THE NEW PORNOGRAPHY

"In the 19th century, everybody knew about death. In the 20th century, nobody knows about death. People die in hospitals now. In the 19th century, nobody knew about sex. In the 20th century, everybody knows about sex. Death has become the new pornography. We don't talk about it."

- Helen Sclair, from Studs Terkel's Will The Circle Be Unbroken?

PROCESS

"I sit down to write with a blank page and a blank mind. Wherever the organ of reality (the brain) wants to go I follow with the blue-pencil of consciousness. Poetry is sanity, full brain thinking, where the shape of the thought is more important than the particular thought. It is a way of mind more than a technique."

- Russell Edson

WORKING

When you ask most people who they are, they define themselves by their jobs. "I'm a doctor." "I'm a radio announcer." "I'm a carpenter." If somebody asks me, I say, "I'm Nora Watson." At certain points in time I do things for a living. Right now I'm working for the institution. But not for long. I'd be lying to you if I told you I wasn't scared.

I have a few options. Given the market, I'm going to take the best job I can find. I really tried to play the game by the rules, and I think it's a hundred percent unadulterated bullshit. So I'm not likely to go back downtown and say, "Here I am. I'm very good, hire me."

You recognize yourself as a marginal person. As a person who can give only minimal assent to anything that is going on in this society: "I'm glad the electricity works." That's about it. What you have to find is your own niche that will allow you to keep feeding and clothing and sheltering yourself without getting downtown. (Laughs.) Because that's death. That's really where death is.

- Nora Watson, editor (age 28), from Studs Terkel's Working

LOU REED AT HIS MOST LOU REED

FIRST THING

"Just get something on the page, you have nothing to lose except your life, which you’re going to lose anyway. So get with it, enjoy this special moment that brings you to the writing table. Relax into the writing and enjoy the creative bowel movement, remembering all is lost anyway."

-Russell Edson