One time in your life, you have to walk out of a job. Once you have to say - i would prefer not to. And then do what you prefer _to_ do. The people who do these things are the heroes in their own stories. How do they learn the skills? Or maybe a better question is, how do the rest of us _unlearn_ them.

Speaking of Bartleby: someone dared to combine my favorite creepy actor with my favorite creepy-ish author, and came up with a horrible muckup of a film. Crispin Glover as Bartleby is inspired, I'll agree, but the movie was a train wreck. Did anybody at all see it?

Bartleby should be required reading for high school students. So should Emerson. Forget Jack Kerouac and even James Joyce, those favorite bad boys of the rebel youth. These are the true instigators of rebellion, rebellion with direction, directed inward rather than blindly outward. Not words to live by, in the long run, perhaps, but certainly better starting points that say, Shakespeare or Tennessee Williams.
- posted by barbara @ 7:34 PM