{"id":7924,"date":"2022-02-05T01:51:00","date_gmt":"2022-02-05T01:51:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeiswhathappens.ca\/?p=7924"},"modified":"2026-01-15T19:59:17","modified_gmt":"2026-01-15T19:59:17","slug":"on-a-dark-art-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeiswhathappens.ca\/?p=7924","title":{"rendered":"On a Dark Art…."},"content":{"rendered":"

My apologies to anyone who has had a family member, close friend, anyone, die by suicide. I have had two encounters, so I have experienced, though never understood, the reality.<\/p>\n

Anyway, I am one of those people who survive through dark humour. It may be my Irish legacy; it may be just an aberrant characteristic.  In any event, this post was born out of a lunch with a writing friend of mine, bear with me.<\/p>\n

We often exchange books, ideas, small gifts, lots of creative exercises, what can I say – a kindred spirit. Well, my friend arrived with a gift of a book about the creative inspiration and how artists manage to achieve their prodigious volume of work through their particular source of inspiration. Believe me, this was a research project of massive proportions. Anyway, one of the artist’s listed on the cover was Sylvia Plath. I mentioned that she died by turning on the gas in her small flat in London. It was at a time when the gas that was used in Britain was particularly lethal.  At one point Britain changed to a non-lethal gas and the suicides in Britain were halved.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

It begs the question, if you were really serious, couldn’t you find another way to end it all? This was the gist of our discussion. Could we position a character in a book contemplating suicide and go through the scenarios?<\/p>\n

Anyway, I need to get through this winter. I emailed another friend in my dark humour circle and she responded with this Dorothy Parker poem.<\/p>\n

Razors pain you;<\/div>\n
Rivers are damp;<\/div>\n
Acids stain you;<\/div>\n
And drugs cause cramp.<\/div>\n
Guns aren\u2019t lawful;<\/div>\n
Nooses give;<\/div>\n
Gas smells awful;<\/div>\n
You might as well live.<\/div>\n

That’s it. I am pressing on. I have finished my book and have begun my weeks, maybe months of editing. Be prepared for other posts of dark humour. It has been known to snow in May. I’m pretty suicidal in a cold April. If I don’t answer the phone in May call the authorities.<\/p>\n

The picture? Death by snow.<\/p>\n

Have an interesting day!<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My apologies to anyone who has had a family member, close friend, anyone, die by suicide. I have had two encounters, so I have experienced, though never understood, the reality. Anyway, I am one of those people who survive through dark humour. It may be my Irish legacy; it may be just an aberrant characteristic. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7925,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7924","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-reality"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeiswhathappens.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7924","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeiswhathappens.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeiswhathappens.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeiswhathappens.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeiswhathappens.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7924"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lifeiswhathappens.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7924\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7926,"href":"https:\/\/lifeiswhathappens.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7924\/revisions\/7926"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeiswhathappens.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/7925"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeiswhathappens.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7924"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeiswhathappens.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7924"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeiswhathappens.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7924"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}