Like being at the start of a wake
Nov. 21st, 2012 11:48 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
drwexLast night MizA and I went to Anthony Martignetti book coming-out party. Quick context: Martignetti has been friends with Amanda Palmer since she was 9 and they are still very close. He's also recently come through a serious illness that was initially thought to be terminal. AFP wrote the intro to Martignetti's book of stories, and she and Neil Gaiman joined him on-stage for a couple hours of readings.
MizA wrote up something.
Cos was there, and he wrote something, too.
Palmer read her intro to the book, which largely tells the story of her relationship with Martignetti and tries to describe what effect he's had on her life. She also played a couple songs, including a surprise duet with Jason Webley. I'm not a Webley fan so his surprise appearance was ... nice, but not that big a deal. Palmer's intro was very personal and moving, and really helped explain how the book came to be. I enjoyed her duet with Gaiman more.
Gaiman read a section from his forthcoming book - it's a non-children's book about children and apparently quite scary. He's also a very talented reader.
Martignetti read two of his stories from the book. Both were autobiographical, deeply personal, and disturbing. They were stories about interpersonal cruelty and how one can live through such personal cruelty. I get that these are his stories, and important to him, but I find myself coldly uninterested in stories of strangers' cruelty to another stranger, even though this one happens to know people who are famous. I also get that he's probably dying - as MizA said when we were leaving, the evening felt like being at the start of a wake - and that's sad. But I am somehow inured to yet another death of yet another person I don't know.
It feels like all my capacity for caring is consumed by people I do know, who are variously ill or dying. I suspect this makes me some combination of a typical elitist first-worlder and a normal human being. I didn't feel any draw to buying Martignetti's book, knowing that even if I did I would be unlikely to read stories that emotionally difficult and depressing. I realize there's value in having one's emotional comfort challenged from time to time, but it seems like my real life provides more than enough of those challenges right now.
MizA wrote up something.
Cos was there, and he wrote something, too.
Palmer read her intro to the book, which largely tells the story of her relationship with Martignetti and tries to describe what effect he's had on her life. She also played a couple songs, including a surprise duet with Jason Webley. I'm not a Webley fan so his surprise appearance was ... nice, but not that big a deal. Palmer's intro was very personal and moving, and really helped explain how the book came to be. I enjoyed her duet with Gaiman more.
Gaiman read a section from his forthcoming book - it's a non-children's book about children and apparently quite scary. He's also a very talented reader.
Martignetti read two of his stories from the book. Both were autobiographical, deeply personal, and disturbing. They were stories about interpersonal cruelty and how one can live through such personal cruelty. I get that these are his stories, and important to him, but I find myself coldly uninterested in stories of strangers' cruelty to another stranger, even though this one happens to know people who are famous. I also get that he's probably dying - as MizA said when we were leaving, the evening felt like being at the start of a wake - and that's sad. But I am somehow inured to yet another death of yet another person I don't know.
It feels like all my capacity for caring is consumed by people I do know, who are variously ill or dying. I suspect this makes me some combination of a typical elitist first-worlder and a normal human being. I didn't feel any draw to buying Martignetti's book, knowing that even if I did I would be unlikely to read stories that emotionally difficult and depressing. I realize there's value in having one's emotional comfort challenged from time to time, but it seems like my real life provides more than enough of those challenges right now.
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Date: 2012-11-21 05:01 pm (UTC)Sorry it was so hard, Motik
Date: 2012-11-21 05:02 pm (UTC)Love you
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Date: 2012-11-21 07:45 pm (UTC)I have no idea if I'll finish the book. It may well get regifted.
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Date: 2012-11-22 01:23 am (UTC)