![]() ![]() John Fante wrote that “failure is more beautiful than success” Nietzsche said “power makes stupid”-David Foster Wallace is that triple delight-a huge critical and commercial success who is young to boot. Never mind that aesthetically wise Nabokov said he “detests typographical tricks” (of which this entire story, in a sense, is a great example). In the interim, we are led to gather from the virtual dictionary entry, the term hard date has developed for virtual reality-assisted sex, with soft date being reserved for state-approved procreative acts. ![]() The dictionary definition traces the ancestral origins of date to earlier in the century (i.e., our time) when the term was used as a “euphymym” for “genital interface” between prostitutes and johns. For example, one of his conceits, Datum Centurio, features a hard copy version of a future (2096) dictionary which defines “date.” In Brief Interviews with Hideous Men(Little, Brown and Company, 288 pages) the innovative “story” mimics the complete typographical layout of a real dictionary and notes to the effect that with “compatible hardware” (e.g., a neural plug) we could get the entire “pentasensory” (i.e., virtual reality) illustrative support. ![]() If it were only a matter of judging his playfulness, innovation, and enthusiasm-sheer energy-it would be hard to imagine him scoring higher. David Foster Wallace is clearly an accomplished and, at times, brilliant writer. ![]()
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