(qui l'articolo integrale di John Seery, The Huffington Post, 14 settembre 2008)

"David Foster Wallace has passed away. He hanged himself. The world has lost a spectacular writer. Already it seems as if some special portal of human intelligence has been closed off.

He was a colleague and friend. I have no mind to try to pay adequate tribute to him here. Those should soar and will come later. Nor can I speak to the circumstances of his death. What I want to note instead, just briefly, are a few personal recollections. I'd like the world to know, from my modest vantage, that he was a nice guy in person, and also as brilliant in conversation as one might expect from his dazzling prose. Frankly I had a hard time keeping up with him--I thought he was always two or three chess moves ahead of me. But as the keen observer of the human condition that he was, he seemed to take into account his interlocutor's shortcomings and made gentle accommodations for them, without being patronizing. So we talked.

(...)

He and I had an ongoing resolution to each other, going back several years now, to go watch tarantulas scurry across the Claremont fire trails in the late fall week when they make their mad dashes out into the open. When I first mentioned that phenomenon to him, he gave me an impromptu lecture on the different characteristics of various arachnids, especially the dangers experienced by the frenzied male tarantula on the make. He really wanted to go. Somehow we never made it. When such a strange opportunity presents itself, when a David Foster Wallace wants to go tarantula watching with you, you probably shouldn't let that one slip away.

He hadn't been coming into the gym for some time. I had a lot queued up to tell him. I wrote him a note inquiring into his whereabouts. He wrote back and said my note cheered him. My head swirls right now. He expanded our senses of infinity and oblivion and more, much more. My sincere condolences go out to his wife and family.

(John Seery, The Huffington Post, 14 settembre 2008)"