Dan Piepenbring

I would rather make fun of things, and I__ struggling against an inborn fatalism . . . The creative impulse is such a fragile thing, but we have to create now. We owe it to ourselves to do the work. I want to encourage you. If you aspire to write, put aside all the niceties and sureties about what art should be and write something that makes the scales fall from our eyes. Forget the tired axioms about showing and telling, about sense of place__ny possible obstruction__nd write to destroy complacency, to rattle people, to help people, first and foremost yourself. Lodge your ideas like glass shards in the minds of everyone who would have you believe there__ no hope. And read, as often and as violently as you can. If you have friends, as I do, who tacitly believe that it__ too much of a chore to read a book, just one fucking book, from start to finish, smash every LCD they own. This is an opportunity. There__ too much at stake now to pretend that everything is okay.