Inspiration - name and explain yours

[Prospero]

What person or book or film or play or poem ... or whatever... has most inspired you in your life. Tell us why?

[Wendy Summers]

What person or book or film or play or poem ... or whatever... has most inspired you in your life. Tell us why?

"The Hero With a Thousand Faces" most inspired me... it made me realize how much the fear of the unknown paralyzes us. It opened my eyes to the wisdom hidden within various mythologies, which in turn has helped me to find strength and courage when I've needed it.

[loveboof]

"The Hero With a Thousand Faces" most inspired me... it made me realize how much the fear of the unknown paralyzes us. It opened my eyes to the wisdom hidden within various mythologies, which in turn has helped me to find strength and courage when I've needed it.

Are you a fan of Jung then too?

[Marts]

Edward De Bono. The father of creative thinking.


Welcome to the original Edward de Bono website. Edward de Bono is regarded by many to be the leading authority in the world in the field of creative thinking and the direct teaching of thinking as a skill. He has written 62 books with translations into 37 languages and has been invited to lecture in 54 countries. He is the originator of lateral thinking which treats creativity as the behaviour of information in a self-organising information system - such as the neural networks in the brain. From such a consideration arise the deliberate and formal tools of lateral thinking, parallel thinking etc.



http://edwdebono.com/

[Wendy Summers]

Are you a fan of Jung then too?

Not as much...

I'm more into the mythology than the psychology:

Mircea Eliade is my other big comparative mythology hard-on.

[Prospero]

The Masks of God - also by Joseph Campbell - is also very good.

[loveboof]

Not as much...

I'm more into the mythology than the psychology:


But the reason those myths resonate on such a universal level is explained through Jungean architypes and typology. Joseph Campbell was actually massively influenced by Jung...

[ed_jaxon]

I almost hate to admit that very commercial things I have found inspiring beyond the quick boost.

The movie Rudy invariably pushes me to keep going when others are doubting.

The poem Invictus has always had a special meaning for me as well as Kiplings If.

[loveboof]

What person or book or film or play or poem ... or whatever... has most inspired you in your life. Tell us why?

I wouldn't say this is the most inspiring thing in my life, but I really loved this lecture from Charlie Kaufman. I saw it on Sky Arts and it is definitely better if you can actually see him, but the whole thing isn't on YouTube so here's a podcast from soundcloud...

http://soundcloud.com/bafta/charlie-kaufman-screenwriting-lecture

It's about so much more than screenwriting, so if you have the time give it a listen :)

[Wendy Summers]

But the reason those myths resonate on such a universal level is explained through Jungean architypes and typology. Joseph Campbell was actually massively influenced by Jung...

Oh absolutely he was -- his work is full of both direct and indirect references to Jung and his work. Jung's writings just never "sang" for me in the same way.

[Wendy Summers]

The Masks of God - also by Joseph Campbell - is also very good.

Most of his work period is very good :p.

[Prospero]

Well as a writer and film maker a lot of writers have inspired me. They include the usual suspects (big names its scarcely seems necessary to name here) plus Vladimir Nabokov, Jorge Luis Borges, W B Yeats, Anna Akhmatova, Seamus Heaney and many other writers. Film makers - Nick Roeg, Andrei Tarkovsky, John Houston and Robert Altman.
Musically - the B MInor mass, the Matthew Passion. Mozart's Requiem and a whole lotta jazz get to my core. Bob Dylan.
And one odd and trashy book had a huge influence on me - "The Woman's Room" by Marilyn French. I'd never really quite "got" feminism until i read that in my early twenties.

The Marx Brothers, the Goons and Monty Python.

And yes jung.

[Prospero]

And in politics... Aung Suu Kyi, Nelson Mandela, Keir Hardie, the men who drafted the Declaration of Independence, Lech Walesa, Martin Luther King, Gandhi, Pastor Martin Niemoller, Alexander Dubcek, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, FDR

[Wendy Summers]

Well as a writer and film maker a lot of writers have inspired me. They include the usual suspects (big names its scarcely seems necessary to name here) plus Vladimir Nabokov, Jorge Luis Borges, W B Yeats, Anna Akhmatova, Seamus Heaney and many other writers. Film makers - Nick Roeg, Andrei Tarkovsky, John Houston and Robert Altman.
Musically - the B MInor mass, the Matthew Passion. Mozart's Requiem and a whole lotta jazz get to my core. Bob Dylan.
And one odd and trashy book had a huge influence on me - "The Woman's Room" by Marilyn French. I'd never really quite "got" feminism until i read that in my early twenties.

The Marx Brothers, the Goons and Monty Python.

And yes jung.

With inspirations as old as yours, it's no wonder you want to be Jung.

#inmybestgrouchovoice

[Prospero]

Yep - "Jung Love' by Donny Osmond.... oh and they are timeless not old!

[GroobyKrissy]

Way cheesy but I love Les Mis. I own five copies of the book and have read it many times over. I think I've seen the Broadway production of it 8 times or so as well as many off-Broadway productions. It never ceases to make me think about life.

An American Tragedy is a book that I read once but have remembered probably better than most books I've read.

Marilyn Monroe. Just because she's wonderful.

[Wendy Summers]

Yep - "Jung Love' by Donny Osmond.... oh and they are timeless not old!

If by timeless you mean before clocks were invented, then I know what you mean...

[Prospero]

Well as a writer and film maker a lot of writers have inspired me. They include the usual suspects (big names its scarcely seems necessary to name here) plus Vladimir Nabokov, Jorge Luis Borges, W B Yeats, Anna Akhmatova, Seamus Heaney and many other writers. Film makers - Nick Roeg, Andrei Tarkovsky, John Houston and Robert Altman.
Musically - the B MInor mass, the Matthew Passion. Mozart's Requiem and a whole lotta jazz get to my core. Bob Dylan.
And one odd and trashy book had a huge influence on me - "The Woman's Room" by Marilyn French. I'd never really quite "got" feminism until i read that in my early twenties.

The Marx Brothers, the Goons and Monty Python.

And yes jung.
I forgot to respond properly to my own request. Why?

Well Borges because he constantly reminds us of the mystery of existence. Nabokov because he was a master writing stylist. Yeats for similar reasons to Borges - and his words reach my irish heart. Akhmatova for her courage.

In fact almost all of the writers, composers etc centrally reveal to me - or remind me - of the deep mysteries of existence. Pooh that sounds pretentious doesn't it.

[Prospero]

Wendy you are too clever to convince me you are a philistine!

[Stavros]

I think there is a difference between being inspired, and being impressed. I don't see how anyone can be inspired by a liar and a fraud like Nabokov, nor is it just because of his lamentably poor writing, almost as bad as Kafka, but even more pointless. Evidently some people are impressed by it, but I don't see what it could inspire, except fakery of course. I could say I have been 'inspired' by Tristan und Isolde, a work I have been seeing on stage, and have listened to for 40 years or more and which is still strange and challenging, yet the man who wrote it was in every human way repulsive; it is hard to believe such a person could have produced something so unique and indeed, so beautiful. Even that paradox is challenging, but hardly an inspiration.

And what is it that is being inspired, in art, for example, if not the demand to be truthful to yourself, even when what you are doing seems to run against the current of the times? It seems odd that one needs to be inspired to express what is already there, rather than to change, unless the change is fulfilled by the 'return' to the hitherto obscured original, when one was trying to be someone, or do something else in bad faith.

Rather in the way that most transexuals believe that they are engaged in the transition from something that is wrong, to something that is right. And that would be an example of someone being inspired by another person, rather than by a well known musician, poet, politician, sportsperson.

And is inspiration a positive thing, always and everywhere? Did Hitler and Stalin not inspire people? And to do what?

[Dino Velvet]

Black Sabbath and Count Dracula as they were the genesis of my seeking out entertainment of that sort. Until I was 9 I thought Dracula was the hero of the films. Next door neighbor explained.

[Jericho]

I could say I have been 'inspired' by Tristan und Isolde, a work I have been seeing on stage, and have listened to for 40 years or more and which is still strange and challenging, yet the man who wrote it was in every human way repulsive; it is hard to believe such a person could have produced something so unique and indeed, so beautiful.

Damn you Stavros, piquing my curiosity and making me go look things up!

And, is it just me, or does he look a bit like John Wayne?

[danthepoetman]

Black Sabbath and Count Dracula as they were the genesis of my seeking out entertainment of that sort. Until I was 9 I thought Dracula was the hero of the films. Next door neighbor explained.
:lol: Yes, ditto!

To this day, I always favour the evil spirit or the zombies or the vampire or any type of bad guy in every movie. Something must be wrong with me… Do you remember that “Croc guy”? The guy who was playing with dangerous animals everywhere? I don’t know how many times I said I would want the serpent or the crocodile to just take a good bite out of him… I must admit I felt quite a bit of guilt when he finally got killed by a skate fish.

[Dino Velvet]

:lol: Yes, ditto!

To this day, I always favour the evil spirit or the zombies or the vampire or any type of bad guy in every movie. Something must be wrong with me… Do you remember that “Croc guy”? The guy who was playing with dangerous animals everywhere? I don’t know how many times I said I would want the serpent or the crocodile to just take a good bite out of him… I must admit I felt quite a bit of guilt when he finally got killed by a skate fish.

That stingray was lying in wait the whole time using the crocs as a distraction.

I found myself backing the most rotten piece of shit in a Criminal Minds episode recently. I was yelling at the TV trying to coach him out of the multi-level parking lot avoiding Prentiss and Hotchner. He was so vile I'm embarrassed to say what they were after him for. I was so happy he got away.:claps

Bathory-Sociopath - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bykdvpf_xkM)

[GoddessAthena85]

well as many of you know most of girls who have ever worked in the business or done a shoot have more then one name. If you are one of those guys that dont want to break the fantasy and hear the truth I suggest you advert your eyes. As I am nothing more then me and truthful...
Athena... I have always been strongly connected with this Goddess, the Goddess of wisdom and battle strategy. perfect way to remember daily that in this world we must be strong and beautiful at the same time.
onto my name I live under

Tess short for Tessa which is still short for Tesseract :
A 4 dimensional hyper cube used in sacred geometry.

For those of you open minded the full spiritual sense of both names are on my blog. just posted.
http://youlikeit85.tumblr.com

[GoddessAthena85]

lmao :dead: y'all where talking about inspiration in general (fail)

[danthepoetman]

No no, lovely Athena! You’re invited to talk about what you want! I also love the owl goddess. She was also revered for her beauty sometimes. The city which was the cradle of democracy and western culture use her as her patron and was a source of incredible inspiration for it! Athens, of course.
I love Athena myself!

[youngblood61]

well as many of you know most of girls who have ever worked in the business or done a shoot have more then one name. If you are one of those guys that dont want to break the fantasy and hear the truth I suggest you advert your eyes. As I am nothing more then me and truthful...
Athena... I have always been strongly connected with this Goddess, the Goddess of wisdom and battle strategy. perfect way to remember daily that in this world we must be strong and beautiful at the same time.
onto my name I live under

Tess short for Tessa which is still short for Tesseract :
A 4 dimensional hyper cube used in sacred geometry.

For those of you open minded the full spiritual sense of both names are on my blog. just posted.
http://youlikeit85.tumblr.comIt's all good Goddess!:-)

[GoddessAthena85]

No no, lovely Athena! You’re invited to talk about what you want! I also love the owl goddess. She was also revered for her beauty sometimes. The city which was the cradle of democracy and western culture use her as her patron and was a source of incredible inspiration for it! Athens, of course.
I love Athena myself!
Very nice new photo Dan

[Prospero]

Stavros - who has elevated the art of pomposity to new heights with his arrogant elevation of his own opinions to established fact. C'mon old fellow. You are all entitled to your opinion, but next you'll be telling us Proust is a tawdry tittle tattler and Shakespeare a second rate poet and third rate playwright.Have you actually read any Nabokov. The man's writing was superb. In my opinion. " I don't see how anyone can be inspired by a liar and a fraud like Nabokov, nor is it just because of his lamentably poor writing, almost as bad as Kafka, but even more pointless. "

[Prospero]

Oh and what is being inspired you ask? In this case Nabokov inspired me to write - and when I return to his work, he continues continues to inspire.

To draw parallels with Hitler or Stalin is just ludicrous.

[danthepoetman]

Very nice new photo Dan

Thanks, Athena. I owe that one to my friend GrimFusion, who's increadibly talented.

[Prospero]

It's fun Dan... are you a smoker then?

[danthepoetman]

Stavros - who has elevated the art of pomposity to new heights with his arrogant elevation of his own opinions to established fact. C'mon old fellow. You are all entitled to your opinion, but next you'll be telling us Proust is a tawdry tittle tattler and Shakespeare a second rate poet and third rate playwright.Have you actually read any Nabokov. The man's writing was superb. In my opinion. " I don't see how anyone can be inspired by a liar and a fraud like Nabokov, nor is it just because of his lamentably poor writing, almost as bad as Kafka, but even more pointless. "

Oh and what is being inspired you ask? In this case Nabokov inspired me to write - and when I return to his work, he continues continues to inspire.

To draw parallels with Hitler or Stalin is just ludicrous.

The grey zone is a bit of a used up image, I guess, yet I don’t know why there never seem to ever be much of a middle ground for Stavros, or should I say tentatively, because I really don’t want to offend him, much moderation in his always well argued judgements. Often, they have more of the feeling of sentences… Stavros is incredibly articulate and bright, but doesn’t seem like he can consider different view points in the appreciation of artistic expression… Can you, Stavros? For instance, do you believe that pop culture can produce anything artistically beautiful too? Do you think that technical proficiency, and even refinement, is an absolute must for any work of art to find justified appreciation? :)

[Prospero]

Well his dogmatism does offend me on such subjective issues as the quality of a "great" artist - or otherwise. We all have our blindnesses (I cannot see merit in the young british artists for instance - Tracey Emin or Damien Hirst.) I'll happily argue for them being charlatans whose only substantial tslent is in persuading people to believe in the emperor's new clothes. But I will also concede that there may be those who really do find their art inspiring and powerful.

