Gary Larsen - Death Becomes Them + A Bunch of Dogs

I'm raring for another visit to 'The Far Side', otherwise known as Gary Larsen territory. Hope you wanna go there for a bit too!

Apart from the first cartoon, a sort of deliciously ghoulish 'death theme' seems to have emerged in the selection. Which was quite unintentional - or was it!






I love the bucolic whimsy of the last work. Set as it is on the vast open plains of ... perhaps Hampstead Heath. Or Le Jardin des Plantes. With its ferocious packs of indigenous poodles. And colonizing but now tentative giraffes, who are wondering to whom those bones once belonged.

Out of the five, which are your favs?

Dorothy Parker (1893-1967) - A Blog Writer Idol

Résumé

Razors pain you;
Rivers are damp;
Acids stain you;
And drugs cause cramp.
Guns aren't lawful;
Nooses give;
Gas smells awful;
You might as well live.

When I started to select a photograph to represent Dorothy Parker, I was confronted by so many of her well-known persona - all equally true and false.

There were the conventional portraits of whatever period, revealing nothing much:


There were the attempts at something of Clara Bow's 'It' girl of the Roaring 1920's, with the other usual signs of modernity for women, such as smoking. Mrs Parker is frankly sexual but in a more intellectual mode.

Dorothy Parker in 1920's Mode

There were the images of a 'serious' Hollywood writer, and maybe these get closer at least to some of my more favored ideas of Mrs Parker:


As do (unfortunately) the sad desperate potential suicide images, which captured some of the characters she presented in her literature, minus any humour:



And when he did die, many were surprised that she had lived well into the 1960's.

Dorothy Parker's writing certainly had the sparkle and effervescence of the Roaring 20's. And a seductively self-deprecating cynicism. She could look at herself and situation 'dead true', using Katherine Mansfield's term. This view could be expressed in unrelievedly grim terms ...

Interior

Her mind lives in a quiet room,
A narrow room, and tall,
With pretty lamps to quench the gloom
And mottoes on the wall.

There all the things are waxen neat,
And set in decorous lines,
And there are posies, round and sweet,
And little, straightened vines.

Her mind lives tidily, apart
From cold and noise and pain,
And bolts the door against her heart,
Out wailing in the rain.

... or with a wit that makes, at least me, roll around with laughter ...

Experience

Some men break your heart in two,
Some men fawn and flatter,
Some men never look at you;
And that clears up the matter.

... and ...

Unfortunate Coincidence

By the time you swear you're his,
Shivering and sighing,
And he vows his passion is
Infinite, undying ---
Lady, make a note of this:
One of you is lying.

I particularly like the way Mrs Parker changes the tone from high-flown poetically lofty in the first three stanzas to something quite different in the last, wise-cracking:

One Perfect Rose

A single flow'r he sent me, since we met.
All tenderly his messenger he chose;
Deep-hearted, pure, with scented dew still wet --
One perfect rose.

I knew the language of the floweret:
`My fragile leaves,' it said, `his heart enclose'.
Love long has taken for his amulet
One perfect rose.

Why is it no one ever sent me yet
One perfect limousine, do you suppose?
Ah no, it's always just my luck to get
One perfect rose.

And finally:

Reuben's Children

Accursed from their birth they be
Who seek to find monogamy,
Pursuing it from bed to bed ---
I think they would be better dead.

If you'd like to read more of Dorothy Parker's work, one of the better anthologys is:

When a Compliment is Something Else Altogether

Oscar Wilde

1 "He has no enemies, but is intensely disliked by his friends."

2 "Some cause happiness wherever they go; others, whenever they go."


William Faulkner

3 "He has never been known to use a word that might send a reader to the dictionary." (about Ernest Hemingway)


Clarance Darrow

4 "I have never killed a man, but I have read many obituaries with great pleasure."

Stephen Bishop

5 "I feel so miserable without you; it's almost like having you here."

Samuel Johnson

6 "He is not only dull himself; he is the cause of dullness in others."

