Unfit or inexcusably stupid

Tuesday, September 29, 2020

Here are a few frames from the Gene Deitch’s animated version of “The Emperor’s New Clothes.” The original Hans Christian Andersen story is essential reading for understanding our times, but, as I have noted before, you must pay close attention to the ending. I would also point out that in the Nunnally translation, the emperor’s new clothes are invisible to anyone “unfit for his position or inexcusably stupid.” (Show me a fairy tale more on-the-nose!)

False lines

Saturday, March 14, 2020

After doing a lot of blind contour drawings I’ve started noticing when I make false lines — lines that seem like they should be there, but aren’t based on actual looking.

This happened last night when I was watching a William Kentridge documentary and found myself filling in features on his face after the screen switched from a shot of him talking.

It’s not about a line not looking right, exactly, a false line does not feel right when you make it.

Once you train yourself to notice false lines and that icky feeling you get from making them, you push yourself to go back to looking harder.

There must be a correlation here with writing. We use the same term — “lines” — to describe units of words across the page.

How do we know when we’ve written a false line?

The season of lies

Wednesday, August 1, 2018

Back home after two weeks on the road with the kids. No new epiphanies, only fortified beliefs:

1. Traveling with young children is not a “vacation” it is a “trip.”

The sooner you understand and accept this the sooner you can lower your expectations accordingly. My kids are, I think, wonderful travelers, and even so, traveling with them is beyond exhausting.

2. Photos can say whatever we want them to say.

Instagram lies. If you follow me on Instagram, it probably looked like I was having the time of my life. Nope! There was a lot of eye candy to be had, but a large majority of the trip was pretty miserable.

I found myself thinking a lot about Errol Morris’s book, Believing Is Seeing: Observations on the Mysteries of Photography, and how he summarized it in these handy 8 points:

All photographs are posed.
The intentions of the photographer are not recorded in a photographic image. (You can imagine what they are, but it’s pure speculation.)
Photographs are neither true nor false. (They have no truth-value.)
False beliefs adhere to photographs like flies to flypaper.
There is a causal connection between a photograph and what it is a photograph of. (Even photoshopped images.)
Uncovering the relationship between a photograph and reality is no easy matter.
Most people don’t care about this and prefer to speculate about what they beleive about a photograph.
The more famous a photograph is, the more likely it is that people will claim it has been posed or faked.

If you’re sitting around this summer scrolling Instagram seething with jealousy over vacation photos, remember what Mary Karr says: “Don’t make the mistake of comparing your twisted-up insides to people’s blow-dried outsides.” You have no idea what kind of time anybody’s having. Images are nothing without context.

If you love summer and summer vacation, I’m happy for you. For me, it’s the season of lies. Best to pour some iced tea, crack a book, and wait for it to pass.

(Happy to be back, BTW. Will write a more upbeat post tomorrow!)