Thursday, July 26, 2007

Hymn to a Comb-Over

* There is a very funny poem by Godine author Wesley McNair at Choriamb. McNair lauds the admirable efforts of retreating hairlines who try to cover their lost territory.

"...Let us praise the sprays
that hold them, and the combs that coax
such abundance to the front of the head"

* Over at Artnet Charlie Finch has posted an review on the George Orwell essay "Benefit of Clergy," – available in As I Please, 1943–45 – in which Orwell tries to come to terms with his own revulsion at the work of Salvador Dalí. Finch writes, "Orwell analyzes Dalí's perversions as a displacement of the need for politcal power." Surrealism was widely reviled by liberal-minded critics of the time who saw art (especially European art of the mid 40s) as a way to publicly stand in opposition to fascism. Marxist critics especially declaimed Dalí's work as bourgeois. All very interesting, from the great journalist of the twentieth century, George Orwell.

No comments:

Post a Comment