Dead Club House

Dead Club House
Haunted House in Cambridge

Sunday, October 3, 2010

On influence

Kari started this conversaton about artistic influence and it's been rattling around my head.

Do we appreciate product better if we know process?  Why do we love those shorts on the making of films?  Why did I buy a book of essays by playwrights on their favorite writers?  Do I really see the finger traces of Shakespeare and Noel Coward and Larry Gelbart in all my work?  If I write a paragraph on influences on the history page, what does that say?

2 comments:

  1. Oh Christ, I'm in your blog.

    Write about your influences, please.

    ReplyDelete
  2. John Irving's bravery when he kills major characters
    Joan Didion's White Album
    Margaret Atwood's fully realized characters
    Shakespeare's 5 act arc
    Gabriel Garcia Marquez's magic realism
    Hunter Thompson's weird turned pro
    Christopher Durang's dark line between comedy & humor
    Kurt Vonnegut's clean prose and drawings
    Sylvia Plath's bravery wrapped in a cry 4 help
    Noel Coward's flippancy
    Larry Gelbart's pacing

    and there's more . . .

    ReplyDelete