Category: Series

1.28.2025 – misanthropy plus

misanthropy plus
anger characteristic
bleak fatalism

In 1930, James Thurber published a book of drawings titled The Last Flower.

In Thurber’s New Yorker Obituary, EB White wrote. “Although he is best known for “Walter Mitty” and “The Male Animal,” the book of his I like best is “The Last Flower”. In it you will find his faith the renewal of life, his feeling for the beauty and fragility of life on earth.

One week after publication, Life magazine ran a two spread of the drawings and captions under the headline, Speaking of Pictures … Thurber draws a parable on War, that told the story of The Last Flower.

Right now, today, I need a shot of faith the renewal of life, and in a feeling for the beauty and fragility of life on earth.

This is the Life Magazine introduction to the drawings.

The world of James Thurber is a stark soggy word of predatory women, bald bitter little men and melancholy hounds. Created idly on memo pads, long ignored by the New Yorker and doubtfully put into print in 1931, the Thurber cosmology has since been hailed as the creation of a high satirical intelligence. Art critics applaud his economy of line, call him a successor to Picasso and Matisse.

Beneath his cynicism Thurber is an intense, compassionate liberal. When war exploded in Europe he was moved to produce a “parable in pictures,” packed with his characteristic misanthropy plus anger plus a certain bleak fatalism. At his request Harper & Brothers withheld another Thurber volume then ready for release and rushed The Last Flower ($2) into print. Published on Nov. 17, it is sure to land on many a Christmas tree. Below are some of the 50 drawings from the book, with Thurber captions.

You can see the drawings on my James Thurber page, For Muggs and Rex.

1.27.2025 – what if James Thurber

what if James Thurber
sketched Pablo Picasso from life …
what would he have seen?

Thurber in 1939 was half blind and Picasso was, well, Picasso.

I can wonder, how did Thurber see him?

Happy to say that for the New Yorker profile, One Man Group, written by Janet Flanner about Mr. Picasso we know what it would look like and here it is.

Here is how it appeared in the New Yorker …

I am reminded of Gertrude Stein telling Mr. Picasso that his portrait of her did not look like her …

Picasso is said to have replied, “It will.”

You can see more little or lesser known Thurber drawings here – https://muggsandrex.wordpress.com/

1.20.205 – anyone can fool

anyone can fool
too many of the people
too much of the time

The Owl Who Was God

Once upon a starless midnight there was an owl who sat on the branch of an oak tree. Two ground moles tried to slip quietly by, unnoticed. “You!” said the owl. “Who?” they quavered, in fear and astonishment, for they could not believe it was possible for anyone to see them in that thick darkness. “You two!” said the owl. The moles hurried away and told the other creatures of the field and forest that the owl was the greatest and wisest of all animals because he could see in the dark and because he could answer any question. “I’ll see about that,” said a secretary bird, and he called on the owl one night when it was again very dark. “How many claws am I holding up?” said the secretary bird, “Two,” said the owl, and that was right. “Can you give me another expression for ‘that is to say’ or ‘namely’?” asked the secretary bird. “To wit,” said the owl. “Why does a lover call on his love?” asked the secretary bird. “To woo,” said the owl.

The secretary bird hastened back to the other creatures and reported that the owl was indeed the greatest and wisest animal in the world because he could see in the dark and because he could answer any question. “Can he see in the daytime, too?” asked a red fox. “Yes,” echoed a dormouse and a French poodle. “Can he see in the daytime, too?” All the other creatures laughed loudly at this silly question, and they set upon the red fox and his friends and drove them out of the region. Then they sent a messenger to the owl and asked him to be their leader.

When the owl appeared among the animals it was high noon and the sun was shining brightly. He walked very slowly, which gave him an appearance of great dignity, and he peered about him with large, staring eyes, which gave him an air of tremendous importance. “He’s God!” screamed a Plymouth Rock hen. And the others took up the cry “He’s God!” So they followed him wherever he went and when he began to bump into things they began to bump into things, too. Finally he came to a concrete highway and he started up the middle of it and all the other creatures followed him. Presently a hawk, who was acting as outrider, observed a truck coming toward them at fifty miles an hour, and he reported to the secretary bird and the secretary bird reported to the owl. “There’s danger ahead,” said the secretary bird. “To wit?” said the owl. The secretary bird told him. “Aren’t you afraid?” he asked. “Who?” said the owl calmly, for he could not see the truck. “He’s God!” cried all the creatures again, and they were still crying “He’s God!” when the truck hit them and ran them down. Some of the animals were merely injured, but most of them, including the owl, were killed.

Moral: You can fool too many of the people too much of the time.

From Fables for Our Time by James Thurber.

Seemed appropriate for today.

1.13.2024 – intellectual

intellectual
acuity invented
that does not exist

Some speculate that Trump is engaging in Richard Nixon’s deliberately staged “madman” theory of intimidating people into accepting his terms, whatever those might be. Still others wonder if it’s all performative to keep his masses entertained with the show. His grandiosity is certainly a constant expression of his malignant narcissism. Attributing his atavisms of imperialism and blunt-force tariffs to a thought through theoretical exercise to return to the 19th century invents an intellectual acuity that does not exist.

From the article, “Donald Trump isn’t even in office yet and silly season has already begun” by Sidney Blumenthal in The Guardian.

Mr. Blumenthal’s mastery of multi syllable words must be saluted.

I also like the idea that adding Greenland and Canada will add multiple, more likely Democratic Party based, states with their Senators and Representatives to Congress.

Maybe once the GOP figures that out, they will be as excited about adding these new states as they are about adding the States of DC and Puerto Rico.

On the whole, how did this guy end up President.

As Mr. Mencken said in his book, In Defense of Women in 1918, “The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.”