Theresa Duncan, a glamorous 40-year-old artist and writer, killed herself last summer. Her soul mate, Jeremy Duncan, also an artist, followed her a month later. They were art pioneers, lovers, intelligentsia with blue-collar backgrounds, paranoid conspiracy theorists, and too young to die for nothing.

I'm aware that animated films and CD-ROM games made Duncan famous, but I've never seen them. Instead, I've been obsessed with her blog for the past three weeks. I've read every word, studied every picture, clicked every link, and I only wish there was more — something, anything. She called it "The Wit of the Staircase" or, as she explained:

"From the French phrase 'esprit d'escalier,' literally, it means 'the wit of the staircase', and usually refers to the perfect witty response you think up after the conversation or argument is ended. 'Esprit d'escalier,' she replied. 'Esprit d'escalier.' The answer you cannot make, the pattern you cannot complete till afterwards it suddenly comes to you when it is too late."

To honor her, someone created a tribute blog, "Children of the Staircase," but it's not even good enough to share a title. "Wit," in my opinion, is one of the best blogs ever created (and prolifically maintained). The layout is simple — three narrow columns, black background, tiny white font, very few links, simple author photo. Every post is topped by a stunning photo, usually a high-fashion portrait, and sometimes a quote or line from a poem or song. She did not personally write many of her posts; she chose to quote, at length, from whichever fascinating article or site to which she was linking. She blogged about the most fascinating things: an article in the U.K.'s Telegraph: "How the Nazis gave us Disco;" from The Independent in Ireland: "Revealing Photo Album of Ireland's Wildest Women"; Dispatches from a female Iraqi blogger, with a rare personal photograph from the 50s of Iraqi college girls, looking so ordinary, so every-woman, in suits and pumps, smiling together in the sunlight. Beneath that, a recent picture of women in Iraq dutifully marching, every inch of them covered, hidden, denied.

My personal favorite: From "Today in Literature," the time Carson McCullers, Isak Dineson, and Marilyn Monroe had lunch together, discussed literature, and then danced on the table (even if the last part is not true, it's too cheeky to not imagine).

When she did write the posts, she kept it short and went for the jugular. Unless she was writing about perfume. She deserved a book deal for this alone. Very few people can appreciate a variety of scents, nevermind write about each one so passionately.

She idolized Kate Moss like a teenage girl, calling her "the bride," convinced that Moss and Pete Doherty (the walking syringe) were a classic love story, instead of a couple of undernourished drug addicts.

The definitive article written about the couple in Vanity Fair explains how, unfortunately, Duncan's extreme political beliefs contributed to her unnecessary end. When Beck (yes, of "Devil's Haircut") backed out of her movie Alice Underground, she and Blake became convinced that Scientologists, all the way up to Tom Cruise at Paramount, were out to end their careers and destroy them. After moving back to New York and into St. Mark's Rectory, they came to believe that the CIA was after them, too. This stemmed from their new friendship with their landlord, Father Frank Morales, a noted activist and conspiracy theorist who runs Episcopal St. Mark's. During their friendship with Morales, Duncan and Blake were publicly adamant that 9/11 was "an inside job," claiming "they are even running ads on the Cartoon Network recruiting people to be in the CIA!" and that (metaphysically, anyway) Dick Cheney is the devil (well, most ordinary folk believe that anyway). I'm not saying that Morales has any fault in the story — he is who he is. But the coincidence and timing of encountering Morales's controversial views must have exacerbated their paranoia.

I don't remember how I stumbled upon this story so many weeks back. I remember a blurb somewhere about a young couple who were harassed to death by Scientologists. I don't doubt any negative claims against the Hollywood cult, but in this case, there's not even a hint of Scientology involvement. Even their closest friends didn't believe their harassment claims.
If you omit the conspiracy theory posts, it's hard to believe that "Wit" was created by Duncan during her turbulent last years. She still found so much beauty in the world. Her intellectual curiosity certainly wasn't suffering, nor her ability to expand upon any subject. This blogger was bold, articulate, confident, and eclectic. Duncan was a woman who fully understood herself. It's just not clear when she stopped wanting to understand how to live in the world. After reading every post, following every link, you become haunted by esprit d'escalier — what would Duncan say about this or that. What would you say to such an artist now that she's gone? Nothing good ever comes of suicide.

I have a favorite post, entitled "Who the fuck is we?" It was written in response to Dawn Eden's plea for our half of humanity to keep our knees together or risk every emotional ill known to us. Coincidentally, I found it just when Lori Gottlieb decided to "we we" all over single women in Atlantic Monthly. Also, Thursday was Valentine's Day, and this year I was in a particularly hippie-peace-love mood. A close friend found a good man — the first one ever! Another spent this Valentine's Day with his newest and dearest valentine — his new baby daughter. And every fiber of me wanted nothing more for this phony holiday than for the people I love to feel love. So I couldn't muster up a pissy response to "just settle down and get married," nor do I see the point. Having someone tell me what to do with any part of my life (nevermind with whom I will or will not choose to create a human being and spend every moment of my life) doesn't make me angry. I simply don't care. I will do as I please, just as others will continue to wag their finger at me (even when they're no different at all). But I can't resist lobbing the delightful phrase, "Who the fuck is we?" in Gottlieb's direction. I'm going to let Duncan wrap this up for me:  

Sisters of the Staircase, take a moment to reflect on how often some insipid book or article by and about an individual woman's unique experiences overuses the word "we."

...To which Wit replies "Who the fuck is we?"

Whether I agree with her or not, I don't like the automatic assumption that I think like the writer because we accidentally share a gender. It's a kind of insidious hypnosis this "We...We...We" directed at women.

The author describes her sexuality as swinging from promiscuity, which she seems to think Germaine Greer somehow told her to do, to complete chastity because in her opinion that's the fastest way to get a husband. She also frets, just like so many brainwashed magazine propagandists before her, because she is unmarried at 37.

There's a ton of talk like this from even smart women, I'm sorry to say...It is sad that our culture encourages this helplessness and lack of differentiation in women.

Wit encourages the author to learn to say "I" so that she can finally take responsibility for herself and figure out what her real problems are aside from the stupid false measure of how much or how little she is fucking. This will help her realize who she wants to be absent some propagandizing internal voice that tells her she isn't anybody if she's not attached to "us" — whether that means a gender, a Mommy, or a man.

And that's not what "we" think, sweetheart, that's what I think.

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Comments (2)

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Theresa's main flaw is that she was a bit sloppy with quotation marks, and her "plagerism" mostly reflected that, and the same sorts of appropriations used by Stephen Ambrose, Molly Ivins, and Doris Kearns Goodwin. By that standard, TS Eliot's "The Waste Land," filled with words from other's texts, would also be considered plagerism.

She screwed up, she got in trouble, and now there are scores of righteous nannies vigilantly hovering to make sure her grave is filled with "the truth."

A more even handed look at Duncan:
http://prettysmartgirlart.blogspot.com/2007/12/ghost-of-theresa-l-duncan.html

the see | February 17, 2008

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You're aware that much of Duncan's writing on her blog was "borrowed" without attribution from other sources, including Wikipedia UK.

RachelC | February 17, 2008

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