I've been thinking about these men lately. Mostly, I've been thinking a lot about Ian Curtis and that brutal hand in hand of the heavy, exposed heart and that devastating pressure to end it all. And then comes news of David Foster Wallace, whose prose I alternated between finding joyfully refreshing and in great need of editing. Refreshing is key here, far exceeding the rambling qualities that I am rude enough to bring up here.
Refreshing is the only thing we really need from artists ... a breadth of something new. A strike against the humdrum of what qualified for imaginative discovery previously. We need that moment when we are standing in front of something new and thinking, "Why the hell hasn't this done before? Where did they pull this from?"
Ian Curtis and David Foster Wallace had this in spades. And now they're gone. A slippery genius vetted out once again. Certainly by their own hands and yet the why lays heavily above the whole mess of it. That slippery genius is dead again. Long live the slippery genius.
4 comments:
I didn't read a lot of his writing - a few essays here and there - but I was absolutely crushed reading the news. I don't want to know how you get to that point.
"breadth"? do you mean "breath of something new?" I ask this of you, O self-proclaimed lover of words.
Dear Anonymous,
Yes! I totally meant "breath." That's one of those words that is a confusable for me. Thanks for the hot tip, oh hot anonymous one.
If you can't see the why then you are blind to the whole world.....
Post a Comment