Categories
DAVID LESTER ART FREE MP3s

Normal History Vol. 200: The Art Of David Lester

Every Saturday, we’ll be posting a new illustration by David Lester. The Mecca Normal guitarist is visually documenting people, places and events from his band’s 29-year run, with text by vocalist Jean Smith.

I am excited by Norman Doidge’s work in neuroplasticity. The last novel I wrote is about curing a personality disorder with abstract expressionism. The narcissistic personality disorder is said to be incurable, but my protagonist, a museum curator, was able to establish a method of communication with the narcissist about his abstract images, within which he believed he could hide the emotional landscape that contributed to his disorder. Her understanding of narcissism overlapped her uncanny ability to interpret his abstract expressionist paintings.

I wrote this novel one year ago, in the winter of 2012, and subsequently queried literary agents in NYC. By this I mean 10 hour days for a couple of months researching, composing and submitting queries (and working part-time at the gym).

Four or five agents requested the full manuscript, including the agency that represents the work of Bernard Malamud and Eudora Welty. Some of these agents have yet to respond or they may not contact me either way. That, it seems is the agent querying game.

The intensity of querying took me deep into the spring. Summer arrived and it was time to paint for the September art exhibition at Northern and then on to booking shows and lectures for a west coat tour in October: rock clubs, university classrooms and library events that included songs, paintings and details about narcissism.

After the tour, Mecca Normal went to Miami to record a new album with Rat Bastard and Kramer. Some of the new songs are excerpts from The Black Dot Museum of Political Art (literary fiction, complete at 80,500 words), other songs are directly from my previously completed (unpublished) novel Obliterating History: a guitar-making mystery, domination and submission in a small-town garage.

“Waiting For Rudy,” from Flood Plain (K, 1993) (download):