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Scott Mooneyham's avatar

The problem with this take is that there are worse things than death, and we have no way of knowing how a life and that life’s art would have turned out with a little less excess. If you don’t believe the initial part of that sentence, you could have asked Syd Barrett for over 40 years. But, though living, he would not have been able to answer you. Art may require exploration beyond typical boundaries; does it require excess with none?

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Cameron Maxwell's avatar

Some great prose in this one: "industrially incendiary cruelties" and "meat sauce of sins, scenes, and sentences" in particular jump off the page 🤝 Can't wait for ghost stories in Part Two on the commute home!

As always, you find a nice angle on Life and Art and their interplay. I think the object lesson of Morrison and the 27 Club is a paradox: that chemical transcendence enlivens and enriches life, even as it subtracts it. Would be curious to read a take on Leonard Cohen someday - he's a poet-musician of a very different stripe, but his verses have a deep and singular magic too.

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