I’d still prefer to be riding the bike, of course, even in this beautful and deadly snow, but it’s a crazy week. We are shipping the new issue of the magazine today, uploading it to the website, there are school conferences for the kids (one of whom is having a cavity filled today), there is a birthday Thursday, and the week-long wind-up to the Birkebeiner is in full swing. So today I was on the Interstate behind a school bus. It had just come on the entry ramp. I drove in its wake, which was a dazzling wind-blown banner of snow flakes, a sort of glittery con-trail. I kept pace with the bus, trying to stay in its magical sphere. My daughters would have recognized it as a cloud of fairy dust. On the seat next to me, there was a print-out of David Carr’s thoughtful appreciation of Hunter S. Thompson in today’s Times.
I read something yesterday that was striking, and I thought about it now: great writers–in fact, great artists of all kinds–are usually marked by their curiosity, their unquenchable desire to see new things, meet new people, go new places, find new ways to use the language and new facets of truth. I think of this as having “hungry eyes.”
How do you know if a writer has “hungry eyes”? I think it shows in their work by a certain comfort level with leaving things unfinished, or at least unresolved, being OK with a sustained mystery, leaving questions unanswered intentionally (rather than accidentally, which just looks sloppy)–that, after all, is the human condition. Writing that I am not very interested in is usually stained by a kind of blind, self-assured arrogance that has no sympathy for the undecided, only pity and disgust. (Like, say, the me-first neo-cons over at Powerline.) Most people are undecided about most things, and to belittle them is to insure that your work will be instantly forgotten except by pedants and thugs.
I am not sure whether Hunter S. Thompson was part of the problem, or part of the solution. I do know that he had deep reservoirs of courage and enterprise as a reporter, and these are rare enough nowadays. On the other hand, there is certainly no shortage today of righteous indignation across the political spectrum, nor the narcissistic compulsion to make every story revolve around its writer.
By far the majority of editors I’ve ever dealt with are liars about this. In private moments, talking amongst themselves, they gripe bitterly about how Hunter Thompson and Lester Bangs ruined journalism and criticism (respectively) because they inspired legions of bad imitators. This is a little like blaming the Beatles for ruining pop music. What’s worse: in public, these same editors lament the passing Golden Age–where are the Thompsons and Bangs of today? Well, they are out there, but no one is willing to take the risk of cultivating them. They complain about the weather, but do nothing about it.
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