And I'll go ahead and post my non-insightful, immediate reaction to the really bad news that we all received almost exactly a year ago:

This is really painful. He was so good at eschewing those all too easily subscribed to modes of cynicism and despair, trading in that default position of ceaseless irony for something "redemptive" (as he would say/has said) and sincere and life affirming. And then he hangs himself? It hurts big time. Big time hurtin.

"What goes on inside is just too fast and huge and all interconnected for words to do more than barely sketch the outlines of at most one tiny little part of it at any given instant."

-DFW, "Good Old Neon", Oblivion

karen wrote: "sorry - i thought it would be beneficial to discuss thoughts etc. evidently not."

Stuff your sorries in a sack, sister. You did good. This group should have more activity, mournful or not. I'll be posting some things later. I gots links to all sorts of things.

But for the moment: I just got my hands on DFW's undergraduate thesis, courtesy of the fine fellows at the best DFW resource around ( http://www.thehowlingfantods.com/dfw ) and they e-mailed me the file sharing web address where it can be downloaded (it's not available publicly on their site, could be some sort of legal issue, I'm not sure):

http://www.hotshare.net/file/184060-7863...

It's highly technical philosophy though, be forewarned. But it may be worth a skim for any fan hungry enough for more words.

Also, I just read his very first piece of writing that was ever published which is quite eerie and otherwise emotionally resonant as it deals directly and explicitly with depression or as he calls it "The Bad Thing":

THE PLANET TRILLAPHON AS IT STANDS IN RELATION TO THE BAD THING

I'd seen a few excerpts from it previously (before he died) that really shook me up, particularly this one:

I'm not incredibly glib, but I'll tell what I think the Bad Thing is like. To me it's like being completely, totally, utterly sick. I will try to explain what I mean. Imagine feeling really sick to your stomach. Almost everyone has felt really sick to his or her stomach, so everyone knows what it's like: it's less than fun. OK. OK. But that feeling is localized: it's more or less just your stomach. Imagine your whole body being sick like that: your feet. the big muscles in your legs, your collar·bone, your head, your hair, everything, all just as sick as a fluey stomach. Then, If you can imagine that, please imagine it even more spread out and total. Imagine that every cell in your body, every single cell in your body is as sick as that nauseated stomach. Not just your own cells, even, but the e. coli and lactobacilli in you, too, the mitochondria, basal bodies, all sick and boiling and hot like maggots in your neck, your brain, all over, everywhere. in everything. All just sick as hell. Now imagine that every single atom in every single cell in your body is sick like that. sick, intolerably sick. And every proton and neutron in every atom...swollen and throbbing, off·color, sick, with just no chance of throwing up to relieve the feeling. Every electron is sick, here, twirling off balance and all erratic in these funhouse orbitals that are just thick and swirling with mottled yellow and purple poison gases. everything off balance and woozy. Quarks and neutrinos out of their minds and bouncing sick all over the place bouncing like crazy. Just imagine that, a sickness spread utterly through every bit of you, even the bits of the bits. So that your very...very essence is characterized by nothing other than the feature of sickness; you and the sickness are, as they say, "one."

no worries, it was kind of an accident of the way goodreads posts them i think.. and very dfw.... i thought the new yorker piece put a lot in perspective, and how he had something chemical going on in his brain he couldn't beat. so for me, he'll always be the guy on the cruise ship, trying to catch Petra cleaning his room, and saying of his matronly friend, "She looked.. and I say this in the kindest way possible.. .like a female Jackie Gleason."

I heard the audio book read of the 9/11 piece, and realized that DFW really liked those church lady types.... there was a quiet midwestern churchgoer in there... now i think i know why he was attracted to all that calm.

oh, and the other truly indedlibe image is of him as a teenager in the tornado, playing tennis, lifted by the wind and blown into the fence. that image pretty much says it all, maybe.

sorry - i thought it would be beneficial to discuss thoughts etc. evidently not.

yes, I too, hated that email subject line. Oof.

1. very unsettling to receive an email titled "new discussions from David Foster... " my stomach knotted up.
2. a lot of measuring, trying to understand, trying to separate the good, and move forward.
3. some good comes out of it, galvanizing action moving forward, leaving paralysis behind... or aiming to.

yep. sad stupid day.

here we are.