Chad Taylor

Why we work

 
Pretty much everything that ever inspired me to become a writer right there. Although I don't know if I could work with that view. Opening titles from Columbo, 'Murder by the Book' (1971), c/- @columbophile.

Paris 1213





The Mythiq27 exhibition opened in Paris this week. The art by Invader and Rero and my accompanying text are shown above and there is a short movie of the exhibition in total here.

Mythiq 27 is an anthology of art and texts about 27 musicians who died aged 27. Curator and editor Yann Suty asked me to write about Kurt Cobain; I went into more detail about the project earlier here and here.

You can see more photos of the book launch and the opening night on the project's Facebook page and of course there is a Twitter feed.

Suty's project uses the tensions between obscurity and fame to meditate on the short time we all have here. Viewing its collection of dead celebrities, fragile street art and clipped transmissions from a distance lends it an even greater ephemeral quality.

Re-reading; remembering

INTERVIEWER
I read somewhere that you started writing because you wanted to be a musician.

SHEPARD
Well, I got to New York when I was eighteen. I was knocking around, trying to be an actor, writer, musician, whatever happened.

INTERVIEWER
Did you start right in?

SHEPARD
Not immediately. My first job was with the Burns Detective Agency. They sent me over to the East River to guard coal barges during these god-awful hours like three to six in the morning. It wasn't a very difficult job—all I had to do was make a round every fifteen minutes—but it turned out to be a great environment for writing. I was completely alone in a little outhouse with an electric heater and a little desk.

INTERVIEWER
Did you already think of yourself as a writer?

SHEPARD
I'd been messing around with it for a while, but nothing serious. That was the first time I felt writing could actually be useful.
-- Sam Shepard interviewed by Benjamin Ryder Howe, Jeanne McCulloch, Mona Simpson for The Paris Review.