"Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio: a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy: he hath borne me on his back a thousand times..."

The author of Infinite Jest, David Foster Wallace apparently hanged himself Friday, September 12, 2008. The first policeman on the scene reported that Wallace's dead hand was still clutching a half-empty bottle of Wild Turkey.

"Yorick," I used to say, "If you ever stick your head in that metaphysical microwave oven, I'll try to achieve a fleeting notoriety by writing an absurd obituary!"

"Hamlet, you unscrupulous idiopath," Himself would reply, "When I go, I'll take you with me! But now it's time for another game of horsie."

Leaving half a bottle of Wild Turkey for the cops was a typically kind gesture by our dear old clown. "Whoever finds me will probably need a drink," Himself would say, and he's saying it now.

[Verbatim transcript]

Yorick: Taint not thy mind... (inaudible)

Hamlet: (inaudible)

Yorick: (inaudible)

First Grave-digger (inaudible)

[Verbatim transcript ends]

Way back in Anno Domini 2000, when Yorick wrote his credulous and prophetic report about John McCain's first campaign for the Presidency, Aboard the Straight Talk Express With John McCain and a Whole Bunch of Actual Reporters, Thinking About Hope, he had a vision of Barack Obama in the form of a junior tennis star who drops topspin lobs on the baseline every time you rush the net.

"But how does he get to the finals against John McCain?" I asked, and then I saw an expression of infinite sadness in Yorick's eyes. He hadn't looked so bad since Mikey Pemulis poured DMZ on his toothbrush at tennis camp.

"Unreturnable floaters are the future of tennis," he said, "But the poison belongs to McCain."

David Foster Wallace died a few days after the candidate he once liked and trusted, John McCain began accusing Barack Obama of perverting school-children, because Obama had sponsored a program to warn them about sexual predators.

The last word in this absurd obituary belongs to one of Yorick’s favorite writers, the Argentine aphorist Antonio Porchia:

“Truth has very few friends, and those few are suicides.”