Congratulations to Evan
and Scott, whose names were plucked
from the hat in our Wordstock drawings, and each of whom wins an Atelier26 book
or t-shirt.
What is this Wall of Obscurity business, you ask?
For answer, we give the floor to Rainer Maria Rilke, whose
second self Malte Laurids Brigge implores:
Young person anywhere, in whom
something is rising up that causes you to shiver, make use of the fact that no
one knows you. And if they contradict you—those who take you for a nobody; and
if they give you up completely—those with whom you would associate; and if they
pretend you don’t exist on account of your dear ideas: what is this clear
danger, which holds you together inside yourself, compared to the cunning
hostility of later fame, which makes you impotent by scattering you? Beg no one
to speak of you, not even contemptuously. And when time goes by and you mark
your name coming around amongst people, take it no more seriously than
everything else you find in their mouths. Think: it has become poorly. And put
it away from you. Take another name, any, so that God can call you in the night.
And hide it from everyone. (transl. M.
Allen Cunningham)
Bon Courage,
Atelier26
