I've known a few people who were like Vidal in having a very quick wit backed up by vast learning and verbal facility. Often, their conversation was sprinkled with pithy remarks attuned to the moment and were not a result of thoughtful opinion. They spoke for effect, not for truth. Some people might have preferred Vidal to have kept quiet or still when he didn't.
I like solitude for my work, for my thinking in general, really. I don't really need stillness; i prefer it. I can shut out all around me and concentrate on whatever I choose. Doing that is often bad manners or impolite or thought of as anti-social. Since I am not impolite, ill-mannered or anti social (admitting many lapses) I have my studio. There i am king of all my domain. Silence and stillness are enshrined. Wasn't it Dickens who wrote surrounded by a house-full of unruly, screaming brat-kids? wc ----- Original Message ---- From: joseph berg <[email protected]> To: aesthetics-l <[email protected]> Sent: Sat, August 4, 2012 5:48:54 PM Subject: Does your artistic creativity require more "stillness"? - Many writers who choose to be active in the world lose not virtue but time, and that *stillness* without which literature cannot be made. Gore Vidal: 1925 - 2012
