“Orson Scott Card offers a Christmas gift to his millions of fans
with A War of Gifts …. The War over Santa Claus will force
everyone to make a choice.” — Publisher’s description
” ‘Peace on Earth, good will toward brats,’ said Peter. ”
— Orson Scott Card, “Ender’s Stocking” in A War of Gifts
From a story about mathematician Emmy Noether and 1882, the year she was born—
"People were then slowly becoming 'modern'— fortunately they had finally discovered not just that there are no Easter bunnies and Santa Claus, but also that there probably never were women who were led to evil ways by their curiosity and ended up, depending on their level of education, as common witches, as 'wiccans,' or as those particularly mysterious 'benandanti.'"
"… in the Balkans people believe that the souls of the dead rise to heaven in the guise of butterflies."
— "The Fairytale of the Totally Symmetrical Butterfly," by Dietmar Dath, in Intoxicating Heights (Eichborn AG, Frankfurt 2003)
An insect perhaps more appropriate for the afternoon of Good Friday— the fly in the logo of Dath's publisher—
Related material— Holy Saturday of 2004 and Wittgenstein and the Fly Bottle.
(After clicking, scroll down to get past current post.)
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ART WARS
Continued from
Nov. 25, 2005
From today’s New York Times:
A review of a current Manhattan art exhibition—
“It begins with a juxtaposition of early body-oriented videos by Mr. Nauman and Paul McCarthy, who, quickly following Mr. Nauman’s lead, was in his studio in Los Angeles videotaping home-alone performance pieces by 1970. The contrast is pure Apollo-versus-Dionysus.”
More on Paul McCarthy from artandculture.com:
“If you walk into a room and find everything you held dear in childhood degraded, chances are it’s a Paul McCarthy installation. McCarthy is known for shocking, sexually charged pieces that feature benign cartoon and pop-culture characters — Olive Oyl and Santa Claus, among others — in a bacchanalia of blood and feces.
The 1974 video ‘Hot Dog’ shoots to the heart of the adolescent ‘gross-out’ as McCarthy tapes his penis into a hot dog bun, then packs his pie hole full of franks and wraps himself in gauze. Another piece from the 70s called ‘Sailor’s Meat’ finds the artist dressed as a blonde hooker smeared with blood and ‘knowing’ a pile of raw meat….
Critics often compare his work with that of the Viennese Actionists whose performances were also characterized by gore, raw sexuality, and abused food.”
Related material:
The Wiener Kreis in
yesterday’s 1:06 PM entry
and the five entries
ending the afternoon of
Nov. 25, 2005.
For an approach to art
more in the spirit of Apollo
than of Dionysus, see
Geometry for Jews.
But seriously…
The Matrix:
Click on pictures for details.
In memory of George T. Davis,
who died on February 4,
a Hollywood ending:
“Santa Claus rides alone.”
— Clint Eastwood
See also
Russell Crowe as Santa’s helper,
Communion, and the subsequent
Playing God: The Color of Collateral.
From “Collateral“–
FELIX: Do you believe
in Humpty Dumpty?
MAX: No.
FELIX: Do you believe
in Santa Claus?
MAX: No.
FELIX: Neither do I.
But my children do.
They are still small.
But do you know who they like
even better than Santa Claus?
His helper, Pedro Negro. Black Peter.
There’s an old Mexican tale that tells
of how Santa Claus got so very busy
looking out for the good children
that he had to hire some help
to look out for the bad children.
So he hired Pedro.
And Santa Claus gave him a list….
Santa’s Wit
Edmund Gwenn, actor, died on September 6, 1959.
When asked if he thought dying was tough, Gwenn reportedly said,
“Yes, it’s tough, but not as tough as doing comedy.”
This may or may not be true; if it is, Gwenn may be the true source of a quotation variously attributed to Edmund Kean, Edwin Booth, David Garrick, Donald Wolfit, William Holden, and Groucho Marx, Marcel Marceau, Noel Coward, and Oscar Wilde:
“Dying is easy. Comedy is hard.”
A very dubious version of the Gwenn story attributes the “comedy is hard” part to Jack Lemmon:
The lesson is best illustrated in a story involving Jack Lemmon, whose best work was in comedy. He visited the British actor Edmund Gwenn, suffering in a hospital. Gwenn is said to have lifted the flap on the oxygen tent and said, ”It’s really tough to die.” And Lemmon responded, ”It’s not as tough as doing comedy.”
— Elvis Mitchell in The New York Times Week in Review, Sunday, August 25, 2002
David Bruce, an English instructor at Ohio University, supplies another version of the Gwenn story, from Movie Anecdotes, by Peter Hay. New York: Oxford University Press, 1990:
Edmund Gwenn won an Oscar playing Santa Claus in the movie Miracle on 34 Street. As he lay dying, Jack Lemmon visited him and asked if dying was dead. [sic] Gwenn replied, “Oh, it’s hard, very hard indeed. But not as hard as doing comedy.”
Santa might appreciate the above misprint, as would Vladimir Nabokov…
“Life Everlasting–based on a misprint!”
— Pale Fire
and John Donne…
“And death shall be no more, Death, thou shalt die.”
— Holy Sonnets
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