On George Michael, David Foster Wallace, and making great art

Michael's greatest song shows the path to the universal is through the specific and personal.

There’s a neat chronology to how the Beatles defined the sixties, bursting onto the scene in ’63 and riding their bigger-than-Jesus wave until Let it Be came out in 1970. From shaggy mop-tops to long-haired hippies, they wind up serving as the perfect prism for viewing that decade.

In a way, George Michael did that for the 80’s. Wham hit in ’83 and becam…