ILLUSTRATED LETTERS

Boy, it pays to write to artists. Look at the answers you get!

These letters are by Victor Hugo (topmost), Daubigny (above), and Gauguin (below). The Daubigny letter looks like it was done by Ardizzone (spelled right?), the modern illustrator.

THREE PAINTINGS BY WARD KIMBALL

I don't have time to comment on them but they sure are interesting. Obviously Kimball would have had no trouble making a living as an illustrator if Disney hadn't worked out.

All these pictures are from Canemaker's "Nine Old Men" book.

WHY I DON"T KEEP A DIARY

I mentioned this subject briefly before but here's the longer, more fleshed out story: a long time ago, when I first came to LA, I decided to keep a diary. I had to buy a girl-colored diary (not the one above; I wouldn't have gotten something that over-the-top) because I couldn't find any masculine ones. The key wasn't much protection against intruders and I promptly lost it but while it lasted it was better than nothing. I put all my secret thoughts into it. I kept it in a locked file cabinet and I never took it out of the house.

One day I was in a really philosophical mood. The ideas were first-rate and they were coming fast and furious! These were too good to write on napkins; I decided to grab my diary and run to a restaurant where I could write in seclusion. On the way to the parking lot I passed the apartment complex jerk and (most likely) drug dealer. I hated the guy and he hated me so we gave each other the usual icy stare and I got in the car and drove away. So far, so good.

About half way to the restaurant I suddenly realized that I'd left the diary on top of the car when I got in and had driven away while it was still up there! In a panic I checked the roof of the car then turned around and traced my path back home, carefully scoping out the street. I didn't see anything but I didn't really expect to. The diary most likely would have fallen into my parking space. When I got to the parking space there was nothing there but the drug guy, grinning like the Cheshire Cat. I asked him if he'd seen a book on the ground and he nodded "No" in a way that tantalizingly could have meant "Yes." Later that night I heard uproarious laughter comming from the drug guy's apartment. My guess was it was the drug guy and his biker friends reading my diary.

So what does it all come to? My worst enemy reads my girl-colored diary. Not only that but the diary was full of incredibly sappy, whining passages like, "I'm so good and the world is so bad. Why doesn't the world recognize my goodness?" It's like something Little Lord Fauntlyroy would have written to express his anguish over finding a hair on his lace cuff. Well, I never wrote or even thought anything as wimpy and self-pitying again so I guess I got something out of the experience. Most of all what I learned was..... NEVER KEEP A DIARY!

ARE YOU A HEDGEHOG OR A FOX?

Isaah Berlin asked the question in a famous essay and people have been repeating it ever since.
Are you a hedgehog, i.e., someone who has one strategy that they apply to every situation, or a fox, i.e., someone who has many possible strategies? If you're like me you probably consider yourself a fox in this respect but it's possible that friends who know you would disagree. That's not necessarily a bad thing. Hedgehog atrategies are suprisingly effective.

The most high-profile hedgehog I know of was General Patton of WWII fame. Pattin often took command of units that were demoralized from innaction. The previous command was usually mired in the bog of too much information. They had conflicting intelligence about the enemy so they did nothing while they tried to sort it out. Patton would take over and immediately order an attack. Morale would shoot up immediately. Automatic attacks may seem like a dangerous strategy but Patton rightly figured that bad morale was a greater threat than a formidable enemy besides, if the enemy were so strong why hadn't they attacked before now? Hedgehogs are blessed with certainty and self-confidence and that's a big asset.

MORE "SUNDAY FUNNIES WERE BETTER A HUNDRED YEARS AGO!"

Click to enlarge.

TWO GREAT AMERICAN DRAMAS!

It strikes me that I wrote about these films before but if I did I can't find the post in the archive so I'll take another stab at it. In my opinion these are among the best dramas of the last half century. Glengarry is the best play about the dark side of making a living; Marty is the best play about finding someone to love.

Notice that I didn't say Marty was the best romance. Marty isn't a romance, rather it's about needing people and survival in the relationship jungle. I like it because it's about a subject that's really important. It's amazing how many dramas are about unimportant things. Animated films are often about learning to be yourself, which surely rates at the bottom of any objective list of important themes.

 
Glenngary is about how serious work is and how easily work can be taken away from you. You have to work to live yet work is not a right but more like a kindness that an employer bestows on you and can withdraw at any time. I don't mean to attach any political interpretation to this, I'm definitely not a Marxist, I simply note that it's surprising that something as vital as a job is apt to be so fraught with insecurity.

In modern society we're no longer independent hunters or farmers but rather supplicants with our tin cups out, hoping that someone with a job to offer will look kindly on us. It seems odd because philosophy and religion describe each individual as immeasurably important yet in another way we don't seem to be important at all. It's a puzzling icongruity which David Mammet presents without comment.

THE AMAZING GLEN KEANE

On the comments page Anonymous is always asking me what I think about Glen Keane. I don't have much to say about the man that's original. Like everybody else I think He's a wonderful draughtsman and animator and I'd kill to take a class with him. I just regret that Disney chose to do so many feature films about realistic human beings that required Glen's level of talent to pull off. It must be hard to make fun and imaginative films when so much attention has to be devoted to the technically grueling task of moving anatomically correct figures around the screen. Glen sometimes lectures to art schools and a friend told me that his latest lectures are full of references to a book called "Blink." I'm listening to a library copy of that book in the car now. According to the book we should trust our first impression of things. Our brains are very good at sizing up people and situations and finding a single criterian for judging them accurately. Glen applies this to drawing. On the first glance a person might strike you as boxy or wolf-like and that's the way you should sketch them, no matter how much other analysis you do. John K used to say that. It sounds right to me.