Creative Drugs

Years ago, I jotted down this great quotation from a German newspaper: "[T]he real consequences of excessive consumption of beer, wine and spirits are to be seen not in prize-winning literature but in the broken people who wander outside train stations and on park benches." -- Georg Rüschemeyer, writing in this piece (long dead link) in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, in January of 2004. The author began the article by mentioning that the myths of Fitzgerald, Hemingway, and Faulker have misled the citizenry into believing that booze is a "creative drug." But does not booze fueled melancholy prompt great art? That's a debate for another day, perhaps. Alas, the link no longer works, but the quote remains. Have I, by preserving this brief excerpt for posterity, saved it for the ages? Yes, I think I have.