A Very Twentieth Century Sort of Death

His passing was important enough to rank first on the N. Y./Region section of the New York Times web site, for a number of hours on Sunday, with the headline, Terrible End for an Enfant Terrible.

It seems he died -- inevitably? tragically? East Village-y? -- of a heroin overdose, on July 13th. Who was he? The Times:

Dash Snow, a promising and adventurous young New York artist who worked with found-image art in various mediums, died at 27. The grandson of art collector and philanthropist Christophe de Menil, he rebelled against his privileged family background...

There's an irony in someone taking the time to tell you why they don't care about someone or something, but here I go: why should we need to know about this? This poor man has unfortunately missed by at least two decades, the era when dying of a heroin overdose somehow 'impressed' the living with one's serious street cred. Nor does his lateness count as retro chic.

Reading further in to the story, one finds that he also snorted a great deal of cocaine...
"And, behold, verily: he shall be known as: a promising and adventurous young New York artist."

I can't be bothered constructing an argument here, so I am going to let all my prejudices and judgment flap in the breeze. This man was privileged far above many; he rebelled against his family! Is that even a valid narrative trope these days?

He chose to live in the East Village and do heroin!!! He was born in 1982, which means if you factor in skool, he would not have moved there until 2000, at the earliest! And we all know that the East Village had not been the East Village for at least ten years. It hasn't even been the East Village in the 1990s — I should know, as Quentin Crisp told me himself.

And heroin and cocaine! Aside from being so very messy and un-creative, these substances aren't even retro, they're just ick. And for straight people.

And he worked with "found-image" art: if ever there is a warning sign that indicated "lazy, untalented fraud," that's it. I myself have found many things. And I have worked with them. I have also thrown them over my shoulder, taken them on the subway then forgotten to take them with me upon exiting, picked my nose with them, and given them to a friend who has responded "ewww, take that messy thing you found and throw it outside."

Am I an artist?

In an era when the economic unthinkable is everyday news, I wonder, did anyone at the Times think when Mr. Snow's story came up, "relevance?" As usual, the vast, teeming and various life in the outer boroughs gets little mention in the Times of the past seven days -- particularly the Bronx.