Necessary Looking

Launched on Nov 29 2006, now 2,500+ 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"... श्रीमंत बाळासाहेब पंतप्रतिनिधी : "बहुश्रुतता असल्याशिवाय सुसंस्कृतता नाही"

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."

Tuesday, March 03, 2020

Saul Steinberg->Ronald Searle ->Mario Miranda...Searle@100

(Based on my post dated December 24 2011)

Mario Miranda:"I’m a keen observer of people. They are generally doing something they should not be doing.”

Wikipedia claims MM considered Ronald Searle (b 1920) his mentor.

Matt J's classy blog dedicated to Mr. Searle's art says:

"a Searle picture is certainly unmistakeable. The human figures are bird-like – stork legs, beaky noses, and pop-eyes that are often shifty or bewildered – their distortions and wispy lines suiting the mood of feverish anarchy. They are drawings whose skill is perhaps concealed in a feeling of rapidity, an impression that they were quickly set down."

Mr. Searle himself has been influenced by great Saul Steinberg (who isn't?).

Look at the following classic:

'Homage au Steinberg'

on the left is Saul Steinberg on a pedestal, standing like Napoleon Bonaparte, and on the right a figure with "bird-like – stork legs, beaky noses, and pop-eyes"!

Do you see figures that are "bird-like – stork legs, beaky noses, and pop-eyes" in MM's picture above?

Sunday, March 01, 2020

...तेव्हां बिंब कें सांगे...Three Reflections

ज्ञानेश्वरी:

"जें जाळ जळीं पांगिलें । तेथ चंद्रबिंब दिसे आंतुडलें ।

परि थडिये काढूनि झाडिलें । तेव्हां बिंब कें सांगे ॥ १३८ ॥"

(Dnyaneshwari: The moon's reflection appears to be caught in a fisherman's net in the sea, but when the net is brought to the shore and shaken, where is the reflection?)

Artist: Saul Steinberg, The New Yorker, October 1977

Artist: David Sipress, The New Yorker, July 2015

Thursday, February 27, 2020

न तथा बाधते शीतं यथा बाधति बाधते....Lay Down, Lie Down

#कुसुमाग्रज१०८ #kusumagraj108 #मराठीभाषादिन

मी लहानपणी भोजराजा -कालिदासाची म्हणून वाचलेली गोष्ट:

एक कालिदासाच्या गावाला भेट देणाऱ्या माणसाने , कालिदासाच्या घराबाहेर थंडीच्या दिवसात सकाळी रांगोळी काढत असणाऱ्या स्त्रीला विचारले की तुला थंडी वाजत नाहीये का?

ते विचारताना त्याने 'बाधणे' या संस्कृत क्रियापदाचे योग्य रूप वापरले नाही.

त्याला उत्तर मिळाले : 'न तथा बाधते शीतं यथा बाधति बाधते'... थंडी अयोग्य व्याकरणाइतकी त्रासदायक नाहीये! त्या कथेबरोबर एक चित्र सुद्धा होते ज्यात रांगोळी काढता , काढता स्त्री वर मान करून ते उत्तर देतीय अस दाखवणार. (मला तो रस्ता आणि अंगण आमच्या मिरजेच्या घरासमोरचे वाटायचे. तशी वाचलेली प्रत्येक गोष्ट मी माझ्या परिचित मिरजेत आणून फिट करायचो म्हणा!)

ह्या बद्दल बरेच लिहण्यासारखे आहे आणि थोडेफार लिहले पण आहे पण हे कार्टून बघून वरील कथा आठवली.

Artist: Harry Bliss

Tuesday, February 25, 2020

मिरजेचे देवाला सोडलेले बेन, बेला, शेरलॉक, सिडनी....Goats of Miraj... With Personality and Stench!

मिरजेला लक्ष्मी मार्केटच्या भागात नेहमी दिसणारे प्राणी म्हणजे देवाला/ दर्ग्याला सोडलेले बोकड. त्यांचा कोणी मालक नसे. त्यांना कोणी मारून खाण्याची भीती नसे. त्यांचे सर्व आयुष्य मिरजेच्या रस्त्यांवर जाई.

मिरज पोस्टाच्या शेजारी (शेट्टींचे?) धान्याचे मोठे दुकान होते. तिथे रस्त्याच्या बाजूलाच उघडलेली धान्याची पोती, गुरांना खायला घालण्यात येणाऱ्या गोष्टी, गुळाच्या ढेपा वगैरे असत. देवाच्या बोकडांना त्या पोत्यात तोंड घालणे या कृती सारखा आनंद दुसऱ्या कुठल्या गोष्टीने होत नसावा. (त्यांना मेटींग करताना पाहिल्याचे फारसे आठवत नाही.) त्यांना हाकलण्यासाठी त्या दुकानात एक सोटा वजा काठी ठेवलेली असे.

