David Mills, 1962-2010

[purejuice]

The very best writer you never heard of.
The world without the Undercover Black Man in it is a worse place.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/31/AR2010033101772.html

Comments

[the-sikh-geek.livejournal.com]

I just got done teaching a play by August Wilson to my students. The whole week I kept thinking, "He only had 60 years and created one of the most amazing and ambitious dramatic projects ever. HE couldn't have gotten another 5 or 7 years, God? Seriously? Another two or three plays and another half-decade for him to relax at his favorite little cafe in Seattle and listen to his iPod? Kissinger is still walking around. Al Haig died a really old dude and August Wilson only gets to 60?!"

48 is way too young for Mills.

[purejuice.livejournal.com]

i'm not sure (though the wire certainly is epic) that mills had wilson's vast sweep. though he was polemical -- actually not, he argued in his reporter days for nothing less than an accurate representation of reality (WHAT A CONCEPT) -- he was also deeply, deeply witty in a way i don't think wilson was.
i think he heard ghosts -- music, voices -- and that his work wasn't really writing, it was....voices. (though frighteningly sane and the coolest of all the cool cats.)

[atthesametime.livejournal.com]

David Mills had a blog? I had no idea.

[purejuice.livejournal.com]

he did. and there are many things you can deduce from it -- the amazing stillness at the heart of his character, which made him a truly great reporter, and how his dialogue is really music. he is channelling voices almost.
enjoy. click on all his music links. he'd like that.

[minniethemoocha.livejournal.com]

Oh, no. I had indeed heard of David Mills, and was delighted yesterday to discover that Homicide: Life on the Street exists on DVD as a complete box set. I also enjoyed his blog but wasn't a regular follower.

It is terrible that he has died so young, and on the eve of the premiere of his new series, which I have no doubt would have developed under his guidance into the nation's pivotal piece of art on New Orleans after Katrina.

[purejuice.livejournal.com]

it will be that. and i bet simon makes a character out of him. they were boys together, and were -- X -- like that. interesting to be so thoroughly part of a collaboration.