I’m a Mac. I’m a PC.
I got my first Apple in 1983 or so, a IIC. From then on, I remained in the Apple lane, never even looking at PCs or Windows. Thanks to Photoshop and Final Cut, my ability to make just about anything on my computer expanded my creative world. Over the past quarter century, I have owned a dozen or so macs and macbooks and ipods and am responsible for the conversion of lots of my friends.
People who were not on board with Macs seemed unimaginative, conservative, clueless. The fact that they outnumbered me ten to one just confirmed my commitment. I had the same resistance to Blackberrys, until my company insisted I get one.
Maybe that Blackberry was Bill Gates’ foot in my door. Increasingly I realized that these days I do most things on-line. Sure, I use Photoshop some and edit the occasional video but the fact is I spend several hours a day on my computer and 90% of them involve the web and email. Oh, and my Blackberry has gotten me used to doing a lot of online things on the elevator, in bed, walking down the street.
Recently, the right fan on my two-year-old MacBook Pro conked out and it started making a lot of whirring noise. It also crashed quite often and the fact that I still have Tiger rather than Snow Leopard installed has become a limitation. This weekend, I decided to bite the bullet and start shopping for a new laptop. (Actually, it’s a bit laughable to call my MacBook a laptop; it is chained down to my desk by its external mouse, second keyboard, USB hub and two external backup drives. It’s been months since I was able to budge it.)
I started at the apple website, going through a shopping list of features. Okay, I want a nice fat drive, and a 3 Gig processor and extra ram and Applecare and… by the time I was done, I’d spent almost 3,500 hypothetical dollars to end up with something that seemed pretty much like what I had bought two years ago.
I wandered down to J&R electronics and looked through their wares. At first I though the prices were misprints — there were huge displays for a couple of hundred bucks, rows and rows of sleek, gleaming laptops for $600 or less. The newest thing in laptops is something small, simple and almost primitive — the netbook; no CD drive, no spinning hard drive, just a reasonable processor, a bright display, a full keyboard, and the ability to get online, all in a package that weighs a couple of pounds and is priced at roughly 1/10 of my dream MacBook.
Now there’s one obvious difference: Windows. I have always assumed that this ubiquitous operating system was ugly, confusing, non-responsive and really hard to set up (not to mention the status quo and domain of account executives, the military and Republicans). But I was willing to take the leap because I’d only be using the netbook to go online; I wouldnt even install email but do it through the browser.
I bought a navy blue Asus EEE for $375, brought it home, turned it on and with 90 seconds was connected to my Airport Express and online. I have shut down my trusty MacBook Pro to give it a well-deserved rest and will only turn it on to touch up scans and polish videos. Unless, of course, I discover I can do all that online as well.
I think I can make this transition because increasingly I have less of a relationship with my computer than with the places I go with it.
It’s more like a TV or a house phone, an appliance rather than a custom environment made just for me. I am more comfortable with being mainstream because the Internet allows me so many options. Soon enough, we will all live in the cloud of computing, where all of our files reside online and applications just appear when we need them. That’s fine with me.
I will let you know how my conversion goes…
Everyone has one…
In a masochistic fit, I have been reading the comments people have been making on YouTube about my commercials. People are so extreme. Some complain about the interest charges Chase put on their card, others link them to some fictional Nazi past, others cry or write paeans to actors playing minor roles. Some just dispute the commercial’s claim:
“This commerical suck balls no atm in the world that quick what a bunch of liers “
Some just plain hate my client:
Chase is an enemy institution that every town should vandalize with bricks and spray cans.
The most recent frenzy has been around the fact that I had Peter Murphy of the band Bauhaus cover “Instant Karma” by John Lennon.This strikes people as a betrayal on about six dimensions and they have filled five pages of comments on YouTube.
“Oh, come on, Pete, are you really that strapped for cash? “
“i could imagine Peter appearing on that commercial as a cute dolphin [sic] to the sea.”
“I hate this song, initially sounds like he’s trying to squeeze one out…”OOOONNNN and OOOOOONNNN and OOOONNNN”
“I owe chase $600.00. I love this commercial so I might consider paying them back.”
“Brilliant! … Nice to see such esoteric luminous creative for a freaking bank commercial. It’s about time things were bumped up a notch!”
I just like the song, and I like Bauhaus, so I am a bit mystified by the fuss. But then, I’m just an ad guy.
Another phenomenon is when people who are involved with some aspect of the commercial, adopt it as their own. For instance, people who like one of the actors or in, one case, a dog, who appears in the spot.
There’s grumbling though, even among the fans:
“dangerous!!!! Chase is encouraging young people to break the laws and run a muck!!!:
Sometimes the reaction is positive. Like, in this case, when a song I used in a spot became a pretty big hit and “100 Years” by Five for Fighting was back on the charts.
dude can u plz tell me the name of this song ive been lookin for it for like 2 years now -.-…
“i love this song. it’s soooo amazing. i want it played at my wedding.”
Sometimes there are a lot of positive scomments, like the ones for this mawkish spot I did a few years ago.
“This is like one of the most touching commercials I’ve seen to date. Wow, I’m sold! The power of commercials cannot be underestimated!”
Then there’s the really fantastic post where someone took one of my commercials and endeavored to prove that it was seeded with hidden swastikas, proving that Chase was trying to bring back the Third Reich. I kid you not.
If they make fascism look warm and fuzzy who wouldn’t want it?
its great to know others notice the obvious swastika in the Chase logo. The fact that they even shift the logo to show the swastika shows that they are trying to get us sheeple to get used to the logo again.
Yeah and Kermit the frog is a alien transported to brainwash us all. Damn dude take your medication, I dont give a damn about Chase but that is about the strangest connection Ive ever heard.
And one final spot from
a scum sucking rat turd.
I love the Internet! (This post is for my pal, Richard Hall)
My Vote
As important as art and drawing are to me, I have also always been deeply interested and involved with the politics of this country, ever since I was at Princeton, majoring in political science, working for my congressman, and as a White House intern.
I have been thoroughly absorbed in the current Presidential election, the most important of my lifetime. The twists and turns of the primaries were history in the making and the general election has engaged Americans and the world like never before.
However, despite the strategies and theatrics of the campaigns, which have been as entertaining as any sporting event, I have the increasing concern that I could lose sight of the true nature of the issues at stake. All too often the media, the pundits, and the political operatives tempt me to lose perspective on what all of this drama means — to us and to me.
When I was studying political history, my thesis advisor, Robert Tucker, gave me a concise definition of successful leadership. A leader does three things. First they provide a definition of the situation facing the community. Secondly, the leader charts a course to deal with the situation. And, thirdly, they mobilize the people to move in that direction. In other words, 1. Here’s what’s going on;. 2. ‘Here’s what we need to do about; and 3. ‘Here’s what we can all do to solve the problem.
While reading political theorists like Locke, Hume, Mill,and Hobbes, I also came to understand the proper purpose and function of a successful government. It’s to organize the people, to share their resources, and to guide them in collectively solving their problems. You can’t build your own roads, educate your children, defend your borders, and improve your community alone. So we set up governments to help us figure out how to do it together, preserving our own self-interests but also encouraging us to make some sacrifices for the greater good. Those people who have the ability and inclination to help us coordinate in this way become the community leaders while the rest of us agree to support their decisions made on our behalf. If we come to feel that they are not doing the job well, we replace them.
On September 12th, 2001, I suggested to the group of people I worked with, that in response to the events we’d witnessed through our office windows the day before, we all go and donate blood and our time and effort to help our fellow New Yorkers. We walked over to the Javits Center on the Hudson River and joined thousands of our neighbors who also wanted to help. After hours of standing around, we realized that nobody had anything for us to do. We, white collar workers, were useless in this situation. The firefighters and ambulance drivers who showed up from around the country soon discovered that their skills in dealing with emergencies wouldn’t be needed either. The next day, President Bush told us that there was nothing we could do but go shopping. We all felt scared and impotent.
Months later, the war on Afghanistan began but we weren’t asked to make any sacrifices or offer any help. All we could do was to pay taxes and stand by whatever the government thought was best. That extended to the following year when the President told us we needed to support his decision to invade Iraq. Most Americans agreed to do so. But some of us marched through town, waving banners that expressed our concern. We were a small and ignored group but we did feel we’d done something, finally. (Now, I know that war is an inevitable part of history, that all societies must define themselves and protect their interests through calls to arms. But I also know that this is an incredibly high price to pay and that we should all question ourselves deeply before we make any sort of commitment to violence and destruction; in the last few years, we have utterly failed to have the sort of open national discussion that such a commitment requires.)
We had a sense of purpose when we participated in the 2004 Presidential election, but were frustrated and disappointed when the discussion veered off the real topic at hand, the issues facing the country, and into a destructive and hostile creed against the personalities of the candidates. Again, citizens were infantilized and distracted by pundits rather than engaged in a productive forum on the true matters at hand.
Three years ago, when Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans, we tried to help again. But no one was there to coordinate us, to lead us, to harness our desire to make a difference. I felt even more worried that not only could we do nothing to deal with the situation but that the government was failing to protect us too. They did nothing and we couldn’t help.
Communities are defined by who’s in them and who isn’t, us vs. them. It could be Americans vs. Foreigners, Citizens vs. Immigrants, Men vs. Women, Gays vs. Straights, Believers vs. Non-Believers, Democrats vs. Republicans… people are galvanized by being presented with an opponent. (As a sidebar, when Al Gore established his leadership by defining a situation that impacts us all, by asserting that for once there was no Them, just Us, all of Us, and that we could all make a contribution to fix the problem, I was very inspired. I was also flabbergasted by how many people, those in power and those with no apparent axe to grind, were skeptical and even openly hostile against the effort to reduce global warming. I just don’t get it but can only assume that the agendas are hidden but there, and that the power of denial is incredibly strong. )
This election is hard fought and as always has a lot of Us and Them in it. And, as has been the case so often before, people are diverted into a certain group or another, even though they may well end up working against their own better interests. Religion is often used to distract people from larger agendas or self interest. Whether Al Quaeda convinces young people to kill themselves for the cause, or the Religious Right convinces working class people to support corporate interests on the off chance that Roe v. Wade will be overturned, people with a range of interests are edged into one suffocatingly narrow view of the world, one slim issue that overshadows all others.
I have feelings about a lot of the emotional issues being discussed but if I look at them really hard, I can see that many or most issues have nothing really to do with me.
For instance, I don’t understand why people feel so strongly about owning guns; they seem dangerous things to have around the house. But I really don’t care if people insist on bearing arms. Just keep them locked up and don’t let your kids bring them to my kid’s school.
I also don’t care much about whether or not people want to pray in school. On an academic level, I think the Constitution is pretty clear about the separation of Church and State but if you want to say a prayer or even carve it into the wall, and it really means a huge amount to you, then go ahead. As a boy, I went to a Protestant school in Australia that had mandatory chapel and I found it boring and irrelevant but I lived through it, reason intact. I think my son would be more annoyed by such a mandate than I was but I don’t think it would stunt him horribly to be exposed to it. I also lived in Israel for three years of my boyhood, an ostensibly single religion country and Judaism was taken for granted and part of most things we did but it didn’t have much impact on me either way except to leave with a distaste for the tedium of religious ritual. So believe what you will, pray where you want, but don’t deny my boy the chance to learn about evolution and have a proper education. If you choose not to do the same in your community that is a shame and will diminish the intellectual power of our country but it’s not a life or death matter for me.
(It’s odd how hard religions work to foist their notions on others. Maybe I should go around lobbying for mandatory contour drawing or stop people in the airport and make them do watercolors.)
As for abortion, I am pretty clear that it should be a choice left up to the people involved rather than imposed by the government, I think that we all agree together how to behave towards each other and that behind closed doors we should be left to do what we want as long as it doesn’t hurt others. I realize some people think that abortion does hurt people, namely fetuses, but this still strikes me as something that should be decided by families or maybe by communities but not by the federal government. It doesn’t seem to be a clear absolute as far as everyone is concerned and the idea that a 14-year-old girl who is raped should be forced to bring her baby to term feels like something that should not be decided by strangers hundreds of miles away. I think this country and the women who live in it are better off since it was agreed that they were capable of making their own decisions about such things. I also can’t understand why people don’t want their teenagers to get proper, coherent, fact-based sex education, to protect them from disease and unwanted pregnancies, regardless of what their religion decided thousand of years before AIDS and condoms were around. Any belief system that promotes ignorance and denial over health and long lives warrants a question or two and probably won’t prevail in the long run.
It also goes without saying, in my mind, that the people who deny any rights and privileges to people based on sexual orientation or race are either biased, ignorant with regard to ‘the melting pot’ of diversity, or acting out of some selfish economic interest.
In any case, whether you agree with me or not on these topics, I am fairly certain that this is not the most important issue that government can help me with right now.
