This has been floating (pun mostly unintended) around the internet for a couple weeks now, but this short film featuring highlights of the late David Foster Wallace's commencement address to Kenyon College graduates in 2005 earns all the plaudits it's received.
By trimming Wallace's original speech of more than 20 minutes down by more than half, and marrying it to some excellent visuals, both real-life and animated, The Glossary have created 9 minutes that is certainly worth your time and worth the time of your kid-graduates. Maybe not your preschooler or kindergartener, but as long as you (or, more importantly, your child) can handle a couple salty words they probably hear on network TV anyways, Wallace's speech says important things about attitude, empathy, and learning that folks moving on to junior high, high school, college, or just a new coffee mug should hear.
May 22 Update: I've noticed a lot of folks stopping by for this video today, which I found odd, considering I was about the 412,852nd person to write about it on a website. I think it probably has something to do that I was among the last to post about it before the David Foster Wallace Literary Trust asked The Glossary to remove the video. Sorry, folks.
David Foster Wallace - "This Is Water" (film by The Glossary) [Vimeo]
