The New York Times’s site has reposted a 2006 article about tennis star Roger Federer, not because of Federer’s resurgence at last month’s U.S. Open, but because the piece is by David Foster Wallace, the beloved and very funny writer who committed suicide last week after suffering depression most of his adult life. You can…

Fancy yourself a Jedi? In the UK, long the home of pioneering Jedi religious beliefs since Welsh brothers founded an official Jedi church last year, now finally there’s a Jedi course at Queen’s University, Belfast to teach you all those handy Jedi mind tricks that will help you to win friends, influence people and convince…

The news that David Foster Wallace hung himself this weekend came as such a shock not only because it was the news of great loss for literary and academic culture–which it is–but also because it seemed like such a contrary act for a man so life-affirming and life-giving. The line we often hear about postmodern…

Johnny Cash died five years ago today, and every day he becomes more religious. Or rather, each day you can find another Christian praising Cash’s sorrowfully guilty, sin-prone faith and calling for today’s Christians to be more like him. It’s an odd canonization, at odds with what the rest of us expect from Christian role…

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