I also don’t have the huge problems some people seem to have with paying taxes. I’ve given a lot of money to the government over the past twenty-five years, and despite the fact that there are potholes on my street and idiots in Washington and often on T.V.and the media, I consider the money reasonably well spent. I figure it’s just the cost of living in a big society, and that because I have a good job and a lot of opportunities, I should do my bit to help those who are worse off. I hope my money is going to help the poor and the elderly and the disabled, to make schools better and water cleaner, parks greener and food safer but I also know that bureaucracies and corruption siphon off a fair amount and I wish it was less. I don’t resent paying that money any more than I resent paying for a carton of milk or a movie ticket and there’s a limit to how agitated I am willing to get over the efficiency of the system (I really can’t understand people who devote their lives to working for the government in order to dismantle the government).
So does that make me a ‘tax and spend liberal’? I guess so but I’m not sure what’s quite so awful about that. Maybe the benefits of community are less obvious to people who don’t live in a huge diverse city like I do but I sure wouldn’t want to have to sweep my own street or drive my own bus.
So, instead of worrying about a lot of the topics that are brought up in presidential elections, I am much more concerned about the state of our economy and whether it drives my clients to cut back their budgets to the point that it forces me to lay people off or even get fired myself, about the amount of freedom from regulation that banks should have to not screw up my mortgage, about whether the stock market goes down so far that all my investment banker neighbors get such small bonuses that New York’s tax revenues sink too far and cut back on Jack’s school budget. There’s a limit to what the government can do to guide the economy but it should be as honest as humanly possible and impose some discipline to keep special interests that are contrary to the greater good at bay. Maybe government officials should be better paid so they aren’t tempted by corrupting influence quite so much. I’d probably help pay for that.
I would love it if our community supported artists more than it does but I can’t stand the idea that books are pulled from libraries or exhibits are canceled in museums or shows are censored on TV because a small and vocal minority can’t deal with their content. That seems like sheer idiocy and actually does inhibit my life. It seems a simple matter to avoid stuff you find offensive and to adequately educate your own children so they aren’t led astray by stuff you think is unwholesome.
As the husband of a disabled person, I am very sensitive to how inaccessible large parts of this country remain. There are many street corners without curbcuts, places without ramps, taxis that are too high for a wheelchair, and so on. This may not be an issue that touches your life (I hope not) but with a small effort, you and your community can make an enormous difference to people who have trouble getting around.
Thanks to Patti’s disability, I am also very aware of how Byzantine and Kafakesque our health care and insurance systems are and do not understand why this isn’t a major priority of everyone in this country. We may not all be disabled but we’re all getting older and inevitably will have to rely on our healthcare system to help us out. And before we need wheelchairs and bypasses, our parents will and we’ll be saddled with the bill and the stress. This is hardly a partisan issue but exactly the sort of thing that we formed into communities to help each other with.
I wish we could be nicer and calmer too. It’s sad that in the current political debate so many people seem more interested in diminishing the ideas of others than in providing solutions of their own. The politics of division are an enormous drag on our progress and eat up resources and energy that could be so much better used.
And finally, I wish, more than ever, that I could do more to help. I yearn for a call to action, to join with my neighbor in solving our current woes, to give of myself. I am so put off by the derision leveled at ‘community organizers’ that I heard on TV a couple of nights ago. How low to put down people who work in soup kitchens or churches or libraries or schools, who volunteer to help their neighbors, people who are filling in the gaps left by reduced government programs unfunded because of the trillions spent on defense. It just seems like mean spirited knavery looking to grasp at any straw to pull down the opposition. I hope we end up with a leader who will truly lead, lead like Lincoln, like Churchill, like Jesus, like FDR, like Gandhi, like JFK, like Buddha, like the Dalai Lama, who will say, ‘Look here’s what’s going on (don’t you agree?), and here’s how you can join us to help fix it, not just with donations or prayers or mute acquiescence, but by rolling up your sleeves, grabbing an oar and getting to work to right the ship and get us back on course. I know there’s a will out there, all we need is someone who will lead the way. I’m pretty sure Barack Obama has the answer, have been since the beginning of last year.
If you agree with me, I hope you’ll spread the thought. If you passionately disagree and have something constructive to say, I’d love to know where I might be going wrong.
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Addendum:
A few readers seem to think that I shouldn’t talk about how I feel about politics and my view of American society here. I rarely do, in spite of the importance such issues have for me. I believe, however, that my art is an extension of my life, and a record of how I see the world, warts and all. If you don’t like everything about me and how I think, I’m cool with that. And if my views as stated above are utterly repugnant you, either skip such posts or ignore me all together. That’s cool (though a little sad) too.
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Added addendum:
And, finally, there’s this.
Gosh darned
In this country, and many others, it is very unpopular to not believe in god. Some people are coming out and discussing this but it is the taboo topic of our time.
Even here in the Gemorrah called New York City, you can talk about any sort of sexual thing, about your body’s processes, about any intimate matter, but you can’t ever question theocracy. So I won’t.
Yes, he recovered from mouse poison and the attack of the Robotic Rat.
Perfect storm
So far this millennium has been a strained and sweaty passage. As the moorings are loosened, it seems that any and everything could unravel. A terrorist attack a half a mile and four years away, still feels like it could metastasize and engulf my life. A hurricane a thousand miles away prompts my mother to buy new insurance while I seek reassurance that my home sits a hundred feet above the ground, ground made of rooted bedrock.
Our government is hopeless and corrupt rather than governing: our religions are a source of division and destruction rather than comfort and moral guidance. It’s tough to express opinions in this climate, tough to make plans, tough to depend on the wisdom of one’s years. And yet, I’m optimistic.
Our times are about keeping it real and perhaps, as our illusions shatter, we’ll be left with a more reasonable set of expectations. Maybe we’ll stop hoping to be lottery millionaires or movie stars or CEOs. Maybe we’ll stop idolizing fabricated celebrity and vicious gossip and impossible perfection. Maybe we’ll realize that true love doesn’t depend on fake breasts.
Nature is brutal and beautiful. One moment the seas are placid, the next they inundate the condos on the shore. We act surprised, oblivious to the millions of years of hurricanes that have shaped our coasts into random, twisted lines. We fantasize that there is a divine plan, an intelligent design behind this terrible judgment. Instead, we must come to see the beauty and the brutality as unpredictable and inevitable. We must relearn our place on the planet and in the universe. It’s time to get a little humble.
Think about Katrina and New Orleans next time you draw. Release the 20th century need to do it right, to make it perfect, to lay down lines just as you’d planned. Instead, take a moment to acknowledge your own imperfections and contemplate how your personal deviations are helping our species to survive. There is no room for perfectly met expectations on this wobbling globe.
The river is ever flowing, breeching its banks, leeching into its bed, never stopping to pose. Everything you draw is mutating as you draw it. Every nanosecond, your pen, your fingers, your sketchbook are all in a flux of atomic migration. We are not grindingly consistent computers, you and I, and we don’t live in Sim City. A twisted, crooked line is the only true line.
Study the gnarled tree, the rotting apple, the ill-kempt hairdo, the defecating dog. Capture the spirit of this imperfection, this constant change, and allow yourself to breathe as you draw. In and out, up and down, tendons bowing, bones creaking, brain cells dying, ink evaporating, paper curling. Ride the act out, and don’t dare think of posterity. If you draw just so you can hang your work on the wall for eternity, your picture frames will exploded in the hot glow of the ever threatening blast. Draw only for exhibition and your gallery will be washed away in the gathering deluge.
Imperfection, misjudgment, failure, these are what you have and don’t dare flee them. Embrace them, cherish them. For chaos is the true way of the world, of your soul, of your destiny of Art with a twisted capital A.
Study your world and draw it. Draw crooked, draw with a stick, draw in the dark, but draw. Draw for now, for today, for this moment. It’s all we have. And, believe me, it’s more than enough.
Happy Old Me
It’ll be my birthday in a few days and this year I’m feeling it. My ankle is still a little shaky and it has made me physically unsure. It gets a little better every day but it has made me contemplate my mortality anew. I step off the curb more deliberately; I put on an elastic bandage if I think I’ll be walking for a while. I think about the body I usually take for granted.
My barber, an old Italian man in a toupee, horrified me yesterday. He said, “You know, your hair is very thick at the back. You could easily do a transplant and put some up front.” I barked out a laugh but he was serious, “One session, not very expensive at all.”. For the briefest of moments, I imagined what it would be like to have a full head of hair and then dismissed it in a vision of doll’s hairplugs and snickering comments behind my vain back. I told him that receding hairlines had been a family tradition for generations and to go easy on the gel.
Time does seem to be fleeting. Jack is nearly up to my shoulder these days. Summer’s almost done. And we are repainting our apartment and replacing the furniture we bought when we moved in nine years ago. Sic transit. Last weekend we went to 18 West 18th Street, the address where Patti and I met in a long defunct restaurant called Café Seiyoken. When we got married there, five years later, it was a another restaurant. Now it is a children’s book store. The spot where we said our vows is now a cupcake counter. The bar where we first met has been replaced by a rack of Eric Carle books.
I know, I know. What’s more tedious than a middle aged man bemoaning the passing of time? The odd thing about it all is how full life seems to be of things I’ve never done or known. In many ways, I feel dumber and more inexperienced withe each year. I am still learning how to be married after two decades, how to be a dad after eleven years. I still wonder where my career is going, still plan on getting into an exercise program, still consider getting a therapist, still consider moving to the other side of the world.
My grandfather was born in 1909 and he’s still alive and kicking, so chances are I may only be halfway through my journey. Then again I may be electrocuted by this computer and die today.
I do know I wish I had more time to draw so I could get really good at it. Last night I was curiously liberated when I spent an hour tracing a devilishly complex drawing by Ronald Searle. For months I have been looking for the right pen to duplicate his lines, thinking he must have used a dip pen or a rubbery fountain pen of some sort. But when I studied and reproduced his drawng, I discovered that his individual lines are remarkably consistent and that my Rapidoliner traced them perfectly. There’s no trick, no tool that I am missing. My pen is just fine.
Enough excuses. I should just take it outside and use it. But first, let me wrap up my ankle and suck down some Geritol.
Collaboration isn’t just for the French
I am writing this on a flight to Los Angeles where we are going to shoot the first five commercials for the campaign I began last summer. It was July 27th when I stood at a urinal on 22nd street and was suddenly struck with the idea which, through various barrel jumps, backflips and slaloms, has brought me to this seat on American Airlines.
Of course, it’s absurd that it should have taken 200 days for three or four minutes of advertising to go from my urinal to your television. Well, actually the commercials haven’t even been filmed yet. It’ll be closer to 300 days before they actually hit the airwaves. This is certainly a long time for even advertising to be birthed, but not unheard of.
When you sell your creative work, the results are invariably a collaboration between your imagination and the processes of the person or corporation who is funding them. In the case of a new brand advertising campaign, your collaborators include various levels of decision makers in your agency, some ‘creative’, some administrative and some strategic, all of who provide input based on their own experience, ego, time and attention span.
Next, the work runs through the filter of the client company’s marketing executives. Some have long and illustrious careers producing great advertising and can often make your ideas better and sharper. Others have ended up in marketing by virtue of their success or failure in another part of the company. I have worked with clients who were former antifreeze salesman, flight attendants, bank tellers, and tax attorneys. When I created ads for the Postal Service, my client was a former mail carrier. However, their past is not necessarily an indication of their utility as creative collaborators.
As I have done a lot of corporate and brand advertising, I invariably end up presenting to CEOs and CFOs. Most of them have little interest in advertising and consider it a waste of time and money. They tend to be results oriented, I’m from Missouri, kind of left brainers, Some, by virtue of having a lot of money and a lot of power, have odd and interesting ideas about how advertising should work. They often cite their wives’ or children’s opinions. Because they are unused to talking about executional creative matters, their words are often ambiguous and hard to take at face value and much time is spent by others, parsing their phrases and trying to determine the hidden meaning behind all sorts of cabalistic executive signs. I have worked with agencies who note down the colors of executives’ ties and shirts in an effort to come up with logo and advertising palettes that will pass muster.
These creative approvals are funny things. They are so often subjective and frankly irrelevant to the effectiveness of advertising. The best clients are the ones who are extremely clear and smart about what they know best. They tell you what they want to accomplish with their businesses and how advertising can help. They couch their reactions to the work you bring them in terms of their original intent. Often they are surprisingly lucid and insightful, demonstrating in spades how they got to where they are. They respect the people they hire and assume that they will do their work well. They keep their egos in check and use their authority to clear impasses further down the food chain. They can break loggerheads with a phrase or two. As one CEO said to me recently, ‘People assume that because everyone has a voice that this is a democracy. It’s not. I want this done so let’s move on.” Someone who works for someone who works for someone who works for him and who had been our daily contact had said something equally memorable and candid in an earlier meeting:” My boss told me that my job is to tell you what you have done wrong. I can’t see anything wrong in what you’ve done but I still have to figure out how to do my job.”
