Spending time on the ugly
Molly
> nice things and spend inordinate amounts of time on the ugly.
Somebody said this in a recent thread. I forget who - I copied and
pasted it into a Sticky (TM) to think about.
It bothers me.
Maybe I've been meeting all the wrong people, but in my experience
people avoid 'the ugly' whenever possible. I've met people who spend a
lot of time trying to beautify ugliness, or right injustice, or correct
misunderstandings, but I don't think I've ever met anybody who actually
seeks out ugliness and walks right by nice things. I've met people with
no taste who inadvertantly create ugliness (but that's MHO), or people
who, for reasons of their own (usually to do with mental health)
*notice* ugliness above all - I went through a stage of that when I was
suffering from culture shock and it was most unpleasant - but I don't
think, for most people, that this is a normal thing.
I suppose such people must exist. The writer has clearly met a lot - you
(generic) don't write, 'The fact is, people...' in such a general way if
you (generic) don't mean *most* people.
But *I* think that most people want, above all, to be *comfortable*, and
that means wallowing in 'nice things' wherever possible.
Am I hopelessly naive?
Molly
--
He's lost the plot," they say,
But it simply isn't true:
You can't just lose the plot;
It's stuck to you! -Michael Leunig
Sunbeam the Deacon
Molly wrote:
>
<Snip>
>
> But *I* think that most people want, above all, to be *comfortable*, and
> that means wallowing in 'nice things' wherever possible.
>
> Am I hopelessly naive?
>
I think what you say may be true of the more conscious statements and
actions of modern urban "middle class" people...they look for what is
comfortable and knowable and not too ugly as a defensive measure against
all the other kinds of claims on their attention.
For people in other situations, I should point out:
a) in the USA today "Professional Wrestling" and automobile racing are
the most popular sports....these have a pretty "ugly" side
b) in Shakespeare's England watching animals fight each other to the
death was considered very entertainig
c) in Ye OLde Rome massive and bloody "circuses" were put on for
centuries
d) The Kwaikuitl (totem pole building types) and their neighbors devoted
long hours in the winter to simulated cannibalism and other bloody
special effects-shows
e) Grim's fairy tales are pretty grim
f) most mythologies have plenty of gory incidents
Anyway, I think people are basically intrigued by "ugliness", violence
and horror.
--
Then Pallas breath'd in Tydeus' sonne --
to render whom supreame
To all the Greekes at all his parts she cast a hoter beame
On his high mind, his body fild with much superior might
And made his compleate armor cast a farre more complete light.
(Chapman's Homer: Iliad, Fifth Book, first lines)
............Pete
Susan
^ >The fact is, people walk right by the
^ > nice things and spend inordinate amounts of time on the ugly.
^
^ Somebody said this in a recent thread. I forget who - I copied and
^ pasted it into a Sticky (TM) to think about.
^
^ It bothers me.
^
^ Maybe I've been meeting all the wrong people, but in my experience
^ people avoid 'the ugly' whenever possible. I've met people who spend a
^ lot of time trying to beautify ugliness, or right injustice, or correct
^ misunderstandings, but I don't think I've ever met anybody who actually
^ seeks out ugliness and walks right by nice things. I've met people with
^ no taste who inadvertantly create ugliness (but that's MHO), or people
^ who, for reasons of their own (usually to do with mental health)
^ *notice* ugliness above all - I went through a stage of that when I was
^ suffering from culture shock and it was most unpleasant - but I don't
^ think, for most people, that this is a normal thing.
I believe the comment you clipped and pasted above was from Bonnie/Ep, and
I think your analysis is spot on.
*Except* there is the truism (I think Tolkein said it in The Hobitt) that
times that are pleasant and days that are filled with sunshine are
quickly described and boring to read about, while uncomfortable, scary,
and evil things are exciting and engrossing.
*HOWEVER*, I believe this is so because we *want* to see humans at their
best, overcoming all obstacles, rising to the top ( and other cliches...).
I do think we get so wrapped up, sometimes, in trying to right the wrongs
and beautify the ugly, that we do sometimes forget to remember that our
-goal- is the expansion of the beautiful at the expense of the ugly. We
get more inot detroying the bad than creating the good.
--
- Susan Hogarth (cliches are us)
Kurt Ullman
<artemu...@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
>a) in the USA today "Professional Wrestling" and automobile racing are
>the most popular sports....these have a pretty "ugly" side
What is the ugly side of auto racing? Most of the wrecks are really
neato things with nobody badly hurt...sorta like cartoons in that respect.
Of course rarely (Charlotte IRL and Michigan CART are the first two spectator
fatilities amongst all major racing (drag, 'NeckCAR, IRL/CART and the Midget/
Sprints, etc.) in something like 8 years) reality intervenes.
-----------------------------------
"America is at that awkward stage. It's too late
to work within the system, but too early to shoot
the bastards."-- Claire Wolfe
Sunbeam the Deacon
Kurt Ullman wrote:
>
> In article <37529C4D...@worldnet.att.net>, Sunbeam the Deacon
> <artemu...@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
>
> >a) in the USA today "Professional Wrestling" and automobile racing are
> >the most popular sports....these have a pretty "ugly" side
>
> What is the ugly side of auto racing? Most of the wrecks are really
> neato things with nobody badly hurt...sorta like cartoons in that respect.
> Of course rarely (Charlotte IRL and Michigan CART are the first two spectator
> fatilities amongst all major racing (drag, 'NeckCAR, IRL/CART and the Midget/
> Sprints, etc.) in something like 8 years) reality intervenes.
