Cullings: A Prolegomenon
Pertinent to the matter

[Image: Wit of the Staircase, May 10, 2007]




“….And you wanted to get there
But I couldn't go faster [I wanted to get there]
And I couldn't go faster [But you couldn't go faster]
So I started to hit it [You couldn't go faster]
So I started to hit it
And I started to hit it [Hit it]
Hit it…Hit it…Hi it…”
“Death Valley ’69,” by Thurston Moore, Sonic Youth

“Fog, like reason, settles on the peeling district.
This is the new money. The new economy.
Where my lover lives. When I left him,
I left books, coats, silverware. Things.
It wasn't charity; it was an impure,
commonplace case of forgetting. (May he find some use
for my low-rent betrayals.) Land ends
with miles of aloe along the Great Highway.
Surfers strip off their suits, half-naked
to the naked sea. The sand's ignored
BEWARE OF THE UNDERTOW signs:
these are the notes of the drowned.

The Sunset, by Randall Mann”
--from The Wit of the Staircase, June 29, 2007 via “un regard oblique”

“I was a fan of Wit of the Staircase, but Theresa Duncan was a paranoid schizophrenic who went out of her way to be very insulting to a lot of people. Her suicide just seems like one final selfish gesture, especially since her being "at peace" with the decision did not diminish the huge impact this act had on the lives of her loved ones. “ –Maxwell, on BLDBLOG, July 28, 2007


“That's what an artist is supposed to do. An artist is supposed to be a land-based astronaut. You're supposed to be walking out in front of people, avant garde, reporting back, if you make it.”
--Artist Jessica C. Torrant, giving Theresa Duncan her true and succinct due on the July 29 entry of her livefunky.com blog.


“All I do know, the hard way, is that the artists and writers who come up with extraordinary answers are often deeply and terribly haunted by the questions that prompt them, and you can never second guess what it is to be haunted by ideas, by angels or demons or history or visions, by reality or imagination. Maybe I’ll think up a better response later. We live by our wits. Right now the only thing I can think of is to thank Theresa and Jeremy for their work, their friendship and goodwill and to hope that somehow, somewhere the answers come to them and the pattern is complete and that for such beautiful dreamers it isn’t too late. Their dreams are still in this world.”
--Glenn O’Brien, at the behest of Jeremy Blake, pulling the velvet rope to close off The Wit of the Staircase, July 30, 2007


“Paired paranoia is particularly pernicious. * SIGH *”
--Scottynuke, Washington Post, “Achenblog,” August 1, 2007

“Beauty. Brains. Bonkers. The question now is, what the hell was going on in Jeremy Blake's head?” -- SoMA: Society of Mutual Autopsy, “Theresa Duncan Upsate.” August 2, 2007

"The story also goes to the issue of how much of our personalities, neuroses, and intentions we share with the public when we blog. It wasn’t until after Duncan died that many people saw her blog for the first time. The writer was gone, but anyone could read her blog and search for clues that, under better circumstances, might have alerted someone to the fact that she was tottering dangerously close to the edge." -- Michelle Richmond, novelist, on her blog, "San Serif," under Theresa Duncan Suicide and the Mysteries of Blogging

“She was bright and polished apple with a rotten core.”
--#15.”Guest” commenting on Laist, August 4, 2007, “Staircase to Nowhere.”

“The lilly-livered, packaged conclusions that have been drawn about this woman, attempting to do the impossible (explain human complexity in about nine sentences), are falling short of doing anything but making me want to hit someone.”
--Alison Tuck, Women and Children First, August 7, 2007, “Dead Artist, Beautiful and Brilliant, Cops Further Beatings”

“…She drove herself to distraction and he rode shotgun
Funny that, the passenger along for the ride propels the ride in his seat
Did the shotgun contribute to the menace
Was the menace real, or imagined, at all?
Another says, the spiral engages, if it is believed to be real, it’s affect is just as real
Or is that effect – the artist’s pretension is an affect
Well, he was along for the ride and then she crashed
Crashed hard like the waves he walked into
Or ebbed slow like the small tide licks upon the shore
How far did he have to swim to get to the end?
Some say he didn’t swim at all
And argue whether the fishermen caught or found him out
It’s all semantics in the end, isn’t it, and that’s where it began
Words have meaning upon meaning but ultimately meaningless
Does the conscious choice to end bestow meaning upon anything, is it a vain hope
That putting the period to the sentence will make it understood?”
-- from“Pre/tension(s)” [To Wit] as appeared on Seaword, by Ciara Ní Tuama

