Peter Smith 
In 1994, David Foster Wallace visited the Illinois State Fair and discovered the smell of armpits and Coppertone and a peripatetic feeding frenzy of shaved ice, cotton candy, gyros, stuffed jalepenos, chitlins, Krakkles, funnel cakes, and more.
Whether you make it to any state fair this year or not, it's worth re-reading a "Ticket to the Fair." He also read a portion of the piece in 2000:
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Debunking 'Green Living': Combatting Climate Change Requires Lifestyle Changes, Not Organic Products
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Infographic: Understanding Social Enterprise
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Billr: The App for Dining on a Budget (Without Annoying Your Friends)
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TED's Taboo: What's Too Controversial for the Hipster Confab?
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Is it Time to 'Occupy Teach For America'?
California is considering banning the single-use plastic bag from grocery stores (and adopting a 5-cent charge for paper bags). The legislation,...
Google is looking to discover the best young scientists in the world, and is throwing a big global science fair to find them.
The University of Texas at Austin's Harry Ransom Center is housing 65 video and audio episodes of The Mike Wallace Interview (from 1957 and 1958),...
The state of Illinois now allows its citizens to vote via mail. They can, in fact, vote naked. Watch them do it.
In case you haven't heard: Some of the terrorism suspects being held at Gitmo are going to be moved to a prison in Illinois that the federal...
Singer Jimmy Wong shows the infamous, intolerant ranter some, er, love.
First it was Eliot Spitzer; now, another Democratic governor finds himself in hot water this morning. The FBI arrested Illinois's head of state...
Turns out, moving to Washington D.C. for over a year doesn't a Chicago resident make.
British architect Norman Foster has painstakingly reproduced the Dymaxion Car, a famous 1933 vehicle designed by Buckminister Fuller.
Reinventing the Outdoors contest: Before breaking NFL records, Foster played sports at his local Boys & Girls Club.
Sixty-six percent of the $825 billion in the stimulus bill is designated for specific states. In this great interactive piece (about halfway down...
We remember with fondness the State Fairs of our youth. The ferris wheel, the giant watermelons, the needlepoint contests. Actually, we have no...
When we hear that the Department of Homeland Security does something like double it's annual spending on a given project, we want to know that the...
An infographic that lists something—from PhDs to teen pregnancies—that each state has or produces more of than its forty-nine rivals.
Two maps show states at the top and bottom of various statistical rankings. How does your home stack up?
Wal-Mart is venturing in to the organic market This is a problem for organic farmers because, well, Wal-Mart seems totally antithetical to the...
Global warming, not only is it destroying the planet, but it is destroying lives. Laurie David and Larry David have split, because Laurie David...
According to Stanford statisticians, coins may not be as fifty-fifty as we think.
We need your help: What is the most awesome, best tasting, sustainably brewed, independently owned, community-oriented craft beer in your state?
Meet David Danzig-the anti-torture activist who took on Jack Bauer. Three blocks from St. Peter's Basilica in Vatican City sits the Istituto...