Well, if going around and around at high speeds isn't ugly, I don't
know what is.
Bill Palmer
writes:
>
>I saw an old woman bent over a shopping cart. She dressed in the
>most horrible clash of striped, polka-dotted, filthy, torn
>garments but I found her face most remarkable. It had dignity,
>that face, and pain. Her life shone from rheumy blue eyes so
>nearly blind I wondered how she lived at all on the street. Each
>wrinkle had a place there as though arranged by some mad artist
>to express age best. Stooped and crippled by a dragging leg, she
>trundled along as best she could.
>
>As I came close to see her better, she smiled and said, "The
>beauty you see is everywhere in everything. I had lovers once.
>Many. I danced and sang. I'm old now but the beauty is in the
>memory. Remember that."
>
>I will.
>
>Rita
To which I would add this: Max Jacob gave us the following
account:
"When I lived in Naples there was always a beggar woman at
the gate of my palace, to whom I would toss some coins before
climbing into my carriage. Once day, surprised at never
being thanked, I looked at the beggar woman. Now, as I
looked at her, I saw that what I had taken for a beggar
woman was a wooden case painted green which contained some
red earth and a few rotten bananas..."
Sort of makes you think, doesn't it? Sometimes we
see yet don't REALLY see...
[Quoted material above is "The Beggar Woman of Naples",
a selection by Max Jacob, translated by John Ashbery and
included in THE RANDOM HOUSE BOOK OF TWENTIETH CENTURY
FRENCH POETRY, Copyright 1982 by Paul Austor, ed.]
Bill Palmer
alt.genius.bill-palmer
>Molly <m...@cwa.bai.ne.jp> wrote in message
>news:1dsoooq.1u2...@cwa545.bai.ne.jp...
[...]
>
Bill Palmer
writes:
>
>I saw an old woman bent over a shopping cart. She dressed in the
>most horrible clash of striped, polka-dotted, filthy, torn
>garments but I found her face most remarkable. It had dignity,
>that face, and pain. Her life shone from rheumy blue eyes so
>nearly blind I wondered how she lived at all on the street. Each
>wrinkle had a place there as though arranged by some mad artist
>to express age best. Stooped and crippled by a dragging leg, she
>trundled along as best she could.
>
>As I came close to see her better, she smiled and said, "The
>beauty you see is everywhere in everything. I had lovers once.
>Many. I danced and sang. I'm old now but the beauty is in the
>memory. Remember that."
>
>I will.
>
>Rita
Good illustration, though the readers might also
wish to consider this in the way of intellectual
juxtaposition. Max Jacob narrated the following
experience:
"When I lived in Naples there was always a beggar woman
at the gate of my palace, to whom I would toss some
coins before climbing into my carriage. One day,
surprised at never being thanked, I looked at the
beggar woman. Now, as I looked at her, I saw that
what I had taken for a beggar woman was a wooden
case painted green which contained some red earth
and a few half-rotten bananas..."
Sometimes we see, yet we don't see at all...
[The text enclosed in quotation marks above
is "The Beggar Woman of Naples", a selection
by Max Jacob that is translated by John Ashbery
and included in THE RANDOM HOUSE BOOK OF
TWENTIETH CENTURY FRENCH POETRY, Copyright
1982, by Paul Auster, editor.]
Bill Palmer
alt.genius.bill-palmer
Bill Palmer
>>
>and
Well, this opens into so many avenues that it
is almost impossible to deal with effectively
in a post. In the first place, taste itself
is so different. I think much of the furniture
sold in what might be called a middle-class
furniture store is incredibly ugly. Nothing
worse than an overstuffed monstrosity
of a couch, in my view, though I could be
talking about someone else's "dream sofa"
there. Going to a different sort of ugly,
Pier One Imports, is, in my view, a veritable
temple of ugliness. I abhor wicker and
fake antiquing.
An ugly bathtub that frightened me as a small
child lurked in my grandfather's home. It had
those menacingly weird claw-like feet, and it
would make me scream and cry in panic whenever
I saw it, as a toddler. I suppose today it
would be seen as a valuable antique, but I
would not want to be around it because in a
sense it destroyed my innocence as a child
by making a comfortable house seem terrifying...
And look at art. Much of surrealist art was--
and in fact is--considered "ugly" by many
people. Of course, that came about since
one of the things the surrealists were rebelling
against was the comfortable "niceness" of
conventional middle class art. One of the
most complimentary things that you could tell
many surrealist artists was that their artistic
creation was "ugly and frightening". I think
one of the reasons Dali perplexes so many people
is that his work is often stunningly beautiful
and ugly and frightening at the same time.
In other words, its contradictions give
it a dynamism that even viewers with very
little exposure to fine art can feel.
>>
>> It bothers me.
>>
>> Maybe I've been meeting all the wrong people, but in my
>experience
>> people avoid 'the ugly' whenever possible.
I have noticed the same thing. But it's all so
subjective. I mean, if somehow I won the over-
stuffed couch I mentioned above, I would give
it away. It is far too ugly to belong in
my home. Yet someone else might think that
this $5000 monstrosity was a gem of lovely
perfection--that's why you see so many of
them in the big furniture chains. Yes,
beauty is in the eye of the beholder is
a cliche, but it is also well-grounded in
reality.
It's like with people. I have often found
that so-called "ugly" women are often radiently
beautiful. The are called "ugly" because they
don't fit the current media image of beauty.
