by Jean Marie Carey | 15 Aug 2013 | Animals, Animals in Art, Art History, Re-Enactments© and MashUps
This post was actually written quite some time ago and held in reserve with about 50 other little stories under the title “Grendel’s Mother Doesn’t Have a Name!” which is now the title of a book chapter. It is actually only a little confusing, and also my devotion to pinnipeds remains unswerving.
I was inspired to revisit by sequential experiences, the first running across an adorable video of a sea otter playing a sort of tag with an Australian cattle dog. The sea otter is clearly enjoying himself, and as I watched him woof softly as he partially clambered up onto a dock, I heard myself think “…er lacht…” followed by a moment of confusion and then thinking… “… was ist das auf Englisch?” For a second I couldn’t think of the words. I have had a few fragmentary dreams in German, but this is the first time anything like this has ever happened in regular life. It was actually very pleasant and I hope it will begin to happen more often.
The other addition to this post is this image of this astounding statue watching over Hohenzollernplatz. It was made by Ferdinand Liebermann in 1930 and has withstood a lot. This is a very evocative image naturally and also reminds me of the moschophoros, which in turn puts me in mind of Knabe Mit Lamm and the poor unfortunate kids…(just a tiny image here because a whole story is coming along about this painting).
by Jean Marie Carey | 7 Feb 2013 | Animals, Animals in Art, Art History, Franz Marc, German Expressionism / Modernism, Re-Enactments© and MashUps
Zwei Wölfe, Franz Marc, 1913
“Furr” – Blitzen Trapper
Yeah, when I was only 17,
I could hear the angels whispering
So I droned into the words and
wandered aimlessly about till
I heard my mother shouting through the fog
It turned out to be the howling of a dog
or a wolf to be exact.
The sound sent shivers down my back
but I was drawn into the pack.
And before long, they allowed me
to join in and sing their song.
So from the cliffs and highest hill, yeah
we would gladly get our fill,
howling endlessly and shrilly at the dawn.
And I lost the taste for judging right from wrong.
For my flesh had turned to fur, yeah
And my thoughts, they surely were turned to
instinct and obedience to God.
You can wear your fur
like the river on fire.
But you better be sure
if you’re makin’ God a liar.
I’m a rattlesnake, babe,
I’m like fuel on fire.
So if you’re gonna’ get made,
don’t be afraid of what you’ve learned.
On the day that I turned 23,
I was curled up underneath a dogwood tree.
When suddenly a girl
with skin the color of a pearl,
wandered aimlessly,
but she didn’t seem to see.
She was listenin’ for the angels just like me.
So I stood and looked about.
I brushed the leaves off of my snout.
And then I heard my mother shouting through the trees.
You should have seen that girl go shaky at the knees.
So I took her by the arm
we settled down upon a farm.
And raised our children up as
gently as you please.
And now my fur has turned to skin.
And I’ve been quickly ushered in
to a world that I confess I do not know.
But I still dream of running careless through the snow.
An’ through the howlin’ winds that blow,
across the ancient distant flow,
it fill our bodies up like water till we know.
§ § §
*(Actually February 8) This year’s anecdote: In the frustration of inertia I went back to as yet untranslated Marc letters, and I found some correspondence that looked interesting about when FM went to visit the Brücke at the beginning of 1912. FM was only supposed to be gone for a few days but actually disappeared for, like, three weeks – this was noted by KBoyV who wrote annoyed notes almost every day commenting on the the situation, i.e. “You left on 2 January and were supposed to return on 5 January and it is now 12 January!”
FM sent some cheerful postcards but made no mention of being in any hurry to return to being, as FM put it, “henpecked.” (FM went to Berlin around the holidays anyway, to visit his perplexed in-laws, camp out on the doorstep of the von Eckhardts, continue investigating the musems, and generally “see what was going on.”)
