Subject: "How can anyone from our generation..."
From: Malcolm Lawrence (Malcolm@wolfenet.com)
Date: Thu Mar 06 1997 - 03:21:03 GMT
"How can anyone from our generation ever compete with the likes of Walt
Whitman, Emily Dickinson, William Faulkner, Flannery O'Connor, Jack
Kerouac, Bob Dylan, Georgia O'Keefe, Tennessee Williams, Martin
Scorsese..."
Sorry to go back to this, but it's been on my mind and I thought I'd respond.
Competition doesn't have anything to do with it. These giants simply expressed themselves as fully as they could. Gave 100% soul. You, too, can have the best there is, but it's gonna cost you all of your love. You won't get it for money. Emily Dickinson never wanted to be published. She was quite happy to live out her days as an agoraphobic spinster up in New England. (To toss in another giant, the only reason Kafka has the name and stature he has today is because his best friend betrayed his dying wish of burning all of his work).
No matter what the politically correct line is these days on dead white men, most dead white males still being discussed did not have a competitive bone in their bodies, they were usually too sensitive to deal with regular jobs if not sickly and unsuited to any attempts at prosperity. I mean, half of the impact of the tragedy of Vincent Van Gogh is when you find out the story of his brother and realize how if it hadn't been for his brother no one would know ANYTHING about Van Gogh these days, or even if he would have survived as long as he did. And any artist in any discipline will testify that it doesn't matter how much one "tries," only the lucky live long enough to appreciate their own influence during their lifetimes. As we know, it's a who you know world, so if you're serious about making a go of it, take care of your contacts.
And speaking of the recent discussion of homosexuality, Walt Whitman, Tennessee Williams, Emily Dickinson (probably), throw in Oscar Wilde for good measure...imagine the ADDED pressures for these giants growing up in the times they did.
But you must always know WHY you're expressing what you're expressing or else you won't be doing it very long. If you aim for the eternal and can be happy with the thought that your art will probably not get the recognition it deserves until you're no longer here to enjoy it, then you too may join the company above. I mean, it's all just a mainline that stretches as far back as the Romantics and further...
As far as now is concerned, yes, Alanis Morrisette is fake, but what about Kurt Cobain, Tori Amos, Ani Defranco, David Foster Wallace, Beck, Sienna Reid, Yves Jaques, Jenny Hacker, Russell C. Smith, (fill in your own friends and acquaintances whom everyone else around you believes is the freakiest, most obsessed mutilated ego around, yet you know has a heart of gold and has an unshakeable faith in their work.) Like Dylan once said "If you do what you believe in and believe in it so strongly that no one can shake your faith, that's going to baffle a lot of people."
Godspeed
Malcolm
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