I’ve been busy the past six months! I’ve posted a lot of new things at SimpleRanger.net, tons of new images at Apres Garde, and started posting a lot over at mlkshk. I’ve started one mlkshk for Breaking Bad (new favorite show) and one for modern homes. I think I only have one new post up at GoogleSightseeing, but I have a couple more in the works.

I started a new project to build a wiki for The Pale King: http://palekingwiki.com

I was quoted in this CultureMap series about the DFW archives at the Ransom Center in Austin (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5).

And just a couple of weeks ago, we celebrated Arlo’s first birthday!

Before the event, we are going to have a wallace-l meetup at Scholz Garten, starting at 4pm. We’ll walk over to the auditorium from Scholz. There is no evite or anything. You can just show up—and you don’t have to be a member of the list to show up, all DFW fans welcome.

There will be a reception after the reading at The Ransom Center. They will have books for sale.

The next day, April 16, we will have another wallace-l meetup, ostensibly to discuss TPK, at Opal Divine’s Freehouse on Sixth Street at noon. If you are coming from out of town and want to RSVP or just chat about Austin, feel free to email me at mattbucher at gmail.com.

See you then!

http://blogs.wsj.com/speakeasy/2010/12/15/david-foster-wallace-his-secret-life-as-a-philosopher/

If the movement to which Eckert is alluding has a head, it is probably Matt Bucher of Austin, Texas, whose day job is editing textbooks at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. For the past eight years, Bucher has administered Wallace-L, the largest list-serve connecting Wallace fans across the United States. … Bucher explains that Wallace-L spun off from a Thomas Pynchon emailing list in the late 1990s. It has swelled from about 100 members in 1996-97 to 1000 at present. Bucher, who started monitoring the list in 2002, reports that there was a roughly 25% increase in membership in the months following Wallace’s death. Though generally pleased, Bucher complains that some of the information online has gotten less reliable.

Also, I was mentioned in this article in The Chronicle of Higher Education:

http://chronicle.com/article/The-Afterlife-of-David-Foster/125823/

Meanwhile, Sideshow Media Group, run by an independent Wallace scholar named Matt Bucher, just published Consider David Foster Wallace, a collection of critical essays born out of the first academic conference on Wallace, held at the University of Liverpool in 2009. (Another Wallace conference took place that year at the City University of New York.)

In Street View news, my Apres Garde blog was mentioned in this Italian news article: http://notizie.virgilio.it/esteri/blog-fotografici-da-google-street-view-fenomeno-web-2010_142053.html

Over at my other site, Simple Ranger, I’ve posted some things that weren’t right for Apres Garde:

Street View Essay – Macau

Vending Machines of Yokohama

And a bunch of “Best of” Apres Garde posts that collect thematic posts there:
Best of Apres Garde – People
Best of Apres Garde – Roads
Best of Apres Garde – Fields
Best of Apres Garde – Darkness
Best of Apres Garde – The Sea

Also, I interviewed one of the coeditors of that volume, the philosopher Steven Cahn, about Wallace’s work in philosophy.

The Texas Book Festival panel on Wallace I moderated back in October was mentioned in this article in the local NBC affiliate.

Sam Potts created an awesome poster of all the characters in Infinite Jest: http://sampottsinc.com/ij/

I’ve started a new site called Simple Ranger. Right now it just has “Best of” posts collected from my Apres Garde site, but I have big plans for it.

I was quoted in a story about the DFW event here: http://www.dailytexanonline.com/content/fans-celebrate-late-author%E2%80%99s-works

My latest posts at Google Sightseeing are about Isla Mujeres: http://googlesightseeing.com/2010/09/isla-mujeres-island-week-5/ and the Tribal Art of Taiwu Township, Taiwan http://googlesightseeing.com/2010/10/tribal-art-of-taiwu-township-taiwan/ (did you even know Taiwan had aborignes??).

Born: 9/26/10, 4:08 a.m.

7 pounds, 12 ounces

My latest post at Google Sightseeing is on the distilleries of Islay.

Also, on October 16 I’ll be moderating a panel on David Foster Wallace at the Texas Book Festival.

Antarctica: The World’s Largest Desert

Masonic Temples Around the World

Capulin Volcano National Monument

In other news:

I was quoted in this story for the Knoxville News Sentinel about group reads online and Daryl’s efforts leading Infinite Zombies.

I’m on the planning committee for this David Foster Wallace event to commemorate the opening of the archive at the Ransom Center.

My Apres Garde blog of Google Street View images was recommended on the Tumblr Staff blog (at the same time as The New Yorker‘s tumblr!) and received a nice write-up on LemonDrop.com.

Exploring Hong Kong With Google Street View (Part 1)

Part 2 of that post will be up soon. Do follow along! My Street View blog is at Apres Garde. Supposedly the Street View imagery for South Africa will be released on Tuesday. I’m excited about that!