Splinters

Coveted behind-the-scenes material: overheard chit-chat around the virtual Spike offices. The deal is that Chris utters a simple sentence, and then I'm obliged to respond with a wordy semi-rant.

Chris

"Defend your homeland!
http://www.livejournal.com/users/imomus/156191.html

Momus is, for the record, probably the most consistently interesting blogger
I know of..."

Ismo

Fashion, oh man. Money certainly has a say in this, but I usually favor dryness and grayness. You could read it as an ironic statement, but I don't think many people get the joke. Basically I've based my style on this single photo of a chirpy Glenn Gould:

A no-nonsense wardrobe lets me focus on the really important stuff. Think of the modernist architects. Or Nabokov and Calvino. Burroughs.

I used to have headaches thinking about Momus' life... I should get out the house more often, I know, but his persona and work really did pose a serious problem for me: he's obviously fucking smart and occasionally brilliant, and yet most of his actual artistic output (the little I've been able to sample) has been bit of a letdown. And yet... he's living the life.

On the other end of the spectrum we have someone like Alan Moore: he's spent his whole life in the same uninspiring fuckwit town, but that hasn't hindered his chances of producing wonderful stuff.

The headaches went away when I realized I was playing with false binaries... once again.