“What are you, a former Hassid?”
“No, I just think it's fascinating to see that people continue to be able to get so much out of a book that's several thousand years old. And so much of it is original and new, too. That's what I'm trying to say, you know: that the truly wise are able to see things to which the dunces of the world are blind. And you don't get that from as many people as you used to. Over-zealous Christians don't bring anything new to the table — they just quote Romans thirteen to explain why the Bush administration is infallible, but ignore things that they don't agree with or practice: like Deuteronomy twenty: thirteen, which says that, in war, every man in a captured town ought to be put to the sword; or, also in Deuteronomy, that a man is exempt from military service for a year after his wedding. Are we to infer from this not only that the government is infallible, but that the commandments of Deuteronomy can be abrogated by the commandments of the state? I hardly think this is the case, especially when a God-fearing administration controls the country. And that's what bothers me. The dunces of the world just shrug and accept the contradiction. And the Jobs of the world may be able to both recognize the severity of this dilemma and maintain a steadfast faith, but personally I find myself in agreement with Kierkegaard: true faith is not common, and the Jobs — though Kierkegaard, at least in the context of which I am thinking, would say the Isaacs — of this world can be counted on one hand.
“Look, all I'm saying is that the Christian community — especially the Evangelicals — have fought against intellectualism for so long that there are no longer many insightful Christians. And that's what worries me. Religion without wisdom is like nonalcoholic beer — it's manufactured for people in AA, teenagers, and rubes. But if you hear someone imbued with real wisdom and even partial faith, they are able to see beyond jejune superstition and nihilism. And they are the ones deeply encumbered by these incongruities, the individuals for whom such problems foment into works of genius. An individual suffering from forlorn as a result of the absence of God's total beneficence will always be able to produce a work that is superior to an adamant atheist, for whom the lack of a God, as well as an a priori ethics, is of no concern. Then again, there are those who dedicate their time to establishing some form a cadence between the ostensible contradictions of their respective religions. And this is where religious study itself becomes a form of art — it engenders the human condition, and ceases to be a simple practice in acquiescence. I mean, I don't think it would be possible for there to be a Renaissance without the philosophical movements of the High Middle Ages. For all the rigidity of someone like Aquinas, there is also a great deal of ingenuity and interpretation in his work, too. And isn't that what so much of art is about?
“A lot of contemporary art, you know, especially the really out-there stuff, relies more on eliciting a response out of people by using unconventional means as opposed to raw talent. They are asking you to use your own interpretive skills to think, sometimes simply to feel. But because of the way people are brought up now, they can't deal with it. They can appreciate a Van Gogh or a Vermeer, but they can't sit there and seriously concentrate on the work of a contemporary artist, poet, or composer. But these people would see it as valuable, they would see so much of the art today as brilliant, if the education in this country were less bulimic — as in, you take in information, regurgitate it onto paper come exam time, and then forget what it was you learned. See what I mean: because of the way they've been brought up, they end up being unable to appreciate complexity. They just see a can of soup or a flower.” She's almost laughing. “I'm sorry. I've been drinking all night, and I know I'm rambling.”
“What do you think Coprolalia's trying to say?”
“There's no one message. He's simply trying to understand the world in which he lives, and to express his perspective.” She looks to me suspiciously. “I also believe his popularity, especially among those outside of the artistic community, derives from his disdain for those unable to see beauty in labor, even creative labor. You know, you meet so many people who want to be writers, but they don't write. You don't know how crazy it makes me when I hear people say they want to be a writer. What's stopping you? Is your arm broken?” She laughs. “And then you meet artists, and sometimes they have great eyes, but their ideas never materialize because they're lazy. You meet poets, but they don't really write poetry; they just write esoteric and laconic observations in stanzas because they haven't really worked on their metric or their style. They want to live as Nietzsche dictated, as artists, but they don't want to be burdened by the process of creating. I once heard the story of a man who said that he refused to paint because the painting he had constructed in his head was so perfect that it couldn't be reconstructed on a canvas. That's bullshit. Obviously. If he attempted to produce it, saw the finished result as imperfect, and began anew, then I would give him a bit more lenience. Perhaps I might even call him a genius if he did it for his entire life without ever getting it right. But he refused to do anything, and this tells me that he's just a fucking lazy dipshit with a mildly artistic compulsion.
“But this is all besides the point. The point is that Coprolalia really seems to see something beautiful in the ordinary. You know, it's like Dubliners. A lot of people see the world that Joyce created as dreadful, depressing; but that was the typical life there — in Dublin — and he made it beautiful because he really captured it in a unique way. Or you could look at Saramago's Gospel According to Jesus Christ. He spends so much time on the realities of first century life that you apprehend just how wretched existence was back then. And it really was, too. For just about everybody in the early Roman Empire, except for the ruling classes, life consisted of that famous Hobbesian quintet: 'Solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.' Coprolalia's work embodies the typical life here as seen through the eyes of a normal person. People aren't looking for their place in the sun; they just want someone to listen to them, they just want to feel…I don't know, maybe grounded, connected.”
She smiles. Is this a test? “I feel like you really understand him,” she nods. “I thought you were only in it for the money.”
Aberdeen and Tomas have apparently let the secret out. It is not that I am ashamed of the fact that finding Coprolalia will result in a substantial monetary reward; it's more that I feel as though the knowledge of this prospective boon will make people less inclined to take my ambition seriously. With the cat out of the bag, it seems as though it is now my duty to disclose the details of how I came to find an interest in Coprolalia.
In late-1999, a fairly prominent monthly based in New York decided to offer a hundred thousand dollar reward to anyone who could find and interview Coprolalia. Thousands of people responded to the magazine's offer, and the editors soon found themselves drowning in pages claiming to contain interviews with the reclusive artist. The publication reviewed all of the entries, tossed the obvious frauds, and sent the potentially genuine manuscripts on to Sean Winchester, who proceeded to reject everything he received.