By the same token, many famous lovely ladies
of the last century (I know because I look
at lots of old photographs) would be con-
sidered "ugly" by many men today because
the women I refer to are too pale and too
soft-looking for today's popular taste.
They would have to spend a few months at the
health club and the tanning salon before
our gallivanting gallants of today would
deign to to seen with them, though they were
the leading ladies and beauty queens of not
so long ago. Tastes in beauty and
ugliness change all the time, and race
has always had PLENTY to do with what
a specific culture considers beautiful
or ugly, let's not pretend it hasn't.
[Beaudelaire was looked down upon for
having a black mistress; as an artist,
his eyes were not covered with the scales
of senseless prejudice.]
Or, take the matter of pulp fiction art and
comic book art. Not so long ago, a typical
painting for a cover of a pulp fiction
magazine of the 1930's would be seen as
garish and ugly. In fact, many of the
pulp fiction artists destroyed or gave
away their own work because they were
ashamed of it. Now the best examples of
that sort of pulp-cover art is worth tens
of thousands of dollars per painting and
is sold in some of the best galleries.
I think that sort of "ugly" art is great--
it's far more honest than the work of
hack artists who are trying to be "pretty"
and painting nothing but the same
pictures in the same way that countless
of generations of artists before them
have already done.
The same of true of Eugene Atget, the
great French photographer. In his day,
most serious photographers tried to
be "pictorial", and the result was often
what now are rather boring photographic
imitations of popular subjects that
19th Century painters preferred. On
the other hand, Atget (who today might
be loosely described as a commercial
photographer) took fascinating pictures
of what to fine artists of his time
would have seemed like rather mundane,
even "ugly" subjects, such as wagons,
alleys, or ragpickers' huts (I
mean, essentially miserable huts,
not the sentimental "happy poor
folks" stuff that tourists of
Atget's day liked). People still
are fascinated by Atget's work, though
most of the pictorialists who no doubt
looked down their noses at him are long
forgotten.
I've met people who
>spend a
>> lot of time trying to beautify ugliness, or right injustice, or
>correct
>> misunderstandings, but I don't think I've ever met anybody who
>actually
>> seeks out ugliness and walks right by nice things.
But "nice" is such a slippery word. One person's
"nice couch" might be another person's nightmare.
Bill Palmer
alt.genius.bill-palmer
I've met
>people with
>> no taste who inadvertantly create ugliness (but that's MHO), or
>people
>> who, for reasons of their own (usually to do with mental
>health)
>> *notice* ugliness above all - I went through a stage of that
>when I was
>> suffering from culture shock and it was most unpleasant - but I
>don't
>> think, for most people, that this is a normal thing.
>>
>> I suppose such people must exist. The writer has clearly met a
>lot - you
>> (generic) don't write, 'The fact is, people...' in such a
>general way if
>> you (generic) don't mean *most* people.
>>
>> But *I* think that most people want, above all, to be
>*comfortable*, and
>> that means wallowing in 'nice things' wherever possible.
>>
>> Am I hopelessly naive?
>>
Alan Hope
Sunbeam the Deacon <artemu...@worldnet.att.net> wrote in article
<37529C4D...@worldnet.att.net>...
> a) in the USA today "Professional Wrestling" and automobile racing
are
> the most popular sports....these have a pretty "ugly" side
> b) in Shakespeare's England watching animals fight each other to
the
> death was considered very entertainig
> c) in Ye OLde Rome massive and bloody "circuses" were put on for
> centuries
> d) The Kwaikuitl (totem pole building types) and their neighbors
devoted
> long hours in the winter to simulated cannibalism and other bloody
> special effects-shows
> e) Grim's fairy tales are pretty grim
> f) most mythologies have plenty of gory incidents
> Anyway, I think people are basically intrigued by "ugliness",
violence
> and horror.
But the ugliness in every one of your examples is mitigated by
distance: someone else, or something else, is having the ugly
experience, whether it's a pit-bull or Little Red Riding Hood. Your
list might well have included horror movies, or the Listen Up thread
now showing on a computer screen near you. These pastimes are popular
with people who are not taking part, who have the luxury of
experiencing vicarious ugliness. But I doubt if the victims of Arkan
and Nato bombs are intrigued by their own, unmediated experience of
ugliness, violence and horror.
AH
Sunbeam the Deacon
Ugliness is something of an aesthetic judgement, hence all my examples
did not involve direct and real encounters with actual pain and danger
on the part of the participants. Naturally nobody wants to really face
injury and death, but on the other hand people do seem to have a certain
tendency to want to show they can witness rather horrible simulated or
real events where pain and injury and death are inflicted on others.
Ugliness is an interesting notion. Like "violence" it has a lot of not
necessarily very obvious cultural baggage. For example, cutting
somebody's body open is "violent" unless it is done by a "qualified
medical team" as a part of a "surgical intervention" (or
whatever....medical anthropology is beyond me, I prefer actual savages
whenever possible).
Anyway, as far as I'm concerned, "ugliness" and "violence" point to
some interesting aspects of human cultural manipulations of the inchoate
facts of nature, and I think they are well worth looking into.
Bill Palmer
<artemu...@worldnet.att.net> writes:
[...]
>
> Ugliness is something of an aesthetic judgement,
Much of it is, certainly. Lots of failed art
seems to result from artists wanting to paint
"beautiful" pictures in the style of older
generations, a style that has worn out, as
far as its being able to interest many viewers.
