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Monday, November 22, 2004

No, Because This Pretty Much Describes Everyone We Know 

A friend writes to ask: "Should I be worried that this line from the New York Sun review of Belle Epoque reminds me of my life?"
Two women describe their daily lives of drinking and its consequences, "day after day, feeling not quite pleasure, not quite pain, but a lingering, hazy sense of rage." Toulouse-Lautrec himself talks about wanting to cut people's faces open. He has a pent-up "unreasoning rage" that exhausts him. A lover's quarrel turns into a battle royal, with everyone onstage punching, kicking, throwing somebody around.