The other day I was looking at a framed photograph of Marilyn Monroe I have, imagining I might write an essay on her. While I was in this moment I heard Maurice Ravel's "Pavan for a Dead Princess” playing on the radio. What a provocative juxtaposition I thought. I must act on it.
What can I say about Marilyn Monroe that hasn't been said before? Well, I can say I have a photo of her that I don't think many people have seen. She looks so young in the photo that I think she may still have been Norma Jean, before she changed her name and became an actress. She is standing in a garden looking straight at us, with trees providing a perfect backdrop. She is wearing a modest white jersey with a necklace composed of stones. This black and white photo was given to me several years ago. I think it's original. I framed it in what I call a serendipitous frame that I made in a moment of inspiration. I think the combination of the two is great.
The picture hangs in my apartment. It is hanging on a white stucco wall, softly lit by floodlights from above. However, until recently it hung in my framing shop. While it hung in the shop I surrounded it with other pictures of Marilyn, copies of course. People who saw this display would ask me if I had a 'thing' for her, and was I a fan. I said, not really, I just had empty frames and what better subject than Marilyn to fill them.
Come to think of it, almost everybody has a think for MM, in one way or another, if not consciously, then subconsciously. Mine was subconscious. Who wouldn't have some feeling for her considering she was one of the greatest enigmas of the 20th century. And that's what gave her such an appeal and following, her enigmatic, equal opportunity quality, which appeals to both men and women alike.
Marilyn Monroe was certainly an enigma, a person that was puzzling, ambiguous and inexplicable. Enigmatic characters are seminal people in that they exude something that allows others to shape and stamp their own personal interpretation on them. None of those interpretations would be wrong since the enigma represents a spectrum of the human condition. And in interpreting and trying to figure out an enigma the one who's doing it comes away with part of the enigma. In the process, and this too reflects on an enigma's seminal quality, one cognitively gains something from the enigma about life and its complexity. Marilyn's enigmatic character afforded something for everybody, hence hardly anybody not having a feeling or opinion about her. In their capacity enigmas tend to draw out emotions we would otherwise not reveal. The enigmatic chemistry Marilyn exuded was enticing and bewitching.
My favorite movie with MM is "Seven Year Itch". Rachmaninoff's brooding piano concerto #2 may seem out of place in the movie but it certainly speaks to her romantic, lost nature in life. Actor Tom Ewell plays the piano music in a seductive dream sequence. In real movie life he can only play chopsticks.
I think Norma Jean became Marilyn Monroe because she wanted to escape Norman Jean. She went into acting to create a new persona, as so many others who went into acting did.
It was argued that if Marilyn had been allowed to act and be herself in marriage her marriages might not haves failed. However, I think that her marriages failed because she was really being herself in them and that her real self was difficult to live with. She was emotional immature.
Men fell in love with her because they wanted to take care of her and right everything in her world. They pictured themselves as men in shining armor and Marilyn obliged them. Her men did fall in love with the real Marilyn, the vulnerable Marilyn. That is what was so appealing about her; the vulnerability that she didn't disguise. However, her men were as much in fantasyland as she was because they, like her, projected their own false impressions of who they were or what they wanted.
Marilyn's men wanted to protect her. They also were old fashion. They wanted her to stay home and be a housewife. However, apart from wanting to be loved and protected she was rebellious and wanted independence. Those contradictory characteristics were also factors that contributed to the failure of her marriages.
Marilyn Monroe died 45 years ago last month.
Tuesday, September 11, 2007
Saturday, September 01, 2007
New word
I discovered a new word, parturition. It means the process of giving birth.
The reason I found this word interesting is because I see myself in the business of parturition. You see, I am a picture framing and therefore I am always in the process of giving birth to things, like objects you can hang on the wall. Also, one of my interests is connecting things. This word conjured in me a number of associations.
As it happens I discovered this word while framing an old print, dated 1829. The print is entitled "The enraptured Poet: The parturition of a thought". It certainly captures an enraptured poet in the process of giving thought. In the way he is characterized and animated you can really see he is in the process of giving birth to something. Because of the way his head is cocked, looking skywards, and because of the expression on his face, you can see the wheels turning in his head, developing a thought. One meaning of parturition is travail but there certainly is no expression of travail or anguish on the poet's face; more like the look of eureka.
The story behind the print is also interesting. It was one of many prints brought in for framing by a customer/friend that depict the endeavours of writing and reading. My friend is a lover of books and a professor, a professor of The History of Ideas and writes about the Holocaust.
One day he and I were talking about my recent trip to London. I mention an interesting museum we discovered and wondered whether he knew of it. It is the John Soane Museum directly facing Lincoln's Inn Fields in London. It's a classic-romanticist type of museum. Amazingly it was his favorite museum in London, if not the whole world. In fact, he said he once imagined himself as the curator of that museum. What was equally interesting is that he is building a house that will reflect as much as possible this museum, a house that will recreate the atmosphere of its collection of books, sculptures and paintings. He intends to hang the prints he just brought for framing in his new house.