On the other hand, I think surrealism is interesting,
because the leading surrealists often created works
that are arguably quite ugly and still very successful.
Look at "Elephant of the Celebes" by Max Ernst.
Who will call this a beautiful picture? Yet, perhaps
because of the way the artist tapped into unconscious
forces, it is a very powerful picture despite a sharp
departure from classical ideals of beauty. That
is not to say that NO surrealist works reflect the
classical standards of beauty, yet many of
them violate those standards in ways that would
likely traumatize famous artists of older
generations.
hence all my examples
>did not involve direct and real encounters with actual pain and danger
>on the part of the participants. Naturally nobody wants to really
face
>injury and death, but on the other hand people do seem to have a
certain
>tendency to want to show they can witness rather horrible simulated or
>real events where pain and injury and death are inflicted on others.
>
> Ugliness is an interesting notion. Like "violence" it has a lot
of not
>necessarily very obvious cultural baggage.
Sure. There are all sorts of prejudices involved
in pronouncing people and things "ugly". Take
spiders for instance. Many humans consider them
ugly. Why? Because they eat other insects?
Not really. Many insects eat other insects.
Traditionally, humans have considered lady
bugs pretty, if not beautiful. Yet, why is
an aphid-eating lady bug any less ugly than
a fly-eating spider--and, for that matter, why
is not a spider-paralyzing wasp considered
as ugly as its unfortunate spider victim?
We humans are full of prejudices about what
is and is not "ugly".
Further, beauty in humans has often had
racial overtones. Groups of people tend to see
other racial groups as ugly. Look at the Chinese--
when they did not see many white people, they
considered the "devils" incredibly ugly.
Even whites of blonde and dark hair often
express what is really a racial prejudice
about red-haired people, simply because
red hair is less common. I think human
cattle need to realize it's time to open
their eyes and to question their own foolish
prejudices.
Teenage nitwits of both sexes will often
maintain that males who are not as
handsome as Leonardo Di Caprio (sp.?) or
females as beautiful Pamela Anderson Lee
are "ugly." Yet, looking at it from
another standpoint, what is more "ugly"
than an ignorant, bigoted, tv-nurtured,
prating little half-mind which has absorbed
nothing about standards of human beauty and
worth other than those which are basically
whorish in nature? (i.e., if you don't
want to crawl in bed with it, it's "ugly".)
"And a tawdry cheapness shall outlast
their days." --Pound.
It's like in this misc.writing newsgroup.
An imbecile (who has been going around telling
how "we" don't pay attention to "Bill Palmer")
posted some sentimental dreck about a homeless
woman. Nobody in misc.writing had the guts
to tell the pretentious lowbrow in question
what a pile of mawkish rubbish she had tried
to foist on misc.writing readers.
Well, as an experiment, *I* reposted the same
thing over in the surrealist group (along with
the Max Jacobquote that--for intelligent minds--
devastated the tissue of tripe by of the misc.
writing poseur). Anyway, an alt.surrealist
poster IMMEDIATELY spotted the passage in
question as maudlin drivel and said so. You
see, HE did not know (or care) that it was
written by a "cultural leader" of misc.
writing.
I think a few people need to wake up--when
things get to the point that horribly-written
twaddle is allowed to pass in an un-excoriated
condition because it is written by a "popular
misc.writing person"were are all in trouble.
You know what's wrong with misc.writing? We
have too many "Pier One Import people" who
want to be successful writers so they can
be "Laura Ashley people."
Our little group is fast becoming a big, tasteless,
over-stuffed sofa for mataphorical fat butts and
middle-brows of the wired world.
We have too many politically correct newsgroup
cattle who don't have the backbone to call a chunk
of dreck a chunk of dreck because its a maudlin
sketch about a homeless woman and who on earth
would be mean enough to attack something like
that? *I* would, because the article was
poorly-written rubbish, but I preferred
instead to demolish it by juxtaposing it
with the quotation from Max Jacob. Of
course, I had to take it over to alt.
surrealism before anyone got it...human
cattle human cattle human cattle--
Bill Palmer
alt.genius.bill-palmer
Bill Palmer
writes:
By the way, "Blubie the Pedantic Dunce", we don't
even need to go as far checking THE OXFORD on this
one. My Second College Edition of THE AMERICAN
HERITAGE DICTIONARY gives one fully correct sense
of "insect"--in addition to the scientific sense
you prattle about, of course--as being, and I
quote, "insect", (Sense 1b): "Any of various
similar invertebrate animals, as a spider,
centipede, or tick."
Anyway, next time, be sure to consult a good
dictionary BEFORE you challenge someone's proper
English usage and make a public jackanapes of
yourself, Blubs.
Bill Palmer
alt.genius.bill-palmer
"a
>>
>>
>>Bill Palmer <wil...@ix.netcom.com> wrote in message
>>news:7j5gpa$c...@dfw-ixnews5.ix.netcom.com...
>>> In <D0r53.349$m96....@typ21b.nn.bcandid.com> wtf <"w t f "@ o z .
>n e
>>> t . o r . s o m e t h i n g> writes:
>>> >
>>> >blub wrote:
>>> >>
>>> >> Bill Palmer <wil...@ix.netcom.com> wrote in message
>>> >> news:7j5cp6$l...@sjx-ixn1.ix.netcom.com...
>>> >> > In <3755DDDF...@worldnet.att.net> Sunbeam the Deacon
>>> >> > <artemu...@worldnet.att.net> writes:
>>> >> >
>>> >> > [...]
