Theresa Duncan 10/26/1966-7/10/2007
Writer, Filmmaker, Game Designer, Blogger
“When you look up at the sky at night, since I’ll be living on one of them, since I’ll be laughing on one of them, for you it’ll be as if all the stars are laughing… And when you’re consoled (everyone eventually is consoled), you’ll be glad you’ve known me.”
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince
A Visit in Montparnasse, Paris, 1936. André Kertész. Silver print on Masonite mount.
“Nobody can teach me who I am. You can describe parts of me, but who I am - and what I need - is something I have to find out myself.”
— Chinua Achebe
“Let’s regard her lasting spark and tell the tyrants of the dark who has left the greater mark.”
~Rachel Wetzsteon, excerpt from May Poles
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Rachel Wetzsteon wrote this poem in memory of fellow poet Sarah Hannah.
Rachel died in 2009 at 42.
Theresa left Detroit on a train to D.C. with $80.00 in her pocket, wearing black and white polka dot tights, a mini skirt and Eiffel Tower earrings that swung in synchrony with her blonde hair when she moved her head. All of her belongings were stuffed into a mailbag that she dragged behind her. She never looked back through her big hazel eyes, literally or figuratively, to wave goodbye or to waiver in her decision. This was all by design, to leave small town, industrial America for the creative life in the big city where she knew she belonged. Her journey would lead, in a few short years, to three award winning cd roms, a film accepted at the Whitney Biennial, essays published in elite journals, screenplays, tv shows, D.C., N,Y., L.A.; and in 2007 to her death by suicide; a week later her lover, partner and cherished companion of 12 years, artist Jeremy Blake, walked into the water of Rockaway Beach, leaving a note behind.
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Theresa was tall, blonde and strikingly beautiful, but more than that, she was a self-taught scholar, intimidating in her wide-ranging intellect, witty, sarcastic, hard working and determined to succeed, a feminist in red lipstick and designer shoes. She loved words, and was an inspired writer and cultural critic. In her innovative blog Wit of the Staircase, written in her living room surrounded by books and art, she ruminated on philosophy, film, art, politics, music, literary works, fashion, perfume, and life; she developed a large and devoted following that she referred to as the “Children of the Staircase”. The entries to Wit, in retrospect, seem increasingly troubled in the weeks before her death, with the final post a quote by Reynolds Price
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“A need to tell and hear stories is essential to the species Homo sapiens–second in necessity apparently after nourishment and before love and shelter. Millions survive without love or home, almost none in silence; the opposite of silence leads quickly to narrative, and the sound of story is the dominant sound of our lives, from the small accounts of our day’s events to the vast incommunicable constructs of psychopaths.”
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To share Theresa’s story I have compiled the best of the essays from Wit of the Staircase, her published works, journal entries, excerpts from her screenplays, and other works in progress. I will also included cartoons that her lover and partner and innovative artist Jeremy Blake sketched to make her laugh, photographs and images from her cds and film. Her life and work were a seamless and colorful collage. No one can speak for Theresa or tell her story as completely as she has already done, and it is her story in words and images that I will post over the next few weeks.
The clip above is from The History of Glamour which was selected for 2000 Whitney Biennial, illustrated by Jeremy Blake and Karen Kilimnik.
Theresa Duncan's Wit of the Staircase
