Ten New Uses for Infinite Jest

Hey there. Wanna hear a stupid joke? Okay. Q: How do you throw a car out of a car? A: Hold a seance and ask David Foster Wallace.

I told you it was stupid — and works better when spoken. It’s also upsetting, which doesn’t necessarily preclude humor; but referencing domestic abuse is a formidable yuk deterrent.

Now that the memory of David Foster Wallace has been completely disgraced by Mary Karr’s long-overdue revelations of stalking and physical bullying, everyone is asking me what to do with Infinite Jest. “Help us, help us,” they chant, and it freaks me out.

“Get that thing away from me!” I usually cry, sweeping the ten-pounder out of the questioner’s arms or forklift, sometimes causing some damage to the floor, or a toe, leading immediately thereafter to regret and adorable self-recrimination.*

Hence I’ve come up with a list of ten answers, because “ten” is a short, round and succinct concept. Unlike Infinite Jest.**

1. Reaching those Vonnegut novels someone put on the highest shelf in your library. Now that you’ve discovered acclaimed authors have done far worse than taken their wives for granted, ignored their kids and used the unpopularity of the Vietnam War to elevate to timely relevance a fictionalized memoir of a completely different war, it’s time to go back to the dark whimsy of Deadeye Dick and Breakfast of Champions. (If you’re of shorter stature, or hunched over from repeated life disappointments, slip in a copy or two of Al Franken: Lion of the Senate.)

2. Cutting the pages into strips and constructing a mummer outfit. Now that you don’t have to (pretend to) read the Unreadable Novel, you have time to learn the banjo.

3. Weighing down your back foot as you practice your serve. You don’t want to get called for repeated foot-faults like David Foster Wallace.***

4. Smashing to pieces the bust of David Foster Wallace you’re working on. It’s probably not a very good likeness anyway. The bandana probably looks like a turban or a tortilla.

5. Plugging one of those holes you punched in your office wall after receiving another form rejection from a literary agent. Merely hold Infinite Jest against the damaged Sheetrock, trace a pencil line around it, rest your arms for 30 minutes as you watch yet another video on self-publishing or a disingenuous DWF interview on Youtube, cut along line with a utility knife, and replace with copy of Infinite Jest.

6. Holding it aloft meaningfully every time your wife or girlfriend displeases you. She’ll back down — and may be turned on by your upper body strength. If you’re a woman being charged by an abusive would-be novelist holding a piece of furniture, the same act will have the effect of a crucifix brandished at Dracula.

7. Weighing your feet to the floor as you do sit-ups. It’s time to stop letting yourself go, physically. You don’t want to end up pudgy like David Foster Wallace.****

8. Standing on it to gain a better look at live performances or readings by Neko Case, Gillian Welch or Mary Karr.*****

9. Starting fires in your fireplace that will cast a romantic light on intimate evenings spent with your honey as you read to each other passages from Mary Karr’s compellingly honest memoirs.******

10. Strapping it to the top of your head to keep your burgeoning wealth of insights from exploding out of your skull. Bandanas are so…DFW-ey.

*It’s almost like an announcement from a high school teacher that the Pythagorean Theorem has been disproved, the big algebra final thus cancelled in favor of a screening of the Tribbles episode of Star Trek.

**If Infinite Jest were a number, it would be 57,931.349603 (repeating).

***I don’t really know if David Foster Wallace’s tennis game was plagued by foot-faults. As far as I know, he didn’t write about it in any of his tennis essays. But it’s plausible, and fun, to imagine him resorting to any pathetic tactic to gain an edge in a match.

****Vonnegut and Tom Wolfe remained trim for their entire lengthy lifetimes.

*****Or the Carolina Chocolate Drops, or Ann Patchett, or kd lang. Insert your own still-decent entertainer here.

****** Like Liars’ Club, for one.