Looking at Cartoons, Getting Along

Launched on Nov 29 2006, now 2,100+ posts...This bilingual blog - 'आन्याची फाटकी पासोडी' in Marathi- is largely a celebration of visual and/or comic ...तुकाराम: "ढेकणासी बाज गड,उतरचढ केवढी"...George Santayana: " Everything in nature is lyrical in its ideal essence, tragic in its fate, and comic in its existence"...William Hazlitt: "Pictures are scattered like stray gifts through the world; and while they remain, earth has yet a little gilding."

मेघदूत: "नीचैर्गच्छत्युपरि च 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: "… इ. स. 1000 नंतर ज्या प्रकारची संस्कृती रुढ झाली , त्यामध्ये साधारणत्व व विश्वात्मकता हे गुण प्राय: लुप्त झाले...आपली संस्कृती अकाली विश्वात्मक साधारणतेला मुकली आहे."

Monday, January 01, 2007

Waving or Drowning

Not easy to judge. Listen to Stevie Smith first and then see what James Stevenson says.

Stevie Smith (1903-1971)

Nobody heard him, the dead man,
But still he lay moaning:
I was much further out than you thought
And not waving but drowning.

Poor chap, he always loved larking
And now he's dead
It must have been too cold for him his heart gave way,
They said.

Oh, no no no, it was too cold always
(Still the dead one lay moaning)
I was much too far out all my life
And not waving but drowning.

Artist : James Stevenson published The New Yorker 19 Nov 1960

our own Waheeda Rehman or Ginger Rogers

Waheeda Rehman by some opinion in her prime ("Guide") was one of the most beautiful actresses of Hindi film industry.
Pakistani cricketer Imran Khan (one of the handsomest men himself) considers her the most beautiful woman world has known. For me, Ginger Rogers is equally vivacious.

Marathi author Va Pu Kale has written few good stories. In one of them, protagonist in due course discovers Waheeda Rehman in his wife.

Don't we all remember the day our wife looked like Waheeda or Ginger?!

Artist: Barney Tobey publsihed : The New Yorker 31 Dec 1960

Parental discretion!

My wife often asks me to be discreet when our son is around.

"Watch your tongue" is a constant refrain. I cannot lose my temper when he is awake. Why? Because "our son will follow you and use the same foul language which is not good for his future".
She thinks invoking our son's future is a clinching argument.

I sometimes think it is a clever ploy to shut me up for good...... what a drag.

Artist : Frank Modell Published: The New Yorker 19 March 1960

for Democracy's sake!

Artist : Joseph Mirachi Published The New Yorker June 25, 1960

In India democracy is alive and well most time kicking! Opposition opposes because they are in opposition. And even friendly fire from parties like communists is most times deadly.

If today non-congress parties were to be asked what they stand for, their honest answer would be whatever congress doesn't stand for. No more, no less.

But if we want to give it a positive spin to this behaviour, call it to "keep alive the multi-party democracy".

Sunday, December 31, 2006

Gandhigiri

For a Satyagrahi (an Individual standing up for Truth instead of a collective action), turning other cheek is not just "doing nothing" about the action but actually responding to the action.

Jesus Christ, Saint Eknath, Mahatma Gandhi, Vinoba Bhave विनोबा भावे, Dalai Lama, Nelson Mandela, Anna Hazare are few of the Satyagrahi's world has known.

There is a defiance in "turning other cheek".

Artist: Mischa Richter Published : The New Yorker Apr 23, 1960

p.s Perhaps it is no coincidence this came right in the thick of The American Civil Rights Movement (1955-1968) led by a Satyagrahi Martin Luther King jr.

By the way, I have rarely seen picture of anyone at Rajghat bowing so reverentially as Jazz masters below in Jan 2007. Satyagrahis? You may never get tickets or passes to their show but you can hear sound of their instruments loud and clear.

Blues

Artist: James Stevenson. Published in The New Yorker June 25, 1960

Swedish dramatist August Strindberg is reported to have said: "Shallow people demand variety – but I have been writing the same story throughout my life, every time trying to cut nearer the aching nerve".

I am using the same blue as his to reach the aching nerve but damn, I have run out of it.

Gandhi's, Pawar's, Gowda's, Scindia's, Singh's..............

Artist: Everett Opie Published: The New Yorker July 3, 1960

When I wore half khakis to school, JFK's photo was ubiquitous in small town of Maharashtra. It used to hanged in esteemed company of Nehru, Gandhi, Subhash Chandra Bose, Rana Pratap, Shivaji et al. I still remember seeing this pantheon on the wall of a small neighbourhood restaurant.

Over the years, JFK has been unmasked. He has been pushed down from his pedestal like a Lenin. For my back, reading Gore Vidal's review of Seymour Hersh's book- The Dark Side of Camelot- was the final straw.

Now, I don't want to know which is which Kennedy.

I think similar fate awaits most of India's most prominent political families. Although I must say reputation of Nehru has fared much better than JFK after his death.

Titanic. Where is First Officer Murdoch?

Artist: Kenneth Mahood Published: The New Yorker April 9, 1960

In "Titanic", First officer William McMaster Murdoch, the officer in charge of launching the lifeboat, threatens to shoot any man who tries to get into the boat, allowing only women and children to get in.

Where is William or has everyone aboard paid this Bill a bribe inducing a bout of amnesia?

Insect world is waiting - and one day it's going to roll over

Artist: Dana Fradon Published in The New Yorker July 2, 1960

Ingmar Bergman: "I've a strong impression our world is about to go under. Our political systems are deeply compromised and have no further uses. Our social behavior patterns, interior and exterior, have proved a fiasco. The tragic thing is, we neither can nor want, nor have the strength, to alter our course. It's too late for revolutions, and deep down inside ourselves we no longer even believe in their positive effects. Just around the corner an insect world is waiting - and one day it's going to roll over our ultra-individualized existence. Otherwise, I'm a respectable Social Democrat." I am a respectable social democrat!

Norman Rockwell and Rockwellian

Artist: Norman Rockwell publsihed in Saturday Evening Post , May 16, 1959

Dad watches mother and the children parade through the living room on their way to church.

Artist: Barney Tobey published in The New Yorker on 16 July 1960

Dad gets a birthday 'gift' of exercycle from the family. Now, who called it a "happy" and a "gift"?