Thursday, April 28, 2011

Bathroom Monologue: "Life is not a support system for art. It's the other way around." -Stephen King, On Writing

“Because if life were a support system for art, then you could just go on life support. And with a support system for the support system for your art, you could paint forever. Film endlessly. Write boundlessly. And then there would be way too many paintings and movies and books on the market, and people wouldn’t want them as much. They’d only want the endless, boundless output of their favorites, and we’d clone choice authors. We’d have casks of Jonathan Swift and James Joyce. Can I interest you in a 2018 Rudyard Kipling? It was a very good year, and he even wrote his own label in the form of a clever poem. Yes, 2018 was a splendid venture, the year we cloned and life-supported so many of him that we had to take out one of Saturn’s moons to store the author-vineyard. Three years later, HarperCollins bought two planets for their two big gets, because Dorothy Parkers are from Venus, but David Sedari are from Mars. Entire planetary surfaces devoted to imitations of authors on uppers, tubes in those nostrils and electrodes in their ventricles. A million hairless apes chained to typewriters, fed nicotine, sugar and romantic disappointments. All for the art of it. All support from life.”

9 comments:

  1. "A million hairless apes chained to typewriters, fed nicotine, sugar and romantic disappointments. All for the art of it." <--- How is this different from writers now?

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  2. I don't eat much sugar on this diet. Like, duh!

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  3. John, are you getting all Valley Girl on my just because I'm from California. That's statist, my friend, and I won't stand for it. Like ever!

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  4. "2020 Wiswell - a piquant vintage, like the others!"

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  5. King is right, this is great, and I like Danielle's (1st) comment.

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