>>> >> >Sure. There are all sorts of prejudices involved
>>> >> >in pronouncing people and things "ugly". Take
>>> >> >spiders for instance. Many humans consider them
>>> >> >ugly. Why? Because they eat other insects?
>>> >> >Not really. Many insects eat other insects.
>>> >>
>>> >> Spiders aren't insects, you complete microcephalic blowhard.
>>>
>>> Nonsense, you pseudonymous, pedantic horse's ass.
>>> I was speaking in the general sense, as opposed to
>>> the scientific one. That is, according to the OXFORD
>>> ENGLISH DICTIONARY, "insect" can mean, generally
>>> speaking, "any small invertebrate...with a segmented
>>> body and several pairs of legs." That is the
>>> earliest definition and the general one even
>>> today. Of course, THE OXFORD goes on to list
>>> the newer, more scientific definition in which
>>> "insects" and "arachnids" are distinguished
>>> as arthropods. In the right context, either
>>> sense of "insect" can be correct. Likely,
>>> even a highly-educated person would say,
>>> "I'm not going down in that cellar, there are
>>> all sorts of insects down there," though he or
>>> she likely means, "I'm not going down in that
>>> cellar there are insects and spiders down there."
>>> So, since I wasn't writing a scientific treatise,
>>> and was only speaking generally, you made--as I
>>> said--a pedantic dunce of yourself, proving once
>>> again that a little knowledge can be a dangerous
>>> thing, especially for a prating, ignorant,
>>> pseudonymous jackanapes like you, Blub-sie puss.
>>>
>>
>>The OED, as any self-respecting aficionado knows, contains -archaic-
>>meanings as well as contemporary.
[So check out THE AMERICAN HERITAGE DICTIONARY, instead,
Blub-sie.]
Saying that spiders are insects,
>and
>>endorsing your mistake with a reference to "the earliest definition,"
>is a
>>little like saying the sun goes around the Earth and backing it up
>with a
>>cave drawing. Be a man, admit your error, have a laugh at yourself.
>>
>>Some flame giant. I confess my disappointment.
>
>You are just wrong. THE OXFORD labels words, including
>their various senses, as "obsolete" (designating a word
>or sense of a word that should normally never be used
>and is just listed to help scholars read ancient material)
>and "archaic", which signifies that a word is essentially
>out-of-date and should be used only in restricted
>circumstances, such as for adding colorful dialogue
>in a historical novel. "Insect", in its general
>sense, is labeled as neither. So.
>
>>><blink>spider</blink>
>>
>
>
Scott Elyard
<artemu...@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
> Anyway, I think people are basically intrigued by "ugliness", violence
> and horror.
Yep. 'S fun.
--
Scott Elyard ~~~ooOOoo~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~|
| Peregrinus expectavi pedes meos in cymbalis est. |
| sc...@nyetspam.stonebug.net |
^~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~'
Sunbeam the Deacon
Bill Palmer wrote:
>
> In <3755DDDF...@worldnet.att.net> Sunbeam the Deacon
> <artemu...@worldnet.att.net> writes:
>
> [...]
>
> >
> > Ugliness is something of an aesthetic judgement,
>
> Much of it is, certainly.
And some of it is minor infestations.
Lots of failed art
> seems to result from artists wanting to paint
> "beautiful" pictures in the style of older
> generations, a style that has worn out, as
> far as its being able to interest many viewers.
To paint beauty would seem to be a different aesthetic choice from
avoiding ugliness. I think painters tend to have more complex motives
than trying to "interest" as many viewers as possible.
>
> On the other hand, I think surrealism is interesting,
> because the leading surrealists often created works
> that are arguably quite ugly and still very successful.
By what criteria are they ugly? Does one have to revert to the
aesthetics of beauty (which you just said were "worn out") to see what
the Surrealists were getting at?
> Look at "Elephant of the Celebes" by Max Ernst.
> Who will call this a beautiful picture?
As I recall it is perhaps the least interesting of his works.
Yet, perhaps
> because of the way the artist tapped into unconscious
> forces, it is a very powerful picture despite a sharp
> departure from classical ideals of beauty.
Again you repeat the gesture of requiring those "worn out" ideals just
to get an inkling of the Surrealist project.
That
> is not to say that NO surrealist works reflect the
> classical standards of beauty, yet many of
> them violate those standards in ways that would
> likely traumatize famous artists of older
> generations.
I doubt it. Look at Durer's engravings or any number of Mannerist
items (including whole architectural projects and gardens). Perhaps you
mean "would likely traumatize people who have not looked at much art..."
>
> hence all my examples
> >did not involve direct and real encounters with actual pain and danger
> >on the part of the participants. Naturally nobody wants to really
> face
> >injury and death, but on the other hand people do seem to have a
> certain
> >tendency to want to show they can witness rather horrible simulated or
> >real events where pain and injury and death are inflicted on others.
> >
> > Ugliness is an interesting notion. Like "violence" it has a lot
> of not
> >necessarily very obvious cultural baggage.
>
> Sure. There are all sorts of prejudices involved
> in pronouncing people and things "ugly". Take
> spiders for instance. Many humans consider them
> ugly. Why? Because they eat other insects?
I think the usual complaint about them is that they have so many legs
and eyes and are (supposedly) "hairy"....
> Not really. Many insects eat other insects.
> Traditionally, humans have considered lady
> bugs pretty, if not beautiful.
