From: "hugh bone" <hbone-AT-optonline.net>
Subject: Re: What's wrong with mainstream sensibilities?
Date: Wed, 3 Jan 2001 10:50:42 -0500


The "God-how-I've suffered pose" isn't limited to artists.

One never feels another's pain...or joy.  All of us are different,
and often fail in efforts to communicate thoughts and feelings to
those we know best and care for most.

The well-to-do see great benefits of suffering as long as it' happens to
someone else.  The homeless, addicted, imprisoned, for example, or artists.
Builds character and strength useful if they survive.

 It is the business of priests, and rabbis and ministers to console the
dying and the loved ones who watch them die, and who can fault such help

> In a message dated 1/3/01 1:51:19 AM, kenneth.mackendrick-AT-utoronto.ca
writes:
>
> << I've heard too many times that "If I didn't write, paint,
> create... I would go mad, or die." Aside from being rather cliche, almost
> embarrassingly so, isn't this a problem? >>
>
> Yes, yes a gross cliche, and when someone says this I definitely take
> intonation into account along with the various motives possible for saying
> it, i.e. getting laid. BUT! Let's assume for a second that it is not said
but
> rather implied, and that it is a sentiment that the subject takes to be
> certain, then the answer to the question as to whether or not this is a
> problem would have to be no. In fact it would seem that the someone who
felt
> this was rather healthy in recognizing what helps as a palliative for
> despair. I'm with the radchick on this one. You mentioned Kant (and how
many
> intro to philo students have had to suffer because of this man) and Will
> Smith as a pair of artist not reputed to be great sufferers. For those who
> did suffer how about Nietzsche, Proust, van Gogh, Plath, Althusser, Vigo,
> Dostoyevsky, Alice walker, Godard, Pollack, Krasner, Schwartzkogler,
> Beethoven, Benjamin, Ferrara, Pasolini, Goines, Nizan, Babel, Witkiewicz,
> Burroughs, Hamsun (Hamsun's Wife), Charlie Parker, Lispector, Frankl, De
> Quincey, Bruno Schulz, to name only the apex of the tip of a gigantic
iceberg
> of artists who suffered and who have provided consolation for many.
> Cronenberg said in an interview:  When you're feeling despairing or
suicidal,
> or feel like your dying, you don't want to see a movie like Mrs.
Doubtfire. A
> film like Crash, Dead Ringers, or Naked Lunch will console you because
> they're dealing with this stuff. Mrs. Doubtfire will kill you.
> I do agree that suffering should not be an imparative to create, and I
know
> that there is a list of many artists that did not recount an unduly amount
of
> suffering in their life, but in this age when we still catch a glimpse of
> despair we should cherish it, as it is an idication that the full
> transformation of the human being into a vacuous echo machine has not
> entirely occured. And then I suppose really what we need to do is figure
out
> what the hell suffering means before we go too much further.
> Top 3 of 2000:
> Battle of Chile re-release at Walter Reade
> Origins of the 21st Century
> New Print of Phantom of Liberty
> I honestly did not see one American release that was worth a fraction of
the
> money it took to make it.
> Paul
>
>
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