ऑगस्ट स्ट्रिंडबर्ग , व्हिनसेंट वॅन गो आणि जीए ...एका माळेचे मणी...Aching Nerve, The Bedroom

 जीएंचे ऑगस्ट स्ट्रिंडबर्ग यांच्या वरचे प्रेम आपल्याला माहित आहे- 'पिंगळावेळ'चा एपिग्राफ -
 

"Shallow people demand variety – but I have been writing the same story throughout my life, every time trying to cut nearer the aching nerve"

जीएंचे तेवढेच प्रेम व्हिनसेंट वॅन गो वर होते, आता वॅन गो यांची सवय पहा 

"Van Gogh painted three versions of The bedroom. He often made copies of his own works when he was satisfied with them. He usually planned to sell the new version or give it away.

 In late 1888, Van Gogh was admitted to the hospital because he had injured his ear after an argument with Gauguin. By early 1889 he was back in the ‘Yellow House’ and wrote to Theo, ‘When I saw my canvases again after my illness, what seemed to me the best was the bedroom.’

 When a nearby river flooded, water seeped into Van Gogh’s studio and damaged the painting. Van Gogh sent it to Theo, asking if he could line it with a new canvas. Theo sent it back to Vincent so that he could make a copy first. Vincent did so, in the Saint-Rémy asylum in September 1889. That same month, he made a smaller copy for his mother and his sister Wil.

 Small changes

 Van Gogh changed small details in the copies. In the earliest version, we see two portraits over his bed (as well as one landscape and two drawings or prints). The portraits in the later versions are different. If you look closely, you will find other small differences.

 The paintings over the bed have been identified. They are portraits of the poet Eugène Boch (at left) and Lieutenant Milliet (at right).

 The poet, portrait of Eugène Boch, 1888 Musée d’Orsay, Paris

 The lover (portrait of Lieutenant Milliet), 1888 Collectie Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo, the Netherlands" (Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam)

म्हणजे एकजण दुखऱ्या नसेजवळ जायच्या प्रयत्नात एकच गोष्ट लिहतोय तर दुसरा एक चित्र चांगले उतरलय म्हणून त्याच्या अनेक प्रती काढतोय.... 

पण हे माझे म्हणणे तितकेसे बरोबर नाही कारण वॅन गो प्रत्येकवेळी थोडा थोडा बदल चित्रात करत होते (वरील 'small changes' वाचा) म्हणजे तेही दुखऱ्या नसेजवळ जायच्या प्रयत्नात असायचे! हे सगळे एका माळेचे मणी...

 

सर्वमंगल आनंदी आनंद...H V Mote's Autobiography

फार पूर्वी विकत घेतलेले पुस्तक (त्याच्या दोन प्रती माझ्याकडे चुकून झाल्या आहेत) अलिकडे वाचायला सुरवात केली. प्रकाशक मोटे यांच्या बद्दल मला खूप आदर आहे. त्यांच्या मुळे मला समग्र शेजवलकर लेख, विश्रब्ध शारदा पत्रे अशी पुस्तके संग्रही ठेवून वाचता आली.

हरी विष्णू मोटे:
" १९२८ ते १९३२ च्या सुमारास अनेक कथालेखकांच्या कथा प्रसिद्ध होत. त्यांतील दिवाकर कृष्ण, कुमार रघुवीर, वि. सुखटणकर (सह्याद्रीच्या पायथ्याशी), कमलाबाई टिळक, कृष्णा खरे, बाळूताई खरे, 'कृष्णाबाई' या टोपणनावाने लिहणाऱ्या मुक्ताबाई दीक्षित, या लेखक-लेखिकांच्या कथा मला विशेष आवडत..."

(पृष्ठ ९६, 'हृदयशारदा', 'एक सर्वमंगल क्षिप्रा', १९८०)

हे वाचून मला खूप हसू आले.

बाळूताई खरे म्हणजे विभावरी शिरुरकर सोडले तर मी वरील एकही लेखकाचे पुस्तक पहिले नाही व वाचले नाही. विभावरी शिरुरकर यांना सुद्धा खूप कमी वाचले आहे पण त्यांच्या बद्दल वाचले आहे (मोटे, विश्राम बेडेकर, शेजवलकर यांच्या लेखनात आणि अधूनमधून मराठी वर्तमानपत्रात. मला त्यांच्या लेखनात काहीच विशेष वाटत नाही.)

