bare, or How I Slept With David Foster Wallace
After David Foster Wallace's official talk was over last night, Sean began a humorous deconstruction of Mr. Wallace's performance which would have been the subject of today's blog had I not given him and the Lad the slip and circled back to the book-signing. As Mr. Wallace signed my chest with a magic marker, I asked if he wanted to come back to my apartment for ginger tea. He agreed, so after he was done with the signing I borrowed his coat and took him home with me.
Though I was initially disappointed by his physical thickness, I had fallen in love with him all over again over the course of the lecture because of the barely-concealed hostility he directed toward his fans during the question and answer section, as if his mammoth intelligence was too great for politeness. All that hostility and vocabulary left me with a need to impress him, so as we walked home I groped desperately for something witty to say. "That dog looks like a rat with legs!" I finally said brightly, pointing to a huffing little terrier.
"Rats do have legs," he said, and I maintained a miserable silence for the rest of the walk.
We got back to my studio, where I had taken the precaution of hiding all the pictures of the Lad which are normally crammed onto every shelf and papering the walls. I put the kettle and a shirt on while he examined my bookshelves. "Bottom shelf," I said, "it's alphabetical." He relaxed once he found a few of his own books next to my long line of Edith Wharton.
We drank tea and he told me a great deal about his sexual history. I heard every detail about every woman he's ever slept with, including all the factors in his life which led up to him meeting and seducing these women, all the factors in their lives which led to them meeting and seducing him, and sometimes for a half hour he would talk about someone apparently unrelated to himself or to these women whose story was nevertheless painstakingly recreated for me. He gave me hours and hours of information which I patiently sifted through, trying to find some kind of unifying theory, to draw some satisfying conclusion. Then we had sex but the ending was abrupt and frankly disappointing and I still have no real idea what the point of that conversation was.
I don't know if it's legal slander to say DFW is bad in bed, so let's be clear that the above story is a LIE. After Sean's ridiculous experience I am taking no chances.
Posted by didofoot at June 18, 2004 08:57 AM
Comments
nod to the lie.
Posted by: michele at June 18, 2004 01:50 PM
Well, at least it was D.F. Wallace and not Wallace Shawn.
http://www.imdb.com/gallery/ss/0338094/Ss/0338094/C436-4.jpg?path=pgallery&path_key=Shawn,%20Wallace
Posted by: goober at June 19, 2004 02:25 PM
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