CONFESSING MY VENALITY

I consider myself a kind man and a good neighbor. I look in the mirror and I see a sainted man full of the milk of human kindness, a real pillar of the community...or at least I did until the other day when a friend asked me to show him how Photoshop works.  I found myself saying, "Bugger off!  I had to learn it the hard way, and so should you!"  

Actually I didn't say anything like that, but I rattled off some sugar-coated bromide that meant the same thing.  A minute later I felt terrible. How could I be so mean, I who had my tin cup out, begging friends for Photoshop help only a short time before? I made a note to call my friend back and offer to help, and also to try to understand my own selfishness.

After thinking about it, I concluded that maybe I'm not really such a jerk after all, that maybe something about Photoshop actually encourages behavior like that.  I had just learned it (sort of) and like everyone else I'd convinced myself that I'd just breezed through it, with no trouble at all. It was a comforting myth, and it made me feel good about myself. Now, with someone asking me to teach them, I was suddenly forced back into reality, and the painful memories of a time when it seemed I could do no right with the program.  Nothing makes you madder than being confronted with reality.

What is it about programs that makes every user construct a personal mythology where every obstacle was painlessly pushed aside?  Something about computer culture makes every initiate a collaborator in the conspiracy to make computing seem faster to learn than it really is.
 

The computer era I live in reminds me of the way things were a hundred and fifty years ago when refined people wore starched shirts and whalebone corsets with rib-deforming waists and hoop skirts and elaborate hairstyles. Of course the trick to making all this bearable was to put all the fuss of morning dress-up out of your mind, and imagine that that you just put on whatever was handy.  Tom Wolfe nailed it when he said that human beings are status-seeking creatures and we'll do anything to convince ourselves and others that we acquired our god-like attributes with no effort at all.

Soon I'm going to try to pick up the relevant parts of Illustrator and Flash. Then there's...Groooooooan!... ToonBoom. That's going to take time. I'd much rather spend the time improving my drawing and animation, but if I want to stay employed...

Oh well, at least I'll have the satisfaction of knowing that after I go to all this stupid trouble I can create a memory for myself that I learned the programs effortlessly, in a few weeks.




  

CRAWFORD SLAPS

 How 'bout some Joan Crawford slaps (above)? There's some real dooseys here.  Slaps are a useful dramatic device. The writing in a scene builds up to its slap, as does the performance. The worse thing a writer can do to an actor is to leave them rudderless in a scene that meanders all over the place. Slaps give a scene a direction, something to build to.



My favorite screen slap of all time is the one in "Mildred Pierce" where Crawford's daughter slaps Joan on the stairs. Crawford is completely disoriented and nearly falls off screen. No wonder...the slap was real. Crawford insisted on it. I wonder how many takes it took to shoot it?




Was Crawford tough in real life? I'm not sure. The stories are contradictory. In the interview above Arlene Dahl implies that Crawford deliberately threw her drink at her while at a dinner party. In the same interview Gloria DeHaven says Crawford unselfishly taught her a really useful vocal technique, and  tells us what the technique was.



My guess is that the real-life Crawford was usually pretty nice, but we can hope that there were exceptions. I like to think of her as the hostess in this scene (above), where she fires her maid for dropping a cup. Crawford's real life daughter Christine, author of "Mommy Dearest," claims she was just like the roles she played in "Queen Bee" and "Harriet Craig."

BTW, I think the person who uploaded this video meant to title it: "Joan Crawford Is Pissed in the Movie Entitled 'Harriet Craig.'" The present title implies that Crawford did something unspeakable to someone named Harriet Craig.



What a whiner Crawford's real life daughter was! Here (above) Christine gets the punishment she deserves by being a guest on a nightmarish Italian TV show that never lets her speak. Watch it to the end because the actor who dubbed Cliff Robertson's voice does an even more over the top vocal than Robinson.

DAVID O'KEEFE TAKES A BOW

I've been laughing at this guy's paintings and sculptures for years (that's Seinfeld above), but I never knew his name til now. Maybe you didn't either. It's David O'Keefe, possibly the best caricature sculptor in the world right now.

Every caricaturist does Clint Eastwood, but how many do him this well (above)?

Above, an impressive Brando.

An awesome Nicole Kidman (above). Where'd she get a mouth like that?

Not a bad Sheryl Crow (Crowe?)!

O'Keefe paints too. You can buy prints on his site.  This one's (above) called "The Clinton Years."

Recognize Led Zeppelin?

Check out David's site:
http://www.davidokeefe.com/

WHO CAME BEFORE THE BEATS?

Ever since the late fifties a large number of the intellectuals in this country (above) have been bohemians. Even some traditional intellectuals like Bill Buckley had a bit of a bohemian side to them, and enjoyed playing to bohemian audiences.  That's understandable. The 50s intellectuals seemed to be searching for something elusive,  and you always have a grudging respect for seekers, no matter how addled they may be in other respects.  


Before the Beats most intellectuals were attached to universities. There's was a frustrating era because everybody knew the old world had ended with WWII, but nobody had a handle on the new one.  With the radicalism of the Depression years and all the wartime propaganda for our allies Stalin and the Soviets, Marxism now had a place at the university table and a lot of academics didn't know how it fit with traditional liberalism. The response of some of these intellectuals was to be  placeholders. They were determined to shepherd the old ideas and values into the mysterious new era, integrating them with whatever scary radical thing would come next.


