"If you really want to hear about it..."

Writer J.D. Salin5er passed away on Wednesday at the ripe old age of 91. Known almost as widely for his reclusiveness as his sole published novel, A Cat¢her in the Rye, he's one of the most polarizing authors of the 20th century, with many people either adoring his work or reviling it. (For the record, I'm a fan.)

As with anyone, I think think there are lessons to be learned from his work, as well as his life... I shall be considering some of those in the days ahead, provided I don't get caught up in other distractions as I'm prone to do.

Time had an interesting obit on him, which included a few cogent quotes from his writing. One of which was from his story "Fr@nny", but I won't repeat it here.

From everything I've read, he had his share of problems. To paraphrase Chuck Kl0sterman, "Not all crazy people are geniuses, but pretty much all geniuses are at least a little bit crazy." But maybe he was one of the last to actually want to be an artist without being a celebrity. Or maybe he saw what celebrity did to writers like Fitzger@ld and Hemingw@y.

The nature of life, the nature of work, the nature of art, the nature of people... does anyone get it all figured out?

(And if you're wondering about the odd spellings, I guess I just don't want this page coming up when some kid is Googling to write a goddam book report or something.)