So we just finished King Lear, and I just finished Just Friends, a memoir by Patti Smith that details her unbreakable friendship with Robert Mapplethorpe. There is no reason I have just talked about these two works side-by-side. You cannot compare them, but each of them has made me think if only a little.
I cannot blame King Lear for wanting to be loved. Perhaps he went about it the wrong way, and maybe he was a bit pre-mature in allotting his kingdom to his daughters (but it needed to happen at some point). The parallel with Gloucester, I think, emphasized Shakespeare's motif of disguise and deception. The only way I can look at this play is by envisioning two trains about to intersect, and I am not sure if much could have been done to stop it. Oh sure, King Lear could have listened to his advisers, but that never gets anyone anywhere. And Gloucester should not have talked about Edmund's mother like that.
On to the more interesting stuff. I've always wondered what I would do with my life. Truth be told, I don't have an interest in anything. I don't like math or science, and literature, for the most part, keeps me entertained but not much else. Patti Smith and Robert Mapplethorpe were literally starving artists. And it's weird too-- it seems as if Patti Smith had never been an artist until she left for New York and met Mapplethorpe. She moved from one medium to the other, experimenting in drawing, poetry, and finally music (how someone acquires musical ability in such a short time I will never know). She and Mapplethorpe lived at the Chelsea for some time and took part in the tail end of the Andy Worhol hysteria. It was as if all she did was decide "I'm going to be an artist today." And I'm really annoyed too. I'm waiting for the time when something will interest me and I find a calling.
I'm sure most of you know that Mapplethorpe died of AIDS. When I read this part of the memoir I nearly choked. I knew it was coming, but nonetheless, it was sad, not only because it was heart-wrenching, but because it was real and it had happened. It has been too long since I have read a non-fiction novel (does this classify as a non-fiction novel? it should) and I have forgotten how much of a greater impact stories have when they are true and written in words that a reader can relate to.
Okay, back to work. And we played through some of the Oklahoma! music today. So excited!
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