David Foster Wallace, interviewed

Q: Are you saying that writers of your generation have an obligation not only to depict our condition but also to provide the solutions to these things?
I don’t think I’m talking about conventionally political or social action-type solutions. That’s not what fiction’s about. Fiction’s about what it is to be a fucking human being. If you operate, which most of us do, from the premise that there are things about the contemporary U.S. that make it distinctively hard to be a real human being, then maybe half of fiction’s job is to dramatize what it is that makes it tough. The other half is to dramatize the fact that we still “are” human beings, now. Or can be. This isn’t that it’s fiction’s duty to edify or teach…I just think that fiction that isn’t exploring what it means to be human today isn’t art. We’ve all got this “literary” fiction that simply monotones that we’re all becoming less and less human, that presents characters without souls or love, characters who really are exhaustively describable in terms of what brands of stuff they wear, and we all buy the books and go like “Golly, what a mordantly effective commentary on contemporary materialism!” But we already “know” U.S. culture is materialistic. This diagnosis can be done in about two lines. It doesn’t engage anybody. What’s engaging and artistically real is, taking it as axiomatic that the present is grotesquely materialistic, how is it that we as human beings still have the capacity for joy, charity, genuine connections, for stuff that doesn’t have a price? And can these capacities be made to thrive? And if so, how, and if not why not?

-from an interview with Larry McCaffery

The Quotable Wallace

nautical scarf

Brainstorming patterns for printing silk scarves for the market.  NOAA stands for National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Association.

scanning

Trying out the new printer/scanner on an overdue book of vintage printing designs.   I’m not sure what kind of project this will be good for, but when the time comes, 1880’s retro is going to RULE.  [Ex. Penguin’s new Proust translations]  Incidentally, did you know on Macs you can scan from Preview?  And that all the printers these days have wireless networking?  Pretty great.  Wires and proprietary software, gone!  Thank you, technology.  Next: stop making everything out of plastic and shipping it in styrofoam.  Oh, Apple, I see you there.  Hewlett Packard, I’m looking in your general direction right now.  Nice printer though, really.  “Photosmart Premium.”  Good call on the wires.

West End Wine Emporium (WEWE)

Wine labels based on historic Nantucket figures?  You bet.  Still a work in progress.

Here’s a alternate Billy Clark: