"making windows for myself"

John Lurie played music, acted (in, among other films, Stranger than Paradise, one of the best ever made), and made six episodes of a strange and wonderful TV show called Fishing with John. A 1994 diagnosis of late-stage Lyme disease, which is debilitating and currently incurable, left him unable to play music, act or continue making his TV show. Nevertheless, as he tells LA Weekly in a recent interview, he still makes art:

For a little while, I thought I was dying. I was extremely ill, I couldn’t function, and I was stuck in my apartment. And I don’t know if it’s New York City or human nature, but everybody runs from you. So every night I’d be home alone, and I’d just started [sic] painting. It was like making windows for myself. It saved me.

(via murketing)