Leaders of Men

The last photograph to be taken of Ian Curtis of Joy Division, May 13th, 1980.

Ian never hid his interest for stars who had died young. Through him, I began to learn about James Dean, Jim Morrison and Janis Joplin. Anyone who had been involved in the young, arty medium of any form of showbusiness and found an early grave was of interest to him. When he told me he had no intention of living past his early twenties, I took it with a pinch of salt, assumed it was a phase and he would grow out of it. He seemed terribly young to have already made the decision that life was not worth living. I thought that, as he matured, surely life would be so good that he would not want to leave it all behind.
- Touching from a Distance


Just for one moment I thought I'd found my way.
Destiny unfolded, I watched it slip away.
- 24 hours

It comes as no surprise to regular readers that low's likes to celebrate the life and work of the famously unhappy. Ian Curtis died 25 years ago today, and most of my day has been spent listening to a day long broadcast dedicated to Joy Division, on BBC6.

It's hard to believe that I can be in a funk of mammoth proportions after having had such a fantastic night on Saturday. But once the evening crawled back to the other side of the earth, and my downtown loft was flooded with sunlight, bringing with it the reality of my situation, I wanted to put my pillow over my head and never surface from my dark blue sheets again.

Last night I was waiting for someone at a coffee shop and decided to sit outside and smoke while I was waiting. Shortly after finding a secluded seat around the corner, an old woman came up and sat beside me. One after the other she smoked x-tra long cigarettes, and stared into the same bank of rush hour traffic that my own eyes were transfixed upon. Nothing was said, but she leaned across the table to hand me an ash tray. She was old, her hair was dry, and the age of her face made her makeup look more like paint, rather than beauty product. After awhile, she got up and walked away in a full length brown parka and hosiery as thick as wool socks. I could tell by the gait in her walk that there was no one waiting for her. Wherever she was going, she was alone in this world, and although we had only shared a brief moment together it has yet to work itself through my system. I can't tell you, gentle reader, what the impression of seeing her thick legs hobble slowly across the street left me with, but it wasn't a good one.