We've been elbow deep in David Foster Wallace lore for this weekend's show, and I've struck upon a conspiracy.
First, I discovered that The Decemberists' "Calamity Song" is about the tennis game in Infinite Jest. That’s one of the songs on my biking playlist. Always wondered what the hell it was about. The video is pretty great.
That video was made by Michael Schur — creator of, among other things, "The Office" — who is a huge DFW fan and owns the film rights to “Infinite Jest." In fact, Schur named the recurring Dunder-Mifflin executive David Wallace after DFW.
DFW is also the favorite author of John Krasinski, who played Jim Halpert in “The Office.” Krasinski credits a stage reading of DFW’s “Brief Interviews With Hideous Men” with inspiring his acting career. In 2009, he made the film adaptation.
Krasinski is currently playing Jack Ryan (Tom Clancy’s spy character) in Amazon’s new series by the same name. DFW once listed a Jack Ryan novel (“The Sum of All Fears”) as one of his 10 favorite books.
Coincidence? I DON'T THINK SO.
—Anne