Much More Than Lip Service!...Risking Lives To Get That Perfect Smile...

 

  artist: Arthur Getz, The New Yorker, March 1952

Helen E. Hokinson As Ceramic Potter

For me, Her Highness Helen E. Hokinson has been one of the greatest cartoonists ever....

often I see her seemingly obscure cartoon of almost 100 years ago and laugh incessantly....

here is another beautiful side of Ms. HEH....

 

 This playful ceramic was crafted by Helen Hokinson. Her cartoons humorously portrayed matronly suburban women facing the problems of modern life from a female point of view—a feminist stance which though humorous, often had serious undertones. Her ceramics were essentially three-dimensional extensions of these cartoons. 

This sculpture shows a rather stout woman paddling a small canoe that is aptly named “Butterball.” Neither her dress nor hat, much less her ample figure, stop her from partaking in this physical exercise. Originally this sculpture had as its companion an equally stout woman carrying a sign asking for the return of beer—a rather comic response to the deprivations of Prohibition.

Salad Eating For Nothing

Laura Collins:

“It’s a tragedy that we’ve developed this moralistic, restrictive and unhappy relationship with eating, I think it is making kids nutty, it’s sucking the life out of our relationship with food.”

Chris  Petit:
“If capitalism continues uninterrupted, then the cure of self-restraint will become another commercial facet of consumerism, like weight-watching or dieting or healthy eating - just another giant business in its own right. “

John Gray:

"Forget about immortalizing yourself.  Don’t waste money.  Don’t waste time.  Don’t waste thought or anxiety on having yourself frozen or your brain frozen.  

Don’t curtail all your everyday enjoyments for the sake of a rigorous diet which is what (Ray) Kurzweil among others has written.  He has in fact written a diet book with this very goal in mind and if you follow this rather radical diet you’ll live long enough to become immortal because you’ll live long enough for the Singularity in which believes, this explosion of knowledge and technology will occur.  Forget about all that." 
 

Artist: Lila Ash, The New Yorker, December 2019

Charles Barsotti@90

#CharlesBarsotti90

Dev Anand@100...कोणी अमरपट्टा घेऊन आले असेल तर ते देव आनंद!

#DevAnand100

Roger Ebert: 

“Hollywood dialogue was once witty, intelligent, ironic, poetic, musical. Today it is flat. It sometimes seems as if the movies are more mediocre than ever, more craven and cowardly, more skillfully manufactured to pander to the lowest tastes instead of educating them.”

 मला वाटले होते, जगात कोणी अमरपट्टा घेऊन आले असेल तर ते देव आनंद असतील. पण ते एखाद्या सामान्य माणसाप्रमाणे वयाच्या 'केवळ' ८८व्या वर्षी वारले. 

पण २०व्या शतकातील हिंदी सिनेमा आणि त्याच्या संबंधित अनेक लोकांप्रमाणे ते माझ्या जीवनाचा भाग आजही आहेत. 

स्वातंत्र्यापूर्वी पूर्वीच्या पिंढ्यांनी पाहिलेली बहुतेक स्वप्ने ('जागते रहो' मध्ये दाखवल्याप्रमाणे) चकणाचुर झाली  पण त्याजागी हिंदी सिनेमाने अनेक नवीन स्वप्ने दिली. भारतातील गरिबी आणि इतर अनेक प्रश्नांवर तोडगा काय असेल तर सिनेमा (विशेषतः हिंदी) आणि त्यातील संगीत.

ते देणाऱ्यांमध्ये देव आनंद एक प्रमुख होते. 

त्यांच्या दोन तीन गोष्टी मला उठून दिसत आल्या- त्यांचे आईवरचे प्रेम , त्यांचे उच्च शिक्षण, त्यांचे आणीबाणीच्या सुमारास काही काळच  टिकलेले राजकारण आणि १९७१ सालापर्यंत त्यांच्या सिनेमातील विविधता. 

१९७८ नंतर मी त्यांचा एकही नवा सिनेमा पहिला नाही पण माझा त्यांच्यातील इंटरेस्ट १९७१ सालच्या त्यांच्या सिनेमांनंतर संपला होता.  १९७०च्या विजय आनंदच्या आणि त्यांच्या जॉनी मेरा नामची जादू अजून माझ्यावर आहे, माझ्या मुलाला सुद्धा तो सिनेमा प्रचंड आवडतो.