FM was very intrigued by the crazy goings-on at the Brücke hangout, trying to remain unfazed in the midst of what must have been, even by FM standards, extreme partying situations, nonetheless reporting breathlessly in letters (“OMG these guys are doing DRUGS and stuff!..” and [this is an actual quote, not my interpretation for the modern times] about people “doing goblin-like gymnastics and cartwheels.”
The Brücke had made all their own furniture, wall hangings, murals, even ceramics, lamps, glassware and stuff, and despite the CD cases, pizza boxes and beer bottles strewn around it looked like kind of a cool studio to hang out in. Anyway, a repeated theme in people’s observations and sometimes FM’s own about himself is that he was, sometimes, kind of clumsy or as KBoyV frequently remarks “awkward.” The Brücke dudes finally agree to let FM put some of their stuff in the second Blue Rider show. Meanwhile, FM keeps accidentally busting up their handmade furniture. On 19 January 1912, there was actually the classic sit-down-on-a-chair-and-it-breaks pratfall.
HM was finally dispatched to Berlin to get FM detoxed from opium, teenagers, or whatever, and back on the train home to Bavaria (this lead to a typically digressive and huffy mini-festo on the annoying tendency of trains to go, you know, directly from place to place instead of just cruising around for a while). FM remarked to HM upon departing that even though the place was pretty much already trashed when he got there, it looked like “a couple of giant bears had turned everything over” by the time he left…
From (more or less): Franz Marc: Briefe, Schriften, Aufzeichnungen. Leipzig: Gustav Kiepenheuer, 1989, S. 60-66
by Jean Marie Carey | 26 Aug 2012 | Animals in Art, Art History, Franz Marc, German Expressionism / Modernism, Music, Re-Enactments© and MashUps
Apollinaire was very popular in Bonn and in Berlin, where he befriended Herwarth Walden, who, among other things, occupied a societal role similar to that of Apollinaire. Apollinaire also wrote and drew quite prolifically, of course, in addition to being a tastemaker around whom a circle of other artists and authors coalesced.
In early 1913, August Macke was very excited when not only Apollinaire but Robert Delaunay (and later Max Ernst) came to hang out at his place. Apollinaire spoke German very well, also. Anyway, AM just loved these guys, and generally began trailing them around and writing to them all the time and so on.
There is much more to this story, some of it very exciting, and be assured I will get to it all shortly…
However not everyone was enchanted by Apollinaire. That “not everyone” included, well… for the immediate subject at hand, Franz Marc. FM actually had little use for Delaunay, after a (short) while, either. During 1913, FM pesters Delaunay with tons of perplexing, unsolicited criticism, finally in one outburst declaring that RD wasn’t a very good writer, either.
Apollinaire did like FM’s work, but FM kept a distance. Today upon discovering that it is Apollinaire’s birthday, well, what can I say? It explains a lot. Here is a very comprehensive if somewhat outdatedly designed Website about Apollinaire.
AM finally told FM, basically, to stop embarrassing him in front of his cool new friends. FM pointed out that it was he who had introduced these three to one another, and, that also, RD was kind of a jerk, refusing to give AM anything but a scrap of used drawing paper (like literally AM was begging for any type of memento and that was what RD let him have!). Anyway, RM and AM fought all the time as it was, so this altercation of course could not be resolved swiftly or in a few words and continued over the course of some petulant correspondence and huffy silences…full citations to come. FM was jealous, of course, but also he hated to see AM fall in with people he thought embodied the worst characteristic of all, that of being fake.
Fortunately, since everything that has happened before will happen again, this throwdown has been re-enacted by two parallel characters in one of the most important documentaries of our time (it had to be peddled as fiction because of the potency of its truth), Mean Girls (2004).
Above is the epic scene in which Janis Ian (as FM) confronts Cady Heron (as AM) [we won’t even get into the whole LiLo thing here, or about… nevermind) about being plastic…
With a special guest appearance by Damian as Helmuth Macke.
