Saturday, June 27, 2009

sorry...

I've been away for a bit; we've had a death in the family. such things help one realize exactly who and what's important and how everything and everyone else can go get fucked.

but you get emails like this one from Doug Draime and it helps one understand why making art is an important thing, no matter the level of suffering, no matter the difficulty of enduring another withering day in the shitpile of humanity. thanks again for the kind words on Sunlight, big Doug:

"...Received my hardback copy a few days ago, and I honestly can't think of a book I've read in recent history that I am more impressed by. The way you guys so fearlessly question the human condition, and the artist's place in it, is a must read for anyone who passionately seeks the purpose of our existence, and our reason for creating. IT IS ONE ASS KICKING MOTHERFUCKER of a book..."

this then is the crux and function of all good writing and of all good art: the forging of a deep connection and thru it, honest communication with actual, living, feeling human beings. this person who died was not a "poetry type" (whatever that is), but he read, in his later life, some small press poets who reached him in a way I always belived to be possible, and saw, thru this man, the actual accomplishment of poetry cutting thru the ugliness of years of hard life, and shining a melancholy light and shades of hope on what remains.

and if that's not what you strive for as an artist, to save some portion of the beauty of humanity to show to the lost and miserable, the dead and dying, the lonely and hopeless, to alchemize the suffering of the everyday into something that helps us go on despite our inevitable walk into those dark woods at the end, then you are just a finger painter fiddling with turds, just a child with a chip and a shoulder, just a weak masturbating diarist, doomed to wallow in the misery of your choices for as long as your sad little lives manage to creak along before the big fall.

real life is out there, kids; pay attention and "do not waste it lightly," sayeth the kamikaze...

3 Comments:

Blogger j.b said...

my condolences, Chris to you and yours. yes, death often makes us reassess our lives or at least reorganize our priorities. a lot of FUCK YOUs tend to be thrown around afterward--appropriately so.

i agree with Draime: it's one motherfucker of a book. you both should be proud.

5:17 PM  
Blogger christopher cunningham said...

thanks jb. it's been tough. but we endure, and are stronger for it...

12:42 PM  
Blogger j.b said...

yes yes...

death is a terrible fact of life.

i could on and on here about my thoughts on death and the human condition, etc. as i've done quite a bit of thinking on the subject...but i won't.

stay strong...

3:36 PM  

Post a Comment

<< Home

>