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“Doth any man doubt, that if there were taken out of men’s minds vain opinions, flattering hopes, false valuations, imaginations as one would, and the like, but it would leave the minds of a number of men poor shrunken things, full of melancholy and indisposition, and unpleasing to themselves?”
-- Francis Bacon (1561-1626)
“If we could see ourselves as we really are, life would be insupportable.”
-- Joe Gould
I remember seeing the movie on Joe Gould. His story is a little striking for me, since he seemed to live his life just writing in his notebooks, a little like myself in the 1990s, though his jottings were less personal, in an attempt to get down a sort of popular history of the 20th century. In the movie, it was suggested that the notebooks never existed; Joe was just a big bullshit artist. This article tells a more interesting tale. It's a very long essay, and I almost cut out on it, but I'm glad I didn't, and now I am keeping all of it.
( Read more... )
-- Francis Bacon (1561-1626)
“If we could see ourselves as we really are, life would be insupportable.”
-- Joe Gould
I remember seeing the movie on Joe Gould. His story is a little striking for me, since he seemed to live his life just writing in his notebooks, a little like myself in the 1990s, though his jottings were less personal, in an attempt to get down a sort of popular history of the 20th century. In the movie, it was suggested that the notebooks never existed; Joe was just a big bullshit artist. This article tells a more interesting tale. It's a very long essay, and I almost cut out on it, but I'm glad I didn't, and now I am keeping all of it.
( Read more... )
