The arts are obsessional, and obsession is dangerous. It's like a knife in the mind. In some cases--Dylan Thomas comes to mind, and Ross Lockridge and Hart Crane and Sylvia Plath--the knife can turn savagely upon the person wielding it. Art is a localized illness, usually benign--creative people tend to live a long time--sometimes terribly malignant. You use the knife carefully, because you know it doesn't care who it cuts. And if you are wise you sift the sludge carefully . . . because some of that stuff may not be dead.