The Golden Suicides

Anyone with insight on this one, please weigh in. Nancy Jo Sales has once again delivered an engaging, personal piece. The subjects were tragic, yet it was challenging to connect with their pathos. It was as if they were behind a glass case, presented as delicate specimens to observe with great caution. The sense of distance is perhaps intentional, as if we could never know them. But even that's not quite right, because there are plenty of examples of their friends' involvement in their lives. Maybe it's just the way they chose to present themselves. I could get a sense of say, Katherine Heigl pumping gas and doing laundry, but it almost seemed like these two were too precious to engage in all of life-- from the mundane to the sacred arts they loved. Perhaps not too precious-- perhaps they regarded life as too short to spend on things that had no personal signature.

I checked out some of Jeremy Blake's work online, and it's dizzying, ethereal, sometimes haunting.

Is this just a cautionary tale of two people who got so entwined in each other that the paranoia they each nurtured became all-consuming? An elegy to a couple who could have done much more? A remembrance by someone who was one degree of separation away from the tragedy?