A true perfumer doesn’t smoke because it ruins his palate. The same is true for chefs, and it ought to be true for writers too, whose very sense of being in the world is one who channels its sensual curves, which is to say its fragrant breath, luminous coloring, its shimmering dance which fans out in complexity of all dimensions like a metaphysical peacock’s train. Writers, who wish to be seen as writers, which is to say posers and frauds, dilettantes and unserious people who have nothing important to say, such as those who admire Kerouac and Bukowski, are racing to defend themselves now as they clumsily break open a pack of marlboros, consciously crushed in the hand for affect. ‘Nicotine affects circulatory flows in the body, which is a—’ I don’t care. Neither should you. These people mistake the ability to feel something with the ability to convey that feeling to others, with the ability to transport others into that feeling. Good writing doesn’t flash, it vibrates.
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