मला खात्री आहे कदाचित विभावरी शिरुरकर सोडल्यातर एकही लेखकाचे पुस्तक सध्या बाजारपेठेत विकत मिळत नसणार.

मराठीची अवस्था अशी का? 

का हे लेखन इतके सामान्य होते की वर्तमानपत्रासारखे एका महिन्यात रद्दीत घालावे? 

ह्या ऐवजी लोक महाभारत, प्राचीन संस्कृत नाटके, गाथा सप्तशती, ज्ञानेश्वर, नामदेव, एकनाथ, तुकाराम, रामदास वगैरे पुन्हा, पुन्हा का वाचत नव्हते? का हे सगळे आपण पारतंत्र्यात होतो म्हणून? 

पण मग नाट्यछटाकार नाट्यछटाकार दिवाकर, श्री कृ कोल्हटकर, श्री व्यं केतकर, त्र्यं शं शेजवलकर, र  धों कर्वे कसे नाट्यछटा, विनोद किंवा एकाहूनएक उत्तम, द्रष्टे लेख त्या काळात लिहीत होते, जे आजही  उत्सुकतेने वाचावेसे वाटतात?

(btw - मोटे एक दोन वेळा चक्क सांगतात की त्यांनी श्री कृ कोल्हटकर यांचे काही वाचले नव्हते.  म्हणजे हा शिकलेला, तरुण, नवे करू इच्छिणारा प्रकाशक मराठीतील एका सर्वोत्तम लेखकापासून इतका दूर होता!)

 

मुखपृष्ठ बहुतेक द ग गोडसेंचे असावे 

कृतज्ञता : मुखपृष्ठ कलावंताच्या कॉपीराईट होल्डर्स बद्दल

 

पौगंडावस्थेकाळी धरणीकंप...Raquel Welch@80

I wrote on this blog on March 23 2010:

Marathi can be such a vibrant, colourful language! Here is one example.

In my childhood, English movies, released at theatres, had no Hindi subtitles. The knowledge of English was not as widespread as is today. Sound at the cinema was often poor. It was some times hard to even catch Marathi dialogue.

Like most people, I too struggled with English movies. But like English books, I kept trying. (My father used to tell us not to bother about meaning of each word when we first started reading English books. He thought it killed the joy of reading.)

One of the most important tool to promote any film was usage of large billboards and posters. Occasionally the posters were paraded across the city using brass-bands.

I have forgot most of the beautiful girls I came across in real life but not posters of movies! I still remember where all they were hung in Miraj.

The posters of English movies carried Marathi translation of the titles. They often carried a brief summary of the story.

One such memorable title was 'प्रलयकाळी धरणीकंप' (Earthquake on the doomsday). It was translation of 'One Million Years B.C.' (1966)!

I feel Marathi title is better than the English one. It also is far more realistic too because although I don't mind them meeting in delightful comic strip 'B.C.' by Johnny Hart, humans and dinos were separated by millions of years on this planet. (Lucky us!)

I saw the movie in early 1970's at Amar talkies in Miraj. I was attracted to it by its poster and Marathi title.

I liked the film ok. I saw it again a few years ago on TV. 

I don't remember what I liked then: the fight between a Ceratosaurus and a Triceratops- both of them look like caricatures of what we now know they looked like in real- or scantily clad Raquel Welch!

I guess both. All three of them are in the poster below.   I wasn't alone facing that dilemma. 

 courtesy:    Warner-Pathé Distributors, Ltd. (United Kingdom),     Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation (United States)

There is a funny story about the bikini she wore in the film.

Raquel recalled, “When the bikini would get wet, it would stretch, so you’d be coming up and out of the water and there were a lot of strange things going on with it.”

In 2011, Raquel’s deer-skin bikini was included in Time Magazine’s list of ‘Top Ten Bikinis in Pop Culture’. The fur bikini also has its own Wikipedia page: 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fur_bikini_of_Raquel_Welch

 

Wiki informs: "...The publicity shot of Welch from the movie became more famous than the movie itself, becoming a best-selling poster and something of a cultural phenomenon. The image can be recognized by people around the world, even among those who are not familiar with the film..."

54 years later, apparently, she still looks very attractive.

picture is undated but belongs to this century

David Graeber...Do I Feel Cheated 43 Years Later in August 2012?

