The here and now... and what and why

Complacency is a trap. At least that’s what I was thinking when I up and left the comfort of a Yankee prep school gig, where I taught music, amongst other things, for 28 years. There was also that life long career as a composer, musician and artist.

First, it was a year in St. Thomas, USVI, working as a reporter and shooting photography and then, a year in San Agustin Etla, Oaxaca, Mexico.
Time passed.
More time passed and a year back in the Athens of America followed by a hasty return to Oaxaca where it is all happening.
A couple of years in San Sebastian Etla and now, just down the road in San Pablo Etla. Life is good.

Click on an image to see it larger.
For additional photography please visit my flickr page.
You can find my music on Jango (World & latin - Worldbeat) and at iTunes and most online stores.
¡Soy consciente de todas las tradiciones del Internet!
If you are coming to Oaxaca, please contact me for tours or advice.

Santo Domingo

Santo Domingo
The view from Corazon del Pueblo

The hereafter re me

My photo
Oaxaca, Oaxaca, Mexico
Musician, photographer, videographer, reporter, ex-officio teacher, now attempting to be a world traveler

Sunday, January 11, 2015

R. Crumb lives

I am a huge R. Crumb fan.  If you have ever seen the documentary, "Crumb," you know he is one smart, gifted, but seriously out there human being.  Watch the documentary.  He comes from a remarkable family with lots of brilliance and extreme darkness.  I've learned a lot from him, in particular, how to look at my surroundings more closely,  I remember him talking about all the things that are there that we never see, like poles and wires and stuff.

At any rate, this New York Observer interview with him about the cartoonists' murders is amazing, a must read.
So why wouldn’t you just not do it? Why would you go ahead and submit a cartoon like that? Isn’t that really scary and risky?
Well–they asked me to. Liberation called me and said, “Crumb, can you do a cartoon for us? About what you think about this, you know, you are a major cartoonist, and you live in France.” So I thought about it. I spent a lot of time thinking about it. I’m doing the dishes, or whatever,  I was thinking, “What should I do for that cartoon…” I had a lot of ideas.  Other people come up with these, you know, clever cartoons that comment on it, like…This one guy did a cartoon showing a bloody dead body laying there, and a radical Muslim standing over him with a Kalashnikov, saying, “He drew first!” Stuff like that. That’s good, that’s clever, you know, I like that. But, me? I gotta like, you know, when I do something, it has to be more personal. I said, first: “I don’t have the courage to make an insulting cartoon of Muhammed.”
Then I thought, “OK, I’m the Cowardly Cartoonist…As a Cowardly Cartoonist, I can’t make some glib comment like that, you know? I have to, like, make fun of myself.
To find out what he drew, read the article.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Another artist who crosses boundaries by remaking important texts, notably the Bible, using legos is Brendan Powell Smith. He recently posted similar comments after the Paris attacks by saying he is cowed by the threat of retaliation in not taking on some subjects. In his post, he could not claim "je suis Charlie," and added something important to the dialogue that is going on today.

Christopher Stowens said...

What a world. I read that there are only 25 political cartoonists employed by US newspapers, who incidentally, have a readership of 44,000,000 readers. So we aren't that brave... also, too, the leaders of countries who imprison journalists, but appeared for the photo op.. well, all food for thought.... although not that nourishing.