just quickly

I’ve looked up Poe’s law, provenance unknown – the idea being that no parody of a primitivist/fundamentalist/creationist is ever as good a parody as the real thing, and there’s nothing you can think of writing that is so asinine that nobody will believe it for a moment, in fact it’s likely that many will believe it, for a long time, e.g. Dianetics.  

 

Heard today of the suicide of David Foster Wallace, a terrible shame. Suffered from depression all his life apparently. I read his essay collection A supposedly fun thing I’ll never do again and raved about it some years ago, then I read The broom of the system and wasn’t so sure, wasn’t so entertained and provoked. I don’t read fiction so much these days I’m afraid. Don’t know if I’ll tackle Infinite Jest. Would probably prefer to take on some more of his essays. What I loved was the freshness and intensity, the energy his work gave me. That sort of thing has a visceral effect. Some have mentioned Rabelais, and believe it or not I thought Shakespeare, who was the dabbest of hands at opening out and freshening up a cliché… it’s so shocking that such a talent can end up in such a space, yet it’s also not uncommon.

 

On the theme of depression, I know it well, though it has never quite managed to drag me to such deeps. On today’s radio, a visually impaired visual artist spoke of his half dozen simple tasks a day to ward it off, and of his sex life void. At least he has an excuse of sorts, though I’ve found an excuse too, in attachment theory – I have a fearful attachment style, masked by a dismissive attachment style, or vice versa.

 

On Wallace, incidentally, read this honest if unspectacular obit – and then read the truly dipshitted comments. What roisterous larry-kins these Americans be.