“I loved that moment at the 2008 Oscars when Glen Hansard closed his acceptance speech with this exhortation to the world: ‘Make art. Make art.’ As a writer, I try to ‘make art,’ but all too often the twenty-first century’s ubiquitous, on-demand distractions interfere and keep me from getting to that place where I can apply a fierce commitment and single-minded focus to the act of creation. When I need a reminder of how essential such commitment and focus are to the creation of a miraculous work of art, I reread Jack Gilbert’s The Great Fires, or I listen to Neutral Milk Hotel’s In the Aeroplane Over the Sea, or to anything recorded by Joy Division in 1979 or 1980. Then I pick up the pen again and try to make art.”
—Dan Albergotti, author of The Boatloads (BOA Editions, 2008)
Photo credit: Holley Tankersley