 

गीता बाली आणि रशीद खान यांच्या समवेत , १९५१ च्या सुमारास

 

कलाकार : आर के लक्ष्मण

एकच प्याला...Will That Be All, Sir?

  Artist: Peter Arno

...But Already It Was Impossible to Say Which Was Which...George Orwell, Charles Addams, Animal Farm

 George Orwell, Animal Farm, 1945:

"..."Gentlemen," concluded Napoleon, "I will give you the same toast as before, but in a different form. Fill your glasses to the brim. Gentlemen, here is my toast: To the prosperity of The Manor Farm! "

There was the same hearty cheering as before, and the mugs were emptied to the dregs. But as the animals outside gazed at the scene, it seemed to them that some strange thing was happening. What was it that had altered in the faces of the pigs? Clover's old dim eyes flitted from one face to another. Some of them had five chins, some had four, some had three. But what was it that seemed to be melting and changing? Then, the applause having come to an end, the company took up their cards and continued the game that had been interrupted, and the animals crept silently away.

But they had not gone twenty yards when they stopped short. An uproar of voices was coming from the farmhouse. They rushed back and looked through the window again. Yes, a violent quarrel was in progress. There were shoutings, bangings on the table, sharp suspicious glances, furious denials. The source of the trouble appeared to be that Napoleon and Mr. Pilkington had each played an ace of spades simultaneously.

Twelve voices were shouting in anger, and they were all alike. No question, now, what had happened to the faces of the pigs. The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which."

 

Artist: Charles, Addams, The New Yorker

व्हॅन घो चे पोटॅटो इटर्स आणि माझी आई...Vincent van Gogh's Most Successful Painting and My Mother

दुसरे जेवण मिळेलच असे नाही, अशा सांपत्तिक स्थितीत त्या काळी संसार करणारी माझी आई मला सांगत असे - मिरजेत देवल टॉकीज मध्ये पडद्यावर गरम बटाटे खाणारी माणसे इंग्लिश सिनेमात (Dr. Zhivago) पाहून तिला तिच्या भुकेची जाणीव झाली...

त्यावेळेस ती बहुदा गर्भवती होती... 

त्यामुळे व्हॅन घो चे हे चित्र पाहून नेहमी मला माझी आई आठवते... 

 The Potato Eaters, 1885

Meghadūta & Romeo and Juliet...Two Tears For...

 

No Love, No Patriotism, No Enterprise, No Religion....GA and Lucretius

ह्या ब्लॉगवरील मार्च २६ २०१८ची पोस्ट पहा. (लुक्रीशस, जीए आणि अणुंचे एकमेकावर आपोआप आदळणे.....Lucretius, GA and How the World Became Modern)

लुक्रीशस (१५ ऑक्टोबर इ. स पू ९९- इ. स पू ५५) यांचे 'ऑन दी नेचर ऑफ थिंग्ज' हे पुस्तक वाचून जी. एं. म्हणतात: "...स्वच्छ, जळजळीत दृष्टीने Lucretius ने केलेला देव, देवता, भाबड्या कल्पना यांचा विध्वंस मला आवडला होता...". (पृष्ठ २४८, 'जी. एं.ची निवडक पत्रे', खंड २, १९८८)\

जॉन ग्रे सांगतात की लुक्रीशस यांचा समाचार Santayana कसा घेतात ते:

"... Santayana professed himself a disciple of Lucretius. But it was Lucretius’ materialism he admired, not the Roman poet’s rejection of religion. Epicurean spirituality, Santayana wrote, was ‘fumbling, timid and sad’. He thought Epicurus was too concerned with the avoidance of pain and extended this criticism to Epicurus’ most famous disciple: ‘Lucretius’ notion of what is positively worthwhile or attainable is very meagre: freedom from superstition, with so much natural science as may secure that freedom, friendship, and a few cheap and healthful animal pleasures. No love, no patriotism, no enterprise, no religion.’..."
('Seven Types of Atheism')