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Now for our younger viewers - The Hateful Navel Covered Up




Common culture is surely made up of millions and millions of "I's"? Gazing at another persons navel, is that preferable? The self portraits of Van Gogh, Egon Schiele, Rembrandt, Frieda Kahlo, Picasso, Freud all navel nothingness? All the Beatles songs with an "I" in the title?(there are tons of them - i am not a fan of them by the way)............."
On one thing I do agree - magazine and newspaper articles written about the idiot "I" columnists - money for old navel rope. "Today I cleared out my loft, it was such a mess, my cleaner had to dust me down after I spent an hour up there looking at my old school books, did you know in 1979 I got a B in English, I remember I had written an essay on myself....." Something like this regularly appears in The Guardian magazine, dreadful stuff, the hateful "I" was never more hateful.

Comments

camraman64 said…
Precisely – the audience for common culture is made up of individuals – but shouldn’t the message be more universal? (more universal?)...

Self portraits – when did they start? "It is not until the Early Renaissance in the mid 1400s that artists can be frequently identified depicting themselves as either the main subject, or as important characters in their work" - Wikipedia...where did that sensibility come from? And most self-portraits do not fit my stereotype of the self-obsessed artist turning inwards for inspiration - they look out at the viewer, and engage...

Beatles songs - think of some early titles - “She Loves You”; "From Me to You"; "I Want To Hold Your Hand" - all reaching out, engaging – but later, pseudo-shamanic things like Yer Blues and Come Together – what’s that all about? Or to take another “I” song – I am the Walrus? Goo-goo-ga-joob indeed....
Tuesday, 10 November, 2009
The Quiet Busker said…
Goo-goo-ga-joob - can I use that lyric?
Wednesday, 11 November, 2009
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