ते अर्थात कुठेही तोंड घालत (उदा: भाजीपाला, मोड आलेली कडधान्ये, मंगळवारच्या लोणीबाजारात लोणी/दही) आणि ते इतके मोठे झालेले असत की त्यांची भीती वाटे. शिवाय ते देवाला सोडलेले असल्याने लोक त्यांना फार इजा पोचवत नसत. ते जवळ आल्याचे अर्थात फार लवकर समजे कारण त्यांचा उग्र वास त्यांच्या दर्शनाच्या आधी पोचत असे. तो वास माझ्या नाकपुड्यांत अजून भरून आहे!

काही असो त्या बोकडांनी माझा खूप टाईमपास केला आहे ....कधीतरी त्यांचा किंचित हेवा वाटल्याचेही आठवते...

हे सगळे आठवण्याचे कारण म्हणजे 'दि गार्डियन' जुलै २०१७ मध्ये प्रकाशित झालेला, मला आवडलेला, बोकडांवरचा photo essay. .

Sydney by Artist: Kevin Horan

‘They seem to have a personality. Perhaps they do – and the photograph lets us see it. Or perhaps the language of the photo creates the impression of a personality’

असे पुष्कळ सिडनी मी माझ्या २१वर्षाच्या मिरजेतील वास्तव्यात पहिले आहेत! हो, त्यांना व्यक्तीमत्व नक्कीच होते... आणि वास...

Sunday, February 23, 2020

First Model for Cave Art

Artist: Jason Adam Katzenstein, The New Yorker, July 2015

Friday, February 21, 2020

Sex is Magical But Terrible

“The magic’s still there, but the sex is terrible.”

Artist: Zachary Kanin, The New Yorker, January 2016

Tuesday, February 18, 2020

Haydon's Masterpiece OR A Popular Child Dwarf?....133 To 12,000

Simon Rich, The New York Times, July 26 2018:
"...“Barnum in London,” a devastating work of nonfiction by Raymund Fitzimmons. It’s about two rival exhibits that opened in Piccadilly in 1846. The first was self-funded by an English artist named Benjamin Robert Haydon, who wanted to display his masterpiece, “The Banishment of Aristides,” a giant oil painting he’d been working on for years. The other exhibit was produced by P.T. Barnum and featured Tom Thumb, a popular child dwarf, who wore fun outfits and just kind of walked around the room. Haydon’s exhibit had 133 visitors, Barnum’s had 12,000, and two months later, Haydon killed himself. My heart broke for Haydon, especially since I know, with zero doubt, that if given the choice, I’d have gone to see Tom Thumb...."

Artist: Benjamin Robert Haydon (1786-1846)

P. T. Barnum (1810-1891) training Tom Thumb (1838-1883)

courtesy: Blog "Victorian History"

Sunday, February 16, 2020

विलायती कुनि मुके घेतले !...Patform and Parting

बा सी मर्ढेकर:
"...
कुनि मायेचे निरोप दिधले;
बिडि-माचिस् कुनि इकीत फिरले;
विलायती कुनि मुके घेतले !
..."
(पृष्ठ ४८, क्रमांक ३१, मर्ढेकरांची कविता, १९५९-१९७७)

कलाकार : अनामिक , १९०५

कलाकार : मला माहित नाही , कालखंड: १९४०चे दशक

Friday, February 14, 2020

When Cupid Is Preyed Upon

Today February 14 2019 .....

Artist: Carolita Johnson, unpublished cartoon

Wednesday, February 12, 2020

Pran@100

#Pran100

Today February 12 2020 is 100th birth anniversary of Pran.

Rishi Kapoor & Meena Iyer, 'Khullam Khulla: Rishi Kapoor Uncensored':

"...Pran sa’ab is another veteran actor I have a deep and abiding respect for. In 1997, Dabboo and I approached him to play the role of the grandfather in Aa Ab Laut Chalen, a home production that I directed. I practically pleaded with, telling him that I wanted to begin my career as a director with him in my film, just as I had started my acting career working with him in Bobby. He would be required to film for only six or seven days in Delhi and the weather would be lovely too. I reminded him of his long association with the RK banner and urged him to agree to the role. But he steadfastly refused. He said that if anything happened to him during the filming, he would not be able to face Raj Kapoor. I didn’t understand. Then he explained that his health was failing and if he succumbed to his illnesses midway through the shoot, the continuity would suffer and I would be left stranded. He said, ‘I don’t want to do any more films because I don’t want them to suffer because of me. I am getting on in years. Anything can happen to me anytime.’ Dabboo and I were bowled over by his integrity. Alok Nath played that role eventually..."

प्राण यांचा मला पहिल्यांदा प्रचंड 'राग' आला ब्रह्मचारी (१९६८) बघताना आणि नंतर 'राग' येतच राहिला जंजीर (१९७३) बघेपर्यंत (अपवाद 'नन्हा फरिश्ता', १९६९... 'उपकार', १९६७ वगैरे नंतरच्या वर्षांत पहिले) ....

हिंदी सिनेमात मला चरित्र अभिनेते नायकांपेक्षा जास्त आवडत आलेत त्याचे एक प्रमुख कारण म्हणजे प्राण यांच्या सारखे कलाकार...

With Helen in Gumnaam, 1965

courtesy: Ultra