Anodyne
Thursday, November 14, 2019
 

"I want sloppy, beautiful, devastating art. I want experiences through art that are troubling and terrifying and joyful. I want to be desperate to catch up.

The object of my affection may not be the same as yours, and in fact I hope it isn’t. I want to die with my head on its shoulder."

(Tom Spurgeon, April 2019)

Dear Tom,

Thanks for believing in me at a point in my life when I had great difficulty believing in myself.

Your kindness, unconditional friendship, & editorial rigor stopped me making a bunch of bad, sad, short sighted self-destructive decisions.

& now I learn you did this for pretty much everyone, that this level of empathy, of caring, was just part of the standard model your God equipped you with.

I know you know this -- because I said thanks at the time -- but that thanks was somehow incomplete, so I'm saying it again, out loud.

I wish I could have met you in Silver City.  My subject, which neither you nor I intuited at the time, turns out to be the American West.  I hope to get there again under somewhat less stressful circumstances with my tools, and if I see something there I might bother you one last time by attaching your name to a picture, instead of that essay you were always politely badgering me to write.

Much love,

Christopher Brayshaw, "long-time friend of the Journal"
- posted by cjb @ 8:17 PM


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