There’s little question that, unfortunately, much of what we are paid for is to deal with the process. To be able to listen to someone’s incoherent rant and turn it into some thing actionable. To respond to the various thumbs stuck in the wet clay of one’s idea and yet emerge with something that isn’t embarrassing and wasteful.
There are different styles that creative people have to deal with this obstacle course. Some defend their work against every single remark and soon devolve into shrill defensiveness. Others sit quietly, waiting for the moment to insert a devastating retort. Some try to come up with constructive responses as the clients lays out his objections. Some give long rebuttals that communicate little but ego and leave the client wondering if they heard a word she said. Some sit gulping in anxiety, waiting for others to defend their efforts. Some smirk smugly, all but saying ‘ You are such an idiot”.
The most constructive approach is, first, just to listen. Particularly when there are lots of clients of various levels in a room, they tend to circle around each other, ideas canceling each other out, objections overruled, problems solving themselves. Then, if the audience has the patience, summarize what they have said and see if they agree with your summary. Then offer a solution or two for the present and withdraw and try to form a coherent plan of response. When you do respond, show them what they asked for, accompanied with a range of other solutions.
I think most clients like the creative process. They want to be wowed. When they come up with their own ideas and insist upon them, they also have a nagging feeling that they’re doing the wrong thing, buying a dog and barking themselves. In some ways, advertising seems easier than other creative forms. When I do illustration work, no one has ever redrawn my pictures like some clients feel they can rewrite my copy. When I work with composers, I have (almost) never seen a client tell them which specific notes to play. A bad and desperate client will push past agency and director and go up to an actor and tell him specifically how to say his lines but he’ll rarely get in front of the camera himself.
The key again is to listen and observe. That’s the way to get the clearest sense of what’s really going on. Then by re-presenting the client’s POV to him or her, you show that you get it, you want to help, you care. Don’t insist on logic — often the process spits up a lot of nonsensical mandates that come about through intricate games of Telephone that make no real sense. People, intimidated by their inarticulate bosses, can resort to just taking dictation and passing the buck on to you. But try to see through that and get to the truth underneath.
Then, try to take all of the comments as a new creative challenge. Be willing to sacrifice your children in order to end up with an even stronger result. I’ve often had good ideas become great ones as they were annealed on the forge of the approval process. Despairing of being able to fix your crippled creation, you toss it aside and fabricate a far more elegant solution.
Am I making it all sound horrible? Do I seem like an arrogant know-it-all who thinks all clients are boobs? Maybe so, but I don’t really feel that, not most of the time. It’s a thin line to tread between making something that fits the needs of the people who hired you to do it and something that you are proud of, that is fresh and exciting to you. I often write commercials based on events or perceptions that have occurred to me and it is heart breaking to see them mangled beyond recognition. It feels very personal. But in the end, it really isn’t. That’s what Art is for, to express the personal. The creative work we are paid to do, while growing from our integrity and values and personal aesthetic, is always a collaboration and must be respected as such. When created honestly and openly and generously, it is is the best sort of collaboration, Rogers and Hammerstein, Dolce & Gabbana. At other times it’s more Rogers & Frankenstein, Dolce & Gambino. So you pick your fights. You say to you yourself, if they want to drive this Lamborghini over the clff, it’s their dollar. I won’t allow myself to be twisted in the wreckage. Recognizing that jobs and millions of dollars are at stake, that these matters are impacting people’s better judgment, doesn’t make you a hack. Just a professional.
So the simple answer is: throw yourself 90% into what you do for money. Reserve that small part for self-protection. Be willing to stand back, to be objective and dispassionate. And channel the feelings you have, the reaction to disappointment and limitations, and put it into the work that really matters: your Art. Now be uncompromising. Insist on the highest quality from yourself. Be clear, be strong, be energetic and bold. Experiment, reach, push. Stay up later than you would on a client project. See yourself in this work, the real you. Keep working, keep fighting, be heedless of others. And keep telling yourself that you work to earn a living and that you must never forget to to do the living that you have earned.
Aliens
Last night we went to a preview for James
Cameron’s new movie, Aliens of the Deep. It was pretty spectacular in
3-D Imax, all shot on the bottom of the ocean with extraordinary
critters and lunar landscapes. Cameron chatted with us just before the
screening and told us he much preferred these personal efforts to
Hollywood fare and would be continuing down this path. Here’s a guy who
made many of the biggest blockbuster movies ever (Alien, Terminator,
Titanic, etc) and won Oscars (Top of the World, Ma!) and instead of
making more and more crap full of explosions and mayhem has
increasingly devoted his creative energies and resources to these
little underwater documentaries aimed at schools and scientists.
As I mentioned a couple of days, I am thinking these days about the
balance between creativity for one’s pleasure versus creativity for
hire. With the exception of the few Damien Hirsts and Richard Serras
making big bucks, art is a business done mainly for its spiritual
rather than financial rewards. As an illustrator, one can make an okay
living, probably about the same as an experienced postal worker. One
has a certain amount of liberty in the way in which one works but, by
and large, you are executing other people’s ideas or at best creating a
drawing to accompany a story someone else has created. If you work for
publications, you’ll have decent freedom to interpret the assignment
and most of your drawings will be accepted pretty much as you draw
them. If you get one of the rare advertising illustration assignments
still left around, you’ll make a lot more money but have to redo your
work many times to fit the exact visions of the art director, creative
director and client.
Advertising is one of the most lucrative businesses for creative
people. We make double what designers do but generally get half as much
respect from our clients (most of whom make far less than we do). Our
ideas have to go through many layers of approval and then rounds of
testing but millions are spent to share them with the world.
Make no mistake. There is a fundamental difference between the work we
do for ourselves and almost anything we do for hire. Art is an
exploration, an unfolding of things that are deeply rooted in who the
creator is. It is not meant to fit an agenda or even express a message
(though much art is decoded for its ‘messages’, an aspect of the work
that is usually a byproduct of the artist’s process and not its true
purpose). Creativity that is commercial is always restricted by its
purpose. It may seem very free and loose and personal but it isn’t.
Even if one uses a song or an image that were created for personal
reasons and one puts it into advertising or design, one changes its
spirit forever. You can’t help but deform it by changing its content.
The song may sound lovely in the commercial but it is twisted to fit a
different agenda and thus loses it true beauty, a bird in a gilded cage
At the highest end of the advertising and design world, it appears that
top creative people have enormous control and freedom but I know many
such folks and though they are freer than their peers, compared with
the freedom of true fine artists they are crippled slaves.
Making the transition from one world to another is awfully hard.
I have hired artists to make ads for the first time and they are
horrible at it. I have hired movie directors to make their first
commercials and they struggle with the whole notion of shooting
something to time, to fitting a story into 30 seconds. Even Martin
Scorcese balked at it and produced mediocrity compared to directors who
are used to fitting their skills to the task. Composers, photographers,
painters, actors, all have trouble making the transition to the narrow
confines of commercial creativity.
The inverse is equally true. When I first started working with
publishers, I completely misunderstood the relationship. I thought my
editor was my client and assumed I had to follow their suggestions to
the letter. My agent disavowed me of this, pointing out that I
was the client, I was the goose laying the golden eggs, the producer of
the product that everyone else was profiting from ( which is equally
true in advertising but that value equation is rarely acknowledged as
if one’s salary was a lump-sum deal that expunges any rights of
ownership). Sure, the relationship was one of business partnership but
my vision was what my publisher wanted. That was a tough one to get
used to but enormously satisfying and liberating. IWhen I write a book
(and it becomes increasingly so with each book I do), I am out to
express myself and to find the best possible way to do so. Others’
functions is simply to help me understand how clear and engaging I have
been in doing so but the direction and responsibility are mine. That
feels a lot more like art to me. The check one cashes in such a case
may do less for one’s bank account but much more for one’s heart.
These thoughts on the value of creativity are rudimentary and a little
conflicted. I’ll keep working on them and share them as they are
polished.
Early morning habits
Too long ago, I went to the gym every day. At seven a.m., the doors opened and a small group of us would shamble in and begin lifting weights. I had a little notebook in which I charted my regimen and recorded my progress; accumulating the little pencil scrawls kept me committed for close to a year. I was pretty intense about it, seven days a week, rain or shine, always at 7 a.m. If I overloaded the stack of iron and strained a rhomboid, I would switch to a leg routine for the next few days until I healed. But I had to keep going
I took a fair amount of pleasure in how my body developed. I wasn’t a steroid freak or anything though some of the other 7 a.m. crew were a little scary, particularly a couple of the women with lats like pterodactyl wings and neck as thick as my thighs. For me, weight lifting felt like a creative act; I liked how my arms felt like they belonged to someone else, like touching a horse or a large dog’s back. I had made my body into something, something essentially useless as I rarely had to lift toppled trees off cars or open jars of pickles, but something hand-crafted nonetheless. I don’t even know how healthy the whole thing was: I almost always hurt somewhere and woke up each 6:30 wincing and groaning.
When it was still cold and dark outside, Patti would urge me to stay in bed but I would refuse. There was simply no room for discussion. If I missed a day, I would lose momentum, my streak would end. I was convinced that I had to be 100% committed to my routine. The pathological drill sergeant in my head gave my will zero room for excuses.
Then my sister said she wanted to join me. For a week or so, she met me every 7 a.m. and it was fun to have someone to work out with. Till one morning she called me at 6:45 and croaked that she didn’t feel like going today, that I should take the day of too. So I did. And the day after that and so on. I never went back to the gym again.
——-
Habit is enormously powerful. The bad ones are easy to pick up and a drag to shake. Each bad habit starts by stifling a voice in your head, the one that knows better, and says ‘go ahead, just try it’ and leads you to drag that first cigarette though you know it’ll lead to the grave, to accompany every burger with fries, to flop on the couch in front of the tube, to drink too much, talk too much, do too little…. The angel on your shoulder doesn’t stand a chance.
For me, developing good habits requires the same sort of censorship. However, this time I have to stifle the voice that leads me astray, to be absolutely rigid in my refusal to capitulate. It works best when I have an inflexible routine, like my 7 a.m. appointment at the gym.
These days, NPR wakes me up at 6:57 a.m., and I go mechanically through a series of maneuvers that have me walking up the street and arriving at my desk at 8:30 while the office is still cold and empty. I am at my most productive in that first hour. I’d love to add another hour to my morning, to rise before six and really get something done with my first cup of joe. I haven’t muscled myself into that harness yet.
What does this sort of rigidity mean when it comes to creativity? Can you be so iron-clad and expect your imagination to function just because you have put it on a regimen? Will the ink lie cold in the pen? Will the mind stay half-asleep?
Not if you insist. The muse can be put on a tight schedule. I have had to come up with ideas, on deadline for decades and, if anything, things flow more easily when you bear down on the brain. It’s not guaranteed but showing up is half the job. If I am focussed, resolved, and present, ideas will come.
I’d like to be more disciplined about my drawing. When I have an illustration assignment or a commitment to another like sketchcrawling, I can deliver. I just did it in Paris, crawling out in to the cold rainy dawn to draw. But it’s not as much fun as when I am suddenly inspired to pick up the pen. It feels like work. But maybe that’s because I am irregular in my early morning sessions. I mean, I could stagger over to the gym tomorrow at 7 am and bench press something but it would not be fun.
My pal, Tom Kane, has a great habit. When he walks into his office each morning, he snaps on his computer, loads the NY Times homepage and draws something from one of the lead stories in a Moleskine reserved for the purpose. Each day, at least one drawing of a newsmaker. Only then does his work day begin. His book is full now, brimming with great caricatures and portraits, built one drawing at a time. His drawings muscles ripple. Of course, he does not stop there; he draws New York City most days, detailed pen and ink drawings that fill the page from corner to corner. Tom’s compulsive too. He cannot stop until every square inch of paper is covered and crosshatched. He tells me he doesn’t do it because he enjoys it; he does it because he has to. He’s got the habit.
Sour Grapes and Bleeding Hearts
At various points in my life, I have not gone with my gut. I have relied on my head exclusively. I am a good talker and so am able to construct rationales for most things and then press them hard enough so that those armed only with intuition are usually cowed into silence. Those voices usually include my own, that gentle inner voice that then stands back, shaking its head sadly, to watch with the rest for the fall out.
There was the job I took because it was a way out of a company I had ceased to like. I convinced myself that it would be a way to strengthen my experience in making television commercials, even if the commercials I’d be making may not be that great. After five months, I resigned. None of the twelve commercials I made in that time became a part of my show reel of work.
