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Patti Smith wrote to me in Amsterdam in 1971, and she said, 'I always loved you because you could find the laughter loophole in any tragedy.' If you're going to be up close with life, the one perk you get from experiencing pain is that you also get to experience what is hysterically funny about it. There's something just so absurd about life that is quirky and weird.
For instance, there is something completely funny - a laughter loophole - in most of the rapes that happened to me. In Bad Reputation! I tell the story of this guy who tied my legs together, and I thought, 'Well, how's he going to rape me if he ties my legs together?' I guess everybody has those experiences. It's a way to maintain sanity. The reason why I chose realism was because I was just so stunned by how crazy real life is. I suppose because my early experiences were with camp - with Vaccaro, for example- everything has been a sideshow carnival. I wanted to show the ridiculousness of reality. (from an Interview with Dominic Johnson)
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