Working Through

I recently became a fan of this musician. I have bought several songs for my iPod, and turns out I had a few of his songs on compilations--and didn't even know it until I loaded the compilations onto my iPod. So off I went to Google him, and discovered, in nearly every bio or review that critics said his lyrics were "harrowing" and "autobiographical" and "an attempt to work through tragedy."

I have an acquiantance I used to spend time with who is an artist. On weekends at his beach house, we played charades and drank way too much wine. And I found him very witty, but when I saw his installations, I found them dark and intense and funny and morbid all at once.

I know some people create simply to entertain. There are popcorn movies and popcorn books. But I also--strictly based on my pals--know a lot of creative people are working through some process through their art. And while I can take art for art's sake and music for music's sake . . . and a book for simply a book, I do find the ones that have some undercurrent fascinate me more.

What am I working through? After the death, funeral, and assorted stuff of the last few weeks, I think I am squarely going in some existential direction. The beauty of life . . . which ALWAYS ends. As the character Lou O'Connor (named after my late and much-loved godfather) told Cassie in Spanish Disco (paraphrased), "You're angry that people leave. Whether they abandon you or they die, in the end you either leave first . . . or they do." It's the human condition.

So . . . care to lie down on the couch? Is there some bigger current in your work you feel yourself groping toward, fumbling toward some deeper understanding? Any artists that draw you in because of that? Music?