Way Of All Flesh

By now, the fact has (probably) finally sunk in that Heath Ledger is dead and gone, having succumbed to a supposedly accidental overdose of prescription medication. What really struck me about the whole incident is the degree to which it completely eclipsed the similar passing of Brad Renfro some weeks earlier. Here was a kid who was being touted as the Next Big Thing and playing opposite Academy Award winners long before Ledger first strapped on his leather codpiece for Roar, and yet his death merited hardly a drop in the ocean compared to the torrent of popular coverage that of the latter received. I don't have any great insight to offer regarding this phenomenon. It just demonstrates what a peculiarly different trajectory the careers of each ultimately took.

In a similar vein, I was also saddened to discover only very recently that John Spencer passed away a couple of years back. I grew up watching him on L.A. Law, dearly loved his turn as Sean Connery's antagonist in The Rock, and was becoming convinced he was the perfect casting choice should they ever choose to bring Agent Graves to the silver screen. Of course, this shocking revelation was a result of my recent infatuation with The West Wing, a rather excellent television drama, which I'm only glad I missed the first time around because I can now enjoy it without interruption. The prevailing opinion is, of course, that President Bartlett is based to a great degree on Bill Clinton, and certain aspects of his character certainly complement the picture I formed of him while reading Richard Clarke's Against All Enemies. Both portrayals make me want to cry tears of frustration that America's last president was an object of fun because he liked to read so much. Moreover, while I'm not so fatuous as to buy into the patriotic rhetoric of the show without reservation, it fills me with a deep sadness that the current administration has tarnished, perhaps irreparably, many of the virtues for which this country could once at least claim to stand. I guess I must just seek some small comfort in the tender arms of Bradley Whitford. Would that he could embrace the world! (Perhaps he could! Who's up for going HGH hunting south of the border? It just might work...)

While we're discussing serious issues, who is responsible for the sudden infiltration of whatever 'aioli' may be onto every menu I read, and how are they controlling our leaders' brains?

Though mortally aware that by this act o' linking I am only fulfilling his estimation that most blogs exist only to parse the internet for others, I have been reading some of Warren Ellis' columns over at the Suicide Girls website and was given particular pause by his tribute to Philip K. Dick (his one on how American broke sex is also worth a read). This same week the professor in my L.A. Crime Fiction seminar related this entertaining and complementary anecdote regarding Raymond Chandler's writing process on The Blue Dahlia. While they're both good tales in and of themselves, they also offer strikingly contemporary counterpoints to the assertions put forward in Stephen King's On Writing (which I read this past Christmas) that writing should not be romanticized as an act of extra-personal inspiration. While one might question the romance of paranoia or alcoholism, at least one of these two authors apparently believed his ideas came from somewhere without, and by all accounts (or at least Ellis') went loony trying to come to grips with the reality of his imagination. Chandler strikes me as too much of a cynic for such flights of fancy, but, like Dick, his story operates to confirm the impression we might wish to form of the author based on the writing we consume. I guess you might call that his legend. And while the part of me that has flailing aspirations to a kind of creativity wants very much to believe in King's view of the creative process (much simplified here), I also cannot help but find such legends irresistible. Unfortunately, such romance does apparently little to boot my own sorry behind into any kind of a gear. Perhaps I should try the bourbon.

While I'm parsing away, I also enjoyed both these two videogame-related items (both via The Grumpy Gamer).

"...and [Sextus] was further elated when a cow spoke with a human voice, as they say, and bade him lay hold of the task before him, and when he had a dream in which a bull that had been buried in the city of Tucca seemed to urge him to dig up its head and carry it about on a pole, intimating that by this means he should conquer. Without hesitation, then, especially when he found the bull at the place where the dream said it was, he took the initiative by invading Africa."
- Cassius Dio XLVIII.21.2-3, translated by Earnest Cary