It was an odd time, an inbetween time. University presses put out thousands of books with unclear, mushy opinions that nobody wanted to read. Today you won't even find these books in used book stores or thrift store bins. They just don't have an audience. Maybe they never did. Half of the titles had "Crossroads" in the title, as in "Education at the Crossroads." The output of liberal arts universities at this time was so boring and muddled that young people began to self-educate, which is one of the ways the Beat movement began.  

I'm a traditional liberal so I have no sympathy with the liberal/Marxist synthesis that was painfully emerging in the 50s. On a purely human level though, I sympathize with the attempt of academics in mid-century to keep the old wisdom alive. Doing that in a world that had recently been gutted by fanaticism was a perfectly understandable thing to do. The problem was that the old wisdom, at least when it was stated in the old way, was curiously out of sync with the new era. Immensely destructive changes were ahead, and these heroic placeholders were doomed to pass unthanked into obscurity.  I think they knew that would happen, they just didn't know what to do about it.


Anyway,  they were a likable bunch of people who were riddled with funny quirks and affectations as many good people are. Pipes (okay, cigarettes), woolen tweeds,  bow ties, Terry Thomas moustaches...they had it all, as you can see in the films below.






Here (above) an unidentified announcer of that era sits with critic Lionel Trilling, and "Lolita" author, Vladimir  Nabokov. The set is a room filled with statues, wainscoting, pillars, old European furniture and a working oil lamp which functions as a sort of candelabra.  After talking for a bit around the lamp, all move over to the sofa, as if to enjoy cigars and brandy. It's a wonderful world where intellect and culture still have a place. It just seems funny to see all those cultural artifacts crammed into such a tiny space. I like it, though. If this show were still on I'd watch every episode. 

Nabokov is fascinating, but he doesn't really say anything. Trilling attempts to say it for him and is good-naturedly rebuffed. Boy, you can never get creative people to tell you how they do what they do.

Trilling has real charisma. He has that great tortured look that intellectuals are supposed to have, as if every word was painful to enunciate.  The moderator, Pierre Berton,  does a great job of setting a musical tone that sets up pleasing counterpoints from his guests. It's a great little ensemble. Even if nothing memorable is said, it's wonderful theater.

Aaaargh! I'm too tired to write anymore.

MORE PHOTOSHOP PRACTICE

Here's my latest Photoshop exercise. I do collages because they require the use of different selection tools, which I'm still struggling with.  When I'm okay with those I'll pay more attention to edges, blends, noise, etc.

I really goofed up this one (above)! The original background had beautiful, expressive horizontals but you'd never know it because I covered them up with clutter and didn't leave enough blank space. I hate the lettering, too. Grrrrr!


Sorry to inflict these on you. I'll keep my mistakes to myself next time. 

PHOTOSHOP PRACTICE

Boy, Photoshop really is a fun program. There's a lot you can do with it, even at the primitive level that I'm working at.  I keep making mistakes though, like the one above, which seems to read "Theory Corned."

I wanted a logo I could use for a short science fiction story I was thinking of writing for the blog. I only have a title so far: "Feel My Fangs on Your Space Helmet."

I'm torn between using letters that are pure color, with no outline (above)...

...and outlined lettering (above), which is easier to read, but more conventional.

Without borders the words appear to be floating in the air, as if they were shrieks of horror uttered by some alien creature that just found itself bitten in half.  With borders the letters appear to be simple conventions of the publishing industry.



BTW: It's Memorial Day and I'll take this opportunity to say thanks to American soldiers past and present who made it possible for people like me to express ourselves freely in blogs like this one. Your sacrifices are much appreciated! 

REVIEW OF "BRIGHT STAR"

That's a musical number above, from the film "Bright Star" which was well reviewed when it came out in 2009, but which was afterward completely forgotten. I'll have more to say about the music in a minute.

The film's about my favorite poet of the Romantic Era, John Keats, and his never consummated love for Fanny Brawne. Reviewers liked the film, though some thought it was weak on story and was only saved by the performances. Some lamented that it never touched very seriously on Keats' poetry. They're right on both counts...well, half right...but if you liked films like "Shakespeare in Love," then you have to see it nevertheless.

I like a good love story, not only because I believe in the philosophy that underpins romantic love (discussed in previous posts), but because when these stories are done right they stimulate your thinking about everything else. To be in love is to live in a state of hyper awareness, when even the cracks in the sidewalk seem to have deep meaning. It's nice to be reminded of a time when we were fully alive, no matter how torturous it might have been in some respects.



To get back to the film's music: The top video is from the film and is a vocal adaption of Mozart's Serenade in B Flat, K361.  For comparison, here's (immediately above) an original, instrumental version of the same music. The vocal version stands up pretty well, I think.

In the film Fanny tells Keats that she doesn't like poetry because she can never understand what poems mean. Keats gives a great answer, one which applies to visual art (examples by Van Gogh above) as well as poetry: 

"The point of diving in a lake is not immediately to swim to the shore, but to be in the lake...to luxuriate in the sensation of water. You do not 'work the lake out.' It is an experience beyond thought. Poetry soothes and emboldens the soul to accept mystery."


Woooow! Well said! I think of what Keats said when I look at drawings by Van Gogh. No doubt they're about the beauty of the natural world, but they're also about the power of lines and the awesome human mind that can manipulate them so expressively. To borrow from Keats: you luxuriate in the lines...in the sensation of the flow of them, and of the dynamic spaces between them.