#DavidGraeber...recycling my post on the late David Graeber dated Aug 29 2012

Martin Wolf, FT, October 2 2012

"What we are now living through is an intense, but narrow, set of innovations in one important area of technology. Does it matter? Yes. We can, after all, see that a decade or two from now every human being will have access to all of the world’s information. But the view that overall innovation is now slower than a century ago is compelling."

J G Ballard:
"The only truly alien planet is Earth."

John Horgan:
"...How can we justify costly missions in space when so many people here on earth lack adequate health care, housing, education and other necessities? Given all our terrestrial troubles, our infatuation with space seems more than ever like escapism..."
(Scientific American, August 26 2012)

If you pay attention to the dialogues of Hindi/ Marathi films from 1960's, you often hear about the prospect of man going to the moon.

I guess it started with US President John F. Kennedy's- who was quite ubiquitous even in India- speech dated May 25, 1961 :

"I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the Earth."

After July 20, 1969, the dialogue changed to man's historic achievement..."We have gone to the moon...what next" etc.

For instance, a line in this Rajesh Khanna/Kishore Kumar/Laxmikant-Pyarelal/Anand Bakshi song from 'Aan Milo Sajna', 1970 reads:

"teri nazar to chaand taaron pe aaj hai" (your sight today is on the moon and the stars.)

courtesy: Shemaroo

Last 43 years have been a kind of letdown.

David Graeber writes in "The Baffler" No. 19
"A secret question hovers over us, a sense of disappointment, a broken promise we were given as children about what our adult world was supposed to be like. I am referring not to the standard false promises that children are always given (about how the world is fair, or how those who work hard shall be rewarded), but to a particular generational promise—given to those who were children in the fifties, sixties, seventies, or eighties—one that was never quite articulated as a promise but rather as a set of assumptions about what our adult world would be like. And since it was never quite promised, now that it has failed to come true, we’re left confused: indignant, but at the same time, embarrassed at our own indignation, ashamed we were ever so silly to believe our elders to begin with.

Where, in short, are the flying cars? Where are the force fields, tractor beams, teleportation pods, antigravity sleds, tricorders, immortality drugs, colonies on Mars, and all the other technological wonders any child growing up in the mid-to-late twentieth century assumed would exist by now? Even those inventions that seemed ready to emerge—like cloning or cryogenics—ended up betraying their lofty promises. What happened to them?

We are well informed of the wonders of computers, as if this is some sort of unanticipated compensation, but, in fact, we haven’t moved even computing to the point of progress that people in the fifties expected we’d have reached by now. We don’t have computers we can have an interesting conversation with, or robots that can walk our dogs or take our clothes to the Laundromat.

As someone who was eight years old at the time of the Apollo moon landing, I remember calculating that I would be thirty-nine in the magic year 2000 and wondering what the world would be like. Did I expect I would be living in such a world of wonders? Of course. Everyone did. Do I feel cheated now? It seemed unlikely that I’d live to see all the things I was reading about in science fiction, but it never occurred to me that I wouldn’t see any of them."

Artist: Mark S Fisher

What about the future as we see it today...where are we going?

ADAM FRANK:
"Short of a scientific miracle of the kind that has never occurred, our future history for millenniums will be played out on Earth and in the “near space” environment of the other seven planets, their moons and the asteroids in between. For all our flights of imagination, we have yet to absorb this reality. Like it or not, we are probably trapped in our solar system for a long, long time. We had better start coming to terms with what that means for the human future...

...The truth is we propel ourselves into space using much the same physics as the Chinese played with when they discovered what we came to call gunpowder more than 1,400 years ago. Blowing stuff up under us is just about the only way we know how to travel through the void.

But what we’ve learned in doing so brings me, as an adult and as an astrophysicist, to the hardest and most inconvenient truth of all। While our children’s children’s great-grandchildren will live with ever more powerful technology, they will also live ever more intimately with ever more billions of others in this, our corner of the cosmos. Looking back and forward, my bets are now on that same human genius, ambition and hope to rise to the occasion. We will have no other choice. There will be nowhere else to go for a very long time."

(The New York Times, 24 Jul 2012)

But why should we despair?

Taking in droplets of water, poet B S Mardhekar (बा सी मर्ढेकर) stood on the banks of the majestic Ganges in Patna, Bihar and told his God:

"असशील जेथे तिथे रहा तू,
हा इथला मज पुरे फवारा !"

(You stay where you are,
for me sprinkling here will do !)

I am content with the light reaching me from the moon and the stars.