The Ithaca "savage" incident.

From a NYT article, "Racial Discrimination Protests Ignite at Colleges Across the U.S.":

At Ithaca [College], one of the issues is the on-campus panel on Oct. 8, in which Tatiana Sy, a 2009 graduate, said she had a “savage hunger” to do everything in college. Another panelist, J. Christopher Burch, the chief executive of Burch Creative Capital who is also an alumnus, responded, “I love what the savage here said,” according to YouTube clips of the event. The moderator, Bob Kur, a former NBC News correspondent, joined in, pointing to Mr. Burch, saying, “You are driven,” and pointing to Ms. Sy and saying, “You’re the savage.” The men are both white, and Ms. Sy describes herself as Afro-Cuban. When Ms. Sy objected, Mr. Burch said, “It’s a compliment.”...

Whether this incident justifies protest is up for debate, but I just want to say that, reading that, I was leaning toward blogging that it's sad that we've lost the freedom to play with language. But then I watched the video.

This is, for me, a very striking example of video making an impression that the standard fact-orient text of journalism fails to convey:



That man really is doing something quite offensive. Perhaps he has no awareness of it, but I suspect that he uses that style to achieve his professional ends all the time. He's the chief executive of Burch Creative Capital! I'm sure he feels at ease in his skin, exercising power, experiencing dominance. He doesn't merely flip the "savage hunger" language into a playful epithet, "the savage." He calls her a "girl," and she is consistently amiable, even when she finally, and in a very friendly way, voices a small objection to being called "the savage." She says, laughing, "All right, I mean." That's all! He then reaches out and pats her on her bare arm.

And all the while he's lolling back in his chair with his big, red-panted legs extended and crossed. You can see that he's trying to regain his grounding as his big foot flaps a tad desperately. But he doesn't sit up, he doesn't show any awareness that he's been diminishing her and that it isn't fun for her. His red pant leg is hiked halfway up his shin, he's not wearing socks, and the flapping foot is wearing a greenish slip-on shoe. He's so comfortable being himself there, and she's supposed to get it and like it. And she knows that too. She can't stop giggling and helping him feel good about himself.

I can see the reason for protesting, for reaching back to her, there, exposed on that stage, and to support her and to make him feel uncomfortable for a change.

R. Crumb on Adam and Eve and his deal with a publisher to draw a comic of all of Genesis.

The word "stupid" comes up twice...



... Adam and Eve were stupid and so was that deal (because there's a lot more in Genesis than the vivid tale of Adam and Eve... and he's not really happy with the way he decided to draw God). Nice little video with a view into his work space (in France (not the one in the great old documentary)). Not really safe for work, of course, Adam and Eve being naked (until they realized they were naked).

Here's the book in case you don't already have it.

AND: There's an interview here. Excerpt:

"The hippie culture of Haight-Ashbury, where it all started for me, was full of men doing nothing all day and expecting women to bring them food. The ‘chick’ had to provide a home for them, cook meals for them, even pay the rent. It was still very much ingrained from the earlier patriarchal mentality of our fathers, except that our fathers, generally, were providers. Free love meant free sex and food for men. Sure, women enjoyed it, too, and had a lot of sex, but then they served men. Even among left-wing political groups, women were always relegated to secretarial, menial jobs. We were all on LSD, so it took a few years for the smoke to dissipate and for women to realize what a raw deal they were getting with the ne’er-do-well hippie male. Men who acquired preeminence at the time were all frauds, fake gurus who were paying lip service to peace and love, charismatic cons who just wanted to fuck all their adoring disciples. Timothy Leary was like that. A big phony."

ADDED: I was interested that Crumb drew a cover for The New Yorker on the subject of gay marriage that the magazine never published.  I'd like to see it! And: "The America that I missed died in about 1935... In the U.S [in the 1920s] there were thousands and thousands of bands, dance halls, ballrooms in hotels, restaurants had dance floors, school auditoriums, clubs in small towns. A small town of 10,000 would have a least a hundred bands. In the mid 30’s radio spread very fast in America and the depression killed a lot of the venues where live music was performed. You could go to the movies for 10 cents. Then in the 50’s TV finished it all off. Mass media makes you stay home, passive. In the 20’s there was live music everywhere in the States.... The current pop music in the Western world is just plain god-awful. America is long gone. The ’80s killed it for me. The Reagan era, AIDS. It was an awful decade."

