Quote of the Day #2

Lester Bangs - I'm getting the sense DFW draws a lot from him (and that I'm behind the eight-ball). Maria Bustillos is the author of this article and she seems like a good one.

"...Bangs could draw the marrow forth even from the metaphysicians. In the essay, “James Taylor Marked for Death,” he wrote:

Number one, everybody should realize that all this “art” and “bop” and “rock-’n’-roll” and whatever is all just a joke and a mistake, just a hunka foolishness so stop treating it with any seriousness or respect at all and just recognize the fact that it’s nothing but a Wham-O toy to bash around as you please in the nursery, it’s nothing but a goddam Bonusburger so just gobble the stupid thing and burp and go for the next one tomorrow; and don’t worry about the fact that it’s a joke and a mistake and a bunch of foolishness as if that’s gonna cause people to disregard it and do it in or let it dry up and die, because it’s the strongest, most resilient, most invincible Superjoke in history, nothing could possibly destroy it ever, and the reason for that is precisely that it is a joke, mistake, foolishness. The first mistake of Art is to assume that it’s serious. I could even be an asshole here and say that “Nothing is true; everything is permitted,” which is true as a matter of fact, but people might get the wrong idea. What’s truest is that you cannot enslave a fool.

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http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/books/2012/08/how-lester-bangs-taught-me-to-read.html#ixzz24IOnZ81M