That being said, I don't deny the incredible depth of his knowledge when it comes to history.

Laterally, on Wagner for instance it seems he can appreciate the immense beauty of the art while loathing the maker. Surely this can be true of many great artists - past and present.

When it comes to objectivity one can be objective about the truth of an equation but not the beauty of a Seurat .

[MacShreach]

The grey zone is a bit of a used up image, I guess, yet I don’t know why there never seem to ever be much of a middle ground for Stavros, or should I say tentatively, because I really don’t want to offend him, much moderation in his always well argued judgements. Often, they have more of the feeling of sentences… Stavros is incredibly articulate and bright, but doesn’t seem like he can consider different view points in the appreciation of artistic expression… Can you, Stavros? For instance, do you believe that pop culture can produce anything artistically beautiful too? Do you think that technical proficiency, and even refinement, is an absolute must for any work of art to find justified appreciation? :)

In the context of contemporary fine art, that point in bold is moot. Technical proficiency is not considered to be a prerequisite for art to be valid, cf Tracey Emin, Damien Hirst, and too many others to mention.

I take issue with that POV but I am definitely an enfant terrible in this area.

My personal inspirations? Edward Weston, W Eugene Smith, William Eggelstone, Brancusi, Lawrence Durrell, Iain Banks, and many, many others. However I think that if you are an artist, then every work of art that you become familiar with itself becomes an inspiration, as it becomes part of the internal repertoire that you draw on as a part of the creative process. A mature artist is by definition his or her own greatest inspiration.

FWIW I was never a fan of Nabokov, and I do hold the position, uncomfortable with many, that repulsive pieces of shit, which Nabokov may have been and Joyce, for example, certainly was, can never be truly great artists irrespective of how beautifully crafted their work is. (Sh)it shows through.

[Prospero]

I share your admiration for he artists you mention MacShreach, and you re right that all works of art can inspire - even if it a reaction against.

But I wonder how you form the judgement that Nabokov might have been "a repulsive piece of shit"? Is that on the basis of the supposed fascination he had for pre-adoloecent girls based on a rather superficial reading of Lolita (I don't mean to be insulting by calling it superficial - Lolita is a common point of entry for most to Nabokov and for many the exit a well because of its themes). I beleive he made great art of this difficult area. And other books are greater still (Bend Sinister, Ada, Speak Memory, Pale Fire, Pnin and many others...)

I would though challenge the assertion that some truly awful people cannot be appreciated as great artists. Caravaggio for instance - a murderer - Leni Riefenstahl (powerful film maker - who can deny the visual poetry of her two great German/Nazi films - and later photographer) but undoubtedly, despite her denials, a Nazi fellow traveller. Leonardo and Michelangelo were also somewhat dubious by all accounts. Truly the ideas of Wagner are entangled in his music - but what music!) . And Nabokov may indeed have had impulses we might not like (though I've seen no evidence whatsoever they were ever enacted - he had a long and very devoted marriage to Vera - and died before her.)

[tsadriana]

A nice good music -that inspire me....good people inspire me.....Photography inspire me....Everything beautiful inspire me.

[Prospero]

There is another type of inspiration - that inspires this whole site. Your pictures inspire me Adriana....

[tsadriana]

Your avatar inspire me Prospero looks so 19th century.

[danthepoetman]

FWIW I was never a fan of Nabokov, and I do hold the position, uncomfortable with many, that repulsive pieces of shit, which Nabokov may have been and Joyce, for example, certainly was, can never be truly great artists irrespective of how beautifully crafted their work is. (Sh)it shows through.
Because of their personalities? But would you say the same about Celine, for instance, who literally reinvented French writing, but who was also an abominable human beings in many regards?

[Prospero]

My present avatar is my great, great grandfather

[MacShreach]

I share your admiration for he artists you mention MacShreach, and you re right that all works of art can inspire - even if it a reaction against.

But I wonder how you form the judgement that Nabokov might have been "a repulsive piece of shit"? Is that on the basis of the supposed fascination he had for pre-adoloecent girls based on a rather superficial reading of Lolita (I don't mean to be insulting by calling it superficial - Lolita is a common point of entry for most to Nabokov and for many the exit a well because of its themes). I beleive he made great art of this difficult area. And other books are greater still (Bend Sinister, Ada, Speak Memory, Pale Fire, Pnin and many others...)

I would though challenge the assertion that some truly awful people cannot be appreciated as great artists. Caravaggio for instance - a murderer - Leni Riefenstahl (powerful film maker - who can deny the visual poetry of her two great German/Nazi films - and later photographer) but undoubtedly, despite her denials, a Nazi fellow traveller. Leonardo and Michelangelo were also somewhat dubious by all accounts. Truly the ideas of Wagner are entangled in his music - but what music!) . And Nabokov may indeed have had impulses we might not like (though I've seen no evidence whatsoever they were ever enacted - he had a long and very devoted marriage to Vera - and died before her.)

If you read my post again you'll see I said Nabokov 'may have been'. I have no idea what he as like. I just personally find his writing uninspiring.

On the broader point though, no I don't think you can take the art in isolation from the artist. It is necessary, as you discover an artist's work, to research the creator, in order to better understand the relationship of his or her created work to his or her life; otherwise your understanding of the body of work must always remain superficial. And if you discover that the person was repulsive (to you) then for me, that person's work ceases to be inspirational (to you). As for your specific examples, some are not very well chosen; Caravaggio lived at a time when many killed; duelling, deadly vendettas, and fighting with weapons were normal, and Renaissance artists were particularly volatile in their lifestyles. Apart from the fact that Michelangelo and Da Vinci both had a fetish for femboys (which should hardly condemn them here) I know of no evidence that they were particularly worse or better than the mores of the age would lead one to expect; it is never appropriate to apply the mores of today to previous times, and the guide has to be, 'was this behaviour reasonable in the context of the era?' Leni Riefenstahl was indeed a very talented film-maker and photographer, but never a great artist in her own right. And Wagner...well, you said it.

[Prospero]

Well I fully understand you not liking Nabokov's writing. But suggesting he may have been repulsive was a wee bit lazy from you - otherwise a rigorous arguer! lol

[Prospero]

Well what about the example given by Dan - a good one i think. And I would dispute the greatness of Riefenstahl. Olympia and her film of Nuremburg Triumph Of The Will display briliance put at the disposal of disgusting ideas.

But you know there are many other examples of dysfunctional and unpleasant people producing wonderful work. Half the rock stars admired over the past forty years have actually been pretty horrible up close and personal.

[danthepoetman]

Or what about Heidegger in philosophy? Konrad Lorenz? Would you say the same about the work of Werner von Braun?
Seems to me works of art (Journey to the End of the Night) have on the contrary lives of their own, MacShreach. Isn't it one of the wonderful aspects of art: what you create doesn't belong to you anymore? A teacher used to tell us a story about Paul Valery, who was discretely attending seminars on himself. When asked what he could possibly be doing there, he answered: "I want to learn about my work"...
And it's not very different, as far as I'm concerned, for scientific work or philosophy...

[MacShreach]

Well I fully understand you not liking Nabokov's writing. But asuggesting he may have been repulsive was a wee bit lazy from you - otherwise a rigorous arguer! lol

No: 'may have been' does not suggest that he definitely was, just that the possibility existed; since I do not know, that possibility must be present, the more so because his most famous work, 'Lolita', explicitly, and it has to be said sympathetically, details a paedophiliac affair between an older man and a pubescent girl. If this is not grounds for at least posing the question I do not know what is, frankly.

Possibly he was a very nice person who just created the whole thing from imagination, but I find it hard to believe that someone could create such a detailed description of Humbert's desires and proclivities without having some personal knowledge of them.

I do have to say that as far as I am concerned, between consenting adults, anything goes and I will not think worse of the individuals concerned; but paedophilia implicitly involves an abuse of power, the preying upon vulnerable children for the sexual gratification, personally or vicariously, of adults. Frankly, to use an example you set, I think it would be possible to morally justify quite a number of murders before one could even begin to justify paedophilia.

[danthepoetman]

I do have to say that as far as I am concerned, between consenting adults, anything goes and I will not think worse of the individuals concerned; but paedophilia implicitly involves an abuse of power, the preying upon vulnerable children for the sexual gratification, personally or vicariously, of adults. Frankly, to use an example you set, I think it would be possible to morally justify quite a number of murders before one could even begin to justify paedophilia.
But in this case, should we condemn the art and the culture of Ancient Greece? You’ll probably say it was the behaviour of a whole culture, but their sexuality had many objectionable aspects to say the least, in our contemporary eyes. Or yet, in the same order of thoughts, should we condemn the art of the Aztecs, because of their cruelty? of the Assyrians? of the Romans, for their obsession for conquest, for their destruction of Carthage?

[MacShreach]

Or what about Heidegger in philosophy? Konrad Lorenz? Would you say the same about the work of Werner von Braun?
Seems to me works of art (Journey to the End of the Night) have on the contrary lives of their own, MacShreach. Isn't it one of the wonderful aspects of art: what you create doesn't belong to you anymore? A teacher used to tell us a story about Paul Valery, who was discretely attending seminars on himself. When asked what he could possibly be doing there, he answered: "I want to learn about my work"...
And it's not very different, as far as I'm concerned, for scientific work or philosophy...

As regards von Braun, science knows no morality; a badly chosen example. Einstein could have been the most evil villain in history (he certainly was not btw) but if he was right, he was right, end of. Art is different; art lives not in the realm of testable truth and untruth, but in the society and culture it is part of.

Individual works of art may indeed have a life of their own, but this is superficial; as soon as deeper study begins, the context of the art becomes an essential element in its comprehension. At this point the idea of artwork being separate from artist fails.

[MacShreach]

But in this case, should we condemn the art and the culture of Ancient Greece? You’ll probably say it was the behaviour of a whole culture, but their sexuality had many objectionable aspects to say the least, in our contemporary eyes. Or yet, should we condemn the art of the Aztecs, because of their cruelty?

Clearly, if you read what I have said, no: it is inappropriate to apply the mores of our culture when regarding another. We may be horrified by the religious practices of the Aztecs, but their artists (whose names we do not know) were operating within their culture and according to their standards.

This is a bit of a red herring anyway, since the concept of the artist as individual is really a renaissance invention.

[MacShreach]

But in this case, should we condemn the art and the culture of Ancient Greece? You’ll probably say it was the behaviour of a whole culture, but their sexuality had many objectionable aspects to say the least, in our contemporary eyes. Or yet, in the same order of thoughts, should we condemn the art of the Aztecs, because of their cruelty? of the Assyrians? of the Romans, for their obsession for conquest, for their destruction of Carthage?

My above applies to the other cultures you mention. To understand modern Western, by which I mean post-renaissance art, you have to understand that the culture of the individual is central. Before the Renaissance, in the main we did not even know artist's names and they were certainly not in the business of making individual statements or comment such as we see in , say, Picasso's Guernica. The fact that post-renaissance art IS about individual expression only reinforces the argument that it can only be understood in the context of the individual who created it, ergo, you can't discuss the art without considering the artist.

EH Gombrich said 'There is no art, only artists', or words to that effect...it was an extreme statement to make a point, but valid nonetheless.

[Prospero]

I'm sorry but are you now saying that because an artist has an imagination and can create monsters he or she must therefore share the impulsles and passions of their creations?
You deny the power of the imgination to create!

Dostoevsky thus was Raskolnikov, hundreds of writers of crime fiction are secretly aspiring murders and Joseph Conrad harboured the impulses that, given the opportunity, would have made him act as Kurtz in "The Heart Of Darkness."

[danthepoetman]

As regards von Braun, science knows no morality; a badly chosen example. Einstein could have been the most evil villain in history (he certainly was not btw) but if he was right, he was right, end of. Art is different; art lives not in the realm of testable truth and untruth, but in the society and culture it is part of.

Individual works of art may indeed have a life of their own, but this is superficial; as soon as deeper study begins, the context of the art becomes an essential element in its comprehension. At this point the idea of artwork being separate from artist fails.
Don’t you see how contradictory what you’re saying is: “…as soon as we start studying it…” You imply that what we consider great in itself might suddenly find itself not to be because of the morality of its author! How can you step from one to the other? And why would the same argument not go for a whole culture then? Why would you, once again, not apply the same to works in sociology or philosophy, since you can’t find in these fields positive truths?
Any work of art lives in itself. You can obviously find in it an intrinsic value. To say that it is linked to the life and the personality of his author, and that you can understand it better if you do, seems to me like a commonplace, MacShreach, But how does it take subtract from it its inherent value? through what magic?
And no, I’m sorry, the example of science is not a bad one: truth is precisely part of the intrinsic value of the finding exactly like artistic beauty or value is a part of a sculpture, a book or a symphony.
Once again, I’m asking you: how about “Journey to the End of the Night”? It’s probably amongst the 10 greatest books ever written and its author was a disgusting anti-Semite and a collaborator of the Nazis!

[danthepoetman]

Clearly, if you read what I have said, no: it is inappropriate to apply the mores of our culture when regarding another. We may be horrified by the religious practices of the Aztecs, but their artists (whose names we do not know) were operating within their culture and according to their standards.

This is a bit of a red herring anyway, since the concept of the artist as individual is really a renaissance invention.
MacShreach, you make a direct link between morality and artistic value! There is absolutely no reason why we shouldn’t, in such a case, apply the exact same criterion to cultures! Your very argument doesn’t make any sense otherwise!