Paul Keating - Australian Ex-Prime Minister

7 "He is simply a shiver looking for a spine to run up."

Walter Kerr - Author and Playwright

8 "He had delusions of adequacy."

Mark Twain

9 "Why do you sit there looking like an envelope without any address on it?"

Mae West

10 "His mother should have thrown him away and kept the stork."

Winston Churchill

11 Lady Astor once remarked to Winston Churchill at a Dinner Party, "Winston, if you were my husband, I would poison your coffee!" Winston replied, "Madam if I were your husband I would drink it!"

12 Lady Astor looked at Churchill and said, "Sir, you are drunk!" He replied, "And Madam, you are ugly. At least in the morning I'll be sober.

Lady Astor

Ok guys, how do you rate these pithy retorts? My favorites are 2, 4, 7 and 10. How bout yours?

Michael Owen - Absolutely the Hottest Football Player on the Planet

So, something on football - why not!

Michael Owen is without question the most handsome and sexiest football player alive, maybe even including dead players! Well, maybe dead is debatable, given the state of corpses. If you disagree, it's probably cos you had a big bowl of crazy for breakfast.


Michael was born 14th December 1979, in Chester, Cheshire England. And at present, he is a striker with Newcastle United.



Over his career, he has scored 40 goals in 85 games with various teams, and as such he is the fourth highest scorer of all time. For me he is the very highest scorer of any time. Tho perhaps I'm referring to something else.


And as he gets older, he looks hotter and hotter.


Don't you reckon! I haven't aged half so well. Though I must say, I started off with a slight disadvantage ... !

The Lewis Chessmen - Medieval Cartooning

The Lewis Chessmen - Norse Craft in C12 Scotland

The Lewis Chessmen were found sometime prior to 1831, 15 feet down a sandbank in a small dry-built stone chamber at the Bay of Uig, west coast of the Isle of Lewis, Scottish Outer Hebrides. There are 93 pieces, forming parts of four or five chess sets, with two complete. Most are made of walrus ivory with a few of whale teeth.

The chessmen are believed to have been made in Norway in the 12th century (perhaps by Trondheim craftsmen, where similar examples have been found), at a time when that Scandinavian country ruled groups of islands off the coast of Scotland. They are believed to have been transported to wealthy Norse settlements on the east coast.

They are now mostly in the British Museum with some pieces in the Museum of Scotland.

Now to my cartooning theory.

These pieces were probably for wealthy Norse game-playing ex-pat's in the upper British Isles, both adults and children. Thus their meanings did not necessarily need to be given in a somber realistic mode. The figures strike me as somewhat comically presented - wide-eyed, squat, and at times gesturing most melodramatically, as with the rooks or beserkers (below, extreme left) who bite their shields in battle fury. I think I get this look when I do road rage. Must check in the rear view mirror next time! Maybe I bite the top of the steering wheel?


This cartooning mode is also reflected in the non-realistic scale of things to each other - the knights ride teeny tiny horses (aka Anthony, 'Sex in the City'). Though of course they may be Shetland ponies - it would be the right place!

The kings below seem suitably but exaggeratedly stern, grave and dignified. The queens as well, but their hand-on-right-cheek gestures appear to signal some kind of softer nature, more emotionally able to react with compassion when warranted. Like the Virgin Mary of Christianity, an approachable and caring interceding figure.


I am particularly drawn to the bishop-ey person, center stage in the display below in the Museum of Scotland. Very Lord of the Rings-ish - Gandall, I think.


Also worth noticing are the intricate and intertwining Celtic designs on the backs of the chairs in which some figures are seated. And also seen on the pawns, as tombstones, in the first photograph above.

The British Museum sells exact replicas of these rare and extraordinary pieces, and I have lots of them - just wandering mysteriously about my home!

An Anglo-Saxon Gold Coin - So?

Ninth-century gold coin depicting King Coenwulf (796-821) of Mercia (British Museum)

I was wondering why I got so excited reading a piece by Anita Sethi on a medieval coin in The Guardian, Feb 9th 2006. After all, we are only talking a coin, abet a gold one.

