"Minimalists tend to do better than maximalists. Flinty and workmanlike seem to win the day.... It is the self-proclaimed geniuses who suffer. Writers of long sentences seem to do worse than the writers of short ones." Tom Shone looks at what happens when writers go on the wagon. [Fair warning: The piece calls Faulkner and Fitzgerald "the Paris and Britney of their day" and puts Ernest Hemingway in the Amy Winehouse role. Still, probably worth a click.]
Friday, July 31, 2009
19
You know who always falls apart when he sobers up? Gary Oldman. Get back on the pills Gary! Isabella was just holding you back.
I feel the same way about Ken Wahl. Sigh.
"The book remained unfinished; within weeks of leaving Berryman threw himself from Minneapolis’s Washington Avenue bridge, his body splitting like a melon upon impact with the ground."
I wish that had been a shorter sentence.
Craig Finn made it longer, turned it poety:
The devil and John Berryman
Took a walk together.
They ended up on Washington
Talking to the river.
He said “I’ve surrounded myself with doctors
And deep thinkers.
But big heads with soft bodies
Make for lousy lovers.â€Â
There was that night that we thought John Berryman could fly.
But he didn’t
So he died.
She said “You’re pretty good with words
But words won’t save your life.â€Â
And they didn’t.
So he died.
He was drunk and exhausted but he was critically acclaimed and respected.
He loved the Golden Gophers but he hated all the drawn out winters.
He likes the warm feeling but he’s tired of all the dehydration
Most nights were kind of fuzzy
But that last night he had total retention.
Thank you (sincerely) for getting that stuck in my head for the rest of the day!
I very much appreciate that this take on the event is free of comparisons to splitting melons.
Don't worry, he made it up. Berryman hit the river.
Dawn Powell used to drink rye to "wake up". In place of coffee.
Hmm...
I always felt bad about the part in Dawn Powell's diaries, where she meets another writer she ran around with thirty years before, in their wild days. But they both admit they'd rather be in bed with their flasks and a book, and call it a night. Sort of depressing.
Something on your mind, Mr. Balk?
Just remember: Bulleit, not bullet.
http://www.bulleitbourbon.com/
Best whiskey on earth.
So drunk Irish writers are ok so long as you don't have to read about growing up with them?
I do my best writing while coming down from a mushroom trip. Truth.
I still like "Winter Carnival" for pathos: http://thedartmouth.com/2009/02/13/wintercarnival2009commemorativeissues/schulberg
The problem with the world is that everyone is a few drinks behind.
Even grocery lists are more poetic when written after a bit of the sauce.
Thanks for the warning. That was a ridiculous bullshit article.
Tom Shone, I dub thee Withnail.
Doesn't talking about how other writer's make sausage just give us something to do when we aren't writing?
On Richard Yates: "like Kerouac, he was to write one masterpiece (“Revolutionary Road"), then nothing."
You know, I'm fine with someone seeing Yates that way; I haven't read the man, and have no immediate plans to. Kerouac, though? Dude wrote at least three masterpieces. Yeah, I said it.