“[Rupert] Murdoch knows how Theresa Duncan died and who killed her - his business partner Jim Cownie knows, as well. They made it look like a suicide to silence her and stanch her investigations of Cownie, and are using her death to discredit opposition researchers - like myself, but also like the many silly "paranoid" researchers who have come along since 9/11. ...”

…What might Theresa Duncan have learned that drove Murdoch and his fellow Mockingbirds to fear her? At the time of her death, the owner of News Corp. was nearing completion of the WSJ takeover. Unbeknownst to Wall Street, Warren Buffett had bought a share of the Journal in anticipation of a negotiated deal.

If Theresa Duncan had learned about this, she would have gone on to write about Buffett and Murdoch in the context of the Franklin _case with its high casualty rate of peculiar "suicides," fatal accidents"_(including the break-up of investigator Gary Caradori's plane in mid-air) and convenient murders, because Buffett was central to author John DeCamp's organized child sex trafficking charges.”
-- Alex Constantine's Anti-Fascist Research Bin, August 8, 2007,
“The Murder of Theresa Duncan: Jim Cownie, Rupert Murdoch, the CIA, Cable Industry, Mind Control, Drugs & Political Assassination”

“She knew me, she was so so so cool to me-we met when I answered an ad for a room[m]ate in D.C.-she answered the door-my hair trigger response was “I live here.”
It was like Weird Science when they made a woman.

I was totally impressed by her-my first reaction aside-my feeling wasn’t romantic. I didn’t sexualize her. She’s just been at the top of my list ever since. It’s hard to grasp how proximity changes your life.”
-- Mike Payne, on Dream’s End, August 10, 2007 (Similar entry appeared August 7, Laist comments, for August 4, ‘Staircase to Nowhere’)


“I’m not going to speculate on Duncan’s suicide vs. “suicided,” and here’s why. The two of them, Duncan and Blake, left behind a beautiful body of artwork. And for that they should be remembered. Besides, hypothetically speaking, if they were suicided by some cuckoo cuckoo Scientology drones – how would we ever even know, those that do don’t speak. To continue to harp on it just breeds more of the same - i.e. Duncan was a paranoid delusional just like all those other moonbats that hang out at Rigorous Intuition and talk about space ships and time travel.

Do I believe that MkUltra exists? Well, of course I do, it’s been declassified. Do I believe that the same “behavioral technology” has been used on children? Probably, the technology itself is intrinsically evil and anyone willing to use it on an adult more than likely wouldn’t have any qualms about using it on a child. Do I think that Theresa Duncan was hinting around that Anna Gaskell was herself a “monarch” and that her Pointblank brother’s apparent interest in the Johnny Gosch case which spawned the infamous Death of a Conspiracy article was no accident? Maybe. Was I the one who provided the Gaskell/Pointblank connection to Jeff Wells? Yes.

Do I believe that Duncan’s “connecting the dots” from Gaskell to Gannon got her killed?

No.

Do I believe that Johnny Gosch is Jeff Gannon?

Absolutely not.”
-- Et In Arcadia Ego Eve of Eve Keeps The Secrets, August 7, 2007, “The Reality—Pointblank.”