Then I thought of diamonds ... and the four C's that so seriously excite - colour, clarity, carats and cut.

So I decided there must be something similar for gold antique coins - perhaps four R's:

• Rarity - only eight British coins are known between 700-1250 and this one has the added excitement of being the oldest known example of gold currency showing a British monarch, with the added bonus of being in near mint condition
  

• Reference - to a particular historical figure, that is King Coenwulf, the ruler of the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Mercia from 796 to 821

• Romance - of gold treasure lost - in antiquity - and found - in Bedford in 2001

• Record - the coin was sold to the British Museum for a world record £357,832

With such high ratings in the four R's, no wonder I was so intrigued by the article!

Travel Update - Returning to Australia

Probably back home on the 23rd or 24th of October.

A two month holiday has evolved into nearly six. And brought about experiences that I could not have begun to imagine. I have always understood life's opportunities need to be seized when they are presented. Or serious and debilitating regret can follow.

Wondering what's in the future - it seems so blank at the moment. Maybe I'll be on the first plane out ... somewhere. But uncertainty is something to embrace. Not fear.

Keep you posted!

Winner - Best Short Joke Competition 2007

A 3-year-old boy examined his testicles while taking a bath.

'Mom', he asked, 'Are these my brains?'

'Not yet,' she replied.

Travel-Life Update

Kinda got seriously stuck here in the Philippines. I came for a shortish stay and now it's five months and still going. Go figure!

I've just got myself a new and small studio just out of the central plaza area of Baliwag, Bulican. And finished the curtains, tables and chairs, crockery, etc thing. It has a balcony over-looking some old houses and their lush gardens. And the 'palenke' or daily market is absolutely huge and only minutes away.

The gay scene vibrant and I seem to have become a central member. I guess this must be part of the explanation for digging in!

I'm living above an internet cafe so expect lots of posting from now on!

Aboriginal Painting - Current Abstract Visions

Emily Kame Kngwarreye Untitled, 1992. Synthetic polymer paint on canvass 61.0 x 50.5cm

Much of more recent aboriginal painting has moved way from bark to acrylic on canvas. And Germaine Greer has spoken of this in terms of such latter day artists being captured by the European Gallery-Dealer system. A world-wide phenomenon in so many guises.

In this context and anecdotally, I’ve heard of canvasses being prepared and colours selected by city-based dealers to take to Utopia, a remote outback aboriginal community including printmakers and painters. Of a shed being hung with prepared canvasses and artists instructed to paint their way round the room. And of a representative of a certain Sydney gallery taking a gift of a patent leather handbag to Emily Kame Kngwarreye! Perhaps imagining such a present would reflect the artist’s growing reputation in the art world, in Australia and overseas! I only hope Emily said ‘The only thing this is useful for is putting yams and berries in!’

But what interests me in this bark and acrylic-canvass work is its non-naturalistic representation. And trying to understand the semiotics involved, which is particularly tricky across cultures.

The Emily above makes meanings, in abstract form, about yam tubers growing underground.

And the Rover Thomas below constructs an ariel ‘view’ of country where the artist lived. The essence of that landscape, reinforced by use of its actual earth pigments. Certainly three hills can be identified. And perhaps plains moving away from those hills. But abstraction moves in and interpretation is needed. Why dots? And dot-enclosed areas filled in with colour or alternatively further dots? And why is the crown of one hill dotted in and those of the other two not? Lines of dots suggest contour lines on a topographical map. But now of course I am just speculating.

Rover Thomas ‘Artist’s Country’, 1988. Natural pigments on canvas. 61 x 76cm

Whatever the complexities of understanding these works on canvas, they seem very much to appeal to our present formal Western aesthetic, balancing out form, line and colour in ways that delight us.

The painting I have is on the right:

And I wonder where its pair is! Mine seems sadly to miss its mate, I often anthropomorphise!