Insanity channeled. So much stream-of-consciousness writing, my own attempts for example, rapidly degenerates into nonsense, like a schizophrenic rocking back and forth in the straight back chair that they're tied to for fourteen hours a day shouting lists of rhyming transgressions to nobody in particular. Ah, but Bill never falls for such folly. Staying sane inside insanity.
As with most Billophiles my age, my first experiences of Bill came not from his writing but from his performing. A strange man with a gun in the barn of an odd little film found at an odd little video store. A gravely voice shouting phrases somewhere in the background of a Laurie Anderson song. Then his written words are discovered.
And what words they are? Not light or easy reading to be sure, but glorious words all the same. Insane, sharp, scary but somehow comforting. It's OK to be insane. It doesn't matter that the world you experience doesn't match the one that everyone else describes. Write it down. The words will explain it to you. Bill is like my literary nightmare teddy bear.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Talk to me dude