John Soane started building his house in 1796 and expanded it several time, until his death 1837, to house his growing collection of architectural draws and artifacts. Soane was something of a magpie. The museum also houses many paints and prints, along with tons of books. The museum has a great collection of Hogarth's. I can see the devotion my professor friend has for this museum in the fact that his present apartment resembles it also. His walls are also covered from top to bottom with pictures and bookshelves. I think another reason for my friend's sensitivity towards this museum is also due to his love of architecture. So you can imagine the appeal this museum holds for him.
Being as old as it is the Soane's Museum and its collection has somewhat a tatty look about it. However, it is an elegant tatty look that comes with age, which is so indicative of England past, of worn carpets, scratched furniture and frames that have seen better days. Nevertheless, there is natural warmth about the place. And this gave me an idea for the framing of my friend's prints that would reflect this atmosphere he wanted to recreate. I thought they should be framed in tatty, used frames. He wholeheartedly agreed. I've always wanted to create this sensation, which lacks a pretension and conformity. And here I had the chance, and the chance to use up some discarded but still respectable frames.
By tatty I don't mean cheap, dirty or junky looking as the word is generally interpreted and applied. What I'm referring to is a worn out, tired look, yet still elegant. It's a refined, aesthetically pleasing tattiness. This look would justly reflect the worn out, sophisticated look of both the old prints I was framing and the museum atmosphere I was replicating. This framing look certainly matched the enraptured poet print I framed. However, the print also portrays that less attractive tattiness I mentioned, which is reflected in the room the poet is ensconced in, which is junky, cluttered and dirty looking. The engraving of the poet shows him to be very eccentric and totally unconcerned and unaware of the untidy and dirty room that surrounds him. Why, he is pictured to be totally lost in his rapture and parturition.
The reason I found this word interesting is because I see myself in the business of parturition. You see, I am a picture framing and therefore I am always in the process of giving birth to things, like objects you can hang on the wall. Also, one of my interests is connecting things. This word conjured in me a number of associations.
As it happens I discovered this word while framing an old print, dated 1829. The print is entitled "The enraptured Poet: The parturition of a thought". It certainly captures an enraptured poet in the process of giving thought. In the way he is characterized and animated you can really see he is in the process of giving birth to something. Because of the way his head is cocked, looking skywards, and because of the expression on his face, you can see the wheels turning in his head, developing a thought. One meaning of parturition is travail but there certainly is no expression of travail or anguish on the poet's face; more like the look of eureka.
The story behind the print is also interesting. It was one of many prints brought in for framing by a customer/friend that depict the endeavours of writing and reading. My friend is a lover of books and a professor, a professor of The History of Ideas and writes about the Holocaust.
One day he and I were talking about my recent trip to London. I mention an interesting museum we discovered and wondered whether he knew of it. It is the John Soane Museum directly facing Lincoln's Inn Fields in London. It's a classic-romanticist type of museum. Amazingly it was his favorite museum in London, if not the whole world. In fact, he said he once imagined himself as the curator of that museum. What was equally interesting is that he is building a house that will reflect as much as possible this museum, a house that will recreate the atmosphere of its collection of books, sculptures and paintings. He intends to hang the prints he just brought for framing in his new house.
John Soane started building his house in 1796 and expanded it several time, until his death 1837, to house his growing collection of architectural draws and artifacts. Soane was something of a magpie. The museum also houses many paints and prints, along with tons of books. The museum has a great collection of Hogarth's. I can see the devotion my professor friend has for this museum in the fact that his present apartment resembles it also. His walls are also covered from top to bottom with pictures and bookshelves. I think another reason for my friend's sensitivity towards this museum is also due to his love of architecture. So you can imagine the appeal this museum holds for him.
Being as old as it is the Soane's Museum and its collection has somewhat a tatty look about it. However, it is an elegant tatty look that comes with age, which is so indicative of England past, of worn carpets, scratched furniture and frames that have seen better days. Nevertheless, there is natural warmth about the place. And this gave me an idea for the framing of my friend's prints that would reflect this atmosphere he wanted to recreate. I thought they should be framed in tatty, used frames. He wholeheartedly agreed. I've always wanted to create this sensation, which lacks a pretension and conformity. And here I had the chance, and the chance to use up some discarded but still respectable frames.
By tatty I don't mean cheap, dirty or junky looking as the word is generally interpreted and applied. What I'm referring to is a worn out, tired look, yet still elegant. It's a refined, aesthetically pleasing tattiness. This look would justly reflect the worn out, sophisticated look of both the old prints I was framing and the museum atmosphere I was replicating. This framing look certainly matched the enraptured poet print I framed. However, the print also portrays that less attractive tattiness I mentioned, which is reflected in the room the poet is ensconced in, which is junky, cluttered and dirty looking. The engraving of the poet shows him to be very eccentric and totally unconcerned and unaware of the untidy and dirty room that surrounds him. Why, he is pictured to be totally lost in his rapture and parturition.
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