What could be wrong with being bright red?
Yet, why is
> an aphid-eating lady bug any less ugly than
> a fly-eating spider--and, for that matter, why
> is not a spider-paralyzing wasp considered
> as ugly as its unfortunate spider victim?
> We humans are full of prejudices about what
> is and is not "ugly".
True enough.
>
> Further, beauty in humans has often had
> racial overtones. Groups of people tend to see
> other racial groups as ugly. Look at the Chinese--
> when they did not see many white people, they
> considered the "devils" incredibly ugly.
> Even whites of blonde and dark hair often
> express what is really a racial prejudice
> about red-haired people, simply because
> red hair is less common. I think human
> cattle need to realize it's time to open
> their eyes and to question their own foolish
> prejudices.
I think you're just being pointlessly nasty in your inane
free-associating.
>
> Teenage nitwits of both sexes will often
> maintain that males who are not as
> handsome as Leonardo Di Caprio (sp.?) or
> females as beautiful Pamela Anderson Lee
> are "ugly." Yet, looking at it from
> another standpoint, what is more "ugly"
> than an ignorant, bigoted, tv-nurtured,
> prating little half-mind which has absorbed
> nothing about standards of human beauty and
> worth other than those which are basically
> whorish in nature? (i.e., if you don't
> want to crawl in bed with it, it's "ugly".)
Here I'm just baffled. Does this imply that there's not much that's
ugly or that there's not much to crawl into bed with?
> "And a tawdry cheapness shall outlast
> their days." --Pound.
And be lovely whilst being outlasted?
> It's like in this misc.writing newsgroup.
> An imbecile (who has been going around telling
> how "we" don't pay attention to "Bill Palmer")
> posted some sentimental dreck about a homeless
> woman. Nobody in misc.writing had the guts
> to tell the pretentious lowbrow in question
> what a pile of mawkish rubbish she had tried
> to foist on misc.writing readers.
Ack! Imagine. She should have consulted you before foisting any
dreck.
>
> Well, as an experiment, *I* reposted the same
> thing over in the surrealist group (along with
> the Max Jacobquote that--for intelligent minds--
> devastated the tissue of tripe by of the misc.
> writing poseur).
As an experiment you foisted the same dreck elsewhere?
Anyway, an alt.surrealist
> poster IMMEDIATELY spotted the passage in
> question as maudlin drivel and said so. You
> see, HE did not know (or care) that it was
> written by a "cultural leader" of misc.
> writing.
I'm shocked. M.W. has a culture? And it differs from alt.surrealism?
I don't believe it.
>
> I think a few people need to wake up--when
> things get to the point that horribly-written
> twaddle is allowed to pass in an un-excoriated
> condition because it is written by a "popular
> misc.writing person"were are all in trouble.
I hope its the worst trouble I ever get into.
> You know what's wrong with misc.writing? We
> have too many "Pier One Import people" who
> want to be successful writers so they can
> be "Laura Ashley people."
Too many? Isn't it a ratio? Say there were 24 POIP and 12 LAP in
M.W. Suppose 36 new POIP came in and at the same time 12 PIOP became
LAP giving a final ratio of 48 to 24 or 2:1 unchanged despite the
apparently large number of PIOP? It's not as simple as you think, I
think.
> Our little group is fast becoming a big, tasteless,
> over-stuffed sofa for mataphorical fat butts and
> middle-brows of the wired world.
How do you know the metaphorical sofa is tasteless?
> We have too many politically correct newsgroup
> cattle who don't have the backbone to call a chunk
> of dreck a chunk of dreck because its a maudlin
> sketch about a homeless woman and who on earth
> would be mean enough to attack something like
> that? *I* would, because the article was
> poorly-written rubbish, but I preferred
> instead to demolish it by juxtaposing it
> with the quotation from Max Jacob. Of
> course, I had to take it over to alt.
> surrealism before anyone got it...human
> cattle human cattle human cattle--
I'm glad it all worked out, though.
Bill Palmer
<artemu...@worldnet.att.net> writes:
Well, I must say that you have a rather odd
posting style, which seems to combine trite
snip-and-drool, quippy little "putdowns" with
an intelligent point now and then. Because
of your latter redeeming quality, I am taking
time to respond to a couple of your comments.
[...] Heaviy snippage.
>> Look at "Elephant of the Celebes" by Max Ernst.
>> Who will call this a beautiful picture?
>
> As I recall it is perhaps the least interesting of his works.
Sir, you are mistaken. "Elephant of the Celebes"
is a powerful work of art. [For those readers who
have not seen this painting, it was described in
THE HISTORY OF SURREALIST PAINTING by Marcel Jean,
as--in the translation copyrighted 1960 by George
Weidenfield & Nicolson Ltd: "...an indescribable
cauldren with thick legs, sprouting a pipe terminated
by the horns of a bull; in the foreground a headless
woman makes a melancholy gesture, of appeal or
farewell; high in the sky fishes are floating."]
It should be added that this work has an inter-
esting relationship to the collage itself, which
Earnst is often credited with having invented.
Not that the PAINTING "Elephant of the Celebes"
IS a collage, but it LOOKS strangely like a
painting of a collage.
Now, we were on the subject of beauty and
ugliness. Plainly, we have some misc.writing
readers who prefer Norman Rockwell to Max
Earnst. I am sure some of them would say
of Earnst's famous work, "I think it's an
ugly old thing. What's it supposed to be,
anyway? Some ol' teakettle? Hee hee hee
hee." That's the shabby level of some of
commentary we have seen on this very thread,
anyway.
