It's a weird thing to hear yourself giggle, laugh, and eventually make strange spluttering choking noises when you're sitting alone reading a book. David Foster Wallace covered the Illinois State Fair for Harper's, and in gratitude they sent him on a Caribbean cruise. Wallace calls it as only he could see it, from prepubescent baton twirlers performing Desert Storm tributes to bleached cruise-ship hostesses grinning with the "hard, vacant stares that you generally associate with people who hang out in public restrooms."

Gabe Weisert