John Lahr’s speech on Comedy and Revenge

Verbatim notes taken while listening to John Lahr’s speech about COMEDY AND REVENGE.

Speaking of the old comedians of the beginning of the industrial age:

They were LOSERS in the land of plenty. Desperation fed their urgency.

They had no economic security. They were restless, had no education…

They were punished by the possibility of being told they were equal but having no way to each achieve it.

They became their own capital.

And they mocked the sources that oppressed them

They were physically unattractive
– comedy like American life is about conquest
– the clowns enacted the infantile wish to prevail

Listen to the show here

Michael Parks - Visions of God

Hey an ex-student of mine, Michael Parks, has gone off the deep end and is composing new cosmic graphic novels/imagery about god, the universe and everything. He’s exploring all this stuff in a very strange, cool, self-posessed way. Check out his new GN, Visions of God, here.

Japanese Children’s Book Art from the 20s

Look at this link of Japanese children’s book illustration from the 20s.

Ron Mueck Sculptures

I’m a complete knucklehead so I don’t know who Ron Mueck is, but these simple sculptures are so moving to me. I’m a cartoonist because I like a certain thing very much- that certain thing is presenting people with something simplified, something exaggerated, something out of whack. Puppets move funny, their features are hard, forceful, strange. Cartoons (mine anyway) are about people just a little more rambunctuous, a bit uglier looking and a bit sillier. The exaggeration in these sculptures immediately puts them in that realm of cartoons and puppets. A simple change that gives us a new type of human to react to. I love it.

(A digression: drama doesn’t change its presentation of people. Drama is fast, intense, short- not meandering like life. But it’s the STORY that is changed, exaggerated. It’s the story that changes, but the people are just like life, if you’re lucky. )

A good arguement for bringing back the bomb

What’s Been Frying My Fucking Brain

Why Hart doesn’t let me post enough is cause he’s retarded, slow and rots his brain listening to old Genesis records instead of digging into what’s truly wicked awesome about this world of his. So, since he’s forgotten, a small list of shit we’ve been digging here at CHEZ OSWALD.

• Ludwig Bemelman’s book re-released But try to find THE BEST OF TIMES, which Hart and Corman bought for Matt Madden for his birthday.
• Dog Day Afternoon ROCKED. Nora made me watch it. I didn’t want to see another goddamn show about New York City in the 70s. Boo-hoo big deal it’s not how it was in the good old mosquito-ridden, trash strike days. But it’s a brilliant movie.
• I’m convinced Deadwood is the best show ever on TV. Hutch wants me to add “next to MASH” but he’s a sap who’s at this moment rocking out to Genesis and drinking old cheap wine. Doesn’t take much to make a dude from the sticks happy.
• I didn’t go to the Goya show at the FRICK though I TRIED TWICE YOU FUCKERS!! Next time you have a goddamn GOYA SHOW don’t have it in some jackass’s basement bachelor pad. Well now it’s over and I’ll have to track them all down in Spain or something.
• Enjoying Nathan Englander’s bookthough I don’t see it is the masterpiece everyone else did. I enjoyed SIGHTSEEING by Rattawut Lapcharoensap easily as much.
• How about drawings of horses by Jacques Callot
• OR DAUMIER?!
• Hart wants me to mention Sergio Toppi whom he was told about by Walt Simonson. Toppi is a master of value, supposedly. As if Hart knows anything except moving ink around with his feet, it seems like.

Recent great line from Nora: “Is it written in the BIBLE that I missed somehwere that it’s your sacred DUTY to BUG THE SHIT OUT OF PEOPLE?!”

Ok peace out.

Hart can’t be trusted

Hart’s blowing this. So I will do it. I will tell my memoirs. And do what bloggers do best, that is, tell their opinions on shit. And oh- do I have opinions. For god’s sake. This whole ball of wax ain’t spitting me off it until I get to dip my toe into damn every sector and sect I can. SOMETIMES I AM CONFRONTED BY THE WHOLE SCORE! And Hutch can’t take it. SOMETIMES I LIKE TO GET IN BEHIND THE CURTAIN- backstage pass, free mussles and clam and booze and hotel rooms you can expense, and wine and cigars, and what- you gonna miss that? You gonna miss out on that cause you are so freakin CONCERNED that the rest of the world isn’t enjoying itself? You gonna worry the whole time that the world is so sad, so broken, so unable to enjoy the fruits of the west? Tough tacos!

Listen- I’ve been to 14 countries and I’ve dragged H to 3 or 4. My grandmother left me a trust to hang on to- to do this, to keep me thriving. You gonna waste that? You can whine that the world needs help- yes, Hutch - you and Bono can go traipsing around. He can’t get what he wants, what can a bum like you do?

Listen- there are places in the world that are so magnificent, there are people so glowingly odd or beautiful, there are thousands upon thousands of miles of the strangest, interesting stuff -more than you can conceive of, Hutchatio, you nitwit.

I ain’t screaming, I’m blogging baby. And I’ll tell you every damn time who is wonderful, what rocks, what this goddamn world is made of.

Today: Thomas Eakins
Beauford Delaney and Washington Phillips

Go now.