The Boar Hazyon of David Foster Wallace

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There's a level at which you can take Neil's story as a true story about a true person named Neil then there's this taking the character of David Wallace and what it says about him that he's gives the story of Neil blink of an eye. Then there's the that meta David Foster Wallace writing all this down and us trying to guess which parts are him are him describing Neil or making a point about failing to understand other people. I think one of the things that people love about David Foster Wallace is that at least it seems like he did try even if he would felt himself ultimately incapable of connecting with others.

Our whole lives we’ve been frauds. We’re not exaggerating. Pretty much all we’ve ever done is try to create a certain impression of us in other people. Mostly to be liked or admired. This episode is a perfect example, Tamler pretending to be a cinephile (check out his four favorite pieces of 2019 “pop culture” in the first segment), David trying to connect with the people (Baby Yoda, Keanu Reeves etc.) – and of course what could be more fraudulent than a deep dive into a David Foster Wallace story, rhapsodizing over the endless sentences, the logical paradoxes, the seven-layer bean-dip of metacommentary (Jesus Christ I’m surprised there aren’t like eight footnotes in this episode description), and meanwhile the Partially Examined Life dudes refresh their overcast feeds and wonder through the tiny keyhole of themselves how David and Tamler have sunk so low that they’d ramble on about “Good Old Neon” like a couple of first year Comp-Lit grad students trying to impress that girl who works at the Cajun bakery.