Syllabus Porn

 IMO, this Katie Rophie article (despite it's caveats) goes a bit too far into DFW idolation, but it's still worth reading for a look at how  refreshing his approach to even mundane topics was. Money quote:

Wallace is bringing to the endeavor rigorous Salingerish standards of not lying, or not being phony, that would reproach other more ordinary people if these standards did not border on parody, and were not expressed in such a good natured and honorable way.
Most of us operate on what Wallace elsewhere calls the “default setting;” we make a calculation about what is the right expenditure of energy for a syllabus; we make a sensible adult decision about preserving analytic brio for other things, and don’t think too much about it; we use the conventions, the years of worn-out tradition, as a shortcut to speed up communication.