There are meals I’ve eaten, girls I’ve dated, clothes I’ve worn, words I’ve spoken, without attending the counsel of that part of me that says quietly, “Do your really mean this? Is this really a reflection of you? Or this just expedience, just a way of getting it done, an overly logical A connects to B connects to C sort of thing?”
A year ago, when Howard Dean seemed so thrilling, and then imploded, we looked around for a common sense solution. Kerry, the “war hero” couldn’t possibly be accused of lilly-livered-liberal-doveishness. The man had killed, for Cripes’ sake. Sure, he was opposed to lots of things I value. He voted for the war (he just did, folks) that I was marching against. He’s against gun control and gay marriage and does the whole Catholic thing and is married to a rich Republican and has that mechanical way of speaking that actually made Gore (Gore!) seem spontaneous and fluid. But, he was the one they told us was “electable” so don’t fall into the usual hair splitting trap that always kneecaps Democrats and get with the program. So I gave money and followed every squeak and fart of the campaign and filled myself with buckets of bile and loathing even though I was completely uninspired the whole time. I never felt that hair rising on the back of my neck feeling I had when Clinton talked about the place called hope, when politics was about uplifting, selfless commitment that brought tears to these reptilian eyes.No MLK, no JFK, no FDR, no Jimmy Stewart as Mr Smith goes to Washington.
The Bushies feel that knee-weakening sense of purpose. The rest of us just threw in our lots with hatred and nihilism. Our strategy was the same as the neo-cons going into Baghdad. Kill the fucker and we’ll worry about what to do later. All that matters is to destroy the enemy.
That’s not a liberal impulse and we’re not very good at it.
Now I look at the country I have adopted and think, “Why did I ever believe that my POV would be the same as the majority? I pride myself on being different, for fuck’s sake.” But most of all, why did I get so worked up about something I didn�t truly believe in? When will I learn that expediency never satisfies?
But what option was there? Dean? Nader? …Gephardt? Better yet to realize that true passion and inspiration comes rarely in mainstream politics. There are so many other causes to which one can attach oneself and breathe real fire.
I’m done with politics for a good while. I have taken Josh Marshall and wonkette and The Note off my list of browser favorites. I have decided to go to sleep reading Graham Greene’s The Heart of the Matter rather than watching CNN or Jon Stewart. I will spend my spare time not reading the Times’ website but doing what I really get pleasure out of: Drawing in 04, folks. That’s one issue I can readily cast my vote for.
Summer Time Blues
I have been working fairly hard since coming back from vacation and, between that and trying to wedge in some drawing (and absolutely hating my ultra-expensive-from-the-tube watercolors as opposed to my tried-and-true Grumbacher set) and not doing enough guitar practice or going to the gym or telling my wife that I love her (in fact, she left yesterday morning to fly to Los Angeles for the Poseidon Adventure convention ( don’t ask) and various new book matters including signing my new contract and gearing up the Change Your Underwear publicity tour (apparently, I’ll be on CNN morning news, Good Morning America, Today Show , etc. after Labor Day), this blog has moved to the back of the pack. So, sorry about that.
A propos of nothing much but the fact that it’s summer and I’m working, I’ve been thinking about summer jobs I had as a kid.
My first summer job was when I was eleven, and wanted desperately to be a veterinarian. I got a job working for the town vet (this was in a small Israeli town called Kfar Saba) who worked in the pound and the adjoining slaughterhouse. My job was basically to clean out cages and feed the dogs and cats but I also helped out where needed. I remember the sickly sweet smell of the gassing room and the stiff dog limbs sticking out of garbage cans in the back.
Someone once brought in a skinny dog that was entirely covered with shiny green ticks. He looked like a bunch of grapes and we had to shampoo him and pour kerosene on him then shampoo him again; slowly the ticks dropped off, squirting his blood onto the cement floor. A week later, the dog joined the others in the garbage cans in the back.
I was as ghoulish as any prepubescent boy and loved to hang around the slaughterhouse. The cows would be herded up a ramp and would meekly follow the cow ahead until they got close enough to smell the blood of the abattoir. Then they would raise their heads and roll their eyes and try to back down the ramp or climb over the rusting railing. One could have painted a line on the floor to mark the point at which they all realized their fate.
Once inside, men converged up on each cow and shackled their hooves. Motors mounted to the ceiling raised the shackles on chains and the cows would soon be dangling upside down and then lowered into a long metal tub. A board was put under the cow’s head and a rabbi stepped forward to slit her throat. To be properly kosher, the knife had to be so sharp that a piece of paper dropped onto the blade would be cleaved in two.
Next, the shackles were removed from the dying cow’s front hooves and the motor would hoist her up to be dressed by the butchers. A minute or two after crossing the imaginary line, the cow would be unrecognizable, a side of beef.
Occasionally I would help out in a two-story shed behind the slaughterhouse. Cow intestines were brought in by the barrelful and we would slide them through v-shaped boards that would squeeze out the contents into gigantic metal sinks, leaving us with empty sausage casing. The cow shit would run down to the first floor and into a cart tethered to a balding donkey. Without looking over his shoulder, the donkey knew when the cart was filled and would then trudge out of the shed and across the courtyard to a deep pit. He would back the cart against a pole upending the contents into the stinking pit. Then the donkey would trudge back to its post in the shed.
One afternoon, the rabbis discovered they had unwittingly processed a pregnant cow. I was called in to haul the purple fetus away and carve it up. The dogs ate it with relish, untroubled that the meat wasn’t kosher.
The vet’s thirteen-year-old son would occasionally hang around the office, snacking and picking his cavernous nostrils. One day, he announced that his father didn’t like me ‘ as a person. I was so upset by this first ever job review that I never returned to work. The vet called my parents, who were a little horrified by my daily descriptions of my job, and they decided for me that it was for the best that I spend the rest of the summer playing marbles and swimming.
At sixteen, I went to work at the McDonalds that had just opened on Court Street, rotating through all of the jobs in the restaurant. I worked the grill making Big Macs and burgers, twelve at a time during the lunch rush, toasting and dressing buns, searing frozen patties and stiffing them all into Styrofoam clamshells. Every few hours, I would scrape down the grill and then slide out the steel grease traps and carry them through the back door and into an alley. I would pry open one of the three steel oil drums that stood in a cloud of flies and dump in the grease and chunks of burnt meat. A seething bed of cream-colored maggots floated on the entire surface of the liquid within and would converge quickly on my offering. The smell was thick and alive and I would frantically slam down the lid.
I worked the register too, filling bags for sullen customers and praying that my register drawer would balance at the end of the shift. I made French fries, my arms slowly roasting under the heat lamps, my grill-burns stinging under showers of salt. Every week, an 18-wheeler would pull up to the curb outside and I would have to empty it contents into the freezers in the basement. I would pull a case of frozen burgers out of the refrigerated truck, carry it across the scalding July sidewalk, then down the stairs and into the store’s freezer, then up the steps, back out into the heat, into the frozen truck, back and forth, forty times. It was like training for a Rocky movie or the Iron Man triathlon.
The job I dreaded the most was working the lobby. The first part wasn’t too bad ‘ I pushed a little broom around and emptied the trashcans every ten minutes or so. I would drop the full bags through a steel door marked ‘rubbish’ and into a chute that dropped through to the basement. But twice a day or more, I would have to go downstairs and gather up everything that had come down the chute. This included all the bags I had dropped but also all the detritus that customers, confused by the sign on the chute door, had tossed down. Half eaten burgers, cups of ketchup, sodden French fries, dirty napkins, and diapers floated in ankle deep greasy water. All of this mess went into the trash compactor in the corner. Sometimes, I was so overcome by the smell and the vileness that I would rush over and throw up into the compactor, push the button to compact it and continue working. When I was done I would have to wrap wire around the bale and muscle it out of the compactor.
One day the owner took me a side and told me that since I was the only white employee, he had decided to send me to McDonald’s University to train to become a manager. I explained that I still had another year of high school to go and he told me I could get a GED later. I told him I was flattered but my parents had their hearts set on my going to an ivy league college. He looked at me like I had crawled out of one of the oil drums in the alley and told me to go down and compact the trash.
The next summer, after senior year, I worked in a record store. It was the summer of ‘78 and hald the albums we sold were the soundtrack to Saturday Night Fever. More modest hits that summer: George Benson’s Breezin’, Steely Dan’s Aja, and Fleetwood Mac’s Rumors.
I spent a lot of time studying the bins of records and soon knew the inventory cold. I developed a roster of regular clients who would come in on Fridays after work and they would usually walk out with a half records I’d recommended.
There were two phones next to the cash register and Peter, the owner was adamant that I not answer the white one. Occasionally, by accident, I would. The callers would invariably say they would like to ‘order a limo’. Whenever I passed such a message onto Peter, he would be irritated with me and tell me not to answer the white phone again. Other wise, our relationship was decent and he would give me occasional spot bonuses when I he saw me moving a lot of merchandise to my regulars.
Towards the end of the summer, Peer took me aside and asked me about my plans. I told him I was going to college. ‘Forget that, man,’ he said and told me that he would make me an assistant manager if I stayed. Besides the various girls who worked the register, I was the only employee so the promotion didn’t seem reason enough to cancel my plans to go to Princeton. ‘Come on, man,’ he hissed, ‘ I didn’t go to college and look at me now.’ I thanked him for the tutelage and again blamed it all on my parents. They had their hearts set on me going to an ivy league school. Peter glared at me and told me to get back out front.
The next morning he gave me an assignment. He had a wall covered with steel milk crates packed with records and he wanted me to move to his apartment, I spend the better part of the afternoon lugging them across the street and up to his fourth floor walkup. Halfway through, I realized that I would probably only be working for him for an other day or two and that if I quit now I could stop this back-breaking work.
Peter was in his bedroom with the door closed. I knocked and he said, ‘Don’t come in,’ so I went back to moving crates. After three more trips, I knocked again. ‘I need to talk to you,’ I said through the door.’ ‘Don’t come in!’ Three more crates. ‘Listen, Peter, I have to tell you something important.’ I said and turned the doorknob. Peter was sitting on his bed, which was completely covered by hundred of joints. He had a machine on his lap and was in the middle of rolling another one. Apparently this was the true nature of Peter’s ‘limo’ business.
‘Why’d you come in?! You’re fired,’ he roared. ‘I came in to quit,’ I said. ‘Well, you can’t because you’re fired! Just finish moving those crates.”
I went back to the store, selected copies of all my favorite albums and left the crates where they were.
After my freshman year, I got a job working for my congressman, the Hon. Fred Richmond. Fred had been arrested a couple of years before for soliciting a young boy but, in a style that would seem very out of place today, admitted his guilt, did his time, apologized to his constituents if he’d embarrassed them and the following year was reelected with a huge majority. I was his assistant press secretary, writing press release on how appropriations were being spend in the district and inserting various ridiculous things in the Congressional Record: “Mr. Chairman, the 14th district of the great stat of New York would like to acknowledge 23 years of productivity from the Waldman Tool and Die plant on Nostrand Avenue….”
The next summer I became an intern in the White House. My joke about the experience is that Jimmy Carter lusted after me, but only in his heart. I worked for National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brezinski and occasionally helped out in Vice President Mondale’s office. The coolest thing about the job came each morning as I pushed past the tourists, waved my pass and strutted through the huge iron gates.
Despite the glamour, it was a shitty time. Each night I would take the bus way up north to Chevy Chase and sit in my rented room listening to my landlord scream at and then mercilessly beat his children. I was restricted form the main part of the house beyond my room and so I cooked on a small electric plate and washed my dishes in the bathroom. It was the summer of ‘80n and Carter was getting whooped in the polls. All of the political appointees were busy updating résumés and so I had only career bureaucrats to learn from. I spend most of my time in the White House library writing a paper on the War Powers Act that described how the president could commit troops to battle without congressional permission. This was during the Iranian hostage crisis and when the helicopters that Carter had secretly sent over the border crashed into the Iranian desert, my project tanked.
I decided to leave my internship but my mother and second step father were adamant: I was not allowed to come back to New York unless I had a paying job lined up in advance (I didn’t know it at the time but they were in the last months of their marriage). I was furious and decided to stay in DC and get a job.
I went to Georgetown and walked into the first French restaurant I saw. I was interviewed by the owner: “Have you any experience?” (I lied). “Do you speak French? “(Mais, oui) have you a tuxedo (I’d brought mine to DC in anticipation of the State diners I’d be attending). I started the next day, poured an entire dish of Boeuf Bourguignon on a patron’s Chanel suit and was immediately dismissed.
