Ah you got there before me! I was surprised to see him on that list too.Quote:
Originally Posted by The Atheist
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Ah you got there before me! I was surprised to see him on that list too.Quote:
Originally Posted by The Atheist
The sharper side of the double edged sword of having a creative mind, it never shuts up, turns down, or switches off.
He was a painter, not a writer.Quote:
Originally Posted by JuniperWoolf
I thought that Thompson shot himself because he thought that the government was coming after him, I never heard anything about cancer.
Ever heard of Mein Kampf?Quote:
Originally Posted by The Atheist
Apparently he also wrote a fair amount of bad poetry.Quote:
Originally Posted by Desolation
Haha, he would.Quote:
Originally Posted by OrphanPip
Found one on a very disturbing website:
It was in the thicket of the Artois Wood.
Deep in the trees, on blood-soaked ground,
Lay stretched a wounded German warrior,
And his cries rang out in the night.
In vain ... no echo answered his plea ...
Will he bleed to death like a beast,
That shot in the gut dies alone?
Then suddenly ...
Heavy steps approach from the right
He hears how they stamp on the forest floor ...
And new hope springs from his soul.
And now from the left ...
And now from both sides ...
Two men approach his miserable bed
A German it is, and a Frenchman.
And each watches the other with distrustful glance,
And threatening they aim their weapons.
The German warrior asks:
"What do you do here?"
"I was touched by the needy one's call for help."
"It's your enemy!"
"It is a man who suffers."
And both, wordless, lowered their weapons.
Then entwined their hands
And, with muscles tensed, carefully lifted
The wounded warrior, as if on a stretcher,
And carried him through the woods.
'Til they came to the German outposts.
"Now it is over. He will get good care."
And the Frenchman turns back toward the woods.
But the German grasps for his hand,
Looks, moved, into sorrow-dimmed eyes
And says to him with earnest foreboding:
"I know not what fate holds for us,
Which inscrutably rules in the stars.
Perhaps I shall fall, a victim of your bullet.
Maybe mine will fell you on the sand —
For indifferent is the chance of battles.
Yet, however it may be and whatever may come:
We lived these sacred hours,
Where man found himself in man ...
And now, farewell! And God be with you!"
I found the same website. For obvious reasons, I question it's authenticity.Quote:
Originally Posted by Desolation
Not only heard of, read.Quote:
Originally Posted by Desolation
You missed the joke.
Be Reminded - Hitler
When your mother has grown older,
When her dear, faithful eyes
No longer see life as they once did,
When her feet, grown tired,
No longer want to carry her as she walks,
Then lend her your arm in support, escort her with happy pleasure—
the hour will come when, weeping, you must accompany her on her final walk.
And if she asks you something, then give her an answer.
And if she asks again, then speak!
And if she asks yet again, respond to her, not impatiently, but with gentle calm.
And if she cannot understand you properly, explain all to her happily.
The hour will come, the bitter hour, when her mouth asks for nothing more.
This one apparently appeared in a German newspaper in 1933. I got it off wikipedia, and it provided a link to a biography (not a pro-Hitler one) on goolge books that discussed the poem. So, this one, albeit bad, is apparently authentic.
Interesting, albeit macabre, thread.
A quote attributed to Gore Vidal that I came across a few years ago [that still amuses me] might serve well in this thread:
"Write something, even if it's just a suicide note."
Now while I'm sure? that this was stated only to inspire one to write, it does give me pause to wonder if some poor writer has been struggling all his/her days perfecting the ultimate suicide note.
Rubbish.Quote:
Originally Posted by The Atheist
Unless of course someone forced open their mouth and poured liquor down their throat.
People do willfully drink themselves to death. Frequently.
(Just came to mind, the great saxophonist Lester Young...)
(Also Jim Morrison--who was quite a good poet...)
They all went on a drinking binge prior to death à la Leaving Las Vegas.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Sebas. Melmoth
By that logic those who die of lung cancer, committed suicide due to having made the conscious discussion to smoke in their youth. Furthermore those dying due to cholesterol and obesity issues all committed suicide as they chose to eat unhealthily in their lives. Heck by that logic most deaths are suicides.
I mean I smoke and drink and eat, and I know down the line it may get ugly, but its no where near the discussion of willfully ending your life in an immediate manner.
I believe you confuse irresponsibility and a form of hedonism with the willful conscious decision to end ones life immediately, which is suicide.
i agree with this post - ie, just because you engage in dangerous activities, does not mean you have committed suicideQuote:
Originally Posted by Alexander III
if it were so, then we could accuse all skydiving deaths of being suicides, or jet pilots who do aerial stunts, or race car drivers. They might know that these things could result in death - but they are not suicides
I'm glad you wrote that. I was thinking something along the same lines, but I would have been more emphatic.Quote:
Originally Posted by Alexander III
Well, let's make it a consensus!
:D
[QUOTE=Sebas. Melmoth;893750](Also Jim Morrison--who was quite a good poet...)
