David Lynch--He Understood Things

I don't think I understood what being an auteur was until maybe my 20's. but when I got the idea of it, I understood David Lynch was definitely one of those. He had a particular vision, an understanding of the art of composing a mood, playing on the sensorium, introducing something new. He understood that art, like life, was about mess and attractive compulsions. He understood there was something wrong with bigotry: those people needed to fix their hearts or die. 

From the weirdness of Eraserhead and Twin Peaks to the dignified treatment of The Elephant Man, he found the human and copacetic in the alienated and estranged. 

He is best remembered through the lens of people who knew him, and the picture of a rare, exceptional director who made an enormous impact emerges. Unique: like no other. You simply have to come see his work so you will know, and let it touch you. 

(All props to the new treatment of Dune, but am I going to forget this? Nope. Not as technically brilliant and high budget, but theatrically intense.)

I Like Orwell but these quotes...

You know, in political writing, poor Eric Blair gets quite a bit of trotting about. He's so quotable. He was insightful and a very clear user of language. But I found these two quotes while looking for where he ever said "All art is propaganda"--because of course it is--and was immediately dissatisfied. Here they are:


He was an embittered atheist, the sort of atheist who does not so much disbelieve in God as personally dislike Him.

and

Liberal: a power worshipper without power.

I've considered myself an atheist and a liberal for some time, and have always imagined myself to be a god worshipper without God and a person who does not so much disbelieve in the use of power, as much as I personally dislike it.

So, there's my being a well-read contrarian for the day.

Bush's Painting and Putin's Dogs

I think the reason that people talk about the paintings of former President George W. Bush is because we think this is a less controversial topic than his presidency, and might well wonder what might have been if he took up a brush some time before deciding to go into politics. With the unveiling of portraits of world figures, however, the politician and the painter collide.

I find the portrait of Putin to be interesting because Bush has the simple, unfussy style that might come from having taken up art late in life. But in the asymmetry of the face of Vladimir Putin, one wonders if this is a deliberate choice of the artist? Is it possible the painter, Bush, has the ability to "do nuance" that the politician did not?  The observer looks at one face, two faces look back. Not a bad rendering, one might say, of a figure into whose soul one might have supposed to look--and who had yet deeper, more opaque layers, no?

But I find the observation that Putin had a kind of one-upsmanship about his dogs versus the former president's kind of absurd and yet very real. All this shirtless horse-riding and wild animal business suggests an affinity for an idealized hyper-masculinism, so "My dogs are bigger than yours"--as if the size of one's dog is an extension of one's, um, virility? Fits Putin's image So. Much.

(No endorsement of Bush or any of his political works intended, mind you.)