The Culture Enthusiast

Top 10: Bookish people I want to meet

Books 2:35 PM

I am posting one day in advance of schedule to take part on Broke and Bookish's meme Top 10 Tuesday. Today's theme is bookish people you want to meet. My list consist mostly of dead people, which isn't very realistic, but let's face it when am I ever going to meet John Green?

1) Dostoyevsky

In the dispute Tolstoy versus Dostoyvesky, I say without stuttering (even though I mistyped stuttering five times) Dostoyevksy rules. Dostoyevsky once said that it made him really happy when people wrote him saying they liked The Idiot and that he considered that person his soul mate. I guess he only said that because he didn't meet me (I prefer Brothers Karamazov, by the way).

2) Jane Austen

One of my favorite author of all times. I'd love to co-host a tea party with her.

3) Albert Camus

Let's get real here, Camus was the cat's pajamas.

4) Louis MacNeice

My favorite poet ever and a pretty interesting person too. Besides being a poet he also traveled a lot and wrote radio plays for the BBC. Plus, what a great voice he had.

5) C. S. Lewis
I might be wrong but I have the impression Lewis was a very funny person. I'd probably be very comfortable around him.

6) Oscar Wilde

I can only imagine us in a party, drinking champagne, laughing and making witty remarks about the other guests. In this particular fantasy, I'm capable of making witty remarks.

7) Shakespeare

It seems we know so little about Shakespeare's life. What did he look like? Did he really write all those plays? What kind of fruit did he like? So many pressing questions.

8) Paul Auster

I once read about a young man that hanged around in Brooklyn long enough to bump into Paul Auster. They had a cup of coffee while Auster gave him tips on writing. How I wish that had happened to me.

9) Rainer Maria Rilke

I'd love to be friends with him, not only because he's one of my favorite poets, but because when he did something annoying I would tell him the only sentence I know in German: "You must change your life!" That's probably why he hasn't called.

10) Tolstoy
Ok, I know I sort of dissed Tolstoy in number one, but I just remembered Tolstoy ran away from home when he was 80. How amazing is that? He was also a radical anarchist and I don't really like his books, so I guess he's more of a wild card.

Which bookish people would you like to meet?

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My blind date with Mark Rothko

Art 11:16 AM

Untitled by Mark Rothko, 1960

The other day I went out with Mark Rothko. And by that I mean that I saw his painting in real life for the first time.

I had already heard a lot about him before and because of that I was very anxious. Jackson Pollock told me: “Come on Paula, you like Abstract expressionism, right? So…You’ll love my boy Mark.”

Simon Schama told me all about him. How it was difficult growing up as a Jew in Russia. How his real name is Rothkowitz but he changed it to Rothko because of the rising anti-semitism. His struggles to paint the Seagram murals and to free color from form. How tortured he was and how he was inspired by Greek tragedies and Nietzsche.

It was with great expectations that I saw the above painting.

I had everything to like it. Willem de Kooning stood behind us smiling and whispering: “I think they’ll get along”.

But something wasn’t right. Do you know that Seinfeld episode where a girl breaks up with Jerry because she didn’t like his comedy act? It’s what happened between me and Rothko.

It seems that his personality and who he was (or at least who we think he was) are more interesting than his art. I stared at the painting asking: “What do you mean?” Rothko stared back angrily asking: “What do you mean?”

I guess it wasn’t meant to be.

What do you think of Rothko’s paintings? Have you ever liked an artist’s personality more than his art?

You can watch Simon Schama's documentary on Rothko here and the Seinfeld episode here (This Monday just keeps getting better and better huh?)

UPDATE
I've just read this is I. A. Richard's Practical Criticism and believe it applies perfectly here: "There cannot be much doubt that when we know we are reading Milton or Shelley, a great deal of our approval and admiration is being accorded not to the poetry but to an idol. (...) Far more than we like to admit, we take a hint for our response from the poet's reputation". p. 297

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The Producers (1968)

Movies 11:50 AM

Simply put: The Producers is one of my favorite comedies ever. Mel Brooks in its best and it’s not even a parody. The Producers is about a bankrupt producer (Zero Mostel) who comes across an idea to make money (a lot of it) through a Broadway flop. The idea was given to him by his neurotic and naïve accountant Leo Bloom (Gene Wilder), who is now a part of the scheme as well.

