"
AN: And where are you at?
PL: Two places, actually, both pretty interesting. The first place is the Chestnut Tree Cafe, with the rest of the ghosts, drinking Victory Gin and trying to make out what’s passing the darkening window.
…
AN: Explain.
PL: Well, in the Chestnut Tree Cafe we spend most of our time pondering what it’s like to have fallen behind: you get in free when you’ve arrived at the certain conclusion that you have fallen behind. Then the waiters keep filling your glass without your asking. The TV is on but without sound, and you usually sit with your back to it. There’s no fax, no e-mail. The waiters pat you on the back and say, “You guys don’t need that stuff.”
Falling Behind turns out to be a stage in one’s career as real as the stages of Paying Your Dues, Getting In, Being on Top of Things, the nice period of Instant Comprehension when you don’t need anyone to tell you what’s going on, then a kind of Unconscious Withdrawal, then a kind of Conscious Withdrawing, with snarling and anger and the certainty that everything has turned to nonsense. And then, if you’re still alive, there’s Falling Behind.
"Amy Newman & Philip Leider, “An Art World Figure Re-emerges, Unrepentant” in The New York Times, September 3, 2000. Source.