“In this anti-space that houses what is left of the being I deem ‘me’ I am appalled at the disgraceful anecdotes surrounding the story of my life and disgusted by the overall disrespect for the dead. Character assassinations carefully constructed to wash away any validity to my words. My supposed friends scrambling, attaching themselves to the glamorous romanticization surrounding my demise. The coat-tail, hanger-on-ers claiming and fighting for pieces of my commodity, my scandalously rising stock. These scraps mindlessly sold to the hoards of cheap naysayers and their low-brow audience. The despicable public scours through the gossip of invented encounters with the flaws of a dead girl’s personality transcribed, edited, and spun into bold print. My story, written to serve the insipid egos of those burnt with jealousy from my evocative flame. Credit was not due, as they don’t deserve to pen or type their renditions and critiques of my life's work.”
-- Theresa Duncan and the wit of the staircase, as told by me, [excerpt] Annetiboys’s Journal, August 11, 2007, Livejournal.com


“Moral of the Story:

1. If you have a good idea, guard it like all hell because some asshole will rip it if you don't.

2. Be precious about your ideas. Be selfish and secretive.

3. Theresa Duncan was not a plagarist. She was a beautiful moment in time. Oh I said that didn't I.”
-- Alison Tuck, Woman and Child First, August 15, 2007 “Edit: Hey That's My Piece Of The Collective Unconscious.”


“Her blog was a BLOG, where she grabbed and put up stuff that she found interesting, that (very obviously) was from other sources. so what?

The things that she wrote herself are pretty clearly hers, and are quite wonderful. The things she took from wiki, well, big deal. she wouldn’t claimed to have written them. You might find fault with her for doing so, fine, you’ve made your point.” ---- Fox, comment, August 22, 2007, on seaword, “smoke, mirrors, power, glamour.”

**************************************


Mike Payne, on Deam’s End, August 10, 2007 at 11:59 pm (Similar entry appeared August 7, Laist comments, for August 4, ‘Staircase to Nowhere’):

“Theresa probably would be flattered that you consider Staircase a rabbit hole.

She was righteously capable of lording over one.The namesake of her blog-didn’t really apply to her-of course she would think of things to say later-no she’d probably be asleep-because she would have already blown everyone away with her quick tongue. She cracked me up so fast I can’t remember what she said-she was that quick.

A lot of LA writers mostly and the scattered commentor’s are pretty happy to throw stones on her grave-Theresa often referenced witches,these hack journalists’ are seeming to rejoice that she is dead.

Forget all that,

Staircase was a daily mag, I would say-more interesting, she sustained an ae[s]thetic-she taugh[t] poetry and lead her readership to literary sourcery[sorcery]. The fact is, she was this dynamic-she was also the essence of opportunity-which is also a characteristic diametrically opposed to the idea of “esprit d’escalier”.

She landed gigs in elevators.

If you want to see Theresa Duncan on screen-buy THE HISTORY OF GLAMOUR it’s only $10-it’s a perfect movie. The main character Charles it’s her person, her humor is the overall vibe of the flick.

There’s a scene at the G[ug]genheim where silouettes(?) of Theresa and Jeremy are chatting at the opening. Theresa knew Brendan Canty, drummer Fugazi, just to name one real person.

She knew me, she was so so so cool to me-we met when I answered an ad for a room[m]ate in D.C.-she answered the door-my hair trigger response was “I live here”.

It was like Weird Science when they had made a woman.

I was totally impressed by her-my first reaction aside-my feeling wasn’t romantic. I didn’t sexualize her. She’s just been at the top of my list ever since. It’s hard to grasp how proximity changes your life.

[Image: The 911.20, The Idee]



Theresa could belt out Star 69 (death valley 69) by S[onic] Y[outh]-she would want to drive and drink an old Porsche-maybe next time, she liked the analogue gauges. She would sing in the shower- or I would he he[ar] her ask for a certain bra- Her every response to me was a yes, never an excuse or whine no no’s.

She had friends no matter what LA wants to print-she maybe didn’t know how much people like me thought of her, what am I gonna do-call her everyday and say T[h]eresa you are special.

Theresa didn’t like trouble talk-she didn’t seek attention via made up drama. She was a great writer, because she was also an inventor-she wasn’t writing to impress, to show off her education -some say she lied about her college-the name she gave her thesis-should be an inspiration to everyone.

That’s it Peace Out Theresa D.

I believe the last official post on Theresa Duncan’s weblog should be her own…

…. It’s my opinion that the current presentation of Theresa Duncan’s blog-is comparable to when Keith Richards dies someone takes up his guitar to give it one last strum for us all.”