The next day, I went to a French restaurant on the other side of Georgetown. Same questions. with one addition: Where have you worked? I mentioned the place I’d worked the night before but not the terms of my departure. “Tres bien!” said the owner. ”That’s my cousin!” As he dialed the other restaurant, I slunk out the door. The following day, I was hired as a busboy at a Spanish restaurant. After lunch, the all Chinese kitchen staff asked me what I planned to do until the dinner shift. “Come with us!” the dishwasher said magnanimously. He had just bought a Camaro from the other busboy who had acquired a new Corvette from the waiter. I discovered their secret at the racetrack where they turned my $12 in lunch tips into $200. Clearly, I was onto a good thing.
Back at the restaurant, I discovered some sticky politics. The Maitre d’ who’d hired me was th partner of the chef who had been absent during the lunch shift. It turned out they absolutely loathed each other. When the chef discovered I’d been hired by the maitre d’, he fired me on the spot.
My next job was at a sandwich and ice cream store. I worked my ass off and ate all my meals for free at the restaurant. I didn’t speak to my mother for the rest of the summer and ignored her letters. By Labor Day, I had put aside $600, all in one dollar bills which I packed in to a suitcase and took back to New York. When I arrived home, my mother and stepfather asked me where I had been. With a dramatic flourish, I unlocked the valise and flung the contents into the air. “I’ve been making money like you told me to!” I cried, gesturing to the shower of green. They weren’t terribly impressed by my gesture.
The next summer I had one more restaurant job, this time at the chic River Café at the the foot of the Brooklyn Bridge. It was celebrity hangout of sorts: I peed in the urinal next to John Belushi and watched a waiter perform the Heimlich maneuver on Elizabeth Taylor’s escort.
Once a month or so, this mobbed-up guy would come in with a thick wad of bills and announce to the maitre d’, “I’ve got sixteen large on me. Help me spend it.” He sat with the stack at his wrist, tipping every member of the staff that came by. Each time he flicked his cigarette, a busboy would present him with a fresh ashtray and he would reciprocate with a fifty dollar bill. He even went into the kitchen and tipped the dishwashers and the sous chefs. By the time the night was through, his stack was gone. He thought he was big man. We thought he was a dick.
Our shifts would sometimes stretch from lunch till 4 am and the restaurant soon became my whole world. I was buddies with the Chinese busboys who would sleep on metal shelves in the pantry, nesting on the fresh linen. They lived together, squirreled away by the dozen into tiny walk-ups in Queens, and saved every penny they earned. After a couple of years, they planned to return to the Mainland to open restaurants of their own. My pal Phillipe was the valet and I would nip out when I could and we pile into a Rolls or a Bentley and cruise the BQE.
Tokoyama-san was the sushi chef and he would make me secret spicy tuna. One hot afternoon, as I worked on the outside cocktail deck, he made me a bowl of sashimi which I stashed under the bar. I would return to pick at the snack, not noticing that the raw meat had spoiled in the August heat. Soon I had a near hallucinogenic case of food poisoning and didn’t eat Japanese food again for a decade.
Jerusalem Journal
I have just returned from a few days in Jerusalem.
Before you read my journal and are moved to write all sorts of inflamed comments, bear in mind that my POV is very subjective and distorted by the 70+ years my mother’s family has spend in Israel and the on and off relationship I have had with that tortured little patch of sand.
I have come here pretty reluctantly, cajoled by mother who comes twice a year to check on my grandfather. My last visit was twelve years ago, to attend my grandmother’s funeral. I remember the gentle nudge of her ankle against my hand, its dead weight through her shroud as I bore her pall. Then we slid her body into a dusty hole on a hillside, planting her like the flowers she loved. I’ve not had much appetite to return but my mum has been increasingly insistent.
I have never liked this country much. I abhor its politics, its arrogance and its disproportionate impact on the global community. But my maternal ancestors were German and Polish jews, most of whom settled in this desert in the 1930s. The rest settled into the crematoria of Eastern Europe.
Only my grandparents took a different course: first studying medicine in Mussolini’s Rome, then fleeing to British India to purse my grandfather’s second cousin who owed him money. The cousin turned up in Africa a decade later, soon after my grandparents, mother and uncle were released from an internment camp on the Kashmiri border where they had spent seven years with other enemies of the Raj, communists, Nazi sympathizers and German nationals like themselves. Undeterred by the irony of being imprisoned by the enemies of their enemies, my grandparents set up a practice in India, then Pakistan, where they remained for thirty five years. When war broke out in the early 70s they joined us in Israel where war broke out again and we left for the USA.
My grandparents remained in Jerusalem, forced to fend without their accustomed servants, cooks, and gardeners, and shrinking with age.
Although I have been to Jerusalem many times as a child, a teenager and as a young adult, I’ve never been a tourist here. I also promised Patti that I would not take busses, which she is convinced are all rolling terrorist targets.
I wear my back pack; it is filled with my Grumbacher watercolors, a box of pens, my trusty Rapidoliner and a new journal, an Arches travel journal, 6×9.5″ of 140 lb. cold press watercolor paper. I pick up scraps along the way to collage onto the covers of my book: cigarette packs, receipts, newspapers, maps, and other ephemera.
The tension in the air is unusual. The stalls along the covered streets of the Old City have been selling clobber (all of which my cynical grandfather claims is made in China these days) to pilgrims and tourists for millennia. Obviously they want to keep the atmosphere calm and inviting to maintain their livelihood. But recently principle has out weighed commerce and the Intifada had sealed the shops for long stretches. I have never felt such desperation from the shopkeepers hunkered down amidst their dusty inventory, or felt such a sense of menace in the less populated turns of the labyrinthine quarter.
I grew tired of the scratchiness of my .25 Rapidoliner nib on the bumpy cold-pressed paper of my journal and took refuge behind my Faber-Castell PITT brush pen. The results are not very pleasing, but foolish consistency is, after all, the hobgoblin of small minds.
We always ate simple fresh food in Israel: vegetables straight off the vine, yogurt, fresh bread, very little meat. Now for the first time, I noticed lots of fast food, pre-packaged meals, and fat Israelis. Probably another decree by the endomorphic Sharon.
The new wall detours traffic and inconveniences everyone in Israel, forcing people to line up at endless checkpoints. Some say it is temporary (it is very tall, cement, and looks like the Berlin Wall which lasted thirty odd years) and others say it is just the new border (though it bifurcates towns and carves bits of them into landlocked islands).
I walked down to Abu Tor, an Arab town I’ve been to many times, and it felt sullen and dangerous, like an ancient family pet turned senile. The wall was still being built, another of Jerusalem’s endless construction sites. The parts I saw didn’t bear any graffiti so far, as if the wall’s sheer presence eliminates the need to say any more.
It makes me feel bad for everyone in Israel — right, left, Arab and Jew — that things have finally come to this.
It’s tragic that things have come to this. Sequestering the problems of Israel/Palestine behind fences. The Jews are penned between the fence and the deep blue sea; the Arabs between the fence and the River Jordan. It’s a “Go to your room” sort of solution. No lessons learned, no compromises strived for, just lock down and shut up. They don’t eat pork here and yet both parties can be quite pig-headed.
Meanwhile, we are eating a peaceful lunch in this garden restaurant on the road to Bethlehem: yogurt soup, eggplants and dumplings. There is no fence between my appetite and me.
Thanks to my mother’s generosity with her sleeping pills, I have not been a slave to jet lag on this trip. My grandfather tends to go to bed at about 7:30 pm and we tend to follow his example before 10.
Soon after I dropped off on my last night here, the phone rang (an ancient phone that has been repurposed into a wall unit; its bell is unbelievably loud to pierce the old fellow’s deafness): Patti calling from New York, fully expecting us to still be up and galavanting. I remained awake after that until almost 2:30 am.
Perhaps they’d read my journal. Or maybe my grandfather was right and my tan made me look Palestinian. When I got to the airport, the first security guy grilled me for what seemed like ten minutes (What were you doing in Israel? Do you speak Hebrew? Why? When did you live here? How many children do you have? Do they speak Hebrew?) Somehow my answers fell short for he put a yellow sticker on each of my bags and on the back of my passport. My bags went through an enormous X-ray machine and emerged with more questions attached. Several earnest young Israelis clustered about me: When did you live in Israel? What was your address? What was the name of the school you attended (miraculously it came to me: Brenner)? Why didn’t you get an Israeli passport when you lived here (slowly the whole of my peripatetic autobiography unspooled and I was forced to explain my mother’s motivation for taking us globe trotting through out our pre-pubescence)? Is your son learning Hebrew? Why not? Why haven’t you been there since your grandmother’s funeral twelve years ago? Why don’t you visit your grandfather more often…
Then they unpacked my bag and scanned all my dirty laundry for bombs and weapons, unwrapped all my gifts, even wiped down my passport to see if it had come into contact with explosives. I was questioned by six new people (the oldest was maybe 24), then emptied my pockets, extracted my fillings, unscrewed my false leg and went through a metal detector. The man running it checked every inch of my J.Crew belt to see if anything had been buried in its leather.
When I was finally released, my yellow stickers stopped me at every junction. I noticed two Levantine looking boys and they had red stickers on their bags. (Red!) In the gift shop, the duty free, the coffee shop, I was convinced that various undercover people were following and monitoring me.
Finally on the American plane (strike one) flying out of Tel Aviv (strike two) to New York (etc.), I felt safe.
Jerusalem Journal – Sidebar discussion
From: Diane
To: Danny
Hi Danny
I know you don’t want inflamed responses to your harsh take on Israel, but I just can’t help myself. Your dismissive comments cut me to the heart. If someone you admired said they thought your son was ugly and stupid would you just shrug and say “OK, everyone has an opinion.” I don’t think so – when someone or something we love is criticized we feel hurt. When you say you don’t like Israel and you abhor its politics, my hackles rise all by themselves. First of all, which politics are you talking about? No other country in the world has such a broad spectrum and Governments of Israel have encompassed everything from the far Left to the far Right – and you didn’t like ANY of them?
Nobody says Israel is perfect – least of all me. But why is Israel always the only country singled out for criticism when far worse things are going on in 100 other countries and no-one says a word? Here is a tiny country struggling to build a life after the Holocaust, achieving more every year than many other
countries have in 50, struggling against a continuous threat of annihilation by its neighbours, but the knee-jerk reaction is criticism. Where in the world would you find democracy in practice the way you do in Israel?
I also take issue with your comments on “world-weariness”. I have never seen another group of people who read and study and play with as much energy as Israelis do. Perhaps it’s because they live on the edge of annihilation but I have always felt that they live every day as though it might be their last – engaged, interested and alive. “World-weary”? I think not.
Anyway, I’m glad I got all that off my chest, even if you disagree with me. I think I was surprised by your lack of compassion, considering that the circumstances of your life have forced you to re-evaluate everything you see. I hope your attitudes towards Israel will be one of the things you reconsider. Israel is a little bit in the same situation you are – it’s a hard piece of land in a hostile environment but rather than curl up and feel sorry for themselves, Israelis have gone out and achieved something pretty amazing. OK, maybe that’s a crappy metaphor but I’m sure you know what I mean.
Be well, and Shalom
Diane
——
From: Danny
To: Diane
Sorry to disappoint you, Diane.
I think one of the things that irks me the most about Israel is how
enormously polarizing it is and how intolerant its supporters are of
any negative comments about it. I don’t think you give yourself,
Israel, or me much credit by being so doctrinaire in your approach or
by personalizing the politics as you do. It’s precisely that sort of
‘my way or the highway’ attitude that has caused the situation in the
region to reach such a standstill.
Secondly, my reactions are not “knee-jerk” but the results of having
lived in Israel for years, having lots of friends and family from
there, reading the newspaper everyday, and being a student of politics,
history and religion. I graduated summa cum laude with a degree in Near
Eastern politics from Princeton University. I was a kibutznik, an Oleh
Chadash, did my time in the Noar Ha’Oved movement, and have cousins
and friends who have died in the Israeli Army. When I was twelve, my
bus stop was blown up by a bomb as we approached it at the end of the
school day. During my recent visit to Jerusalem, I spoke to Israelis
of many stripes and persuasions, to Christian Arabs, and to
Palestinians, and kept my eyes and ears pretty open. My personal
journal is the result of what I saw and felt at the time. Perhaps my
mistake was in sharing it so openly with people who would are so hasty
in judging my integrity.
And so, if I may have a turn at taking issue, I would do so with your
leaping to conclusions about my “lack of compassion” after two
installments of what is a long series of journal entries created on the
spot and in the thick of things.
And, finally, if you see Israel as purely “a tiny country struggling to
build a life after the Holocaust, achieving more every year than many
other countries have in 50,” I suggest you go over to Abu Tor or
Nazareth or Bethlehem and spend a little time behind the geder.
Some Palestinians are pathological murderers and must be stopped (if
you read the New Yorker two weeks ago, you know that some of the
Israeli settlers are equally homicidal and willing to send their
children to be suicide bombers too. I saw enough of them prowling
around the Holy City wearing side arms and walkie-talkies to be pretty
creeped out). However many others are suffering enormously because of
how the Israeli government has chosen to deal with the situation (the
parallels to the behavior of the Bush administration should at least
give you pause). The whole world knows that, as do many people in
Israel.
