मेघदूत: "नीचैर्गच्छत्युपरि दशा चक्रनेमिक्रमेण"

समर्थ शिष्या अक्का : "स्वामीच्या कृपाप्रसादे हे सर्व नश्वर आहे असे समजले. पण या नश्वरात तमाशा बहुत आहे."

G C Lichtenberg: “It is as if our languages were confounded: when we want a thought, they bring us a word; when we ask for a word, they give us a dash; and when we expect a dash, there comes a piece of bawdy.”

C. P. Cavafy: "I’d rather look at things than speak about them."

Martin Amis: “Gogol is funny, Tolstoy in his merciless clarity is funny, and Dostoyevsky, funnily enough, is very funny indeed; moreover, the final generation of Russian literature, before it was destroyed by Lenin and Stalin, remained emphatically comic — Bunin, Bely, Bulgakov, Zamyatin. The novel is comic because life is comic (until the inevitable tragedy of the fifth act);...”

सदानंद रेगे: "... पण तुकारामाची गाथा ज्या धुंदीनं आजपर्यंत वाचली जात होती ती धुंदी माझ्याकडे नाहीय. ती मला येऊच शकत नाही याचं कारण स्वभावतःच मी नास्तिक आहे."

".. त्यामुळं आपण त्या दारिद्र्याच्या अनुभवापलीकडे जाऊच शकत नाही. तुम्ही जर अलीकडची सगळी पुस्तके पाहिलीत...तर त्यांच्यामध्ये त्याच्याखेरीज दुसरं काही नाहीच आहे. म्हणजे माणसांच्या नात्यानात्यांतील जी सूक्ष्मता आहे ती क्वचित चितारलेली तुम्हाला दिसेल. कारण हा जो अनुभव आहे... आपले जे अनुभव आहेत ते ढोबळ प्रकारचे आहेत....."

Kenneth Goldsmith: "In 1969 the conceptual artist Douglas Huebler wrote, “The world is full of objects, more or less interesting; I do not wish to add any more.”1 I’ve come to embrace Huebler’s ideas, though it might be retooled as “The world is full of texts, more or less interesting; I do not wish to add any more.” It seems an appropriate response to a new condition in writing today: faced with an unprecedented amount of available text, the problem is not needing to write more of it; instead, we must learn to negotiate the vast quantity that exists. How I make my way through this thicket of information—how I manage it, how I parse it, how I organize and distribute it—is what distinguishes my writing from yours."

Tom Wolfe: "The first line of the doctors’ Hippocratic oath is ‘First, do no harm.’ And I think for the writers it would be: ‘First, entertain.’"

विलास सारंग: "… . . 1000 नंतर ज्या प्रकारची संस्कृती रुढ झाली , त्यामध्ये साधारणत्व विश्वात्मकता हे गुण प्राय: लुप्त झाले...आपली संस्कृती अकाली विश्वात्मक साधारणतेला मुकली आहे."

Sunday, October 01, 2017

कार्टूनिस्ट ह्यूज हेफनर...Hugh Hefner: A Cartoonist Who Also Loved Cartoons

प्रश्न:  कवी सदानंद रेगे आणि नुकतेच दिवंगत प्लेबॉयचे  संस्थापक-संपादक  ह्यूज हेफनर ह्यांच्यात कुठल्या गोष्टीचे सगळ्यात जास्त साम्य होते? उत्तर: दोघेही हौशी कार्टूनिस्ट आणि कार्टूनप्रेमी होते!

'THE COMPLETE CARTOONS OF THE NEW YORKER' EDITED BY ROBERT MANKOFF, 2004  ह्या अवाढव्य (वजन किलोत आहे) पुस्तकाच्या 'Editor's Note' च्या पहिल्या पानावर (पुस्तकात ६ व्या) ह्यूज हेफनर यांच्या 'प्लेबॉय' चा गौरवपूर्ण उल्लेख आहे. (btw- हे पुस्तक माझ्या भावाने कै वसंत सरवटेंना ऑनलाईन ऑर्डर करून भेट दिले.) 

"....There's also this Shel Silverstein classic, which people often ask about. Well, I wish we had published it., but Shel was a great cartoonist for Playboy who never appeared in The New Yorker, and this particular cartoon wasn't even published in Playboy, but appeared in Look, in 1956..."

 Look, 1956

ह्या लिजंडरी कार्टूनचे निर्माते थोर शेल सिल्व्हरस्टाईन हे हेफनर यांचे साईडकिक होते असे म्हटले जाते.



“He was Hugh Hefner’s sidekick, he was the great cartoonist, he lived with Hef at the Playboy Mansion, in a riot of delight.” 

आणि सिल्व्हरस्टाईन यांनी जो आनंद प्लेबॉय मॅन्शन मध्ये कित्येक वर्षे उपभोगला तो त्यांच्या लहान मुलांसाठी लिहलेल्या कवितातूनही ओसंडून वाहतोय :

"I will not play at tug o’ war.
I’d rather play at hug o’ war,
Where everyone hugs
Instead of tugs,
Where everyone giggles
And rolls on the rug,
Where everyone kisses,
And everyone grins,
And everyone cuddles,
And everyone wins."

 
The Sultan is reading Playboy in harem!

Artist: Richard Taylor, The New Yorker, 22 June 1957

कार्टून प्लेबॉय चा अविभाज्य भाग होते.

Steven Watts, 'Mr. Playboy: Hugh Hefner and the American Dream', 2008: 

"... Playboy fed its readers a nourishing diet of humor. Cartoons, again reflecting the publisher’s own taste and background, emerged as a magazine stalwart. Early contributors such as Jack Cole and Gardner Rea were joined by a new cadre of hip funsters by mid-decade. In 1956, Shel Silverstein brought his irreverent sensibility to the magazine with a series of globetrotting cartoons, one of which pictured him talking to a stern butler at Buckingham Palace, who said, “ I believe I can say with assurance, sir, that Princess Margaret will not be interested in appearing as January’s Playmate of the Month. ”..."


स्वतः  हेफनर बऱ्यापैकी कार्टूनिस्ट होते, लहानपणापासून आणि प्लेबॉयची मूळ सुद्धा त्यांच्या कार्टून काढण्यात दडली होती. 

"Even as a boy, however, Hefner displayed an unusual creativity. Fascinated with drawing, he spent countless hours sketching crude cartoon strips such as Cranet , an adventurer who flew from Earth to Mars; Jigs and Spike , cowboy outlaws; Jim Malt , a youthful detective; and adventure characters named “ Marvel Man, ” “ the Mystic, ” and “ Metallic Man"...In his early teenage years he continued drawing cartoon strips — eventually they would number about seventy different series — and to write and illustrate stories...."

"... Keith Hefner observed the same impulse in his older brother. Hugh preferred to spend time in his room, writing stories and drawing cartoons, when he wasn ’ t playing. Often shy and insecure with
other people, the boy did not like venturing out. “ His fantasy life really began with the stories he wrote as a child in grade school and the cartoons he drew, ” Keith said. “..."

"... Hugh cherished particular favorites. He idolized the cartoonist Milton Caniff, creator of the comic strip Terry and the Pirates. Pat Ryan, the protagonist, was a debonair adventurer whose pipe – smoking later inspired Hefner to take up the habit...."

"... At this time, Hefner also began a project that would preoccupy him for the rest of his life. He began to chronicle his experiences in a cartoon autobiography. Inventing a character for himself called “ Goo Heffer,” the youth composed dozens of comic strips that followed every twist and turn in his gang ’ s activities in funny, charming, and occasionally poignant style..."

Artist: Ward Sutton, Playboy

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