"So finally, and for what he must have thought the best of reasons, he ended it with a shotgun." - HST, "What Lured Hemingway to Ketchum?," National Observer, May 25, 1964.
On this, the first anniversary of Hunter's death, Anita Thompson published one of her favorite photos at gonzostore.com:
Hunter once wrote he learned from Hemingway that he could get away with just being a writer. But like any artist, he never had a choice. Hunter had tremendous talent and like Hemingway, he achieved a celebrity rare among writers, where his actual life seemed to dwarf that which he put down on paper. He set a torch to our imagination and in the end, when there was nothing left, he was the first to admit it.
The genesis of his legend can be found before Fear and Loathing:
"But with the throttle screwed on there is only the barest margin, and no room at all for mistakes. It has to be done right ... and that's when the strange music starts, when you stretch your luck so far that fear becomes exhilaration and vibrates along your arms. You can barely see at a hundred; the tears blow back so fast that they vaporize before they get to your ears. The only sounds are wind and a dull roar floating back from the mufflers. You watch the white line and try to lean with it ... howling through a turn to the right, then to the left and down the long hill to Pacifica ... letting off now, watching for cops, but only until the next dark stretch and another few seconds on the edge ... The Edge ... There is no honest way to explain it because the only people who really no where it is are the ones who have gone over." - HST, Hell's Angels, 1967
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On this, the first anniversary of Hunter's death, Anita Thompson published one of her favorite photos at gonzostore.com:
Hunter once wrote he learned from Hemingway that he could get away with just being a writer. But like any artist, he never had a choice. Hunter had tremendous talent and like Hemingway, he achieved a celebrity rare among writers, where his actual life seemed to dwarf that which he put down on paper. He set a torch to our imagination and in the end, when there was nothing left, he was the first to admit it.
The genesis of his legend can be found before Fear and Loathing:
"But with the throttle screwed on there is only the barest margin, and no room at all for mistakes. It has to be done right ... and that's when the strange music starts, when you stretch your luck so far that fear becomes exhilaration and vibrates along your arms. You can barely see at a hundred; the tears blow back so fast that they vaporize before they get to your ears. The only sounds are wind and a dull roar floating back from the mufflers. You watch the white line and try to lean with it ... howling through a turn to the right, then to the left and down the long hill to Pacifica ... letting off now, watching for cops, but only until the next dark stretch and another few seconds on the edge ... The Edge ... There is no honest way to explain it because the only people who really no where it is are the ones who have gone over." - HST, Hell's Angels, 1967
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