"The Elephant of the Celebes" should not be seen
as some sort of perverse victory of the ugly,
however. Max Earnst's painting IS beautiful,
because it represents a grand triumph of the
imagination. It has fascinated viewers for many
decades, and it seems to grow more fascinating
with the passage of time, rather than less so.
Of course, exactly what one gets from "The Elephant
of the Celebes" depends upon what the viewere takes
to the picture. According to surrealism authority
Jean, in the work cited above, Andre Breton saw Max
Earnst images--certainly including the imaginatively
vast "Celebes" painting, as "unfolding like a moving
film of the inner life."
Bill Palmer
alt.genius.bill-palmer
Peter Hickman
Bill Palmer wrote:
> In <37570C74...@worldnet.att.net> Sunbeam the Deacon
> <artemu...@worldnet.att.net> writes:
>
> Well, I must say that you have a rather odd
> posting style, which seems to combine trite
> snip-and-drool, quippy little "putdowns" with
> an intelligent point now and then. Because
> of your latter redeeming quality, I am taking
> time to respond to a couple of your comments.
Why, thank you. I urge you not to become confused and reply by mistake
to anything non-redemptive.
> [...] Heaviy snippage.
>
> >> Look at "Elephant of the Celebes" by Max Ernst.
> >> Who will call this a beautiful picture?
> >
> > As I recall it is perhaps the least interesting of his works.
>
> Sir, you are mistaken.
Nonsense. Max is a third-rate painter (which puts him way ahead of the
other Surrealists) and the Elephant is a pretty tedious exercise from any
point of view except yours. In fact, I suspect it is the "tedious exercise"
aspect of Surrealism that you really identify with.
> "Elephant of the Celebes"
> is a powerful work of art. [For those readers who
> have not seen this painting, it was described in
> THE HISTORY OF SURREALIST PAINTING by Marcel Jean,
> as--in the translation copyrighted 1960 by George
> Weidenfield & Nicolson Ltd: "...an indescribable
> cauldren with thick legs, sprouting a pipe terminated
> by the horns of a bull; in the foreground a headless
> woman makes a melancholy gesture, of appeal or
> farewell; high in the sky fishes are floating."]
Tedious. I can't believe they bothered copyrighting that late-50's hunk
of Surreal History.
> It should be added that this work has an inter-
> esting relationship to the collage itself, which
> Earnst is often credited with having invented.
> Not that the PAINTING "Elephant of the Celebes"
> IS a collage, but it LOOKS strangely like a
> painting of a collage.
Come on. The collages are interesting and the elephant thing is just
dull...dulll....dull...dull. It's very dull. Its the dullest thing Max ever
did.
> Now, we were on the subject of beauty and
> ugliness. Plainly, we have some misc.writing
> readers who prefer Norman Rockwell to Max
> Earnst.
No way. I'm sure they all have precisely my taste in these matters and
like Rockwell but prefer Max.
> I am sure some of them would say
> of Earnst's famous work, "I think it's an
> ugly old thing. What's it supposed to be,
> anyway? Some ol' teakettle? Hee hee hee
> hee." That's the shabby level of some of
> commentary we have seen on this very thread,
> anyway.
No foolin'...its a very dull painting...Why couldn't you have picked a
decent work by Max? I always liked the collages and the sketches such as
"The Garden Airplane Trap".....
> "The Elephant of the Celebes" should not be seen
> as some sort of perverse victory of the ugly,
> however. Max Earnst's painting IS beautiful,
> because it represents a grand triumph of the
> imagination. It has fascinated viewers for many
> decades, and it seems to grow more fascinating
> with the passage of time, rather than less so.
It's a very dull painting. It always has been and it always will be.
> Of course, exactly what one gets from "The Elephant
> of the Celebes" depends upon what the viewere takes
> to the picture. According to surrealism authority
> Jean, in the work cited above, Andre Breton saw Max
> Earnst images--certainly including the imaginatively
> vast "Celebes" painting, as "unfolding like a moving
> film of the inner life."
If you had a very dull inner life that might be true.
>
>
> Bill Palmer
> alt.genius.bill-palmer
>
> >
> >
> >
> > Yet, perhaps
> >> because of the way the artist tapped into unconscious
> >> forces, it is a very powerful picture despite a sharp
> >> departure from classical ideals of beauty.
> >
> >
> > Again you repeat the gesture of requiring those "worn out" ideals
> just
> >to get an inkling of the Surrealist project.
> >
> >
> > That
> >> is not to say that NO surrealist works reflect the
> >> classical standards of beauty, yet many of
> >> them violate those standards in ways that would
> >> likely traumatize famous artists of older
> >> generations.
> >
> > I doubt it. Look at Durer's engravings or any number of
> Mannerist
> >items (including whole architectural projects and gardens). Perhaps
> you
> >mean "would likely traumatize people who have not looked at much
> art..."
> >
> >
Did you forget to snip? Or what?
