tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post3149830906179465105..comments2024-01-28T03:56:39.351-08:00Comments on TOM CLARK: F. Scott Fitzgerald: Bernice Bobs Her Hair / Guy Pène du Bois: The FlapperUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger9125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-59355181800259158272013-09-22T04:37:20.376-07:002013-09-22T04:37:20.376-07:00I'm sorry to learn that Stephen King objects t...I'm sorry to learn that Stephen King objects to Shelley Duvall's performance in The Shining, but it reminds me that when works of art are adapted, they're transformed and somebody is bound to be displeased. I'm actually not the biggest Shelley Duvall fan in the world, but I think she's aces in The Shining. CurtisACravanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00315707533118640284noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-22646948248868874902013-09-22T01:58:24.851-07:002013-09-22T01:58:24.851-07:00Yes, that baby-tank/barb-wire skyscraper image lea...Yes, that baby-tank/barb-wire skyscraper image leaps out of context and reminds us of the millions of souls meaninglessly snuffed out in Europe just a few short years before Bernice's pre-tonsorial discombobulation (Coma Berenice?). <br /><br />Can young Fitzgerald have calculated the effect that abrupt re-adjustment of perspective might be going to have?<br /><br />One expects not.<br /><br />But it definitely brings the mind up short, and that's always a shock to the total mechanics. <br /><br />There's nothing like being crushed into the pavement by the mechanics to keep one from ever not thinking about the mechanics for one full minute.<br /><br />The insides are soft, the pavement hard. <br /><br />A comfortable place in the economy would I suppose be akin to a comfortable place in the puppet show.<br /><br />Of which there's probably always but the one to be had. Pulling the strings, that is.<br /><br />The baby tanks are currently bot-powered, operated by remote control, and able to maneuver into impossibly tight spaces by means of secret searches, it is widely rumoured.TChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05915822857461178942noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-58593782121402159022013-09-22T01:23:02.624-07:002013-09-22T01:23:02.624-07:00If you're to take your place comfortably in th...If you're to take your place comfortably in the economy you're to learn to forget the mechanics, the insides. <br /><br />"...a baby tank across a barbed-wire skyscraper": there's an image for you.Mose23https://www.blogger.com/profile/01100756913131511440noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-50269186252793961512013-09-21T17:49:38.869-07:002013-09-21T17:49:38.869-07:00I like that painting too, the way she does not qui...I like that painting too, the way she does not quite emerge into the light...<br /><br />Of late the infinitely picky Mr Stephen King has complained that Kubrick's production of The Shining was spoiled by the one-dimensionality of the Shelley Duvall performance. Now there's (in)gratitude!<br /><br />In any case, she's spot on in <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ml1PIAjrhBQ" rel="nofollow">Bernice Bobs Her Hair</a>.TChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05915822857461178942noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-60405943832963409372013-09-21T13:36:00.572-07:002013-09-21T13:36:00.572-07:00It’s nice to discover Du Bois. Many thanks, Tom. I...It’s nice to discover Du Bois. Many thanks, Tom. I wonder if DB influenced George Tooker, who also haunted subways, in more ways than one. There is in both a sense of distance, isolation, perfunctory contact; The Existence Machine going into Baudelaire-ian overdrive. It’s contingency all the way down, madam . . . <br /><br />“Jane” I love. It's especially that shade of blue on the doors that lends so much to the mood. A woman leans forward, pensive, tilting into the picture. There’s tension in that, and a sense of the precarious. The moment’s uncertain. That raking light from high up conceals as much as it reveals.Hazenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13417573435195561519noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-75966229781580446852013-09-21T06:46:16.571-07:002013-09-21T06:46:16.571-07:00I did not know that about Billy Pene du Bois and, ...I did not know that about Billy Pene du Bois and, as an inveterate masthead reader and memorizer, I think that my mind must finally be going. It's great to see all these Guy Pene du Bois paintings assembled and looking so great. After yesterday's post I started reviewing the paintings of his contemporary Kenneth Hayes Miller for comparison. I did my M.A. thesis on Miller (if you don't recall him, which very few people do, he was teacher and mentor to a lot of the better known "14th Street School" artists) and found myself noticing the things I didn't like in his work, both in comparison to some of his talented, better known students, and to Pene du Bois. Miller has a certain extremely weird quality, which means something to me, but it just doesn't sing like Guy Pene du Bois' work does. CurtisACravanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00315707533118640284noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-64968334129917192872013-09-21T06:32:33.924-07:002013-09-21T06:32:33.924-07:00Oh, dear, Curtis. How soon they forget!
By the by...Oh, dear, Curtis. How soon they forget!<br /><br />By the by, talking of family, Guy's son Billy, who did many children's books (some of them for childish grownups, I guess) was in the Plimpton orbit, back in the day. He was a founding editor and first art editor of The Paris Review.TChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05915822857461178942noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-25520869457586686572013-09-21T06:20:37.764-07:002013-09-21T06:20:37.764-07:00This is spectacular also and a wonderful weekend o...This is spectacular also and a wonderful weekend offering. Our daughter Jane is a fitful reader. Last year in 10th grade they assigned her The Great Gatsby, which was a reasonable thing to do, I guess, until they started applying layers of received and testable wisdom, which really dampened whatever spark they were presumably trying to light in her. We kept urging her not to turn off, but to sample Fitzgerald's stories because they're wonderful to read, contain funny and ironic twists, etc., which we thought would grab her the way Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde did. Talented family, the Pene du Bois. I dream of my daughter saying to an interviewer, as Yvonne did, "I learned everything from Father." Unfortunately, the last thing Jane said (when I dropped her off earlier at a practice SAT session) wasn't in that vein. Oh well -- it's a beautiful fall day in Chester County, PA. CurtisACravanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00315707533118640284noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-89498670720065244052013-09-21T05:32:17.059-07:002013-09-21T05:32:17.059-07:00The Du Bois Family: Life, April 29 1940
Guy Pène ...<a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=zj8EAAAAMBAJ&lpg=PA58&dq=Guy%20P%C3%A8ne%20du%20Bois&pg=PA58#v=onepage&q&f=false" rel="nofollow">The Du Bois Family: Life, April 29 1940</a><br /><br /><a href="http://www.tfaoi.com/aa/4aa/4aa558.htm" rel="nofollow">Guy Pène du Bois: The Twenties at Home and Abroad: Betsy Fahlman, 2004</a>TChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05915822857461178942noreply@blogger.com