It’s amazing how Brooks, a Jew himself, manages to pull off something that involves a musical called “Springtime for Hitler.” Ridendo castigat moris all over it.

Dealing with Nazism with humor and yet never making the subject trivial or unimportant is quite a feat. Brooks makes us ridicule Nazism and see it as an absurd twice: first in the movie itself The Producers and then in the play Springtime for Hitler inside the movie.

For example, in the movie there's the character of the Nazi playwright. He sounds stupid and dumb and that makes him laughable. But it's a fact that some Nazi officers escaped trial fleeing to other countries. Not to mention that it was that type of blind acceptance of the regime that got Hitler in power and kept him there for so long.

Then, there’s the play. The actor who plays Hitler is called LSD and he's a groovy hippie. It's funny but at the same time reminds us that the hippie's attitude of peace and love is the opposite of Hitler's war and hate. Goebbels is also portrayed like a cool jazz-dancing guy. He is happy and enjoying himself.

We know they weren't like that, but portraying them as such makes us laugh at them. It makes it easier to talk about them.

This is probably what Brooks wanted. It was very difficult for him to release this movie, specially because in the beginning the movie was called "Springtime for Hitler". It was also banned in Germany.

But he didn't want to the movie to be disrespectful. He probably wanted what all Jewish people want: never forget. The thing is, people do forget.

And I think Brooks understood that Nazism was becoming this taboo, a subject so terrible no one even talked about.

The Producers just goes ahead and says it's ok to talk about it, it's even ok to make fun of Nazis. Actually, the core of what is being said about Nazis is real, like when Hitler and Goebbles are talking and the latter says very satisfied: “I just laid the morning propaganda program on the people."

This mixture of comedy and criticism so neatly balanced makes the movie timeless.

What do you think of The Producers - critical or offensive? What’s your favorite line? (There are so many! I love “That’s it baby, when you’ve got it flaunt it, flaunt it!)

(If you want a taste of it, and specially if you've only seen the 2005 remake, try watching the first scene, which lasts almost 13 minutes and took 14 days to shoot, featuring mostly Nero and Gene and try not to be blown away).

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Damn Fine Words + The Classics Club

Books 10:01 AM

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The Gleaners by Jean François Millet

Art 9:42 AM

The Gleaners by Jean François Millet

A little bit of history

Date: 1857

Located in the Museé D’Orsay, Paris.

Jean Francois Milliet was part of the "Barbizon School", a group of landscape and figure painters who settled near the village of Barbizon in the forest of Fontainebleau. Paul Johnson calls him "the Raphael of the peasants", since his paintings portray peasant life with great beauty and dignity. The painting, however, was highly criticized at the time for focusing on the poverty of rural France.

A little bit of technique

Honore Daumier, an artist contemporary to Millet and his friend, said that "it is sometimes more effective not to show the face of the suffering". As Paul Johnson notices, "Millet has the peasants in shadow, their tiredness, harsh life and stoicism expressed, rather, in their postures".1

A little bit of enthusiasm

There's a lot of talk right now about how art should question, raise issues and be politically committed. I can't but help thinking about that when I see this painting. Millet was very criticized for portraying simple workers.

So it's like the artist is seeing something nobody else sees. He sees dignity in these people, in their work, in their struggles. He makes them beautiful. The artist has the sensibility to see these things and he shows it to us. In the process he might seem controversial, but that was not his main intention.

Now, compare this with the portraits contemporary artist Vik Muniz made of garbage dump workers. One of the problems is that Muniz made the portraits with trash.

In the documentary about his project called Wasteland, Muniz really stresses how the garbage workers suffer humiliation and how much they struggle. And then he goes and portrays them with trash. The name of the series is "Pictures of garbage".

That's not restoring anybody's dignity. Quite the opposite, it just reinforces the prejudice that when you look at these people, trash is what you see.

Many artists go around saying that they sympathize with workers, that they understand their struggles. Millet managed to put his art where his mouth is.

What do you think about Millet's painting?

Image via Wikipedia

1 Art: A New History by Paul Johnson p. 582-585

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