Israel is judged by a different standard precisely because of its past.
A people who have been oppressed for thousands of years look
particularly hypocritical when they kick down doors and bulldoze
houses. People who were forced to live in ghettoes are judged harshly
(by even themselves) when they start to build walls and divide
communities and families behind them. Circumstances not withstanding,
the world expects better of Israel.
I would like nothing more than for Israel to once again be a light unto
the nations. Currently, it is not.
As any Israeli will tell you these days, things are not black and white
there and the situation is enormously complex and frankly overwhelming
and depressing to all concerned. That is what makes people world-weary,
regardless of their energetic reading, studying and playing.
I assume that I will not have changed your mind with my words as you
did not change mine with yours. Like so many people in the world these
days, let us just agree to disagree.
I apologize if I am overly blunt. I am still quite jetlagged.
Danny
—–
From: Diane
To: Danny
Hi Danny
Thank you for your detailed response to my letter. I also follow Israeli life and politics very closely and read the newspapers daily. We also watch the Israeli network daily so we’re very aware of what’s going on. My husband is a Libyan Israeli whose family was essentially forced out of Benghazi 50 years ago. Much of our family lives in Israel. Coincidentally, at the moment we are helping to host a group of disabled Israeli soldiers from Beit Halochem who are visiting Toronto for two weeks for some R and R – an amazing experience.
You and I clearly have a completely different take on the situation – a typical Left and Right dichotomy. I truly do worry that Israel will not survive the Intifada and for me that is a terrifying thought. People that I have talked to and argued with who share your point of view don’t seem to care whether a Jewish state survives or not and they don’t see anything wrong with a country called Palestine that also happens to have some Jews living in it. I don’t know whether you subscribe to this point of view or not but, to me, Israel’s survival as a Jewish homeland is of huge importance. I was born and raised in South Africa and have experienced anti-Semitism and racism in its many ugly forms and I think I know what being Jewish without the existence of Israel would be like – and I fear for the future, for my children and their children.
Criticizing Israel is fine when it’s deserved, but it’s funny how the people who criticize the bad things very seldom mention the good. And those same people never seem to have anything to say about the Sudan, or Zimbabwe or the Congo or the hideous things going on in France and other “civilized” countries. Or the U.N., which is probably the most corrupt organization on the planet and spends most of its time vilifying Israel instead of cleaning up its own mess. What is needed is some constructive criticism – some ideas that could actually improve the situation. When I ask people “What would YOU do if you were running the Israeli Government?” I usually get nothing useful.
What would you do? Although I suppose that should be modified to: What would you do if it were important to you that the Jewish state survives?
Diane
——
From: Diane
To: Danny
Hi Danny, there are things in your email I’d like to respond to directly, so I’m going to insert my responses in your email.
Diane
I think your question is a legitimate one: should a Jewish state
survive?
First of all, what is a Jewish state? is it a state populated by Jews?
I think it should be a state where any Jew is welcome to live. It was a haven for Jews fleeing the Arab countries and Europe in the 30s, 40s and 50s and is now a haven for Jews fleeing places like France where anti-Semitism is making life unbearable (such as the little girl who this week in Paris was attacked by maniacs who cut a swastika into her cheek). It should be a country where Hebrew is an official language and the Jewish holidays are official holidays. Certainly, citizenship should also be extended to others but I can tell you I have a big problem with extending citizenship rights to those whose professed goal is to destroy Israel. The world is a large place and I don’t think it’s too much to ask that a tiny portion of it belong to Jews. Look how many countries you are welcome in if you are a Muslim or a Christian but if you are a Jew you may not even enter for a visit.
Or one guided by Jewish principles? I worry that much of Israel’s
behavior violates the spirit of Judaism and rather than inspiring
people spiritually makes Judaism increasingly seem like a tight -knit
club of which you are either born a member or else can go to hell.
I hear what you’re saying, but on the other hand, that is how the rest of world sees us – maybe a little less so in the US – but certainly everywhere else. Hitler certainly had his criteria for deciding who to murder. I’m not an observant Jew and as a woman I have a major problem with the way women are treated in our religion and in Israel, but I see this as a work in progress and not relevant to this discussion. Some things take time and work to combat and will not happen overnight. You cannot underestimate the legacy of the Holocaust on Jewish identity and the need to keep a distance from those who want to eradicate us from the planet. Self-preservation is a very strong drive.
Secondly, I think it is very important to combat anti-semitism, for the
Jews in Israel, for Jews in the Diaspora, and for the general ethical
health of the entire planet. I worry that Israel’s behavior exacerbates
rather than diminishes anti-Jewish sentiment. How can Jews around the
world support Israel while making it clear that the Knesset and the
settlers imperil Jews welfare worldwide? Perhaps non-Israelis jews
could collaborate to move things to the middle.
Which is why I got upset to read your remarks about Israel on a website that is probably read by hundreds of people who aren’t Jewish and don’t know your background. If YOU say “I don’t care for Israel and abhor her politics” I think that carries a lot of weight with people who know your work and admire you and think it’s OK to parrot you without understanding what it is they are rejecting. Most people in Canada get their information from The Toronto Star or the CBC which are blatantly anti-Israel and are very ignorant about why Israel does things. In their opinion, all Israelis are devils with horns whose sole interest in life is to kill innocent Palestinian babies. I belong to various anti-bias groups in an attempt to provide more balanced information but it’s an uphill battle.
Thirdly, Israel’s survival seems to be intimately tied to the Unites
States’ need to control the region and to maintain access to oil. The
Bush administration has taken this position to enormous extremes. As
American policy goes nuts, so it seems does Israel. Neither seek
diplomatic solutions but resort to increasing levels of force every
time. The White House has no interest in forming meaningful alliances
with others and nor does Israel.
OK, here is the heart of the matter. I have come to realize that there is no-one to talk to. I have read too much about the 3rd Jihad to think that the Moslim agenda is a benign one. Their ultimate motive is a very frightening one and the West ignores it at their peril. I can think of few things more horrible that a world where everyone is forced to adopt Islam, sharia and all. (Have you read Irshad Manji’s book?) On a more particular level, as long as Arafat lives and breathes, I can’t see any progress possible.
The possibility of alliances with
others in the region, with moderate Arab leaders, has become impossible…
Who are these moderate leaders?
…and so things get increasingly out of control.
Bush believes that any sort of compromise is weakness. Smart Israelis
on both sides of the aisle know that this is completely unpragmatic and
just forces the deepening spiral of hostility. There is no middle
ground in this country and in the Middle East, and it is quite scary. I
am fundamentally optimistic and moderate in most things. I think most
people are. But somehow the state of things has been pushed to the
edges by extremists in Al-Quaeda, in the Republican Party, by social
conservatives and, yes, by Sharon’s right wing coalition. None of those
factions represent most of us and yet they have their claws on the
helm.
How do your Israeli visitors feel about this? I’m sure they have some
interesting insights.
Some of them just don’t want to talk politics at all – they’re here to sightsee and have fun. But one of the most interesting dialogues has been with one of them who is a Druze. I accompanied him and other soldiers to a couple of Jewish day schools where the children were very curious about a Muslim in the IDF and peppered him with questions about his allegiance to Israel. We concluded that being a Druze in Israel is very like being a Jew in Canada. It was quite a consciousness-raising dialogue but then the Druze(s) are not committed to destroying Israel – on the contrary they send their sons and daughters to defend her.
Meanwhile, I think as my series progresses you will see that I do more
than criticize Israel. I do not, however, blindly praise it. Blindness
ain’t my thing.
Danny
Diane
—–
From: Danny
To: Avri
Avri:
As someone who lives in Israel, perhaps you can respond to this
exchange between me and another reader.
Danny
—–
From: Avri
To: Danny
Dear Danny,
i hope I can indeed be of some assistance, though you must remember I’m only a 22 year old idealist… (I’m not very active politically, but that is due to laziness much reather then Ideals, I’m afraid).
I have to say that I agree with you on almost all your points, but my opinions are considered radicaly leftist in today’s Israel.
Diana’s opinion, is, I’m afraid, the common opinion you will find in american jews – severly right-wing, that stems from a distorted view of things.
The problem is what you find in this discussions is sort of a heightened view of reality, the kind that you don’t feel in Israel .The sentence – “Perhaps it’s because they live on the edge of annihilation but I have always felt that they live every day as though it might be their last – engaged, interested and alive” is a good example. reading this I’m thinking- what? what is she talking about. People on the streets in Israel are the same as anywhere else. here in Tel-Aviv wer’e not in a state of war. You see, for me, the most horrible thing in Israel today is the overall numbness, the way the daily life goes on while horrible crimes are executed in my country – And I mean the everyday crimes of keeping thousands of human beings imprisoned in a state of opression and poverty, thousands of people who are considered grade B citizens. The most horrible thing is that most Israelies don’t mind. They shove the palestinians and the so called “palestinian problem” to the back of their mind, hiding behind the excuse of “Security”.
The Right in Israel would have you believe that Israel is in Mortal Danger – And have convinced most of the public in this distorted view. The fact is, Israel is in mortal procrastination, trying for some reason to avoid the unavoidable day in which the palestinians get their freedom and their country.
But again, we meddle with politics a lot, but everyday life is totally ordniary – wich is exactly the problam – I live a good life. I go to the university every day and study filmmaking, go back in the evening to the appartment I live in and eat good meals, and later, If I want, go out to one of the many many pubs or clubs in the city. My life is normal, and so is the life of many others (not including those -jews and arabs – who live in extreme poverty. there is so much “Security” Issues going on, that our wonderfull goverment neglects to address the problems of the poor). THAT is the problam.
I think that one of the problems today is the coupled with America’s head clown currently residing there is no one to put any pressure on Israel. With the crimes committed by your own goverment in Iraq and my govement, I have to say thing don’t look bright to me…
I hope I helped. I know I am myself radical and get a little heated in discussions like this. But you can understand why this situation can get to me. In order answer claims the type of which diana makes you perhaps need someone a little more “level-headed”. I myself find them so infuriating I have trouble keeping my head screwd on tight… Anyway, I’ll be happy to clarify thing further if you want.
thanks,
Avri
—-
From: Avri
To: Danny
ooh, I forgot two very important things -
First, on the point of compassion -
though not intended, diana’s use of the word seems almost cynical to my ears. compassion? we don’t need compassion. we need the weight of the world bearing down on us to break the god damn circle of blood shed and finish the occupation and the age old struggle. It is the palestinians who deserve our compassion, the compassion not given to them by the israely crowd and the goverment.
perhaps the Israely soldiers who are sent to kill and be killed deserve our compassion. But I believe that with the amount of wrong-doing executed by the army units in the occuopied teritories, it is their moral duity to refuse to serve, even if it means going to jail (obviously 99.9% of the population don’t see eye to eye with me on the subject… My brother, who is in the reserve, refused to serve in a roadblock on his duty [ I don't know if you know how it goes around here. every citizen who was in the army gets called to 2 to 4 weeks of service a year] and went to jail for two weeks. He is a married and has three kids so it wasn’t easy, but he joined the struggle and I’m very proud of him).
the second issue is one that you mentioned, and I whole heartedly agree with you – the lack of ability to recieve comment and critisism. it has been taken a step further and turned into an art by those who cry “Antisemitism!” on any kind of critisism.
Isreal seems not to be able to cope with any kind of criticism or comment, and the act of going out to the foreign press (which some raical left movements did in order to welcome foreign pressure on the goverment), ehich was truly a cry for help, was considered by the public almost as treason.
It saddens to see what a hard-heated country Israel has become.
Avri
—–
From: Diane
To: Danny
Danny,
although I have enjoyed your artwork enormously until recently, I now feel far more pain than joy when I read your journal, so please remove my name from your mailing list. I’m very sad to have lost a source of artistic inspiration but the nasty, spiteful sniping about Israel and Israelis makes it an unpleasant exercise in sadness and frustration for me that I don’t need right now.
Diane
Homeless Journal
Recently, I found myself angsting about money. I decided that I should go out and talk to people who had none. I approached homeless people in my neighborhood and asked them to share their stories with me. At first it was terrifying, breaking the barrier. But I soon found that if you don’t want anything from people but their story and perspective, they are enormously forthcoming and trusting. They’ll soon forget to wonder why you’re asking.
These images and stories were published in the Morning News where my journal entires were transcribed into text.
All Quiet on the Artistic Front
Where’s Johnny Got his Gun? Where’s All Quiet on the Western Front? Where’s Catch 22? A Farewell to Arms and For whom the Bell Tolls? From Here to Eternity? The Naked and the Dead?
Where’s Guernica?
