SO #12: The End of the Tour with Allison P. Davis
Added 2023-09-18 04:50:42 +0000 UTCSean talks to writer Allison P. Davis (New York Magazine, The Cut, Tell Me Lies) about the movie The End of the Tour. They discuss David Foster Wallace, writing celebrity profiles, and challenging interviews.
Next week’s episode: Wonder Boys (2000)
Comments
As someone with a small but similar stake in AI versus creative industries, I think that Sean's take doesn't address employment but rather the artistry. He's not saying, "fine, let's lose other jobs to AI not mine" because he's not referencing menial work, he references surgeries and the like- work that is improved with more robotic expertise. The notion that we can make television (art in general) better with no human input seems like a critical misunderstanding of why we consume art in the first place: to help understand the world and broaden our horizons by seeing work that is expressed by another human like us. This is what DFW was getting at as well- if you begin to consume "content" purely divorced from the human creative impulse, you're essentially consuming just sensations. People who are pushing back against AI and creative industries aren't lobbying for other industries to become replaced by AI. The idea always seemed to be that AI would be in service of helping humans live fuller, richer lives. If menial or painful work was overtaken by robots we would hope that this would lead to better lives for those who it effects. But it's bizarre and worrying that one of the first impulses in our society is that we further risk isolating and alienating ourselves with entertainment that has no sign of human involvement.
Nolan Brennan
2023-09-23 15:41:37 +0000 UTCI always assume that when someone says that they also support like universal income. So people can stop sweeping floors and still survive. People should be freed up to do things like make art. Instead of having AI make art and push more people into servitude.
Frances Ball
2023-09-22 15:56:24 +0000 UTCI’ve heard Sean and other podcasters say that he doesn’t want AI to write but just have it do other stuff. Sweep the floors, do a surgery, etc. I tend to be pretty anti AI myself. But I think this is an interesting take because it just kinda sounds like “let the AI take somebody else’s job. Not mine.” I get it. I know he cares about people in general. But I think that this sentiment kinda comes off as singularly focused on one group. Still, an understandable sentiment.
Daniel Avaritt
2023-09-20 20:56:19 +0000 UTCI went through DFW phase in undergrad (15ish years ago), and he was a genuinely transformative writer for me - I saw the world differently after reading his work on lobsters or tennis or addiction. I always found the "Infinite Jest is Rupi Kaur for white dudes" mockery of DFW really weird and kind of unfair. I suppose it was more a criticism of his fans than his work, but his writing was always so much more interesting and empathetic than the internet discourse around it. That said, the revelations of his abuse of several women puts that criticism, the movie's focus on male bonding/competition and fanboy adoration of his work and persona in a different light. I haven't gone back to read any of his work in about a decade, but I wonder how I'd read him now, knowing what we know.
Deena
2023-09-19 19:54:02 +0000 UTCThat rocks lol
Deena
2023-09-19 19:42:55 +0000 UTCin my opinion, as a white dude who also really likes his writing, I think there is the pretty standard major gap between who he was as like a guy in his day-to-day and who he was as an Author.
Sneakaboard
2023-09-19 00:53:44 +0000 UTCGod I love this show. Thanks for making this show!
Danny Hatch
2023-09-18 18:19:13 +0000 UTCI saw a screening in 2015 at the Arclight with a talkback at the end. Jason Segel said he had never read Infinite Jest and that it was “For nerds”.
Joe Duran
2023-09-18 16:25:45 +0000 UTCTake that, Garfield!
Daniel Leonard
2023-09-18 16:17:07 +0000 UTCGreat ep and cool to have a writer with experience from a different area of writing! Offered a really good perspective on this movie
Dean Morris
2023-09-18 15:50:20 +0000 UTCI now look forwards to Monday mornings when a new episode of this show drops.
Andrew Kane
2023-09-18 14:53:08 +0000 UTCas a semi clever white girl whose all time favorite writer is DFW and all time favorite book is infinite jest i have such a bad taste for this movie. i’ve been reading him obsessively since high school and never felt alienated by his writing the way i felt alienated as a woman by this movie and its portrayal of the male bonding between novelists who binge on junk food and compete over egos and lust over women together. i think sean and allison are totally correct in saying it’s a white dude movie in a way that i really don’t find DFW’s work to be “white dude” writing.
Emma
2023-09-18 13:55:14 +0000 UTCI Was There Me Too! During the screening I was near a former classmate of DFW's who was visibly moved.
Daniel Leonard
2023-09-18 12:43:43 +0000 UTCanother annoying semi-clever white guy checking in, really enjoyed this episode and allison‘s perspective. this was weirdly hard to find out but i’m 99% sure lipsky got that national magazine award in 2009 for his piece about DFW that came out after his death, and the original stuff wasn’t published at the time - this is my source: https://www.asme.media/44th-annual-national-magazine-awards-winners-announced
dreww
2023-09-18 12:15:47 +0000 UTCI presented a paper on This Is Water at the David Foster Wallace Conference in 2015 and they had a special early screening of The End of the Tour there. It was a unique viewing experience because the conference was held at ISU so a bunch of those conference attendees were people who knew DFW personally. I was struck by how warmly received the movie seemed to be. I would have expected that crowd to be very critical and defensive of DFW's image. I'm sure there were folks with reservations here and there, but for the most part people seemed to really appreciate the movie and Jason Segel's performance. Oh, one other memory from that conference. The night before my presentation, I legit had a dream that the ghost of DFW visited me. He said, "There are two ways to deal with things: write about them, or curl up and die in them." Seems about right if you ask me.
Adam Lauver
2023-09-18 06:21:04 +0000 UTC
