Old story ideas for Twilight, or "≠"

Random Thought -- A great mystery surrounds M and his writings.  J goes looking for the true author, and finds him in more or less our present state, minimally employed, fluttering in and out at the margins of sophisticated society, grandiose in self-image and yet disarmingly self-aware and self-deprecating toward his current circumstances and future prospects.  The mask of humility slips only occasionally and contingently, though consistently. 

Why do his writings have such a profound impact?  Their breadth and width of insight, the multi-disciplinary advances he makes (he solves the most obscure and entrenched problems of several fields, almost as asides in the text).  What's initially mysterious about him is the comprehensiveness of his thought, the surreal thoroughness with which it pushes the entire intellectual establishment into self-reflective crisis.  His work is as astonishing as Einstein's Miracle Year papers (1905), and yet it's entirely unclear where all of it came from.

Also, M, I think, is fully idiosyncratic; where what initially seem like eccentric affectations become, perhaps, emblematic of a deeper truth later on.  At the beginning of their relationship, J seizes on these idiosyncrasies with something of a sporting attitude, with a type of sympathetic, entertained scrutiny.  This evolves, however, over the course of the story; what were once innocent quirks become somehow meaningful -- markers of M's alien-ness and signifiers of the mystery that shrouds him.

Another thought I had was that we could viral-market this by recording supposedly real audio interviews that are then used by J as reference notes for his book.  Maybe even a short video or two, these short clips being the only ones that didn't disappear or mysteriously decay.  We then post the audio and video to the book site, along with tons of scanned, handwritten notes, and a single picture of M that survived.  All with the goal of blending fiction and reality, of maintaining mystery and disturbance.

I also like the idea of M and J being two contemporaries; where they know each other tenuously, briefly, as teenagers attending some kind of young intellectual retreat like Governor school.  M stood out absolutely, his exceptional quality already obvious at the tender age of 16.  J was a studious, introverted kid who was fascinated by M's antics, his intellectual aggressiveness, and his unadulterated contempt for all figures of authority.