“The ideal life: doing only things which are indispensable.”
Six pages of Susan Sontag’s journals were published in the NYTimes Magazine this weekend. Even an NYC intellectual had a soft spot for CA:
“In Calif., a stranger is a [potential] friend until he proves otherwise; in NY, a stranger is an enemy until he proves otherwise.”
Admittedly contemptuous:
“The only people who should interest themselves in an art (or several arts) are those who practice it — or have — or aspire to. The whole idea of an “audience” is wrong. The artist’s audience is his peers.”
What does this mean… about writing, blogging, peers, audiences, the blogosphere?
When asked how she felt about discovering 3/4s of the way through something that the writing was mediocre and inferior, she responds with, “I feel good and plow on to the end. I’m discharging the mediocre in myself. (My excremental image of my writing.) It’s there. I want to get rid of it. I can’t negate it by an act of will. (Or can I?) I can only allow it its voice, get it “out.” Then I can do something else.”
I must keep this in mind when writing the thesis. Moving on, so I can do something else.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/10/magazine/10sontag.html?pagewanted=1