Apt
[From the Infinite Wisdom of Dan Jones, who taught me to stop thinking that it is okay for governments to have the power to kill their own citizens with the death penalty. [From the Infinite Wisdom of Dan Jones, who taught me to stop thinking that it is okay for governments to have the power to kill their own citizens with the death penalty. Lester is talking first and foremost about film and filmmakers, but I think you'll agree that this quote is about a lot more. This sums up how I am feeling these days pretty nicely.]
'More of Lester [Bangs, who was a legendary rock critic from The Rolling Stones] (and if you don't know who he's talking about, it doesn't matter. Think of any "dark"artist. I tend to think of filmmakers like the Coens, PT Anderson and Christopher Nolan):
“Just for the record, I would like it known by anybody who cares that I don't think life is a perpetual dive. And even though it's genuinely frightening, I don't think Richard Hell's fascination with death is anything else but stupid. I suspect almost every day that I'm living for nothing, I get depressed and I feel self-destructive and a lot of the time I don't like myself. What's more, the proximity of other humans often fills me with overwhelming anxiety, but I also feel that this precarious sentience is all we've got and, simplistic as it may seem, it's a person's duty to the potential of his own soul to make the best of it. We're all stuck on this often miserable earth where life is essentially tragic, but there are glints of beauty and bedrock joy that come shining through from time to precious time to remind anybody who cares to see that there is something higher and larger than ourselves. And I am not talking about your putrefying gods, I am talking about a sense of wonder about life itself and the feeling that there is some redemptive factor you must at least search for until you drop dead of natural causes. And all the Richard Hells are chickenshits who trash the precious gift too blithely, and they deserve to be given no credence, but shocked awake in some violent manner.
Either that or spanked and put to bed.
Look, I started out this thing saying how much I respected this guy's mind and perceptions. I still do, in a curious way – it's just that he paints half the picture of total reality with consummate brilliance, and the other half is Crayon slashes across a field of Silly Putty and Green Slime. In other words, he's got a great grasp of the problems of being alive in the seventies, but his solutions suck.” (Psychotic Reactions and Carburetor Dung, 267)'
'More of Lester [Bangs, who was a legendary rock critic from The Rolling Stones] (and if you don't know who he's talking about, it doesn't matter. Think of any "dark"artist. I tend to think of filmmakers like the Coens, PT Anderson and Christopher Nolan):
“Just for the record, I would like it known by anybody who cares that I don't think life is a perpetual dive. And even though it's genuinely frightening, I don't think Richard Hell's fascination with death is anything else but stupid. I suspect almost every day that I'm living for nothing, I get depressed and I feel self-destructive and a lot of the time I don't like myself. What's more, the proximity of other humans often fills me with overwhelming anxiety, but I also feel that this precarious sentience is all we've got and, simplistic as it may seem, it's a person's duty to the potential of his own soul to make the best of it. We're all stuck on this often miserable earth where life is essentially tragic, but there are glints of beauty and bedrock joy that come shining through from time to precious time to remind anybody who cares to see that there is something higher and larger than ourselves. And I am not talking about your putrefying gods, I am talking about a sense of wonder about life itself and the feeling that there is some redemptive factor you must at least search for until you drop dead of natural causes. And all the Richard Hells are chickenshits who trash the precious gift too blithely, and they deserve to be given no credence, but shocked awake in some violent manner.
Either that or spanked and put to bed.
Look, I started out this thing saying how much I respected this guy's mind and perceptions. I still do, in a curious way – it's just that he paints half the picture of total reality with consummate brilliance, and the other half is Crayon slashes across a field of Silly Putty and Green Slime. In other words, he's got a great grasp of the problems of being alive in the seventies, but his solutions suck.” (Psychotic Reactions and Carburetor Dung, 267)'
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