I'll write about the bounced commies and Luke Short's new western some other time. For now I want you to focus solely on Norman Rockwell's illustration. The people pictured seem realistically rendered, don't they? That's partly due to Rockwell's skill as a painter, especially his almost photographic attention to detail, and partly because, well, they're real people. The woman doing the hugging is Rockwell's second wife Mary. The young man she's embracing and who's back is turned to us is Jarvis Rockwell, her and Norman's oldest son. On the far-left edge of the painting, in glasses, is youngest son Peter. And the exuberant lad in the plaid shirt right behind Mary is middle son Thomas. The man with the pipe who seems to be looking on at the scene taking place with amused curiosity is none other than the family patriarch, Norman himself. The family that models together stays together.
Yet according to Deborah Solomon's 2013 biography, American Mirror: The Life and Art of NormanRockwell, this was anything but a model family. Rockwell was insecure about just about everything but his chosen profession. And even then, he was more secure doing commercial art--which a SaturdayEvening Post cover basically is--than the type of art found in galleries and museums, which in his case turned out to be the same thing but the latter not realized until very late in his life. This insecurity led to him maintaining a certain aloof distance from family and friends, and family at least paid a price for this aloofness, most notably wife Mary, who developed a serious drinking problem that repeatedly landed her in and out of the hospital. Eventually the whole family ended up in therapy. The illustration itself doesn't truly reflect on the Rockwell family's 1948 Christmas. Norman spent the holiday in Los Angeles--as a kind of personal getaway, while the rest of the family stayed behind in Vermont.
Does that make the above illustration a lie? Not necessarily. It could have taken place during a different Christmas. Or just as likely, Rockwell may have witnessed somebody else's family reunion, and just replaced that other person's family members with his own, achieving in art what his own insecurities prohibited him from doing in life. Whatever the reason or whatever happened, it's worth remembering that imperfect people and imperfect families, both of which there are a great deal many, have to find ways to make it through a holiday season in which the perfected art of happiness is practically a moral mandate. Enjoy the eggnog and brush strokes.
Enough of that. I don't want to ruin your holiday. So I'll turn my attention to the woman pictured above, who is also in the Rockwell illustration. Turns out she was an...
Christmas at Home (1946)
...artist herself.
That's right, it's Grandma Moses. Born in 1860, the farmer's widow didn't take up painting until age seventy-six. Completely self-taught (thus a "primitive" artist) she produced pictures of what she termed "old-timey" New England. One of these pictures ended up hung in a rural drug store, where a big city art collector out for a drive in the country saw it. Soon after a collection of her works hung in the gallery of an Austrian refugee who had run afoul of the Nazis for the twin crimes of being Jewish and advocating modern art. That was waaay different from anything that happened to Grandma Moses in old-timey New Hampshire, but no matter, soon she went from folk art to what might be called fine art, though the style remained basically the same, only now exhibited in different venues. As she became more well-known, Grandma Moses became a pop culture figure as well, thanks in large part to Hallmark cards, which reproduced her paintings on a series of popular greeting cards.
Norman Rockwell, himself a pop culture figure with a line of Hallmark greeting cards, helps Grandma Moses cut a cake celebrating her 88th birthday. The whole thing was a PR stunt dreamed up by a Hallmark exec. It certainly made sense to pair the two, who had just met. Though their artistic styles, and perhaps their artistic sensibilities, differed, what both of them offered the greeting card consumer was that much sought-after commodity: warmth. And wouldn't you know it that a genuine warmth did develop between the two? They became friends. Not best friends. The age difference (he was thirty-four years her junior) and Rockwell's own aforementioned aloofness, got in the way of that, but for a while Grandma Moses was part of his social circle, and as with anyone part of his social (and familial) circle, it eventually got her on The Saturday Evening Post. Not that Grandma Moses needed his help getting on the...
Trump has suggested that Canada become the 51st state in our union. Does that mean that we can adopt the Canadian health care system and guarantee health care to all, lower the cost of prescription drugs, and spend 50% less per capita on health care? I'm all for it.
The last time I posted was the day before the presidential election. Some of you may have been wondering why I haven't posted since then. I just haven't had the time. You see, I've been busy...
...sulking. Well, maybe more than sulking. OK, I don't have wings (or curves), but this is pretty much the way I've felt lately. Obviously, things didn't go the way I had hoped.
But I'm not sulking anymore! I picked myself up and brushed myself off and found a way to deal with the political calamity that has now befallen our country. Take a gander:
Um, I'm suddenly hearing murmurs of disapproval.
See? Margaret Forster (author of Georgy Girl) has my back!
Now that we've established that it's wonderful, what's the best way to escape the horrors of topicality? Well, one tried-and-true method is a...
...Hays Office-approved old Hollywood movie:
Ah, what a diversion--What's that? You don't feel like you were escaping anything? What you need is a strong dose of silliness, and you can't get much sillier than this...
... BNL (before Norman Lear)-era situation comedy:
After watching that, you very well can't say your current affairs anxieties haven't all been swept away.
Huh? THEY HAVEN'T? Obviously, a stronger broom is needed. So instead of silliness, I'll provide you with some downright mindless...
...slapstick:
HAHAHAHAHAHA! I'm lost in laughter, without a world-historical care in the world, and I'm sure you are too.
What do you mean your world-historical cares have increased? Boy, what a tough crowd.
All right, as one last resort, I want you all to escape into the innocence of childhood. Specifically, those nights when your mother or father would read you a...
...bedtime story:
There! I knew that would do it. Now you can puff up the pillow, pull up the blanket, and dream of a world devoid of any kind of news other than box scores and celebrity gossip. Isn't escapism wonderful?
Oh, there's still one naysayer out there, telling me I'm being irresponsible, that I should confront reality, not run away from it.
Look, naysayer, I never said I was planning to escape forever, just temporarily. And as far as confronting reality goes, I'll have you know that in order to have a better understanding of the election results, I've been reading this book:
So far nothing about fellating a microphone, but maybe that's in a later edition.
The monsters weren't intended to be gay, except possibly when director James Whale was behind the lens, but they read as gay to me. For me and my fellow queer youth growing up in the gay-intolerant era of the mid-twentieth century, these monsters spoke to our lives. That they flourished in marvelous gothic fantasy films, some brillant, most ridiculous, all imagination-stirring, only made them more special.
Hollywood's message may have seemed clear: You're gay; you're a monster. The villagers must huntyoudown and destroy you. However, there was a more subversive underside to them. Almost without exception the monsters are presented sympathetically: Frankenstein's Monster was a lonely innocent, persecuted for existing, and good with children (some of the time). And there was his enormousschvancestucker. The Wolfman was a heroic fellow who acquired a cursed life when he came to the aid of a damsel in distress. Even soulless Dracula is often presented as a lonely, isolated figure seeking love, burdened by a curse acquired in defense of his country. The villagers are usually frightened, ignorant yahoos, with a hair-trigger lynch-mob response to almost any stimulus.
These movies said to me, It is intolerant society that is wrong. Hang in there. Fight the good fight. If you get enough sequels, eventually everyone will love you. Once Abbott and Costello show up, you're home free.
There is hope.
--Douglas McEwan, The Q Guide to Classic Monster Movies
The "enourmous schvancestucker," that Mr. McEwan refers to is not a direct or even an indirect quote from any classic monster movie made in the 1930s or '40s, but rather uttered by the winsome young woman pictured above in a classic monster comedy from the 1970s. Her name is Teri Garr, and as a trick instead of a treat I'll leave it up to you to come up with the name of that movie.