Prosaically...............................Pete
Bill Palmer
<Peter....@rtp.ppdi.com> writes:
Well, what you have given your readers represents "art
criticism by snip-and-drool" (snip-and-drool means merely
adding a few putdowns after every few lines of a writer's
article and not doing much else). Okay, you find "The
Elephant of the Celebes", as you say, "dull." Well,
if you do a word count on your last post and you add
up the times you have repeated "dull", you will find
it constitutes an appallingly high percentage of
all the adjectives you used in that post. Of
course, you are welcome to your opinion, and
I suspect that scarcely any work of art exists
that someone did not find dull for one reason
or another. Yet, if you think about it, just
saying the painting is "dull, dull, dull" does
not offer the misc.writing reader much. Could
it be you actually find "Elephant of the Celebes"
TERRIFYING and you deal with that simply by
blocking off your true feelings and pronouncing
Earnst's picture "dull", and then repeating the
rather meaningless adjective over and over like a
mantra to protect you?
Bill Palmer
alt.genius.bill-palmer
>
>
>
>Bill Palmer wrote:
>
>> In <37570C74...@worldnet.att.net> Sunbeam the Deacon
>> <artemu...@worldnet.att.net> writes:
>>
>> Well, I must say that you have a rather odd
>> posting style, which seems to combine trite
>> snip-and-drool, quippy little "putdowns" with
>> an intelligent point now and then. Because
>> of your latter redeeming quality, I am taking
>> time to respond to a couple of your comments.
>
> Why, thank you. I urge you not to become confused and reply by
mistake
>to anything non-redemptive.
>
>> [...] Heaviy snippage.
>>
>> >> Look at "Elephant of the Celebes" by Max Ernst.
>> >> Who will call this a beautiful picture?
>> >
>> > As I recall it is perhaps the least interesting of his
works.
>>
>> Sir, you are mistaken.
>
> Nonsense. Max is a third-rate painter (which puts him way ahead
of the
>other Surrealists)
Startling remark! And just whom do YOU proclaim
to be the first and second rate painters of the
Twentieth Century, pray tell?
and the Elephant is a pretty tedious exercise from any
>point of view except yours. In fact, I suspect it is the "tedious
exercise"
>aspect of Surrealism that you really identify with.
>
>
>
>
>
>> "Elephant of the Celebes"
>> is a powerful work of art. [For those readers who
>> have not seen this painting, it was described in
>> THE HISTORY OF SURREALIST PAINTING by Marcel Jean,
>> as--in the translation copyrighted 1960 by George
>> Weidenfield & Nicolson Ltd: "...an indescribable
>> cauldren with thick legs, sprouting a pipe terminated
>> by the horns of a bull; in the foreground a headless
>> woman makes a melancholy gesture, of appeal or
>> farewell; high in the sky fishes are floating."]
>
> Tedious. I can't believe they bothered copyrighting that
late-50's hunk
>of Surreal History.
Nuttiest remark I've heard this week! THE HISTORY OF
SURREALIST PAINTING by Marcel Jean is one of the more
scholarly, thorough and universally respected books of
the hundreds that have been written on the subject of
surrealist art. Sir, do you REALLY know what you are
talking about, or do you simply have a hang-up about
surrealism--as your indefensible remarks would seem
to suggest?
>> of the Celebes" depends upon what the viewer takes
>> to the picture. According to surrealism authority
>> Jean, in the work cited above, Andre Breton saw Max
>> Earnst images--certainly including the imaginatively
>> vast "Celebes" painting, as "unfolding like a moving
>> film of the inner life."
>
> If you had a very dull inner life that might be true.
>
>
>
>>
>>
>> Bill Palmer
>> alt.genius.bill-palmer
>>
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> > Yet, perhaps
>> >> because of the way the artist tapped into unconscious
>> >> forces, it is a very powerful picture despite a sharp
>> >> departure from classical ideals of beauty.
>> >
>> >
>> > Again you repeat the gesture of requiring those "worn out"
ideals
>> just
>> >to get an inkling of the Surrealist project.
>> >
>> >
>> > That
>> >> is not to say that NO surrealist works reflect the
>> >> classical standards of beauty, yet many of
>> >> them violate those standards in ways that would
>> >> likely traumatize famous artists of older
>> >> generations.
>> >
>> > I doubt it. Look at Durer's engravings or any number of
>> Mannerist
>> >items (including whole architectural projects and gardens).
Perhaps
>> you
>> >mean "would likely traumatize people who have not looked at much
>> art..."
>> >
>> >
>
>
Sunbeam the Deacon
Bill Palmer wrote:
>
> In <3757E7BD...@rtp.ppdi.com> Peter Hickman
> <Peter....@rtp.ppdi.com> writes:
>
> Well, what you have given your readers represents "art
> criticism by snip-and-drool" (snip-and-drool means merely
> adding a few putdowns after every few lines of a writer's
> article and not doing much else). Okay, you find "The
> Elephant of the Celebes", as you say, "dull." Well,
> if you do a word count on your last post and you add
> up the times you have repeated "dull", you will find
> it constitutes an appallingly high percentage of
> all the adjectives you used in that post. Of
> course, you are welcome to your opinion, and
> I suspect that scarcely any work of art exists
> that someone did not find dull for one reason
> or another. Yet, if you think about it, just
> saying the painting is "dull, dull, dull" does
> not offer the misc.writing reader much. Could
> it be you actually find "Elephant of the Celebes"
> TERRIFYING and you deal with that simply by
> blocking off your true feelings and pronouncing
> Earnst's picture "dull", and then repeating the
> rather meaningless adjective over and over like a
> mantra to protect you?
>
If it terrified me, wouldn't I avoid writing about it? Actually, if
I'm scared of widely reproduced paintings then I would be in pretty bad
trouble wouldn't I? Still....be that as it may, it is a very dull
painting and even Max Ernst produced a lot of much more interesting
stuff.
<massive snip>