Instant Lives And More by Howard Moss
Two of the most satirical brains in the world present a timeless creative parody. Moss unearths fascinating historical anecdotes, which Gorey illustrates in an absurdly deadpan fashion. We are led to assume that the fascinating situations involving Emily Dickinson, Mozart, Henrik Ibsen, and El Greco might actually be genuine despite the fact that they are all the creations of Moss’s vivid imagination.
Instant Lives And More by Howard Moss
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This essay was written and published in the early 1970s by Howard Moss, a poet, educator, and longtime poetry editor of The New Yorker. I became very fixated on it. My friends started quoting this thing all the time. It’s quite humorous. The Instant Lives are parodies of biographies written in the persona of the writers, composers, and artists they are about. They have a ton of layers and are quite entertaining.
This sensibility is uniquely New York. Howard Moss, a gay man, resided in New York, and I can promise you that he would not have been permitted to do so in any other city. The authors of the five books I’ve mentioned are the ones who came to New York in search of freedom—not to get wealthy, but to be free to pursue their passions and live their lives as they saw fit.
The 36 hilarious parodies of great writers, singers, and artists in Instant Lives range from Austen to Huxley to Gauguin to Mozart. Each chapter is filled to the brim with caustic humour and a thorough understanding of the artists it discusses.
