Ask a mad and artistic genius

[Rev. Rye]

If you're so smart why aren't you rich? Sorry I'm channeling my dead grandfather. He wasn't really such a very nice man.

Here's a nicer question: Do you think madness and artist genius are related? I consider myself pretty artistic and I do have a rather distinctive style, but I not Picasso setting off to set the art world on it's ear. Would it help if I were mad like Van Gogh. Do I have one ear too many?

Rich: The economy sucks and it's difficult to get published in places that people actually read.

Madness and genius: Yes. I think we see the world in a very different way from most people, and either we can't cope with it or people just don't understand us. In my case, I think it's both.

What do you get depressed about?

Child abusers going unpunished, the fact that the world is skipping towards totalitarianism, the fact that Nick Cassavetes' The Notebook made more money than all his father John's films combined, human complacency in the face of evil, the fact that, of all the teachers I've known, only two of them have read any of Nathanael West's works, you know, the usual.

I'm pretty creative (musical, drawings, turn of a phrase), but I never considered myself artistic the way others have described me. Also, my creative side has fallen off somewhat somewhere along the way, due to responsibilities.

Do you think this is because I'm not mad enough?

Do you see a difference in "creative" and "artistic"?

No, life gets in the way. It's happened to me a lot.

As for the difference between creative and artistic, I think it's complicated. I consider artistic a subset of creative, but, then again, I believe one can be artistic without being creative (if an artist just rips off other artists wholesale without doing anything new with it.)

If you've got such mad genius artistic skillz, why is your sig picture broken?

Because Imageshack sucks, and I can't remember where I made the "Rev. Rye, as harmless as kitchen" pic in the first place.