Where’s Alice’s Restaurant? Where’s All Along The Watchtower? Where’s Give Peace a Chance? Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy? We Gotta Get Out of This Place? Born in the USA? Rocking the Casbah?
Where’s The Star Spangled Banner?
It’s been three years since 9/11 and yet, (except for a couple of forgettable efforts from Springsteen and Bowie, a few made-for-TV movies, and Michael Moore’s upcoming Fahrenheit 911) artists don’t seem to have responded in a significant way that has caught on with the public. Where’s the first great anti-war hip hop song? The Whitney Biennial was great but if any of it referenced 9/11 and the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, I missed it.
Granted, it may have taken a few years for great art to emerge from other wars, and so far no one’s been drafted for this one, but we live in accelerated times and all feel threatened and yet there doesn’t seem to even be a movement afoot. These events are changing our lives and our world, and people all over the planet seem to have strong feelings about it and yet, the music, film, fiction and art world seem way, way too peaceful.
The Art of the Cinema
In the movies, artists are generally bastards, nuts or addicts. Here are some of my favorites.
Biopics
The Agony & the Ecstacy: Irving Stone boils down the Sistine Chapel with a liberal amount of artistic license. Good painting scenes. With Charlton Heston (ugh) as Mike B and Rex Harrison as Julius II.
Lust for Life: More Irving Stone. Kirk as Vincent, Tony Quinn as Gauguin, Vincent Minelli at the helm. Beautiful and nutty and the best Vincent biopic.
Bird: Clint Eastwood’s version of Charlie Parker’s life.Good but not as good as:
Round Midnight: Dexter Gordon plays Bird, Lester Young & Bud Powell all rolled into one. It will make you love jazz.
Moulin Rouge: The original: Toulouse-Lautrec and Zsa Zsa Gabor.
Basquiat: Julian Schnabel directs this story of fame, drugs and demise. I liked Basquiat a lot more than the film but it’s still worth a gander.
Ed Wood: Proof that one of the most important things an artist needs is belief in himself.
Tucker: Automaker as artist. A sunny metaphor for Coppola’s battle with the Hollywood establishment
Amadeus: Nothing like the scene where Mozart dictates the Reqiuem to Salieri. I could watch this dozens of times. And I have.
Savage Messiah: I loved this movie in college. Ken Russell’s bio of French sculptor Henri Gaudier-Brzeska and his mad affair. Tortured, weird and romantic.
Pollack: Ed Harris’s tribute to Action Jackson but with a little too much drunkness and a little too little painting.
My Left Foot: Danny Day Lewis as Christy Brown, paralyzed poet and painter. Have been meaning to see it for 15 years. Will soon.
Shine: Pianist David Helfgott has a mean dad, a breakdown, and a lot of scenery to chew. Decent but overrated.
Hilary and Jackie: The lives of classical musician sisters, one wild, one straight. I enjoyed it but honestly don’t remember it that clearly.
Documentaries
Rivers and Tides: Simply the best movie I’ve ever seen about the creative process. Documents the work of Andy Goldsworthy the British sculptor. Still in some theatres. Avaialable on DVD in 9/04
Le Mystére Picasso: In 1956, Clouzot filmed Picasso painting on transparent canvases, revising the work as he goes, a chicken becomes a nude becomes a landscape, etc. Mind blowing.
Crumb: portrait of the great underground comix artist and illustrated journal keeper, intense and revealing. See it even if you think you don’t like him.
Wild Wheels: a tribute to art cars (covered with mirrors, grass, plastic fruit, etc) and the people who make them.
28th Instance of June 1914, 10:50 a.m. – McDermott & McGough are a pair of artists who live as if it were PreWWI, their clothes, their home, their plumbing, their manner and their photography. Beautiful and strangely compelling.
Fiction
Edward Scissorhands: A fairy tale about the artist as outsider. By one of the most creative directors in modern cinema.
The Royal Tennenbaums: The story of a creative family and the least good of the great films of Wes Anderson.
The Moderns: Alan Rudolph’s story of artists in Paris in the 1920s is wildly surreal and romantic and has a wonderful soundtrack.
An American in Paris: A highly realistic story of artistic struggle. Gene Kelly, Minelli, and my fav: Oscar Levant.
Quartet: 4 stories, one of a pianist who studies for years to get a critic’s approval. Also by Maugham.
The Razor’s Edge: Bill Murray (of all people) was in the good version of this story of a WWI vet discovering himself as an artist and a spiritual being.. It was very inspiring to me when I first saw it two decades ago.
The Commitments: Slightly too raucous story of an Irish soul band but a good appreciation of appreciation.
The Hours: Virginia Woolf and all that.
New York Stories: The first part of the trilogy is by Scorcese with Nick Nolte as a larger than life painter who can only work when obsessed with a woman. Some beautiful moments.
The Horse’s Mouth: I loved this book as a kid — it made painting into the most heroic of acts. Alec Guiness plays Gulley, a screw up of a painter, in search of the perfect wall for his mural.
Got any to add?
Seeing the Site
I was riding my bike down the West Side yesterday afternoon and passed Ground Zero. It’s a big construction site these days and, like a typical New Yorker, I just breezed past.
For some reason, this time I noticed the West Street Building on the south west corner and I stopped. I looked at it and I saw it for the first time. It’s a landmark building, built in 1905 by Cass Gilbert who also designed my all-time downtown favorite, the Woolworth Building.
While all of the modern buildings round the site are either gone, rebuilt or heavily shrouded, the West Street building was openly wounded. Its Parisian mansard roof is completely draped in black steel mesh. Large pieces of its limestone facade are smashed or cracked off. Its terra cotta tiles, installed for fireproofing, helped to protect it from the burning columns that fell off 2 WTC but took a beating. Ornamental busts around the front door were decapitated. Through the empty windows I could see rubble in what once an elegant interior.
This building was so stately and built to endure. Now, it stands with gaping holes. My instinctive reaction was an angry sadness that the people who did this knew nothing about our city, didn’t understand the significance of the history they erased. Not that it would have influenced them. The Taliban well understood the history of the giant Bamiyan Buddhas they dynamited in Afghanistan, when they kicked off the culture wars by destroying some lovely art.But of course who of us understand the history of the buildings our government has destroyed in Afghanistan and Iraq? Not to mention the stories of all those lives erased forever. It’s all so shitty.
While our friends in Washington pass the buck, I realized how I have been dulled to the enormity of what has happened to my city and this world. I follow the news closely and yet I have formed a thick carapace to protect me from the effects of all this horror. Noticing that injured building all of a sudden made me disappointed in myself that I had not seen what was right there in front of me, had missed the lesson and the beauty that was lost. So I stayed for a while by its bedside and studied the extent of the damage.
I know I’m not saying anything that isn’t trite or been said so often before. But the skies were the same aching blue I remember from that September day and it all came flooding back. I need to see better no matter how it stings.
(If you’re enjoying this, and would like to depress yourself even further, check out the tiny movie I made eleven days after 9/11. P.S. The West Street building is under going gradual renovation and will eventually become expensive apartments, overlooking the banks of the World Trade Center.
Pigeonholes
Man, the name-giving animal, is in rare form these days. We’re just stalking the planet, hell-bent on slapping labels on others, stuffing them into compartments, and spewing vast generalities about things we don’t understand well enough.
Religion is dividing the world and our country like it hasn’t since the Dark Ages. The promise of immigration on which America is founded has become an evil tangle of anxiety and finger pointing as broad swaths of our neighbors are labeled and fingerprinted, then shown the door or locked up without due process. The media pundits have been wrong time and again throughout this presidential election, as they have tried to adhere dusty nameplates and bankrupt maxims on phase after phase of the campaign. Instead of observing wisely, they insist on prognosticating and tripping over their mike cables.
For a while it seemed like the forces of globalization would push down the walls that subdivide the planet, providing a global culture of inclusion, one huge Benetton ad. Instead, we’ve been given too many McDonalds outlets, too many Nike logos. Instead of religions and nation states, the folks in Davos wanted to give us all SKUs, compartmentalizing everything to fit neatly into Walmart’s inventory.
The Internet was another beacon of hope, connecting us all, one to one, allowing us to found and find our own communities of interest. We’d have labels but at least we got to put them on ourselves by signing up for this chat group or the other. But the anonymity and lack of accountability that rules the ether has made it hard for people to translate their keystrokes into action. Howard Dean showed us that. We can connect and agree, slapping each other on the back and exchanging wild emoticons, but the results are amorphous and hard to turn into anything concrete and enduring.
Among creative people we find similar divides and so many of them are self imposed. Aesthetics are ruled by professionalism. Be an actor but you can’t then be a writer too. You can act on TV but not in movies. You can write comedy but can’t paint murals. You can be a rocker but don’t expect to be taken seriously as a composer.
Sure, some people climb over a wall here or there, the Sean Jean/P Diddys, the Will Smith/ Fresh Princes, the Carrie Fishers, the J-Los.
But we much prefer to know which section of the bookstore to find our favorite authors and the more they repeat themselves – the John Grishams, the Tom Clancys, the James Pattersons – the more we will reward them. The same goes for bands and movie stars and fashion designers and chefs. ” Be consistent. Let people know what to expect. Be a brand”
And how we draw those barriers through our own lives too, imposing restrictions often through sheer inertia. “I don’t eat Indian food. I don’t read mysteries. I hate French wine. I’m not into documentaries. I don’t look good in red. I hate history. I never go to the opera. Blah, blah, blah.”
And then, deeper still, we carve labels on our very Selves: “I’m not talented. I’m an amateur. I can’t draw. I’ve got two left feet. I’ll never make it. I don’t have a degree. My whole family is tone deaf. I never read. I’m a woman. I’m too old. I have to make a living. I never finish things. Blah, blah, blech.”
Spare me.
Can’t we all be a litter more subtle, a little more aware, a little more creative, and start seeing the world in all its shades of grey, and all the hues of the spectrum?
We don’t live in a box. We live on a ball, always revolving, always changing, moving ahead, never in the same place for more than a moment. That’s the nature of the universe. That’s the true nature of man. And that, my label hungry friends, is what Art is all about.
Ideas and the end of the world
In nature, we organisms have a tendency to seek balance. We want to adapt to our environment and develop the most efficient life style based on the resources around us. You and your descendants will change in order to find your niche. If there is an abundance of a certain hard nut, those with a large, hard nut cracking beak will survive. If the leaves are most plentiful at the top of the trees, those with longer necks will flourish. Once you reach this equilibrium, you won’t have much incentive to continue changing. In fact, change could imperil your success as a species.
As a result, evolution goes in spurts of change with long periods of stasis in between.
Our lives work the same way: most of us tend to seek a stable job, a stable community, a regular diet, or form of exercise. We find a place we like to vacation and we go there every year and lie in the sun reading our favorite authors. We go to the same church, vote the same party line. We make friends with people who share our interests and we settle into regular social schedules with them.
We avoid disruption. We shun risk.
Deep in our reptile brains, we know that this is the key to survival. Herds only change grazing lands when the drought comes.
There are two results of this type of habitual existence: The first is that we are afraid of trying something new for fear that it won’t bring us the same level of reliable reassurance as the things we have always been doing. We don’t want to endure the discomfort of failure or even of the unknown. We prefer to limit suspense to Friday night at the movies. Better not to do at all than to do badly. We wouldn’t want to stick out and possibly send ripples through the quiet watering hole. I’m not saying any of this derisively; it’s a perfectly logical perspective, a perspective the vast majority of people in our society share. Far better the devil you know.
The second result is that we are completely unhinged when change does occur. And there is no question that it will occur, as sure as summer follows spring, as death follows the cradle, as the #9 train rolls into Christopher Street station.
America had no real idea how to respond, for example, to September 11. When I was eleven and living in Israel, terrorist bombings were regular events. When my bus stop was blown up fifteen minutes before school let out, they didn’t even bother reporting it in the local paper. But in America we had a real sense of apocalyptic doom after the World Trade Center attacks. It seemed like everything was going to unravel and our entire way of life was done. We were like hens in a coop, completely unable to interpret any howl in the night. Perhaps that’s why we have so many pundits, so many people who reassure us by telling us what is to come. The fact that their collective opinions cover every possible outcomes doesn’t shake our confidence.
My point is not political. Because what I am really discussing here is creativity. We must understand that creativity is both essential to survival and anathema. That’s why it can be so hard to overcome the resistance we have to our own creativity. Why it causes us such a deep sense of fear and dread. And it is why artists are so reviled in our fat, contented world. Look at the government sponsored art of the WPA. Look at the creativity that springs up during revolutions. Think of the wild architecture that was proposed to rebuild downtown New York in the immediate wake of the attacks. As the dust still lingered we welcomed a vision of a new world, collective recognition that our times and our landscapes were different. But all too quickly, we became more conservative, more calcified and the designs morphed back into the predictable, corporatist visions that suited a calming with the public mood.