QUOTE]
http://www.online-literature.com/for...og.php?b=10391
I think that was death by accidental overdoes. He was pretty good at what he did.Quote:
Originally Posted by AuntSheckyhttp://www.online-literature.com/for...og.php?b=10391Quote:
Originally Posted by Sebas. Melmoth
You know, if you keep going with this logic, you can classify pretty much all deaths as suicides. Got hit by a car? Well, you knew the risks when you walked across the street.Quote:
Originally Posted by keilj
I have long suspected JFK of being involved in the JFK assassination.Quote:
Originally Posted by Desolation
Regards,
Istvan
I am of the mind that the creative lifestyle naturally attracts those who are troubled deepest. Why? It is simple, really: when one is depressed they’re constantly trying to create solutions to solve their problems. In the case of many writers their attempted solutions were their literary works.
Perhaps the reason that writers have the highest suicide rate out of any other form of artist is because writing is one of, if not, the deepest form of expression, thus naturally attracts those who have the most to create, and those with the most to create are those who have the most problems to solve. Poetry/writing, unlike many other forms of art, has the potential for immense figurative and literal meaning, whereas in painting, for example, much of the meaning to be discovered is figurative, if therein even lies any (a good amount of painting only aims at producing an atmosphere).
I don’t think that writing leads to depression, but it is only correlated. But let me make clear that correlation does NOT equal causality. I have run into many people who make the mistake of equating correlation with causality and consequently generalizing the character of all writers as depressed.
If i remember correctly, Styron makes some broadly similar points in his memoir, Darkness Visible.Quote:
Originally Posted by Cunninglinguist
I own DV and I don't remember Styron putting it quite like that, though it has been awhile, and for subjective non-fiction it left a bad taste in my mouth.Quote:
Originally Posted by sixsmith
I've always found Styron to be a bit priggish.
It was listed as "heart failure," brought on by a lifetime of binge drinking and drugs. There's controversy about that, though. Some people think that his body was moved from a club where he overdosed to the bathtub in his appartment where Pam found him the next morning. Some people think that he didn't even die (which happens when anyone famous kicks the bucket).Quote:
Originally Posted by PeterL
Cunning: For a new member, you tap dance pretty well, but I am not sure it is that simple. You have suicides in the armed forces and high fiance as well, and these folks aren't looking for solutions to emotional pain.
When I was in university, looking back, I allowed despondency to make me sluggish and moody, but to my memory, this was not internally chronic, but writers probably are prone to having depression become chronic, for any number of reasons, probably most inclusive of personal loss, and in my case, too, the continual reminder that bylines mean absolutely nothing, but it is what we have to do.
I have had fans worship me and even back then, wanted nothing more than to kick them in the teeth for thinking what flowed out of my colon was gold, so I am not big on the fan base thing and only slipped up myself with icon worship 2 and a half times, the half being I sent Anne Rice a letter and in a nice way told her where she could shove it, so to speak--though it was a waste of time, because when Rose had her on his show her facial expression all but screamed it out that she was on the verge of hysteria. The bookmark her assistant sent me was cool though.
Jim's definitely alive; some say he's living in Oregon.Quote:
Originally Posted by JuniperWoolf
Others say the Seychelles.
But this site is clearly the winner in knowing where Jimmy really is; who could doubt a site that says this about itself?
It's easily the most believable as it has Morrison out of his mind in a San Francisco nuthouse.Quote:
Wheatgrass was blown away by the heavy reality trip. She immediately called the Heathen World and sold us the story for thousands of dollars because of our renown journalistic integrity.
And all this time I thought he and Elvis were running a rental car company in Bogota...
I just had quick flick through DV and I think you are right Joz. I had much the same reaction as you and, for some reason, I always attributed it to Styron's conflation of emotional pain and artistic endeavour (no offense Cunning: doubtless there is fertile ground to be explored). Seeing things afresh, I suspect that my distaste for Styron's confessional pamphlet is due largely to his penchant for cliche: an extra fatal flaw when trying to explore the idiosyncrasies of mental illness.Quote:
Originally Posted by Jozanny
You mean that guy I ran into last week didn't just look like an older Jim MorrisonQuote:
Originally Posted by JuniperWoolf
Perhaps we should remember that most writers are fairly ordinary people who live long lives that are sometimes happy. From those that I can think of there is much difference between the writings of the ones who may be mad and suicidal and those who are not.
If the use of drugs is a marker, then William S. Burroughs should have died before 1960, but he lived and wrote into his eighties.
Wilde said 'the artistic life is a long and lovely suicide'.
http://www.amazon.com/Oscar-Wilde-Lo...3925900&sr=1-1
Cant the workoholic be using work as a solution to their emotional pain? I don't know if it's safe to assume that those men who kill themselves who arent writers arent using their work as a solution to their problems.Quote:
Originally Posted by Jozanny
Everyone deals with their problems a little bit differently. But art attracts people who deal with their problems by thinking. Business attracts those who deal with their problems by over-working themselves. Drugs attract...etc. Of course everyone solves their problems with a mixture of methods, thus most writers are usually also workoholics and alcoholics. Perhaps just as none of the aforementioned methods actually work a writer sometimes culminates his problem solving career by taking his own life.
Also, Jozanny, I really appriciate the humor in your last paragraph of that post I quoted. :D
Heard that dentists have an high suicide rate.
Spending their days with their fingers on other people's mouths does strange things to some of them.Quote:
Originally Posted by Sebas. Melmoth