A REAL LIVEJOURNAL ENTRY!
On the Internet, all you really have to identify yourself to strangers is your list of "interests" and likes/dislikes. I mean, unless they read your book reviews. And over the past couple of years, as I slid down the cool scale, I've been gradually deeming all my guilty pleasures merely pleasures (and I've stopped sounding off so loudly about their opposite, my Pretentious Pleasures).
You know the line from High Fidelity that says something like "the music you like says everything about you"? Actually, that's kind of the synopsis of High Fidelity. Hell, that's kind of the synopsis of Nick Hornby.
That line always irked me, not only because "interests" paint such a superficial portrait--how did people get to know one another a hundred years ago?--but because it reminded me how hard I tried to be known by my band t-shirts and my conspicuously-carried cafeteria reading. And you're the same way, I know you are/were!
But now that I've dropped the guilt and [some of] the pretense, I've noticed this weird trend in my hero worship: I have this strange obsession with artists who are wildly prolific but whose work is always uneven; who are either loved or hated; who are known to be professional assholes and probably, one can assume, sacrifice every aspect of life to their "work."
That's Billy Corgan, Ryan Adams, Jack Kerouac (Beats as a whole?), and to varying degrees, Prince, David Foster Wallace, Kurt Vonnegut, Miles Davis, and lots of other people who regularly inhabit my "interests" lists.
I realized this while I was analyzing my fascination with Santino Rice on Project Runway. I hate reality TV, and TV in general, and fashion, so I was surprised that I developed a genuine interest in his professional fate. He fits all of my above criteria, and the fact that I would probably hate him as a person provoked my fit of introspection.
That's all. I don't have any conclusions yet. Here are some questions, though: would I be like that, if I were an artist? Or would I be the opposite, and I only yearn to be like that? Can you be prolific, controversial and sometimes-brilliant and not be an abusive alcoholic stepfather kind of guy?
You know the line from High Fidelity that says something like "the music you like says everything about you"? Actually, that's kind of the synopsis of High Fidelity. Hell, that's kind of the synopsis of Nick Hornby.
That line always irked me, not only because "interests" paint such a superficial portrait--how did people get to know one another a hundred years ago?--but because it reminded me how hard I tried to be known by my band t-shirts and my conspicuously-carried cafeteria reading. And you're the same way, I know you are/were!
But now that I've dropped the guilt and [some of] the pretense, I've noticed this weird trend in my hero worship: I have this strange obsession with artists who are wildly prolific but whose work is always uneven; who are either loved or hated; who are known to be professional assholes and probably, one can assume, sacrifice every aspect of life to their "work."
That's Billy Corgan, Ryan Adams, Jack Kerouac (Beats as a whole?), and to varying degrees, Prince, David Foster Wallace, Kurt Vonnegut, Miles Davis, and lots of other people who regularly inhabit my "interests" lists.
I realized this while I was analyzing my fascination with Santino Rice on Project Runway. I hate reality TV, and TV in general, and fashion, so I was surprised that I developed a genuine interest in his professional fate. He fits all of my above criteria, and the fact that I would probably hate him as a person provoked my fit of introspection.
That's all. I don't have any conclusions yet. Here are some questions, though: would I be like that, if I were an artist? Or would I be the opposite, and I only yearn to be like that? Can you be prolific, controversial and sometimes-brilliant and not be an abusive alcoholic stepfather kind of guy?