He meant "silver," obviously. Don't entrench a proofreading error, I beg of you.
Plus, I don't know how you'll be able to read from that piece to an audience. I tried reading it aloud to someone, and the pauses due to gasping for air from laughing my ass off kind of killed the flow.
http://www.harpers.org/archive/1996/01/0…
So maybe Wallace wept at the lack of editors at Harper's when the piece was originally published in 1996?
Paul, will you read it as "sliver"?
Plus, I don't know how you'll be able to read from that piece to an audience. I tried reading it aloud to someone, and the pauses due to gasping for air from laughing my ass off kind of killed the flow.
So sorry DFW's gone.