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June
8, 2006
Oblivion
This is from another email I sent to my friend
my friend who doesn't want his name mentioned in response to a new film he made called Red Thread.
my friend who doesn't want his name mentioned: "I
can't seem to shake the feeling that I'm slowly dying... and
falling into oblivion... unknown oblivion."
Alex: If oblivion
is the thing we fear (and yes, I fear it too, but more on that later)
why do we seek oblivion in wine and weed and sex and work? I met a
young woman at Goddard.
We stood outside the dorm talking lightly, as you do with a stranger, but deeply,
as I often do, and I told her I wonder why, when my life is happy and my health
is good, I render myself oblivious with wine. And she told me she does it with
heroin, and wonders the same thing. Jesus. People reveal things to me. But my
point is, why do we do seek oblivion? And it isn't quite your point, but for
me, I think I have too many unseen demons I try to kill.
I have no illusions about my art or its staying power once I'm dead. I don't
care what happens after I'm dead. And why should I? I'll be fucking dead. My
grandmother was a truly fine abstract painter. She sold her work in New York,
DC and Baltimore, and she had some major purchasers like universities, politicians,
the Rockefeller Center. She was a successful woman painter in the 60s, and that
was unusual, but she fell into oblivion once she died. Feel better? I guess not.
She was a mean pain in the ass. I lived with her until I was 12, and all she
wanted to do was be left alone in her studio so she could paint. She didn't want
to play or nurture or enjoy the people in her life. She was critical, self-centered
and angry. Wait, here's a picture of the fam on a typical day at our house.
 Isn't
it the creepiest? That's my grandfather leering at me drunkenly on his way
to a business meeting like he's looking at a bug, my mother looking
beautiful, crazy and vacant, and my grandmother at the easel. I'm
on the sofa, but you could substitute a poodle, for all anyone
cared about me.
My point is, it isn't about what happens when you die. It's what kind of person
you are while you're alive. If your art brings joy or awe to a single person,
what more do you fucking want?
The last few months
have been a truly scary time of grappling ( 1.a. An iron shaft with claws
at one end, usually thrown by a rope and used for grasping and holding )
with my demons, rather than suppressing them ( 4.a. To deliberately exclude
unacceptable desires or thoughts from the mind ) with, for instance, wine
and weed and sex and work. And I don't want to grapple with them. I want to
BURY them, with all the people who ever hurt me, including my grandmother,
who was so obsessed with immortality that she ruined the lives of everyone
around her.
Sorry I went off. It struck a nerve. I'm feeling raw and wounded lately, but
it's my own doing, and it's not your fault that I'm bleeding onto other people.
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