To be creative, you must be brave and allow your self to take risks. You also must be a little crazy to take these risks.
But have an appropriate degree of perspective. You must reassure yourself that by doing a watercolor or throwing a pot you won’t set off some chain reactions that destroys your entire universe. The whole reason that you are feeling any sort of need to be creative is because you, as an organism, feel some need to adapt to changes in your environment. Your job may be too restrictive. Your relationship may be showing you new possibilities. Your daily paper may be reshuffling your deck. Your body may be changing. Or you may just be more sensitive than those around you, a canary on the coal mine, a bell weather to changes that others don’t yet sense.
Under all those conditions, creative change is no longer a risk, It’s an imperative. Give yourself the chance to experiment and reconfigure your life. Start today. Before the volcano erupts or the meteor hits the earth, before you get run over by a bus, or your candidate loses, or your bosses makes a cut back, before the changes erupt, and it’s all too late. And even then, it won’t be.
It’ll just be time to stop being a dinosaur and start figuring out how to become a bird.
Comments
How about Life with Picasso by Francoise Gilot?
Posted by: Lisa Ridolfi | May 3, 2004 05:15 PM
According to IMDB there’s a TV film called:
Pablo Picasso: Réminiscence
Is that the one?
What’s it like?
Posted by: Danny | May 3, 2004 05:19 PM
I love your top two documentaries. I just watched Love is the Devil about Francis Bacon, which I found very fascinating.
Posted by: debbie ann | May 3, 2004 05:28 PM
Then there’s “Surviving Picasso”, came out a few years ago.
Posted by: Clarity | May 3, 2004 05:42 PM
Benny and Joon has some wonderful scenes with Mary Stuart Masterson’s character creating directly on the canvas using her hands as well as drawing with more traditional materials.
Posted by: Andi | May 3, 2004 06:01 PM
‘Camille Claudel’ is a wonderful movie about the life of the sculptor that worked for Rodin and then later became his mistress. Of course its a tragic story , women artists didn’t really have a chance in those days . She ends up being committed by her brother the french poet Paul Claudel . I don’t think she was crazy just filled with a lot of passion for her art . Passion was not something women were allowed to feel in those days.
Posted by: erin | May 3, 2004 06:05 PM
what about Cavaragio by Derek jarman and there was a great documetary about that mail artist based in NY which I saw at the edinburgh film festival… but I can’t remember his name!
Posted by: m | May 3, 2004 06:39 PM
I recently saw Frida with Salma Hayek. Apart from the fact that she is much more gorgeous than the real Frida to look at, I thought the quirkiness of this movie was brilliant. It surprised me.
Posted by: Lise | May 3, 2004 06:46 PM
A friend of mine at work keeps INSISTING that I need to see “The Girl with the Pearl Earring” because of its art theme. Maybe that would be a good one to check into! Thanks for the listings!
Posted by: Linda M. | May 3, 2004 07:23 PM
As a documentary on the creative process and the techniques and aids used by the some of the great masters I highly recommend David Hockney’s Secret Knowledge – it is available in both video and book. I was absolutely fascinated when the documentary screened here in Australia, it opened many new insights and evolution of the creative process.
Posted by: Detlef | May 3, 2004 08:12 PM
i agree with the royal tenenbaums also because wes anderson’s brother did all the great illustrations (the ones that “Richie Tenenbaum” does) and all the “book” illustrations and also does a great job on the rushmore/royal tenenbaums special additions packages.
also : American Splendor about Harvey Pekar (!!!) with a little bit of Crumb (!)
Posted by: jeanette | May 3, 2004 08:24 PM
I must also cast a vote for Frida. What a beautiful movie! Each frame is an artistic composition with rich rich color. Also, I’m afraid Bill Murray’s Razor’s Edge, although I’m sure his intentions were good, cannot hold a candle to the book which was simply amazing. The problem with the movie is that the protagonist is just not supposed to be a funny guy! Another movie not to be missed is My Architect which is about Louis Kahn. It’s still playing at some theaters but I’m buying this one when it’s available. This from someone who doesn’t watch the same movie twice.
Posted by: Glo | May 3, 2004 08:53 PM
P.S. -
what about songs about art / artists ?
Posted by: jeanette | May 3, 2004 08:56 PM
how about “artemisia” about artemisia genteleschi (sp?)? struggle of women artists. love affair. torture by thumbscrews. pretty decent film.
Posted by: mary | May 3, 2004 09:15 PM
I loved a documentary on the building of the National Gallery of Art with IM Pei…showing a lot of the work with Henry Moore and Sandy Calder.
All of the work that went into every inch of the place….interesting.
Posted by: Carole Joy | May 3, 2004 09:56 PM
Movies: Sweet and Lowdown, Woody Allen, starring Sean Penn as brilliant guitarist best moment: when penn bashes his guitar against a tree crying “i made a mistake, i made a mistake”
Lady Sings the Blues, Diana Ross Billie Holiday. for the music alone and Ross ain’t too bad either ….
Shadowlands, Debra Winger and Anthony Hopkins, about C.S Lewis
Fiction: Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man , James Joyce…those last paragraphs/lines, i weep everytime
Sula, Toni Morrison, the artist without an artform
Oranges are Not The Only Fruit, Jeannette Winterton, evangelical upbringing + lesbian= writer
Einstein’s Dreams Alan Lightman, a mathematic/scientific poet….vignette dream meditations on Einsteins mind during his patent clerk days toiling on relativity by night.
Posted by: andrea | May 3, 2004 11:30 PM
whoops! guess i added books too….woolf/the hours made me do it!
sorry
Posted by: andrea | May 3, 2004 11:43 PM
How to Draw a Bunny – about Ray Johnson, mail artist (2002)
Goya: The movie (1999)
(Also liked Frida and Girl with a Pearl Earring)
“Angels and Insects” includes scenes of a woman who keeps an artistic nature journal … although there are definitely other themes …
I’ll keep thinking …
Posted by: Karen Winters | May 4, 2004 01:17 AM
My Architect – about Louis Kahn, got an Oscar nod this year, and well deserved too.
Rivers and Tides? I dunno. I felt like even more of an outsider to Goldsworthy’s work after seeing that. It would have benefitted from some serious editing.
That’s my $.02
Posted by: ben. | May 4, 2004 03:21 PM
It’s not totally about an artist’s struggle, but A Soldier’s Daughter Never Cries, film by James Ivory, based on a novel-based-on-her-life by Kaylie Jones (her dad was James Jones, who wrote From Here to Enternity), is about growing up in a bohemian, artistic family.
Also, Un Coeur En Hiver, a French film about a violinist and the man who makes her the violin.
Posted by: Jen | May 4, 2004 03:49 PM
Thirty Two Short Films About Glenn Gould is a wonderful movie. About Glenn Gould.
Posted by: D. | May 4, 2004 04:33 PM
I’d nominate Pecker by John Waters – quirky, funny and very, very scathingly revealing about the machinations of the art world.
Posted by: Kirsty Hall | May 4, 2004 05:05 PM
Not to be missed is the PBS special on photographer Ansel Adams; I think it was from the series “the American Experience.” Available from the PBS catalog.
Posted by: Kathleen Piercefield | May 4, 2004 05:38 PM
“Agony and the Ecstacy” also has a wonderful score by Alex North. I often listen to it while I’m working.
Posted by: MG | May 4, 2004 09:41 PM
Tony Hancock’s comdey ‘The Rebel’ c.1960; an office worker goes off to live the artist’s life in Paris. Although Hancock was the best-loved sitcom star in Britain at the time he had a yearning to do a movie like Jacques Tati’s. Never quite pulled it off, tragically.
Posted by: Richard | May 5, 2004 12:15 PM
How To Draw a Bunny about Ray Johnson is really worth going out of your way to see.
Posted by: debbie ann | May 5, 2004 12:21 PM
La Belle Noiseuse by Jacques Rivette
Dream of Light by Victor Erice
Posted by: Chris | May 5, 2004 12:50 PM
A couple of months ago I saw back-to-back three films about artists:
Pandaemonium about poet Samuel Coleridge and his friendship with Woodsworth – and descent into drug-addled craziness – a rocknroll account of an interesting fellow.
Passion about composer Percy Grainger, another troubled artist, the story took me by surprise having thought him a “simple” sort of composer. I was very mistaken.
and The Pianist, the haunting Polanski film about Szpilman’s endurance through Nazi terror in Warsaw.
They were all exhausting and heart-wrenching stories. But man oh man, it was a good day.
Posted by: andrea | May 5, 2004 01:32 PM
The Fifth Element!
see – the part where bruce willis is listening to the diva sing – and it keeps cutting back to Leelo fighting the badguys over the stones.
see – there’s this pretty little moment when he believes everything is true. Art shows the way to love shows the way to love saves the universe.
i really need to write about this more coherently someday.
Posted by: charity | May 5, 2004 01:39 PM
I have to second Stone’s Lust for Life…the movie made me want to find out more about Vincent…I saw it after hearing the song by Don MaClean–Starry Starry Night. (GREAT POET/GREAT SONG…ONE OF MY FAVORITES!!) By the way…I learned how to play it on my tin whistle Danny…how’s the guitar going????
I also have to second The Pianist. The compelling love and urge to play music touched my soul. His identity was more deeply embeded as a pianist, rather than a Jew. I feel my art defines me more than anything else as well.
Thanks everyone…I will have to visit the video store on some of these!!
Posted by: Nancy Patterson | May 5, 2004 01:57 PM
I haven’t seen this one added, it is fairly obscure. You seem to
be an enthusiastic Van Gogh fan like myself, and you would
definitely enjoy “Vincent and Theo”. It shows a lot of the darker
side of Van G.’s life, such as the time he took in a pregnant
prostitute. The scenes are brilliant and suffused with the yellow
light of “The Night Cafe”.
Directed by Robert Altman, it stars Tim Roth as a quiet, intense,
muttering painter. I love this film and watch it every few months.
Also someone mentioned “Surviving Picasso” and “Camille Claudel”. Camille is devastatingly sad, but casts a lot of light on the relationship between herself and Rodin.
I also would like to mention a great film that stars J. M. Basquiat as himself, “Downtown 81″. It is a musical and poetic romp through the art and post-punk scene of NYC circa 1981. It was recently released after 20 years on a shelf! Great fun film, also with amazing live music scenes and a cameo by Blondie.
Posted by: shelly | May 5, 2004 02:04 PM
A good movie about becoming an artist, against all odds:
“Dog of Flanders”
(the original 1959 version, with David Ladd, Donald Crisp, Monique Ahrens, Theodore Bikel,)
Posted by: Anna L. Conti | May 5, 2004 06:31 PM
The documentary Speaking in Strings about violinist Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg profiles a very passionate and unorthodox musician.
Posted by: Kim | May 6, 2004 12:05 PM
i don’t have a film to add, though i did enjoy Pollack, but thank you Dan once again, for your unfettering vision. that’s what attracted me to your site initially, you take a stand for all those individuals who allowed themselves to be consumed, perhaps devoured by their passion for visual expression. you are truly a becon on this artists’ path.
Posted by: doug | May 6, 2004 05:57 PM
‘Life and Death of Vincent Van Gogh’: the biography of Vincent using only his paintings, some locations and excerpts from his correspondence.It was powerful movie.
-Nandita
Posted by: Nandita | May 7, 2004 12:50 AM
For fictional: “The Legend of 1600.” Beautiful. The duel between the protagonist and Jelly Roll Morton is one of the most amazing scenes on film. Great score by Ennio Morricone (his last, in fact).
Posted by: TPB, Esq. | May 8, 2004 03:11 PM
henry and june!
Posted by: jean zaque | May 17, 2004 04:27 PM
Just in case anybody else is still checking out the comments on this post, here’s a hard-to-find but really great doc of an artist: Gabriel Orozco (that’s the name of the film and the artist). To crib from the Miami film fest: “Internationally recognized Mexican artist Gabriel Orozco uses found objects to instigate a dialogue into how meaning can be formed from the arbitrary and the ordinary.” Very inspiring.
Posted by: ajane | June 14, 2004 11:14 PM
i too was so totally mesmerized by Le Mystére Picasso, i think its a really long film, but both times ive seen it i cannot rememeber time. I can only remember at the end kind of waking up and realizing my mouth was open and i had a crusty line of drool leading from the side of my mouth.
How about an angel at my table – both film and book
Posted by: pantiesontherod | June 19, 2004 02:50 AM
i too was so totally mesmerized by Le Mystére Picasso, i think its a really long film, but both times ive seen it i cannot rememeber time. I can only remember at the end kind of waking up and realizing my mouth was open and i had a crusty line of drool leading from the side of my mouth.
How about an angel at my table – both film and book
Posted by: pantiesontherod | June 19, 2004 02:53 AM