The surviving bits of my good taste are breaking down. Now I’m quoting Nick Drake lyrics: “If songs were lines in a conversation / the situation would be fine.”

*

This has been said before, but it is true enough to bear repeating: some people really are palatable only after they’re safely gone. Once they’re out of the way you can invent over them a bit, tone them down, lend them dignity, make them self-sufficient, or even invest them with power. When they’re right there with you, though, they can protest at what you’ve made of them. Or they can ask for something you are unwilling to give. And what if what you refuse is precisely that which you cannot imagine yourself refusing anyone?

As a direct result of what appears to be a universal cultural condition, these unpalatable people leave themselves behind in diluted forms, in sounds and images and words, sometimes in legends – passive forms easy to falsify and adore. Alive and close up, as a speaking face – much too much.

*

Art is an act of desperation. The rest of what we call art is craft, entertainment, stimulation and vain noise.