David Foster Wallace

When an Artist Loses Sight in One Eye

See also: *Five Artsy Things to Do in L.A. This Week *Is This 500-Year-Old African Sculpture Worth $1 Million? For three days last summer, as the August heat rose across Los Angeles, Lisa Adams saw nothing in her right eye but black. What she felt was pain: her swollen forehead, pressed down on the ... More >>

New David Foster Wallace Biography Pokes Holes in His Image as a Hipster Sage

When David Foster Wallace killed himself at his home in Claremont in September 2008, it came as a deep personal shock. I had become obsessed with him in college, when I read Infinite Jest over the course of a long and otherwise dull semester. The book came along at the right time: I was listless and ... More >>

Happy Birthday, M.F.K. Fisher: Celebrate by Reading the Alphabet

Today would have been M.F.K. Fisher's 104th birthday, an occasion she may have celebrated, as she liked to do over the course of several days -- today, tomorrow, the next day and all the way up to Bastille Day on July 14th. She spent a good portion of her life in France, but grew up in Whittier and ... More >>

Foster Wallace, Ginsburg, Warhol: These Are Kyle Nicolaides' Favorite Works of Art

Kyle Nicolaides is a thinking man's rocker. The frontman and songwriter for L.A. band Beware of Darkness -- who sound like a literary Led Zeppelin -- grew up in Santa Barbara, where his father owns a small Greek restaurant. In addition to playing music from a young age, Nicolaides read a lot, he s ... More >>

Jonathan Lethem

Top Books We Read in 2011, by L.A. Weekly Writers

Yes, bookstores are closing all around us, from the giant Borders to the tiny Village Books. But Angelenos still read, and to prove it, we asked LA Weekly's staff writers, editors and freelance contributors to tell us their favorite book they read this year, and why. Answers after the jump. What's ... More >>

Explosions in the Sky on How They Want to Be Like Phish (and How They Miss David Foster Wallace)

Explosions in the Sky ( puppy!)​ The website self-titled daily has a neat Q&A with Explosions in the Sky guitarist Mark Smith where he explains the band's plan to have Phish's career (though they are definitely not into Phish's music) and the influence the late writer David Foster Wallace ha ... More >>

Read in Peace

Selections From Book Soup Owner Glenn Goldman's Estate: Auction on Sunday

The estate of Glenn Goldman, the late owner of Book Soup, will be up for sale this Sunday at Bonhams & Butterfield's in Beverly Hills (7601 W. Sunset Boulevard). This particular auction focuses on Goldman's art books. The pieces up for grabs include a signed coffee table photography book by Annie Li ... More >>

Selling the Treasures of Book Soup's Late Owner

Delphine: Bouillabaisse and Vine

... at the W Hollywood

DEAR JOHN HODGMAN, CALL ME!

Movie Reviews: The Invention of Lying, Whip It, Zombieland, Paranormal Activity

Plus, Brief Interviews With Hideous Men, In Search of Beethoven and more

A TOAST, NOT IN JEST

How Fiction Works: King James and the Battle for the Novel

It's James Wood's World and We're Just Reading In It

Something Wicked: Author Richard Lange Is Done With Rejection

The writer has a well-regarded short-story collection under his belt, and now a novel, This Wicked World, is about to break

Sundance, R.I.P.?

"Will everyone be wearing black?" a friend asked over dinner the other night when the subject arose of my imminent departure for the 2009 Sundance Film Festival. "I'm so glad I'm not going to Sundance," confided one longtime film publicist at this week's Los Angeles Film Critics awards dinner, as if ... More >>

Foundas on Film: Sundance, R.I.P.?

"Will everyone be wearing black?" a friend asked over dinner the other night when the subject arose of my imminent departure for the 2009 Sundance Film Festival. "I'm so glad I'm not going to Sundance," confided one longtime film publicist at this week's Los Angeles Film Critics awards dinner, as if ... More >>

L.A. Weekly's "Top Seven Music Things of the Year That Weren't Compact Discs" List

Thank God It's Frightday

What to do, Halloween Week 2008

Festive! All! Celebrating Lobsters, Cheese, Downtown, Abbot Kinney and Valley Film

What to do in L.A., September 26-October 2

With Friends Like These ...

Nick Cave, Spiritualized, Cat Power Stanch the Wounds at the Hollywood Bowl

Infinite Loss: David Foster Wallace and the Troublesome, Inescapable "I"

"Was he a good writer?" asked the young sales clerk at Borders

David Foster Wallace Friend John Seery Remembers the Late Writer

The news of David Foster Wallace's apparent suicide this weekend here in Southern California -- he was found in his Claremont home Friday night by his wife Karen Green -- has prompted tributes all over the web. One of the most unusual and intimate portraits comes from Pomona College political theory ... More >>

Record Reviews: Atlas Sound, Chris Walla, The Clipse

Record Reviews: Juno soundtrack, Carpenters ring tone

Also: Disco Not Disco, Trus'me's Working Nights

Greetings from Suburbia

The Vegoose Music Festival pleases some of the people some of the time

Vegoose: This is How they Dance

Random observations on dancing at Vegoose and elsewhere: photographs by Timothy Norris Shins fans don't dance. I know this because it was at the beginning of this show that I first discovered that my wristband was in fact MAGIC and offered me backstage access. And free food. And free cocktails. A ... More >>

Jest Fest

Dave Eggers on David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest

People Who Need People

What to do in LA this week

The Secret Lives of Boys

Inside the old spirits, indie fucks, gay best friends and outlaws

Canards and Clichés

L.A. through the N.Y. Times’ looking glass

The Mortal Storm

The Deaths of the 20th Century

The Coffee Table

Urban grit, hideous homes and smug Brits — our annual roundup of holiday gift books

SatirIcon

David Foster Wallace's infinite jesting

Crying Time

The Saddest Music in the World’s surreally funny sob story

Tour de Force of the Black Clock

Prime Obsession

Will the greatest problem in mathematics ever be resolved?

From California to Colorado to Kathmandu

Superspreaders

Speed Freaks

On the road with Dave Eggers

Getting Lost Is Beautiful

The light and dark world of David Lynch

The Radical Romantic

A manifesto

Dung Ho

New interest in a very old subject

Between the Lines

Filling in the rap gap

The Hyperexamined Life

A Heartbreaking Work of not-quite genius

The Inadvertent Pornographer

Kenneth Patchen's modernist experiment

A Sleek and Brilliant Monster

David Foster Wallace comes clean

Futurama

Post-millennial déjà vu at Luckman Fine Arts