[MacShreach]

I'm sorry but are you now saying that because an artist has an imagination and can create monsters he or she must therefore share the impulsles and passions of their creations?
You deny the power of the imgination to create!

Dostoevsky thus was Raskolnikov, hundreds of writers of crime fiction are secretly aspiring murders and Joseph Conrad harboured the impulses that, given the opportunity, would have made him act as Kurtz in "The Heart Of Darkness."

Are you suggesting that Conrad treated Kurtz sympathetically? Please do not traduce me. Nabokov's description of Humbert is thoroughly sympathetic and must beg the question.

[MacShreach]

MacShreach, you make a direct link between morality and artistic value! There is absolutely no reason why we shouldn’t, in such a case, apply the exact same criterion to cultures! Your very argument doesn’t make any sense otherwise!

No: what is acceptable within one culture may not be in another. Gotta go, girlfriend online

[MacShreach]

No: what is acceptable within one culture may not be in another. Gotta go, girlfriend online

Not trying to duck out of a good convo guys, but I am prepared to bet she's better lookig than both of you....and I am the visual one!

[danthepoetman]

Go my friend! we'll end this one up some other time!
The tender sex doesn't wait...

[Prospero]

Indeed - got to have a sense of priorities. I have, meanwhile, been watching an intolerably long and dull Turkish film.

[tsadriana]

Go my friend! we'll end this one up some other time!
The tender sex doesn't wait...
Your username name inspire me ,i should write a proper poem for u....
Don`t be shy
Be my guy
And let,s fly
To the sky
:dancing::dancing::dancing:

[danthepoetman]

I love it! I’ll keep this one, lovely Adriana. You know, poetry is precisely the place where anybody can take a moment to express some feeling the way they want. I find those little verses lovely, just as you are, Adriana. Thank you! xoxo

P.S. I'll fly with you anytime! Remember: we have a date anyways at the end of the world, which should come in december! ;)

[loveboof]

Macshreach, wide of the mark.

This thread is about inspiration. You may need to study an artist to understand a context for the work, but in terms of inspiration the work itself can be perfectly self sufficient.

To specifically look at an artist's life would suggest it is the artist you find inspiring and not the work.

Inspiration does not presuppose understanding! (It is personal)

[loveboof]

If I could edit my post I would remove the 'as usual' from my opening sentence. I've just read the comment from Macshreach in Franklin's hypocritical transsexuals thread and totally agreed with him!


.

[MacShreach]

Macshreach, wide of the mark.

This thread is about inspiration. You may need to study an artist to understand a context for the work, but in terms of inspiration the work itself can be perfectly self sufficient.

To specifically look at an artist's life would suggest it is the artist you find inspiring and not the work.

Inspiration does not presuppose understanding! (It is personal)

All I can think to say to this is that you must be using a very narrow definition of the word 'inspire', in order to avoid the thorny problem of understanding, which can only be arrived at in terms of context; one might consider the paintings of perhaps Rothko, and suggest (rightly) that they 'inspire' (meaning 'to breath in' ) a sense of calm and repose; the same night be said of Monet's Lily Ponds. or da Vinci's Mona Lisa, and that is fine as far as it goes. There are as many examples of this level of 'inspiration' as there are works of art, though it is a limited meaning; in effect all successful art must inspire something in at least some of the audience.

However the thread title, 'Inspiration--name and explain yours' suggests a far deeper understanding of the word, which completely negates your final comment, since it is impossible to see how anyone can give a meaningful explanation of something without understanding it. (Well, maybe you can, but I think even you, with your clearly above average intellect, will have difficulties.)

For a practising artist, this is even more the case; and you might note, should you trouble to read, that my original post, and subsequent comments, did not refer to individual works of art but to artists; I even quoted EH Gombrich making exactly that point. I think it would be a good idea for you to read and perhaps understand what is being said before commenting on it, just as it is important to understand the context of a work of art before passing comment on that....

[Prospero]

I think one can be inspired by a work - a singular piece - without necessarily understanding its context in depth and especially without knowing much about the life of the artist. I mentioned that I find the B Minor Mass inspiring. The context in this case is important yes - a great masterwork of religious music. But do i really need to know that much about the Life of JS Bach? I would contend not. Will knowing more about his life make the music more inspiring. Possibly if it is the genesis, the struggle involved in making that work. But not in terms of a direct encounter with the power of the music or its spiritual force.
A singular painting in an art gallery can also inspire - move you, give you a profound feeling of peace, make you aspire to do something creative. Without knowing anything of the provenance of the maker. To understand it more fully - yes that will require you know bout the history of art, and the life and ideas of its maker. But that is not crucial to be inspired to act or think or feel by the work.

And there i a difference between inspire and admire - which Im hugely aware off (in response to Stavros). I admire many modern composers (Xenakis, Boulez, Varese etc etc) But i do not enjoy them. And they do not inspire me.

[MacShreach]

I think one can be inspired by a work - a singular piece - without necessarily understanding its context in depth and especially without knowing much about the life of the artist. I mentioned that I find the B Minor Mass inspiring. The context in this case is important yes - a great masterwork of religious music. But do i really need to know that much about the Life of JS Bach? I would contend not. Will knowing more about his life make the music more inspiring. Possibly if it is the genesis, the struggle involved in making that work. But not in terms of a direct encounter with the power of the music or its spiritual force.
A singular painting in an art gallery can also inspire - move you, give you a profound feeling of peace, make you aspire to do something creative. Without knowing anything of the provenance of the maker. To understand it more fully - yes that will require you know bout the history of art, and the life and ideas of its maker. But that is not crucial to be inspired to act or think or feel by the work.

And there i a difference between inspire and admire - which Im hugely aware off (in response to Stavros). I admire many modern composers (Xenakis, Boulez, Varese etc etc) But i do not enjoy them. And they do not inspire me.


I think you are treading a very fine semantic line. Religious art, of which the Bach you mention is part, is unusual in that its context is presupposed within its own culture; this means that it does not have to be explained in every case. The same could be said of countless Madonnas, Pietas, Crucifixions; and indeed we could go on to show that not only are these contextualised in terms of the culture they exist within, but that they define that culture--in other words that they provide a context for the culture itself, through the religious ideas they depict. This does not apply to most other forms of art, and as far as I recall, this began with Nabokov, who is by no stretch of the imagination a religious artist.

If you mean by your thread title something less than that which moves and inspires us in our own lives, and is merely a sense, profound or otherwise, of wonder or awe, of being impressed, even to the point of overwhelmed, then I think that is a very different thing; it presupposes no motivation imparted to the audience.

I really doubt that seeing a single painting in an at gallery can motivate a person to paint, though it might impress them enough that they would want to learn about painting and even to become a painter....indeed this happens all the time. But that gets us back to square one, because you can't do that without contextualisation, even if it is on the most basic level, in terms only of the execution and with no broader awareness of the cultural implications.

[loveboof]

All I can think to say to this is that you must be using a very narrow definition of the word 'inspire', in order to avoid the thorny problem of understanding, which can only be arrived at in terms of context; one might consider the paintings of perhaps Rothko, and suggest (rightly) that they 'inspire' (meaning 'to breath in' ) a sense of calm and repose; the same night be said of Monet's Lily Ponds. or da Vinci's Mona Lisa, and that is fine as far as it goes. There are as many examples of this level of 'inspiration' as there are works of art, though it is a limited meaning; in effect all successful art must inspire something in at least some of the audience.

However the thread title, 'Inspiration--name and explain yours' suggests a far deeper understanding of the word, which completely negates your final comment, since it is impossible to see how anyone can give a meaningful explanation of something without understanding it. (Well, maybe you can, but I think even you, with your clearly above average intellect, will have difficulties.)

For a practising artist, this is even more the case; and you might note, should you trouble to read, that my original post, and subsequent comments, did not refer to individual works of art but to artists; I even quoted EH Gombrich making exactly that point. I think it would be a good idea for you to read and perhaps understand what is being said before commenting on it, just as it is important to understand the context of a work of art before passing comment on that....

I mildly resent your assumption that I have simply jumped in and commented without grasping what you've been trying to say. I believe I was active in this thread before you added your voice to it, and I have read through all the subsequent replies.

I disagree with your opinion. It seems to me that you are confusing critical analysis with inspiration. Think of all the couples who have mistaken the meaning behind Every Breath you Take by The Police. Perhaps a slightly crass example, but the fact remains that a 'proper' understanding of the piece is irrelevant to them.

The word inspiration is not really up for debate here. There is no doubt in my mind that context for a work of art will help you understand it and perhaps even expand on the inspirational sustenance you derive from it. However as I said before, inspiration is a personal muse. It cannot be objectified, analysed, or quantified. What you personally take from any given source is down to you.

[MacShreach]

I mildly resent your assumption that I have simply jumped in and commented without grasping what you've been trying to say. I believe I was active in this thread before you added your voice to it, and I have read through all the subsequent replies.

I disagree with your opinion. It seems to me that you are confusing critical analysis with inspiration. Think of all the couples who have mistaken the meaning behind Every Breath you Take by The Police. Perhaps a slightly crass example, but the fact remains that a 'proper' understanding of the piece is irrelevant to them.

The word inspiration is not really up for debate here. There is no doubt in my mind that context for a work of art will help you understand it and perhaps even expand on the inspirational sustenance you derive from it. However as I said before, inspiration is a personal muse. It cannot be objectified, analysed, or quantified. What you personally take from any given source is down to you.

I don't care what you resent, mildly or otherwise. You have clearly misunderstood the statements I made, or you would not have made those you did.

Your disagreeing with my opinion is hardly a matter of concern, given the above. (I don't see why an example from popular art should be 'crass', but you said it, not me, btw.)

I am certainly not confusing critical analysis with inspiration. That's the kind of cheap, rhetorically based attempt to slander another's point of view that we might expect from....well, you, actually.

The interpretation of the word 'inspire' is very clearly 'up for debate', at least insofar as you attempt to traduce mine, and then to use the blatantly obvious and frankly rather asinine, ruse of ruling defining the word out of order. I think you know what I think of that.

Your last paragraph is, frankly, purely personal opinion on matters which you are assuming I will regard you as sufficiently expert to hold; and furthermore, even if I did, it is an ill thought-through and circular argument. You need to do better.

[loveboof]

lol, here we go...

I was being polite - my 'mild resentment' was masking the reality of the situation (which was you being a douchebag once again!)


Macshreach: it is impossible to see how anyone can give a meaningful explanation of something without understanding it.

Your words. There is no misunderstanding; you are referring to an explanation of a piece of art. I am referring to inspiration which people draw from it (coincidentally the topic of this thread lol).

You can interpret the word 'inspiration' in any way you want, but it won't change the fact that we can all draw inspiration from anything which 'inspires' us - this does not require any further understanding into the thing other than what it means to us (possibly at that one moment we feel it).

And as for my assumptions of you, you would benefit from lowering the bar fairly significantly if you want to gain that all too essential perspective...

[Prospero]

I too can't linger much longer in this debate today. (Loveboof and Macshreach - no need for you guys to get antsy with each other)

But did no necessarily mean a singular work of art. It was be. It can also be a body of work. And though the context for appeciating Bach is clear you can also appreciate and be inspired by other work which you do not understand. As a small child i was taken to art galleries and was much impressed and excited by all kinds of works by people I had never heard off and knew nothing about then and inspired to want to paint (not very well I discovered over time) which is why I am not a professional visual artist) .But the fact of seeing and enjoying that work that inspired me. I do think that you are entangling a deeper understanding with being inspired. Perhaps I should have defined better what i meant by inspire at the outset to avoid such a confusion. But I think Wendy, for example, got the meaning i intended - when she said that the book The Masks of God inspired her. It was at that level i meant. I do not think it was necessary for Wendy to have read The Golden Bough, to have studied Levi Strauss or read the collected works of jung to respond to that book as she did. (Though I think sh might well have red those books as well. Who knows) And to return to Vladimir Nabokov, when I said that he inspired me to write (although i was already writing) I meant the richness of his work collectively - not a single book. The language, the play of words, the complexity of his ideas had a powerful impact on me as a much younger man. Today in my own writing i tend to find the lucid and simpler writing of someone like Updike more appealing. But Nabokov inspired me for sure. He gave my young imagination a kick-start. As have many other writers.

[Dino Velvet]

The grey zone is a bit of a used up image, I guess, yet I don’t know why there never seem to ever be much of a middle ground for Stavros, or should I say tentatively, because I really don’t want to offend him, much moderation in his always well argued judgements. Often, they have more of the feeling of sentences… Stavros is incredibly articulate and bright, but doesn’t seem like he can consider different view points in the appreciation of artistic expression… Can you, Stavros? For instance, do you believe that pop culture can produce anything artistically beautiful too? Do you think that technical proficiency, and even refinement, is an absolute must for any work of art to find justified appreciation? :)

I've had many discussions on film with Stavros and find him to be very open minded. Me and him are almost opposites but that's what makes things interesting. We both like Takashi Miike films.

Visitor Q 2001 - Trailer - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CRc6dN7s1w4)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KX-9RMkToig

http://i614.photobucket.com/albums/tt221/My_Farts_Cause_Global_Warming/JapanWeirdx100.gif

[broncofan]

Are you suggesting that Conrad treated Kurtz sympathetically? Please do not traduce me. Nabokov's description of Humbert is thoroughly sympathetic and must beg the question.
I'm not saying you're not on to something. But let me put it this way. In order for a character with some grossly negative character traits to avoid being sympathetic, the author would have to give them uniformly negative features or risk endorsing their malignancies. A pedophile like Humbert therefore is only properly condemned in literature if he is nasty in every way. If he shows tenderness or has any contradictory qualities, the author can then be accused of associating the negative with those positive character traits to mitigate the former.

This interpretation would have the effect of making authors create very monotone characters who are caricatures, either wholly good or evil. Yet I understand what you're saying and can see how an author who sympathizes with pedophilia or racism can create a character benign in other ways in order to promote (make seem innocuous) what we consider legitimate evils.

But this is the risk of reading too much into the work of authors. They may make a pedophile sympathetic to show that people who do evil things have some non-evil or banal traits. On the other hand I don't deny the power of an author to use his work as propaganda through such techniques and accept your point with a grain of salt.

[broncofan]

My favorite writers: Nabokov, Kafka, Shakespeare. Nabokov is a man who wrote books in a foreign language that he employed with tremendous style. He also had strong opinions about art, and did not believe in creating characters who were mere archetypes, which is one reason he detested Freud and his fixed concept of human psychological tendencies.

I don't know much about Kafka personally but I have read both the Metamorphosis and the Penal Colony. What is striking about these works to me is that the man created all sorts of eery scenarios with the shortest brush strokes ever employed. His sentence structure was exceedingly simple, but he threaded these simple, seemingly inartful sentences into elaborate metaphors that were not quickly revealed. For instance, it is not immediately apparent why Gregor Samsa is a hideous vermin, but we know there's a reason. Yet that reason is not easily articulated nor is it revealed as an obvious allegory.

Shakespeare is the greatest dramatist of all time. When other authors complain that he is overrated, it seems like a moot complaint. Never has a man coined so many phrases, used language so artfully while revealing so many basic human tendencies, captured historical events from scant primary sources and elaborated them into plausible and compelling dramas.

[RallyCola]

Shakespeare is the greatest dramatist of all time. When other authors complain that he is overrated, it seems like a moot complaint. Never has a man coined so many phrases, used language so artfully while revealing so many basic human tendencies, captured historical events from scant primary sources and elaborated them into plausible and compelling dramas.

I disagree completely! While to agree that Shakespeare is the greatest dramatist of all time is easy and to disagree invites criticism from the benign to the divisive

Shakespeare is an overrated idea (since we are not entirely sure if the rural boy genius named Billy was actually the author or not).

Not only did he overly dramatize events and have several contemporaries that did the same, he did so for profit of his theater and not the purity of the art. I am not faulting him for profiting, but rather illustrating that I believe that he was not conscious of the fact that he was creating epic works or art because they were in fact NOT EPIC WORKS OF ART.

It wasn't until a century and a half after his death that David Garrick, another playwright and Shakespearean actor introduced that masses to the plays and helped to elevate the work. David Garrick is to Shakespeare what Paul was to Jesus...what Peter Jackson was to Tolkien...the advertising and brand builder that launched a following.

The same reason why most people consider Shakespeare high art or even elemental to modern story telling is simple...it is the same reason why people think there is a god...indoctrination. You are taught that he as great and that his writing endured because it is so embedded in you from school. Its considered in vogue or that you have cultural cache if you can quote one of the plays, whether you have read it or not.

If you are measuring greatness but cultural influence and how many people remember him/his work...then i can't argue that he was great. if you are measuring greatness as i do...judging the language and quality of his craftsmanship, he is overrated. he writes in superfluous language, which was NOT the language of his day, and he romanticizes almost every aspect of his story with little ability to construct characters that are anything but one dimensional. Too often are the characters stifled and unable to show any emotional range except madness and sorrow. His desire to strictly adhere to this formula makes his plays just that, formulaic, and in that, not worthy of the praise he receives.

From my personal experience, I learned more about literature and effective writing from other authors I was forced to read than anything I have read my ole' billy. I find the plays to be extremely formulaic, and basic. I find the construction of his narrative to be excessively deliberate and simple. I find his characters to be superficial and one dimensional. And I find the obsession with his work to be sickening especially from people who do not understand the history of his glorification.

It reminds me of the movie 2012. In that movie, some dude says that he was reading a book by John Cusack's character and that it will be an enduring part of human history, not because it was good, but because he was reading it and it endured on the arc with him. That's why shakespeare is popular....because someone decided to support it as such and was a better marketer

[broncofan]

His language was often superfluous. The best example of this I can think of is in Julius Caesar when he has Antony say "For I have neither wit, nor words, nor worth, Action, nor utterance, nor the power of speech". I am sure there is some redundancy there even if each comma adds a little content.

However the language and the emotion is beautiful. It was a man speaking extemporaneously at a funeral, sharp as a fox, pretending that he was normally a crude speaker who only appeared eloquent because of how genuine his emotion was. The way he constructs metaphors is otherworldly. Go over some of his most famous quotes from his plays, even the ones most do not remember, such as "brevity is the soul of wit" or the discussion of evil forces winning you over with honest trifles only to betray you in deepest consequence. Yes, these phrases have become popular namely because Shakespeare's work is popular. But how did they arrive in the vernacular? Why has it become so tempting for men and women who have never read Shakespeare to use these original phrases as cliches without knowing who to attribute them to? It's because the man could in a sentence construct a metaphor with complex meaning, poetic structure, and complete coherence within the framework of compelling plays.

I'll give you an example. In Macbeth, his characters anticipate all of the philosophical problems associated with predestination. Macbeth wonders if he is destined to be king, does he not need to act? Is it a self-fulfilling prophecy? Is it a prophecy that requires the minimalist of actions or requires him to seize upon opportunities when presented? We'll never know but every possibility is alluded to. What about the literalness of the witches predictions? They deceive him all the while keeping their promises. I've heard his language was beautiful but his plays sometimes basic, but there was nothing basic about the story of Macbeth's downfall. His wife's conscience finally revealed as she descends into madness trying in vain to wash the blood off her hands. It's very easy to say such a story is pedestrian, but it has not been staged across the world because people have been told Shakespeare was a genius.

Shakespeare may have become immensely popular after his death because others promoted his work, but those who read his work have independent minds. You look at the list of accolades and it would require the duping of an enormous number of brilliant men. Nabokov himself said, "the verbal poetical texture of Shakespeare is the greatest the world has known, and is immensely superior to the structure of his plays as plays." To Nabokov this was a high compliment though it seems to criticize his plays structurally, Nabokov was stylistically pedantic. Was Nabokov the victim of a public relations campaign? Many of the plays of Shakespeare contained language so sublime and such insight into the human condition that their worth is nearly self-evident. Those who have focused so much on the man's foibles, his apparent nihilism or the fact that his work has gotten tremendous hearing are only doing so to prove he is not himself divine. No argument. This was a man.

[broncofan]

Shakespeare is an overrated idea (since we are not entirely sure if the rural boy genius named Billy was actually the author or not).


Though I am far from an expert on the authorship of Shakespeare's works I do believe it was William Shakespeare from Stratford. Why? The other candidates are by comparison pathetic as possibilities. Christopher Marlowe? I have read some of his work and it amazes me anyone could confuse him with the Bard. He also died at 29, when Shakespeare wrote something like 37 plays. I also read that the library at Stratford contained many of the primary sources used in Shakespeare's plays. Though the biographical evidence is not rich, there is some trace contemporaneous with the years he was supposed to be alive and active, his ownership of the globe theater and his last will and testament. It is not ironclad but surely seems stronger than the evidence for any of the other candidates.

Having read seven of his plays personally and only not liking the Taming of the Shrew, I value his work as more than a mere idea. I understand and agree with a lot of your points. This is to undercut only those ones I disagree with.

[broncofan]

Not only did he overly dramatize events and have several contemporaries that did the same, he did so for profit of his theater and not the purity of the art. I am not faulting him for profiting, but rather illustrating that I believe that he was not conscious of the fact that he was creating epic works or art because they were in fact NOT EPIC WORKS OF ART.


What rule of art or nature says that a man has to know he is creating epic works of art for them to be considered such? A great work of art depends on the motive of the artist creating it? Are we reading the work or constructing a biography of the man and all his vices and deeds? Some have said that you need to know about someone's life to put their work in context, but this is going even a step further by qualifying a man's work based on what you think of his motivations.

What plays of Shakespeare have you read if you don't mind me asking? I think if you are going to bring the man back down to Earth you should be somewhat more specific.

[RallyCola]

broncofan....we will have to just agree to disagree because at issue is simply that we disagree on a very basic level and neither of us will sway the other.

where you agree that his language is superfluous but beautiful, i simply just don't find it beautiful. I find his metaphors to be grandiose and his attempts at allegory to be too far fetched. in fact, i can take your macbeth example and turn it around. he paints is characters so one-dimensionally that even though he projects what he knows the story to be by foreshadowing and foreboding, they still fail to act because he renders them powerless to their character type. Moreover, the plotholes of unexplored stories, tangential to the story he is telling are irrelevant because they are not part of the reality he constructs.

let me give you an example. George Lucas penned a tale of the skywalker family and how 3 skywalker kids with mommy issues shaped the course of human history. Lucas created a world and within it gave voices and emotions to his characters to convey ultimately what he found important. does it matter that all story points are not realized? no...so that shakespeare leaves some unanswered story points is irrelevant.

now, as your assertion that nabokov has an opinion i should value...i tell you that i do not. first off, i don't find his work to be that interesting itself so his opinion on literature isn't going to sway mine....but that said, most importantly, yes, he was victim to a marketing campaign because he too was likely influenced by reading shakespeare in school. literature...like all art...be it shakespeare, nabokov or danielle steele, is simply subjective and its reception and retention is solely based on how it is introduced and perceived. i just don't perceive it as you do.

[onmyknees]

http://www.homeofheroes.com/moh/citations_living/z_moh_navy.gif
The President of the United States
in the name of The Congress
takes pleasure in presenting the
Medal of Honor
to

*COOK, DONALD GILBERT
Rank and organization: Colonel, United States Marine Corps, Prisoner of War by the Viet Cong in the Republic of Vietnam. Place and date: Vietnam, 31 December 1964 to 8 December, 1967. Entered Service at: Brooklyn, New York. Date and place of birth: 9 August 1934, Brooklyn New York.
Citation:
For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty while interned as a Prisoner of War by the Viet Cong in the Republic of Vietnam during the period 31 December 1964 to 8 December 1967. Despite the fact that by so doing he would bring about harsher treatment for himself, Colonel (then Captain) Cook established himself as the senior prisoner, even though in actuality he was not. Repeatedly assuming more than his share of their health, Colonel Cook willingly and unselfishly put the interests of his comrades before that of his own well-being and, eventually, his life. Giving more needy men his medicine and drug allowance while constantly nursing them, he risked infection from contagious diseases while in a rapidly deteriorating state of health. This unselfish and exemplary conduct, coupled with his refusal to stray even the slightest from the Code of Conduct, earned him the deepest respect from not only his fellow prisoners, but his captors as well. Rather than negotiate for his own release or better treatment, he steadfastly frustrated attempts by the Viet Cong to break his indomitable spirit. and passed this same resolve on to the men whose well-being he so closely associated himself. Knowing his refusals would prevent his release prior to the end of the war, and also knowing his chances for prolonged survival would be small in the event of continued refusal, he chose nevertheless to adhere to a Code of Conduct far above that which could be expected. His personal valor and exceptional spirit of loyalty in the face of almost certain death reflected the highest credit upon Colonel Cook, the Marine Corps, and the United States Naval Service.

[RallyCola]

What rule of art or nature says that a man has to know he is creating epic works of art for them to be considered such? A great work of art depends on the motive of the artist creating it? Are we reading the work or constructing a biography of the man and all his vices and deeds? Some have said that you need to know about someone's life to put their work in context, but this is going even a step further by qualifying a man's work based on what you think of his motivations.

What plays of Shakespeare have you read if you don't mind me asking? I think if you are going to bring the man back down to Earth you should be somewhat more specific. I'll also note that I did not rate your post positively or negatively but chose to try to contend with the ideas presented in them. I also understand the rating system is anonymous, but when we're discussing genuine ideas, don't you think it better to express any objection rather than just hitting the thumbs down button. We all do it to reactionary postings without any thought put into them, but I think it's poor sportsmanship otherwise if it was you.

first off...i am a harsh critic of most "art" because i do consider what I know of an artist and well as what I am able to discover about his intentions when judging their product. that is my criteria. it doesn't have to be yours.

Next, as to what I have read of his...in high school and college, one elective i took in each was Shakespearean lit. as such, i have done extensive research on the man, his process and his works for term papers. i graduated from college 12 years ago so in that time i have not read any more of his work because i'm so turned off to it. if memory serves correctly, I have read the standards...

macbeth
hamlet
romeo and juliet
julius caesar
tempest
much ado about nothing
as you like it
two men of verona
king lear
othello
henry v
winter's tale
midsummer night's dream
merchant of venice
twelfth night
all's well that ends well


i can tell you that my final paper was to contrast shylock and macbeth as equal and interchangeable characters. my paper got an A.

[Stavros]

The grey zone is a bit of a used up image, I guess, yet I don’t know why there never seem to ever be much of a middle ground for Stavros, or should I say tentatively, because I really don’t want to offend him, much moderation in his always well argued judgements. Often, they have more of the feeling of sentences… Stavros is incredibly articulate and bright, but doesn’t seem like he can consider different view points in the appreciation of artistic expression… Can you, Stavros? For instance, do you believe that pop culture can produce anything artistically beautiful too? Do you think that technical proficiency, and even refinement, is an absolute must for any work of art to find justified appreciation? :)

My apologies for the late reply, Dan, I had forgotten all about this thread. I don't have much to add to my very personal and probably eccentric judgement of Nabokov, he isn't worth the effort that I put into reading this garbage posing as fiction, there comes a time when enough is enough; I recently had a similar argument with an idiot convinced that Stanley Kubrick was a genius rather than a good technician, which is the best one can say of him, although I do think Barry Lyndon will survive the wild whirlwinds of time.

Anyway I take a middle ground on some writers, for example, who I cannot decide are either front seat or back row -I adore Willa Cather for example, but there are times when she descends into a childish sentimentality; William Faulkner at his best, in As I Lay Dying and The Sound and the Fury is front row material, but much of his other work is not even admissable into this theatre of the absurd (eg, The Wild Palms). A friend of mine once sat through the whole of Meistersinger with me, a very very long opera, until the climax of the prize song in Act III, then muttering expletives on the outrageous Wagner, he got up and walked out!! We sort of had a discussion about it in the bar across the road after.
My point being, why should we hug the middle of the road? Why have people become so terrified of saying they think this book or that film is a load of rubbish? On the BBC radio and also on the tv reviews, you are not allowed to say something is rubbish but have to say 'It was disappointing', something, anything as long as its anodyne. I have strong opinions, as do many/most HA members, why hide them under a cloak of pseudo-respectability?

I do like some things in popular culture, but not very much -I think the key point would be that there are people who can sing, play instruments and write songs, that there are enduring films and popular books, and I like some of it. In the end I am a cultural snob, and I don't really care what anyone makes of that.

As I said I think before, sometimes people mistake being impressed for inspiration, not the same thing.

[Stavros]

Shakespeare is an overrated idea (since we are not entirely sure if the rural boy genius named Billy was actually the author or not).

The same reason why most people consider Shakespeare high art or even elemental to modern story telling is simple...it is the same reason why people think there is a god...indoctrination. You are taught that he as great and that his writing endured because it is so embedded in you from school. Its considered in vogue or that you have cultural cache if you can quote one of the plays, whether you have read it or not.


I am not a great theatre-goer, if I lived in London I probably would be -but I have to say the greatest, the most moving and thrilling experiences I have had in the theatre were due to Shakespeare, because he understood theatre as a craft, even if some of the devices common to the Elizabethan/Jacobean theatre can indeed appear contrived. I don't agree that Shakespeare's reputation is handed down as a given immutable fact, I was not excited by the way it was taught at school, a common enough experience in my day, but I thought I would give him a chance in the theatre and was stunned by a production of Troilus and Cressida.

As for the man himself, this has been flogged to death -Samuel Schonbaum wrote a large book, Shakeseare's Lives, which details all the variants plus the known facts, which are so obvious as to be incontestable. There was a lad call Will, he was born in Stratford-upon-Avon -these days a dreary fag-end of a town but in his day one of the few market towns in England (granted this status by Henry VIII) and thus a prosperous and lively place that attracted the classicaly educated graduates from nearby Oxford who taught the lad Will...and so on. But read closely, isnt this perfection?

Like as the waves make towards the pebbled shore,
So do our minutes hasten to their end;
Each changing place with that which goes before,
In sequent toil all forwards do contend.
Nativity, once in the main of light,
Crawls to maturity, wherewith being crown'd,
Crooked eclipses 'gainst his glory fight,
And Time that gave doth now his gift confound.
Time doth transfix the flourish set on youth
And delves the parallels in beauty's brow,
Feeds on the rarities of nature's truth,
And nothing stands but for his scythe to mow:
And yet to times in hope my verse shall stand,
Praising thy worth, despite his cruel hand.

[RallyCola]

I am not a great theatre-goer, if I lived in London I probably would be -but I have to say the greatest, the most moving and thrilling experiences I have had in the theatre were due to Shakespeare, because he understood theatre as a craft, even if some of the devices common to the Elizabethan/Jacobean theatre can indeed appear contrived.....

i am a life long resident of nyc and see every major production on broadway, several off and many more off off broadway productions each year and am a member of the public theater so i see all the shakespeare in the park productions. i am not claiming to be a patron of the arts but i am claiming to be a theater buff.

that said, i can tell you that the same material, especially shakespeare, is highly subjected to the director, production designer and cast more so than the source material. i have seen productions of the same play in the same year with different companies and where one may move me, others bore me.

I'll give you 2 examples. I saw the film, the merchant of venice and was totally bored with al pacino. in the park, where it was more visceral and horrid production values, he was great. on broadway, he overacted and sucked. another example...i saw american idiot opening night and loved it. when billy joe armstrong appeared in the role, i had to see it again and felt that while the music was far more powerful, the acting was stiff and not convincing. it felt more like a concert than the original musical.

my point is...your theater experience was dependent on far more than what some dude wrote centuries ago.

[RallyCola]

i guess i should answer the original point of this thread.

i really wish i could say that there was something that inspires me the way many of you have singled something out but unfortunately, i'm not that deep. if there was something subconsciously driving me, i probably could never admit it and would claim if as my own original thought anyway but...something i have carried with me since i first read it is an asimov quote....The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not 'Eureka!' but 'That's funny...'

[robertlouis]

In the narrow context of what I do for a living, as a songwriter, it's the people who speak with truth, empathy and poetry, who have been my constant inspiration.

Last night I saw the first among them, Ralph McTell, an English songwriter and guitarist, now in his late 60s, whose oeuvre is infinitely richer and deeper than the one song everybody knows him for, Streets of London. And he remains the same modest, low key but intensely charismatic individual he has always been. A thoroughly decent human being.

It's the writers who paint pictures and tell stories who inspire me most, like the late Harry Chapin, Al Stewart, Robbie Robertson of The Band, Joni Mitchell, Richard Shindell, Steve Knightley of Show of Hands, and Bruce Springsteen - Woody Guthrie with an electric band. But I owe more to Ralph than any of the others.

I nicked most of my guitar riffs from him too.....him and James Taylor.

Do yourselves a favour and google/youtube the names you don't know. I hope that you'll be pleasantly surprised.

[Chaos]

I didn't have role models or people telling me I was good at anything growing up.
All I had were people putting me down....So what does a kid with an overactive imagination do? He creates characters that overcome his problems and eventually realizes that if he can invent people that overcome HIS problems then he can too...
Yes,that's right. I am my own inspiration,only I carried myself through all the shit people gave me,only I was there to pick myself up after people knocked me down....
I did everything they told me I'd never do,and i did it alone.

[danthepoetman]

Thank you for your answer, Stavros. I will admit once again and despite how radical and, as you put it, snobbish your opinions on art might sometimes appear, they’re always so well formulated and informed that all that is left to argue for your interlocutor is precisely how extreme they sometimes seem. But as far as I’m concerned, I’m sure you know that I respect your opinions a lot and that I was somewhat teasing you with my questions.

What inspired me personally has to the American poetical tradition, starting somewhere from Witman and leading, through Carl Sandburg and Robinson Jeffers, to Jack Kerouack, Allen Ginsburg and William Burroughs (and Gregory Corso), and later on even further to someone like Charles Bukowski. The revolution that implicitly defined that linage is the reversal of the usual perspective about writing, and especially about poetry. Breaking with the constipated, frozen framework it has always been subjected to, poetry becomes the only open field for writing freely, anyway you want, without any specific focus on the form. Prose becomes almost the subject of more rules. So much so that in the end, anyone can take a sheet of paper and a pen, and try to render with words who he is and what he feels to share with his fellow men his emotions and opinions. And incredibly, it has succeeded. The Beat movement has open poetry to everyone as the best medium for anyone to express himself.
I was also inspired, earlier on, by authors of lucidity on human beings and history. Some of them were able to convince me that the worst the world was, the more we had to make out of it, at your own personal level first, if not uniquely. Albert Camus was definitely my first inspiration in that regard. Then the French moralists in general, LaRochefoucauld, Chamfort, Pascal, Montaigne (to a lesser extent), some other indirectly like Blaise Cendrars and Louis Ferdinand Céline, (Henry Miller, Knut Hamsun), and certainly E. M. Cioran. But all of this at a younger age.

I’m still trying to build on these influences.

[Prospero]

I admire Stavros's blunt honesty. He is a cultural snob. Nothing wrong with that. He does not pretend to have a universalist embrace of culture - and has quite clearly spent out his distaste for most modern pop music - from Elvis onwards. His right.

I'd be intrigued to know if, as an adolescent, he was open to or inspired by the childish things he has since put away?


The perspective on the peak achievements of our culture have been eroded by relativism and post-modernism. You used to see examples of it in the BBC's treatment of the arts, especially in the days of Michael jackson (not the singer but the high flying BBC arts producer) when there would be documentaries according equal weight to the art of the mini skirt and Wordsworth or hip-hop and Stravinsky. All worth looking at but not through the blurred eyepiece of post-modernism.

I continue to find Stavros's vehement hatred of Nabokov puzzling but we all have blind spots. I too have sat through vast lengths of Wagner and left - much as his operatic companion. It takes time to learn to appreciate certain art - particularly some of the highest landmarks of western civilisation. Both wagner and Shakespeare. The language is knotty to the untrained ear and in the case of Wagner, his embrace of the Nazis offers a further roadblock

. i disagree with Rallycola that it is "indoctrination" which makes us admire Shakespeare. its familiarity and education. it's learning to see or hear. The sonnet posted by Stavros illustrates this perfectly. That's very true of much very modern "classical" music for example. Most people find it ugly to their ears. But it can become beautiful with exposure and effort. And that's not to do with some sort of posturing

So it is with Milton or Alexander Pope or poets from eras very different from ours in sensibility. it is hard to pick out the meaning of their work without seeing it in the context in which it was forged. The same with mannerist art or the almost wholly religious work of the renaissance.

[Stavros]

I admire Stavros's blunt honesty. He is a cultural snob. Nothing wrong with that. He does not pretend to have a universalist embrace of culture - and has quite clearly spent out his distaste for most modern pop music - from Elvis onwards. His right.

I'd be intrigued to know if, as an adolescent, he was open to or inspired by the childish things he has since put away?


The perspective on the peak achievements of our culture have been eroded by relativism and post-modernism. You used to see examples of it in the BBC's treatment of the arts, especially in the days of Michael jackson (not the singer but the high flying BBC arts producer) when there would be documentaries according equal weight to the art of the mini skirt and Wordsworth or hip-hop and Stravinsky. All worth looking at but not through the blurred eyepiece of post-modernism.

I continue to find Stavros's vehement hatred of Nabokov puzzling but we all have blind spots. I too have sat through vast lengths of Wagner and left - much as his operatic companion. It takes time to learn to appreciate certain art - particularly some of the highest landmarks of western civilisation. Both wagner and Shakespeare. The language is knotty to the untrained ear and in the case of Wagner, his embrace of the Nazis offers a further roadblock

. i disagree with Rallycola that it is "indoctrination" which makes us admire Shakespeare. its familiarity and education. it's learning to see or hear. The sonnet posted by Stavros illustrates this perfectly. That's very true of much very modern "classical" music for example. Most people find it ugly to their ears. But it can become beautiful with exposure and effort. And that's not to do with some sort of posturing

So it is with Milton or Alexander Pope or poets from eras very different from ours in sensibility. it is hard to pick out the meaning of their work without seeing it in the context in which it was forged. The same with mannerist art or the almost wholly religious work of the renaissance.

Of course I was seduced by the Beatles in the 1960s, and used to have 'first editions' of all their LP's, but like many I either threw them away or sold them, I can't recall. I haven't willingly listened to a Beatles track since the early 1970s, it means nothing to me now. On the other hand, I bought 4 Bob Dylan LP's recently (there was a special offer) and listening to them again cannot but wonder at the haunting beauty of Mr Tambourine Man, but is this pop music? Same with the first two albums by Leonard Cohen with classics like Suzanne, Sisters of Mercy, and Bird on a Wire -pop music? I bought his first collected volume of poems in I think, 1970 and also his novel, Beautiful Losers. I also listen sometimes to Van Morrison's first album, and the first couple of albums by the Incredible String Band, but although I would like to listen to Electric Ladyland again it is not urgent -but again, is this pop music?

I think, Prospero you are too timid in not coming clean about a writer musician of film-maker with a high reputation whose work you detest -if you do detest anything 'violently'. As for Wagner, he died long before anyone had heard of the Nazis, and if you have read the drivel he wrote about the Jews, as well as his life story, such as his claim that Jesus was a vegetarian therefore so should he be, even if this meant him tucking into red meat when dining out- and then consider the role played by Jews as producers of his music, you will understand that the man was a mess whose only saving grace is musical theatre that is challenging, breathtaking and yes, often hard to take.

Rally-Cola I think you are spot-on about productions, they can make or break a play, and the liberties producers take with Shakespeare can destroy it, the same is also true of opera and ballet.

Danthepoetman -how you can read Celine and not feel ill I do not know, he was a more nauseating Jew hater than Wagner, Chopin or Degas.
On Celine, try this:
http://www.principiadialectica.co.uk/blog/?p=669

RobertLouis: So, Ralph McTell is still alive! Glad to hear it, I remember him from some gigs in the 1970s, I think my brother-in-law is also a fan, as he is of Martin Carthy.

[Prospero]

Stavros wrote: "if you do detest anything 'violently' " In the realm of the arts - violently. of course not. There is great art, good art, poor art and things which are labelled as art which are not worthy of being considered art in all.

I suspect that you and i differ on this topic in one fundamental way. I think you throw off (as you have with, for instance, the music of the beatles) that which you consider to be mediocre or not worth pursuing any more now compared with the tastes greater maturity has brought. In contrast i tend, I suppose, to hold onto much that, if I'm honest is pretty medioacre (in music certainly) because of the importance it once had in my life. So yes i like The Beatles and The Stones but their music scarcely satisfies me now in the way that a wonderful work by Bach does, a performance of The Rite of Spring or some brilliant Jazz. But i do have tremendous affection for all that old music. it helped make me who I am today.

As for violent detestation? Well am not, by nature, a violent person. The last time i was in a fight was at the age of 13. (Not the last time i've been in a situation where fighting was taking place. that was much more recent in Afghanistan). But i hate cruelty. I hate lies. i hate racism. i hate injustice. I hate ignorance (though that is a different category of hating - for often I /have to accept that ignorance is not the fault of those who are ignorant0 Perhaps all obvious things.

As for coming clean. There are certainly plenty of film makers and others whose work i consider thin or bad and hugely over rated. Not many I would use the word hate about . Probably none. Quentin Tarantino for instance. His cult I cannot fathom. I don't think much of Bladerunner, for many the greatest sci fi film ever made. Slasher movies I find stupid and unpleasant. Some horror movies disturb me deeply - in part because of their following. I find the sort of music Dino posts here all the time completely unlistenable. I cannot abide The Three Stooges. (But i think humour falls into a special category all of its own.) The pabulum offered by mainstream TV in the UK and US most of the time is mental detritus. A moronic inferno. etc etc

[broncofan]

One of the problems I have with sci fi is I never find anything in the genre great. I like Alien quite a bit, but I have to admit I thought Bladerunner was above average and nothing more. As for Quentin Tarantino he has been very hit and miss for me. I liked True Romance a lot, though it was gory and a bit of a juvenile fantasy. I only saw one Kill Bill movie and could not stand it.

It may sound trite to say, but I think biographical facts are a distraction when evaluating anyone's work. It is hard enough to be objective and though appreciating art is a subjective experience, it can be easily polluted. I'm not saying a work of art can be completely detached from its creator, as you have to think about the thought that went into it and the context in which it was created. But many biographical facts do not really get to the heart of what you're looking at. Are they not then a distraction? That's not meant to be crass or amoral, but it is a point of view anyway. There's plenty of time to evaluate the people as people.

[Jericho]

I was inspired by the Beano! :shrug

[Prospero]

I was inspired by the Beano! :shrug

Oh me too - desperate dan, dennis the menace, the bash street kids etc....

[bluesoul]

okay, you above gentlemen must be english to talk about beano. here's a question:

around the mid 80s, dennis the menace was put on tv (blue peter) as dennis & gnasher. around that same time, there was also this crocodile who had his own programme. the show would start by the camera getting flushed down the toilet and it'd go into the sewer where this croc lived (with some rats who were his buddies) and they'd introduce stuff like spitting image.

anyone remember that croc's name?

also: a slight coincidence. dennis & gnasher went after a pansy called malcolm who (in today's standards) would probably be called effeminate

[Prospero]

Nope... no idea

[brickcitybrother]

Seriously?

Adversity... I can only imagine what I would be like if life was easy. If everything was handed to me (silver platter or not). Adversity has caused me to push harder and know that I can come out on the other side ... when it seems all is lost.

Adversity has inspired me more than anything else.

[Jericho]

okay, you above gentlemen must be english

How very dare you! :pissed:
Doc Croc?
Round the Bend - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Round_the_Bend)

[Prospero]

Well I AM an English gentleman. Not so sure about jericho. I think he might be a rural oik

[bluesoul]

How very dare you! :pissed:
Doc Croc?
Round the Bend - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Round_the_Bend)

thank you sir. you've made my day

http://oi56.tinypic.com/259bmms.jpg

[Jericho]

Well I AM an English gentleman. Not so sure about jericho. I think he might be a rural oik

Shaddup, you overstuffed southern softie!
I may be rural, I may be an oik...BUT I AM NOT FUKKIN ENGLISH!!! :hide-1:
:dead:

[Jericho]

thank you sir. you've made my day




Yer welcome!

[fred41]

Shaddup, you overstuffed southern softie!
I may be rural, I may be an oik...BUT I AM NOT FUKKIN ENGLISH!!! :hide-1:
:dead:

Aren't you Welsh?

[Jericho]

Aren't you Welsh?

Indeed, one of the choosen! :whistle:

[Jericho]

And now I've brought the tone of the thread down, I think my work here is done! :shrug

[robertlouis]

okay, you above gentlemen must be english to talk about beano. here's a question:

around the mid 80s, dennis the menace was put on tv (blue peter) as dennis & gnasher. around that same time, there was also this crocodile who had his own programme. the show would start by the camera getting flushed down the toilet and it'd go into the sewer where this croc lived (with some rats who were his buddies) and they'd introduce stuff like spitting image.

anyone remember that croc's name?

also: a slight coincidence. dennis & gnasher went after a pansy called malcolm who (in today's standards) would probably be called effeminate

I should point out that the The Beano and its stablemate comics were in fact written and published by DC Thomson in Dundee on the east coast of Scotland, as defiantly un-English a city as you could ever hope to find; there's even a bronze statue of Desperate Dan on the sea front. It did produce the majestically dreadful William Topaz McGonagall, after all.

If you look at some of the drawings from the early days it's quite obvious from the tenements in the background that the townscape was Scottish - there was always something deliciously surreal and subversive about the idea of Cactusville-on-Tay.

And Stavros, thanks for your footnote about Ralph. Age has certainly failed to wither his writing sharpness or his guitar skills.

And I've personally always found the term "English gentleman" to be a classic oxymoron.....:wiggle:

[robertlouis]

Indeed, one of the choosen! :whistle:

Aye pal. Sheepshaggers should stick thegither. :dancing:

[SammiValentine]

also: a slight coincidence. dennis & gnasher went after a pansy called malcolm who (in today's standards) would probably be called effeminate

he was called walter the softy, and not what you would call effeminate, was more the geeky look, dicky bow, bad quiffy hair and round black dennis taylor glasses.

Beano -> Dandy.

I liked ivy the terrible and billy whizz , and the bash street kids.

Rio Ferdinand / Plug.

[robertlouis]

he was called walter the softy, and not what you would call effeminate, was more the geeky look, dicky bow, bad quiffy hair and round black dennis taylor glasses.

Beano -> Dandy.

I liked ivy the terrible and billy whizz , and the bash street kids.

Rio Ferdinand / Plug.

I always wished I'd gone to Bash St School!

[SammiValentine]

I always wished I'd gone to Bash St School!

That would of been an improvement for me :)

[robertlouis]

That would of been an improvement for me :)

You should do a Minni the Minx set, gerl! :dancing:

[SammiValentine]

proper minger her :) cheers lol :D

[robertlouis]

proper minger her :) cheers lol :D

The Beano never did pretty - they were always grotesque. Unlike yourself, ma'am.

[loveboof]

I was inspired by the Beano! :shrug


Oh me too - desperate dan, dennis the menace, the bash street kids etc....


okay, you above gentlemen must be english to talk about beano.

I liked The Numskulls when I was a kid! I never got that he was called Edd Case lol - classic...

[robertlouis]

I liked The Numskulls when I was a kid! I never got that he was called Edd Case lol - classic...

Same stable, from the Sunday Post - Oor Wullie and The Broons!

[Ben]

Well, my latest inspiration, as it were, would be Derrick Jensen.
He's an author. American. And an environmentalist.

[robertlouis]

Well, my latest inspiration, as it were, would be Derrick Jensen.
He's an author. American. And an environmentalist.

No connection with Derrick Barry, Ben? :whistle:

[Ben]

No connection with Derrick Barry, Ben? :whistle:

Could be a gay connection -- ha ha! Actually, Derrick Jensen is most likely heterosexual. But he doesn't really discuss his sexual orientation....
And Derrick Barry is gay -- or maybe bisexual. I've never heard him address his sexual orientation. But Derrick Barry heavily leans to the gay side, as it were. Not like me. Because I'm 100% straight -- ha ha! ;)
And I wouldn't describe Derrick Barry as an inspiration, as it were. I'm sure he does inspire some.
Plus: the more drag queens, the better -- :)

[Jericho]

proper minger her :) cheers lol :D

Not fit like Beryl the Peril! :jerkoff

[robertlouis]

Not fit like Beryl the Peril! :jerkoff

Pervert.

[danthepoetman]

Danthepoetman -how you can read Celine and not feel ill I do not know, he was a more nauseating Jew hater than Wagner, Chopin or Degas.
On Celine, try this:
http://www.principiadialectica.co.uk/blog/?p=669

You know, Konrad Lorenz was in the nazi party; Martin Heidegger’s very philosophy somewhat justified at some point, nazi ideology –ideology of exclusivism is an intrinsic part of his philosophy. And what about the case made often against Nietzsche? (His books were on the sleep table of many Nazis –as they couldn’t understand a word of poor Heidegger). If you were to make a case against stalinians, you would have to condemn, in all probability, more than 80% of all European intellectuals before what? 1950 maybe, if not 1960, Stavros.
You know, there’s no case to be made against Céline; it’s already all made. In fact, he made it himself. You would know that if you had read some of his pamphlets –and I’m sure that in fact you have. He was an abominable anti-Semite, the worst collaborationist and an obscurantist, anti-intellectual ass. Yet, there’s no denying, NONE, Stavros, that “Voyage au Bout de la Nuit” (Journey to the End of the Night) is one of the greatest literary masterpieces of the 20th century. Notwithstanding what Céline was as a human being…
Works of art have a life of their own. Great productions and accomplishments live in independence from their origin and their author. It’s exactly as if you were condemning Greek culture, philosophy, theatre, literature, poetry, because they all favoured and practiced slavery and torture, or because they could raze to the ground a city, kill all its male citizens and take all the women and children to sell them… Or as if you were disregarding Alexandria because it was founded on the idea of, and by, Alexander, the man who burn Persepolis to the ground, kill everyone, and did even worse in Thebes. Or else, as if you were arguing that all Aztek art couldn’t be anything but disgusting because of the innumerable sacrifices, striping the breast open of the victims to tear out their heart, before throwing their carcass on those stairways.
What do you think of Plato, then, who was obviously on the side of the aristocratic factions in Ancient Greece, against the democratic factions, because he favoured the factions that wanted a literal state of tyranny of the rich over the poor and miserable in all cities of Greece? who designed an abominable political “utopia” (admire the oxymoron as much as the anachronism) and desperately tried to realized it by negotiating with a terrible tyrant? What do you think of the work of Aristotle, who not only was on the same side, not only educated Alexander, the conqueror of the world, but also pronounced himself unequivocally in favour of slavery, and in fact went as far as to say that slaves were not quite as human as citizens (more like animals)? Do we throw the work of both Plato and Aristotle to the garbage? Do we throw away Augustin’s work for his insistence on pursuing heretics? Voltaire among a great many, was in favour of the death penalty for atheists; what about that?
Would you throw away all of Rousseau because he wanted to ban theatre and music and literature and anything fun? Would you throw away Kant because he rejoiced at the news of the “prise de la Bastille”? Would you reject all of Hegel because he was a Napoleon enthusiastic, or would you reject Beethoven’s 3rd because it celebrates Napoleon also? Should we burn all of Sartre’s and Simone de Beauvoir because they were Stalinists all the way up to the invasion of Hungary, and maoist after? I’m just citing a few examples out of my head, but you know how easy it would be to find an infinite number of them.
Should we then go further and throw away all of Hemingway because he was a drunk; all of Rousseau, once again, because he gave 5 children to public assistance; Henry Miller’s because of his insatiable desire to have sex; Ginsburg’s poetry because he was gay (oh! yes, being gay is ok, today); Alfred de Vigny for his monarchist position against the dying republicans (oups! you’re Brittish, sorry!). I mean, how much morals should enter our judgement on intellectual and artistic work? Don't you think it's all a bit relative? Because as much as I agree with you on Céline’s character (there’s no way not to), it’s a judgement of a moral value that we make on him. Who’s drawing the line on how much moral should enter our judgement on works of art? You mean to tell me, Stavros, that you can’t enjoy a work of art because of the personality of it’s author? Following such an idea, we could very easily fall back into the good old index, you know? that book the catholic Church was publishing, that forbid tons of printed paper to be read by good practitioners… Should we recreate an intellectual and artistic Saint Inquisition?

[Stavros]

You know, Konrad Lorenz was in the nazi party; Martin Heidegger’s very philosophy somewhat justified at some point, nazi ideology –ideology of exclusivism is an intrinsic part of his philosophy. And what about the case made often against Nietzsche? (His books were on the sleep table of many Nazis –as they couldn’t understand a word of poor Heidegger). If you were to make a case against stalinians, you would have to condemn, in all probability, more than 80% of all European intellectuals before what? 1950 maybe, if not 1960, Stavros.
You know, there’s no case to be made against Céline; it’s already all made. In fact, he made it himself. You would know that if you had read some of his pamphlets –and I’m sure that in fact you have. He was an abominable anti-Semite, the worst collaborationist and an obscurantist, anti-intellectual ass. Yet, there’s no denying, NONE, Stavros, that “Voyage au Bout de la Nuit” (Journey to the End of the Night) is one of the greatest literary masterpieces of the 20th century. Notwithstanding what Céline was as a human being…
Works of art have a life of their own. Great productions and accomplishments live in independence from their origin and their author. It’s exactly as if you were condemning Greek culture, philosophy, theatre, literature, poetry, because they all favoured and practiced slavery and torture, or because they could raze to the ground a city, kill all its male citizens and take all the women and children to sell them… Or as if you were disregarding Alexandria because it was founded on the idea of, and by, Alexander, the man who burn Persepolis to the ground, kill everyone, and did even worse in Thebes. Or else, as if you were arguing that all Aztek art couldn’t be anything but disgusting because of the innumerable sacrifices, striping the breast open of the victims to tear out their heart, before throwing their carcass on those stairways.
What do you think of Plato, then, who was obviously on the side of the aristocratic factions in Ancient Greece, against the democratic factions, because he favoured the factions that wanted a literal state of tyranny of the rich over the poor and miserable in all cities of Greece? who designed an abominable political “utopia” (admire the oxymoron as much as the anachronism) and desperately tried to realized it by negotiating with a terrible tyrant? What do you think of the work of Aristotle, who not only was on the same side, not only educated Alexander, the conqueror of the world, but also pronounced himself unequivocally in favour of slavery, and in fact went as far as to say that slaves were not quite as human as citizens (more like animals)? Do we throw the work of both Plato and Aristotle to the garbage? Do we throw away Augustin’s work for his insistence on pursuing heretics? Voltaire among a great many, was in favour of the death penalty for atheists; what about that?
Would you throw away all of Rousseau because he wanted to ban theatre and music and literature and anything fun? Would you throw away Kant because he rejoiced at the news of the “prise de la Bastille”? Would you reject all of Hegel because he was a Napoleon enthusiastic, or would you reject Beethoven’s 3rd because it celebrates Napoleon also? Should we burn all of Sartre’s and Simone de Beauvoir because they were Stalinists all the way up to the invasion of Hungary, and maoist after? I’m just citing a few examples out of my head, but you know how easy it would be to find an infinite number of them.
Should we then go further and throw away all of Hemingway because he was a drunk; all of Rousseau, once again, because he gave 5 children to public assistance; Henry Miller’s because of his insatiable desire to have sex; Ginsburg’s poetry because he was gay (oh! yes, being gay is ok, today); Alfred de Vigny for his monarchist position against the dying republicans (oups! you’re Brittish, sorry!). I mean, how much morals should enter our judgement on intellectual and artistic work? Don't you think it's all a bit relative? Because as much as I agree with you on Céline’s character (there’s no way not to), it’s a judgement of a moral value that we make on him. Who’s drawing the line on how much moral should enter our judgement on works of art? You mean to tell me, Stavros, that you can’t enjoy a work of art because of the personality of it’s author? Following such an idea, we could very easily fall back into the good old index, you know? that book the catholic Church was publishing, that forbid tons of printed paper to be read by good practitioners… Should we recreate an intellectual and artistic Saint Inquisition?

As a matter of principle, you are right in what you say,Tovey disputed the value of linking the biographical facts of Beethoven's life to his music, and the examples you give are for the most part problematic in an interesting way -but only if it matters to you. And this I think is the point. When George Steiner was questioned on Wagner's anti-semitism he replied, 'that's his problem!'. We can dispute the value of some of the individuals you mentioned -I read Sartre in the 1970s but was not impressed, although his memoir, Words is a good read; his reputation was inflated in much the same way that most contemporary intellectuals are inflated -consider the case of Christopher Hitchens as another example; in the 1950s Malcolm Muggeridge was a public intellectual in the UK, hard though it is to believe now.

If there was a universal moral standard applied to all those thinkers and artists you mentioned we would be living in a cultural desert, because not only would we have lost what we once had, the living would presumably have to pass all manner of tests before their work was considered valid.
Some interesting examples of the dilemma:
-you mentioned Henry Miller, lauded by George Orwell in his essay, Inside the Whale, trashed by Kate Millet in Sexual Politics (along with DH Lawrence and Norman Mailer).
-Paul Lawrence Rose in his book Wagner, Race and Revolution offers a comparison of humanism in music -the funeral march in Beethoven's Eroica, with violence in music -the Siegfried's funeral march in Gotterdammerung: he actually argues that Wagner's music, as music, is anti-semitic. Clearly he thinks that by crossing out Napoleon's name from the mss of the symphony, the Eroica was somehow 'saved' for humanity, but does it suggest that if E flat major is anti-semitic in Das Rheingold, it must always be anti-semitic after it -?
But perhaps the most extreme example would be from Theodor Adorno-'after Auschwitz all European culture is garbage', to which he added the dictum 'there can be no poetry after Auschwitz', written I think before he and the public became aware of Celan.
So for me it is a matter of choice: Heidegger is irrelevant as a philosopher regardless of his politics; Plato is an important philosopher in the tradition of absolutist politics, along with, say, Hobbes; just as Aristotle is a behavioural conservative; Sartre was a mediocrity, Simone de Beauvoir a colossal bore (although I suppose her shortest book, A Very Easy Death will survive) -she survives because she has a niche in the pantheon of 'feminist' writers. And, of course, it is possible to change tastes as one gets older.

However, on Celine I can quote you: Yet, there’s no denying, NONE, Stavros, that “Voyage au Bout de la Nuit” (Journey to the End of the Night) is one of the greatest literary masterpieces of the 20th century -and say, quite simply, Yes, I deny it. It bores me rigid. It is a waste of paper. Whatever next, Dan, that The Great Gatsby is a great novel?

[Prospero]

That last post was utterly fascinating Dan and Stavros.

Your last point. There amny who do, indeed, claim The Great Gatsby to be a great novel. Some who say that, along with Moby Dick, it is the closest thing yet to "the great American novel.'

I wonder, Stavros, what you feel about Ezra Pound with his embrace of Italian Fascism - or Eliot who was clearly anti-semitic?

[Stavros]

That last post was utterly fascinating Dan and Stavros.

Your last point. There amny who do, indeed, claim The Great Gatsby to be a great novel. Some who say that, along with Moby Dick, it is the closest thing yet to "the great American novel.'

I wonder, Stavros, what you feel about Ezra Pound with his embrace of Italian Fascism - or Eliot who was clearly anti-semitic?

Moby-Dick need not detain us, it is indeed a masterpiece, but if you want an example of English prose at its finest, the execution of Billy Budd in the story of that name (Episode 25) cannot be bettered; I read it often, in amazement and wonder. Melville has no superiors in American literature, he has few equals.

The 20th century probably resonates for us because of the central place occupied by the conflicts between various forms of fascism/nazism/nationalism and communism, and because taking sides has been a complex issue even if, morally, you could argue more respectability was given to the ideas associated with Marx and his successors, than say Chamberlain, Streicher or Gentile, the former survived the War, the latter did not.

At the time Pound and Eliot were in their prime, the conflict in Europe was as much about a crisis in the politics of the state as it was about modernism. Modernism thus presents a mixed picture with fissures that end up in Fascism -some of the Italian futurists, for example, Celine, and Pound, and Sinclair Lewis in the UK; while for others like Brecht, the young Auden and Spender there were commitments to, or temporary affections for Communism. But as Orwell points out in Inside the Whale, there was also a turn away from the ugliness of politics and a 'retreat' as he saw it, into the 'safety' of religion.

So on the one hand I try to judge Eliot and Pound in the context of the 1920s, when Pound was instrumental in giving modernism a new push through the publications of The Waste Land, and Ulysses. Pound's poetry suffers badly from a classical affectation which asks too much of the average, even the educated reader, as even most of the latter do not read Greek or Latin. His Cantos are occasionally but not often brilliant, and more obscure than say, Finnegan's Wake. They are also suffused, as is his long poem on the First World War (E.P. Ode Pour L'Election De Son Sepulchre), with a lot of bitterness which seems to reflect a belief that his vision of Europe had been sent to an unnecessary death in the trenches by a clique of capitalists who did not really have the interests of 'the masses' at heart -but like many critics of capitalism who have turned to extreme ideologies, he found some resonance with fascism -I don't know if all the radio broadcasts have been published, but I once met someone who had access to a lot of the typescripts and also Pound's correspondence from the era and it was pretty bad according to him. Pound, for me, is a sad eccentric, to be dipped into with caution.

But as with Eliot,and all the others, you make a choice about the art and the man, one the other or both, and end up taking sides -Eliot was a great poet, but like Dante poses the question to a non-Catholic or non-Christian when it comes to Four Quartets in particular: do you believe this?, while the interwar poetry is a poetry of modernist distress that some find tiresome, particularly when compared to Auden, whose poetry on average is better than Eliot's, and more human. Eliot's poetry can be appreciated for its tone, the use of language, metre, all the technical things literary critics look at, but as for his sneering remarks about Jews, or his desperate need to be English, or his Christian mysticism, that leaves a lot of people cold. It doesn't bother me, but I recognise that he was a great writer with many flaws, and some do get in the way of my enjoyment of his work.

You could pose a similr question with contemporaries -does it matter that Clint Eastwood is a Republican, or that Tom Cruise is a Scientologist? Does that mean you cannot enjoy their films?

[danthepoetman]

However, on Celine I can quote you: Yet, there’s no denying, NONE, Stavros, that “Voyage au Bout de la Nuit” (Journey to the End of the Night) is one of the greatest literary masterpieces of the 20th century -and say, quite simply, Yes, I deny it. It bores me rigid. It is a waste of paper. Whatever next, Dan, that The Great Gatsby is a great novel?

You got me there, Stavros. I really don’t know what to answer here. If it was only me, in my living room, feeling I’ve just read a “damn good book”, such a sentence would seem as admissible as any. But we’re talking about a novel that is classified by literary critics and historians as probably the best, if not, within the five best novels of the century. It completely renewed narrative language in French with its incredible mix of argot, elegant formulations, unusual expressions, intricate, sometimes weird yet always poetical and extremely dramatic syntactic constructions, and its tone uniquely appropriated to its spirit and its topic. I can’t think of any other novel with such an adequacy between its substance and its form, not even any of Dostoyevsky’s novels, which are already amazing in such matter. Besides, the vision depicted in the “Voyage” is one of the darkest yet the most lucid and vivid on human condition and human behaviour. Very dark, it was written before the Second World War and is not only more revealing about a certain spirit of the time, but has become since then a mirror of what no one could envision human beings to be, and to be capable of at this point in time, not even then, after the horror of the trenches and the misery of the Depression.
I could imagine that reading this in English is probably a problem that I, myself, often have encountered too even with great English language literary works in French (I have to resort to french translation when the English is too elegant or complex), or any other great work I had to read in translation. But Stavros, believe me, you have to read this one again, you have to give it another shot. Because I can’t figure you, amongst all people, not understanding this one. This is not a matter of opinion. It’s of the nature of the undeniable. It’s a literary monument, Stavros. No way around it. As much as I respect as a mark of intellectual assurance your way of judging if not “slicing” for yourself, I assure you this one opinion can’t be held seriously.

[Prospero]

I think I can read Eliot and be impressed and read past his anti-semitism. I haven't read enough Pound to know if he is more wilfully obscure than the Joyce of Finnigan's Wake - a greatly enjoyable but largely unintelligible playground romp.

I have never read Billy Budd but will now. Thank you.

And yes - taken as entertainers i can watch both Cruise (who I have a physical dislike for for reasons i can't really put into words) and Clint Eastwood - even if some of his later films are rather lame. Mystic River and Rowdy Yates remain touchstones.

[Stavros]

You got me there, Stavros. I really don’t know what to answer here. If it was only me, in my living room, feeling I’ve just read a “damn good book”, such a sentence would seem as admissible as any. But we’re talking about a novel that is classified by literary critics and historians as probably the best, if not, within the five best novels of the century. It completely renewed narrative language in French with its incredible mix of argot, elegant formulations, unusual expressions, intricate, sometimes weird yet always poetical and extremely dramatic syntactic constructions, and its tone uniquely appropriated to its spirit and its topic. I can’t think of any other novel with such an adequacy between its substance and its form, not even any of Dostoyevsky’s novels, which are already amazing in such matter. Besides, the vision depicted in the “Voyage” is one of the darkest yet the most lucid and vivid on human condition and human behaviour. Very dark, it was written before the Second World War and is not only more revealing about a certain spirit of the time, but has become since then a mirror of what no one could envision human beings to be, and to be capable of at this point in time, not even then, after the horror of the trenches and the misery of the Depression.
I could imagine that reading this in English is probably a problem that I, myself, often have encountered too even with great English language literary works in French (I have to resort to french translation when the English is too elegant or complex), or any other great work I had to read in translation. But Stavros, believe me, you have to read this one again, you have to give it another shot. Because I can’t figure you, amongst all people, not understanding this one. This is not a matter of opinion. It’s of the nature of the undeniable. It’s a literary monument, Stavros. No way around it. As much as I respect as a mark of intellectual assurance your way of judging if not “slicing” for yourself, I assure you this one opinion can’t be held seriously.

Ok Dan I was over the top, but you walked staight into it when you said I had to acknowledge the reputation of Voyage. I am still not convinced but will have another look at it, as it is a good idea to return to books years after their were first read. For darkness, how about Nostromo? A novel that presents you with an heroic incorruptible figure and gradually strips everything away until he ends up a corpse, shot by his best friend, if that isn't a spoiler. It also has a complex narrative that operates on different levels in different moments of time, set within the unfolding story of a revolution in South America. There are others too, I was recommended Dr Faustus by Thomas Mann but I find this author tedious and so haven't tried it again.
I am more interested in this problem of people who take sides, or who don't. I recall reading an article, but can't recall precisely where, in which a Jewish commentator argued that unless people abandoned the Third Reich or died as a result of it, their reputations were undermined, he said something to the effect that it was better to suffer and die because then you had everyone's sympathy -much of which was not passed on to Thomas Mann or Bertold Brecht, for example, precisely because they had the money and the contacts to get out. Brecht in particular was a target for living in East Berlin, just as a few felt Prokofiev had undermined his reputation by returning to live and die in the USSR.
There is a file on Wilhelm Furtwangler in the National Archive in Kew which was opened when he was planning to visit the UK in I think, 1947 with the Berlin Philharmonic. One well known singer of the day wrote to the Foreign Office to get him banned, using the phrase 'the man is an out and out Nazi' -which was commonly thought by some at the time, and for a long tme after there was a cloud of suspicion over Furtwangler until research documented how many Jewish musicians he helped escape from Germany and Austria. His problem was that he stayed behind, convinced he had to maintain the glory of German music -it doesn't look good to see him wearing a swastika armband when conducting Beethoven's 9th, but then the use of Beethoven as a national composer in times of crisis was also common, the most constant piece of music played in public during the First World War was the 9th. And anyway England played football in Germany in the 1930s and also gave the Sieg Heil salute on which they were badly advised.
Then the case of Richard Strauss emerges: a man who had lived through the eras of Bismarck, the first World War, and considered Hitler a vulgar little twerp, but had no interest in politics -he was the Reich's Commissioner for Music in 1933 and was sacked two years later when he wrote a sarcastic letter to Stefan Zweig because the Nazis refused to print his name on the playbills for the premiere of Die Schweigsame Frau in Dresden in 1935. Yet Strauss remained in Bavaria throughout almost the whole of the war, writing his last opera Capriccio -an opera about the contest between words and music- when all around him was chaos and destruction. He nipped across the border to Switzerland before the end, and although I read he was de-Nazified, I could never find the file. The truth is, he didn't much care what happened, it was just politics. And yet in another piece of music, Metamorphosen, written after he had seen the destruction caused to all those cities where his miusic was premiered, there is an eloquent melancholy, as if it were an elegy to his own indifference; yet there are some who can't listen to Strauss because of his indifference, just as one reasonably well-known British conductor once said he couldn't listen to Carmina Burana because Carl Orff had joined the Nazi Party.

[Stavros]

I think I can read Eliot and be impressed and read past his anti-semitism. I haven't read enough Pound to know if he is more wilfully obscure than the Joyce of Finnigan's Wake - a greatly enjoyable but largely unintelligible playground romp.

I have never read Billy Budd but will now. Thank you.

And yes - taken as entertainers i can watch both Cruise (who I have a physical dislike for for reasons i can't really put into words) and Clint Eastwood - even if some of his later films are rather lame. Mystic River and Rowdy Yates remain touchstones.

Prospero, if you haven't read the shorter stories, begin with Bartleby; then try and track down the film...

[loveboof]

how about Nostromo?

Oh, I read the first few pages of Nostromo last year but abandoned it when the new Game of Thrones book came out (A Dance with Dragons) lol. Worth returning to?

Btw I think you guys are scaring away the 'average HA member' with your highbrow discussion... Quick, somebody cite Tupac as their biggest inspiration!

[danthepoetman]

Ok Dan I was over the top, but you walked staight into it when you said I had to acknowledge the reputation of Voyage. I am still not convinced but will have another look at it, as it is a good idea to return to books years after their were first read. For darkness, how about Nostromo? A novel that presents you with an heroic incorruptible figure and gradually strips everything away until he ends up a corpse, shot by his best friend, if that isn't a spoiler. It also has a complex narrative that operates on different levels in different moments of time, set within the unfolding story of a revolution in South America. There are others too, I was recommended Dr Faustus by Thomas Mann but I find this author tedious and so haven't tried it again.
I am more interested in this problem of people who take sides, or who don't. I recall reading an article, but can't recall precisely where, in which a Jewish commentator argued that unless people abandoned the Third Reich or died as a result of it, their reputations were undermined, he said something to the effect that it was better to suffer and die because then you had everyone's sympathy -much of which was not passed on to Thomas Mann or Bertold Brecht, for example, precisely because they had the money and the contacts to get out. Brecht in particular was a target for living in East Berlin, just as a few felt Prokofiev had undermined his reputation by returning to live and die in the USSR.
There is a file on Wilhelm Furtwangler in the National Archive in Kew which was opened when he was planning to visit the UK in I think, 1947 with the Berlin Philharmonic. One well known singer of the day wrote to the Foreign Office to get him banned, using the phrase 'the man is an out and out Nazi' -which was commonly thought by some at the time, and for a long tme after there was a cloud of suspicion over Furtwangler until research documented how many Jewish musicians he helped escape from Germany and Austria. His problem was that he stayed behind, convinced he had to maintain the glory of German music -it doesn't look good to see him wearing a swastika armband when conducting Beethoven's 9th, but then the use of Beethoven as a national composer in times of crisis was also common, the most constant piece of music played in public during the First World War was the 9th. And anyway England played football in Germany in the 1930s and also gave the Sieg Heil salute on which they were badly advised.
Then the case of Richard Strauss emerges: a man who had lived through the eras of Bismarck, the first World War, and considered Hitler a vulgar little twerp, but had no interest in politics -he was the Reich's Commissioner for Music in 1933 and was sacked two years later when he wrote a sarcastic letter to Stefan Zweig because the Nazis refused to print his name on the playbills for the premiere of Die Schweigsame Frau in Dresden in 1935. Yet Strauss remained in Bavaria throughout almost the whole of the war, writing his last opera Capriccio -an opera about the contest between words and music- when all around him was chaos and destruction. He nipped across the border to Switzerland before the end, and although I read he was de-Nazified, I could never find the file. The truth is, he didn't much care what happened, it was just politics. And yet in another piece of music, Metamorphosen, written after he had seen the destruction caused to all those cities where his miusic was premiered, there is an eloquent melancholy, as if it were an elegy to his own indifference; yet there are some who can't listen to Strauss because of his indifference, just as one reasonably well-known British conductor once said he couldn't listen to Carmina Burana because Carl Orff had joined the Nazi Party.
Of course I agree that anybody is responsible for his choices and actions and should be judge with the same standards anybody else is or has been, be they great creators. Be judged that is, as human beings, of course. I felt myself, I still feel, that the subject is fascinating. I’ve looked into it pretty seriously for a while. There’s a lot of questions to be asked in many cases. I’m thinking of Sartre and de Beauvoir, whom we were talking about: their actions during the war were minimalistic and, when they finally did something, they put some people lives at risk to accomplish ridiculously meaningless things. In fact, Sartre was blamed to have had some plays given in theatres during the Occupation, and having had relatively cordial reports with Drieu LaRochelle, the director imposed on Gallimard by the Nazis. During that time, Camus was writing for underground, pretty important “Combat” and the communist Louis Aragon was the head of the very important organ of the resistance in France, “Les Lettres Françaises”. René Char, the poet, was in the maquis fighting with several other artists. Picasso had the courage to remain in occupied France and had several less than cordial meeting with Nazis officials. There’s for instance this famous story you certainly know about, when a german officer went to his studio, saw “Gernica”, the picture made after the bombing, and candidly asked Picasso: “You did this?” to what he answered: “No! YOU did this!” Max Jacob was arrested and died before his arrival in the camps; Chaim Soutine hid in Paris and finally died of hunger during the occupation.
Other surprising cases also, that of catholic writer François Mauriac, who remained in France and wrote several papers to vigorously denounce the Nazis and their hypocritical type of Christian faith. André Gide is one of the most surprising; viewed as a homosexual dilettante, and rich aesthete living on a rich pension, Gide started denouncing the Nazis from the very beginning, and Stalinism from the 20s! and moreover, colonialism in the 20s! Simultaneously, to invoke another example, the Surrealists took refuge in New York and had all in all a nice comfy war… Malraux, who participate in the Spanish war and ended up a colonel, waited a long while to enter the Resistance during the Occupation. He finally did and seems to have served with honour. Paul Nizan, a communist who denounced the Soviet-German pact of non-aggression and quit the party was the victim of a suspicious death. Etc.
The Jewish commentator you’re talking about, was it not Bernard Henry Levy, who wrote some texts about this and wrote and animated a good television series? At the time, he was mainly targeting the Nazi sympathizers, but later on came to look at the stalinians too, but always with much less severity –probably because he had been one himself, to some extent, and was the student of communist thinker Louis Althusser.
Anyways, yes, I find the subject important and fascinating myself! Many of the things you’re referring to in your post are things I didn’t know. It will be great to check all of this out. I don’t know that novel, Nostromo; I’ll definitely look into it. I know Thomas Mann, of course, but not Dr Faustus…

[Stavros]

Oh, I read the first few pages of Nostromo last year but abandoned it when the new Game of Thrones book came out (A Dance with Dragons) lol. Worth returning to?

Btw I think you guys are scaring away the 'average HA member' with your highbrow discussion... Quick, somebody cite Tupac as their biggest inspiration!

Nostromo is difficult reading, I accept that; I used to read it once a year and I think it took me 4 goes to really get inside it; the narrative dips in and out of 20 years of events without telling you which moment you are in, so it can be hard to grasp at first.

I think if I am surprised at anything it is that most transexuals I have known had one influential figure who helped them at the beginning or during their transition, and who thus must count as real inspirations; but there don't seem to be many here. Maybe people are shy about talking about it.

[Stavros]

Of course I agree that anybody is responsible for his choices and actions and should be judge with the same standards anybody else is or has been, be they great creators. Be judged that is, as human beings, of course. I felt myself, I still feel, that the subject is fascinating. I’ve looked into it pretty seriously for a while. There’s a lot of questions to be asked in many cases. I’m thinking of Sartre and de Beauvoir, whom we were talking about: their actions during the war were minimalistic and, when they finally did something, they put some people lives at risk to accomplish ridiculously meaningless things. In fact, Sartre was blamed to have had some plays given in theatres during the Occupation, and having had relatively cordial reports with Drieu LaRochelle, the director imposed on Gallimard by the Nazis. During that time, Camus was writing for underground, pretty important “Combat” and the communist Louis Aragon was the head of the very important organ of the resistance in France, “Les Lettres Françaises”. René Char, the poet, was in the maquis fighting with several other artists. Picasso had the courage to remain in occupied France and had several less than cordial meeting with Nazis officials. There’s for instance this famous story you certainly know about, when a german officer went to his studio, saw “Gernica”, the picture made after the bombing, and candidly asked Picasso: “You did this?” to what he answered: “No! YOU did this!” Max Jacob was arrested and died before his arrival in the camps; Chaim Soutine hid in Paris and finally died of hunger during the occupation.
Other surprising cases also, that of catholic writer François Mauriac, who remained in France and wrote several papers to vigorously denounce the Nazis and their hypocritical type of Christian faith. André Gide is one of the most surprising; viewed as a homosexual dilettante, and rich aesthete living on a rich pension, Gide started denouncing the Nazis from the very beginning, and Stalinism from the 20s! and moreover, colonialism in the 20s! Simultaneously, to invoke another example, the Surrealists took refuge in New York and had all in all a nice comfy war… Malraux, who participate in the Spanish war and ended up a colonel, waited a long while to enter the Resistance during the Occupation. He finally did and seems to have served with honour. Paul Nizan, a communist who denounced the Soviet-German pact of non-aggression and quit the party was the victim of a suspicious death. Etc.
The Jewish commentator you’re talking about, was it not Bernard Henry Levy, who wrote some texts about this and wrote and animated a good television series? At the time, he was mainly targeting the Nazi sympathizers, but later on came to look at the stalinians too, but always with much less severity –probably because he had been one himself, to some extent, and was the student of communist thinker Louis Althusser.
Anyways, yes, I find the subject important and fascinating myself! Many of the things you’re referring to in your post are things I didn’t know. It will be great to check all of this out. I don’t know that novel, Nostromo; I’ll definitely look into it. I know Thomas Mann, of course, but not Dr Faustus…

Definitely not Henry-Levy; but you do realise that even Communists are not sacrosanct, even -maybe especially- in France, if you have seen Marcel Ophuls' Hotel Terminus you will understand. The vitriolic abuse heaped on Eric Hobsbawm on his death recently suggests that these days 'the anti-fascist struggle' is not worth much if it was accomplished by Communists who then failed to denouce everything they believed in.

[danthepoetman]

Definitely not Henry-Levy; but you do realise that even Communists are not sacrosanct, even -maybe especially- in France, if you have seen Marcel Ophuls' Hotel Terminus you will understand. The vitriolic abuse heaped on Eric Hobsbawm on his death recently suggests that these days 'the anti-fascist struggle' is not worth much if it was accomplished by Communists who then failed to denouce everything they believed in.
Of course, Stavros. It’s been a very wide debate, in France, before 55 or so, or even way up after to the end of the 60s: Barrès, Maurras, Drieu, Montherlant, on one side, Péguy on the other, Jaurrès; Malraux and the Chinese Revolutionaries, Malraux and the Spanish Republic; Gide vs everyone; Nizan vs the communists; Sartre vs Aron; Sartre vs Camus; Sartre vs Merleau-Ponty; Marchais vs Sartre; a lot of writings and debates. The problem in France was that it was very difficult to find a middle ground before the strong personality of De Gaule came to embody it, or create the room for it. Before him, you mostly had to be on one side or the other. Michel Winock amongst others wrote a fascinating book about this, “Le Siècle des Intellectuels”, not translated I think, unfortunately; but much more was written. De Beauvoir’s memoirs are also very rich on the subject. Considerable literature precisely on the subject of who was right and who was wrong and what’s every one’s responsibility in what, since especially the death of Sartre! Thousands of darkened pages that would probably be useless if it wasn’t for the fact that all of it took deep root in the dramatic political reality of the 20th century…

[Stavros]

Try Tony Judt's The Burden of Responsibility on Sartre and that post-war era in France; he also looks at the career of Leon Blum.

[loveboof]

Nostromo is difficult reading, I accept that; I used to read it once a year and I think it took me 4 goes to really get inside it; the narrative dips in and out of 20 years of events without telling you which moment you are in, so it can be hard to grasp at first.

Hmm, well I might give it another go when I finish the book I'm on at the mo.

[Dino Velvet]

I think many people could find inspiration from Gabby Gifford. A truly courageous woman. Just saw her and her husband on TV. Poor woman is still blind in one eye and paralyzed in one arm.

http://a.abcnews.com/images/US/ap_gabby_giffords_out_of_court_trial_thg_121108_wg .jpg

[Prospero]

Good posting Dino