MORE: You can see The New Yorker cover here, and it's pretty obvious that it's not at the right taste level. 

"[New Yorker editor David] Remnick would not give the reason for rejecting the cover, either to the cover editor, or to me. For this reason I refuse to do any more work for the New Yorker. I felt insulted, not so much by the rejection as for the lack of any reason given. I can't work for a publication that won't give you any guidelines or criterion for accepting or rejecting a work submitted. Does the editor want to keep you guessing or what? I think part of the problem is the enormous power vested in the position of chief editor of the New Yorker. He has been ‘spoiled' by the power that he wields. So many artists are so eager to do covers for the New Yorker that they are devalued in the eyes of David Remnick. They are mere pawns. He is not compelled to take pains to show them any respect. Any artist is easily replaced by another. Fortunately for me, I do not feel that I need the New Yorker badly enough to put up with such brusque treatment at the hands of its editor-in-chief. The heck with him!"

Crumb said that back in 2011. In the new interview, he's still pissed off at Remnick.

"This painting leaps off the page as the most vibrant, sexual, lyrical..."

A description of the Modigliani nude that sold for  $170.4 million at a Christie's auction that was organized on the theme "Artist's Muse" — or, as it looks to me, women painted by men... except that Andy Warhol painted a gun.

I thought the description "leaps off the page as the most vibrant, sexual, lyrical" was a funny way to talk about a lady who's totally lounging, not leaping.

As for Andy's gun, one dealer cracked: "Warhol 'Gun' painting? How was that his muse? But if they can get away with it, good luck to them.”

Playboy gets rid of the pictures of naked ladies — because they're "just passé."

"As part of a redesign that will be unveiled next March, the print edition of Playboy will still feature women in provocative poses. But they will no longer be fully nude."

Its executives admit that Playboy has been overtaken by the changes it pioneered. “That battle has been fought and won,” said Scott Flanders, the company’s chief executive. “You’re now one click away from every sex act imaginable for free. And so it’s just passé at this juncture.”

For a generation of American men, reading Playboy was a cultural rite, an illicit thrill consumed by flashlight. Now every teenage boy has an Internet-connected phone instead....

Ah, the end of an era. My father was one of Playboy's original fans, going back to the first issue, which was in 1953. I was born in 1951, and I don't remember a time, growing up, when I didn't see Playboy openly displayed on the coffee table in the living room. Maybe somewhere there was "a generation of American men," ogling Playboy as "an illicit thrill," but my father, a member of "the greatest generation," was an adult married man when the great magazine began, and I, a baby boomer, never saw the publication as illicit. The idea that the internet, with "every sex act imaginable for free," has ousted the naked ladies from Playboy seems rather absurd. But the magazine lives on, and cutting out the nudity seems to be a way to bring in the younger audience:

There will still be a Playmate of the Month, but the pictures will be “PG-13” and less produced — more like the racier sections of Instagram. “A little more accessible, a little more intimate,” [Flanders] said. It is not yet decided whether there will still be a centerfold.

Its sex columnist, [top editor Cory] Jones said, will be a “sex-positive female,” writing enthusiastically about sex. And Playboy will continue its tradition of investigative journalism, in-depth interviews and fiction.... Some of the moves, like expanded coverage of liquor, are partly commercial, Mr. Flanders admitted; the magazine must please its core advertisers. And all the changes have been tested in focus groups with an eye toward attracting millennials — people between the ages of 18 and 30-something, highly coveted by publishers. The magazine will feature visual artists, with their work dotted through the pages, in part because research revealed that younger people are drawn to art.

Good for you, younger people, drawn to art. At some point, perhaps, you've seen enough photography of nakedness, and drawing and painting are new. The Playboy I remember had plenty of art. All those cartoons... and Vargas.