The Letterman Clip That Became David Foster Wallace’s First Print Story

In 1989, Playboy was preparing to publish a story from a new
collection by a young writer named David Foster Wallace when some
editors happened to catch a two-year-old episode of Late Night with
David Letterman. There, onscreen, were Letterman and his guest, the
actress Susan St. James, speaking dialogue from Wallace’s story,
verbatim.