Saturday, June 28, 2008
The current “summer reading” issue of Poets & Writers magazine has this photo of Marilyn Monroe reading Joyce’s Ulysses on its cover. It’s a complicated image:
The photo was taken in 1955 by Eve Arnold (still around & active today at the age of 96), who, like Monroe, was a largely self-taught trailblazer, taking up the camera with little formal training at 36 & becoming, just three years later, the first female member of Magnum, the international photographic cooperative. While
In 1955,
Some of the occurrences of this image on the web suggest that
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I remember reading somewhere-- in an interview with MM? (I apologize to your more anal readers for not being able to provide a full reference)-- MM's commentary on her experience with the novel. I don't really have any doubt that she read it-- it was a controversial book, sold well, MM was an avid reader, etc.
Not sure why this would mean she was reading it to "fit into Miller's world." She'd probably read a book before meeting Miller. It might be argued that she was interested in Miller because she was interested in literature, and not vice-versa.
Not sure why this would mean she was reading it to "fit into Miller's world." She'd probably read a book before meeting Miller. It might be argued that she was interested in Miller because she was interested in literature, and not vice-versa.
"In his preface to A Finnegans Wake Gazetteer, Louis Mink says that the time for naive enjoyment of Finnegans Wake is past. He says that now we are obliged to continue the scholarly unraveling of its mysteries. And an editorial in a magazine published at the Centre Pompidou says that the most urgent and important art work to be done now is to come to an analytical understanding of the art of the twentieth century.
"I don't agree. I think that we can still at unexpected moments be surprised by the beauty of the moon though now we can travel to it. And I think that the artists of the twentieth century who resist our understanding are the ones to whom we will continue to be grateful. Besides Joyce there is Duchamp. And Satie whose work, though seemingly simple, is no less difficult to understand than that of Webern. Somewhere in the Wake Joyce says "Confusium hold'em!" I hope that Roaratorio will act to introduce people to the pleasures of Finnegans Wake when it is still on the side of poetry and chaos rather than something analyzed and known to be safe and law-abiding."
-John Cage
http://www.themodernword.com/Joyce/music/cage_roaratorio.html
"I don't agree. I think that we can still at unexpected moments be surprised by the beauty of the moon though now we can travel to it. And I think that the artists of the twentieth century who resist our understanding are the ones to whom we will continue to be grateful. Besides Joyce there is Duchamp. And Satie whose work, though seemingly simple, is no less difficult to understand than that of Webern. Somewhere in the Wake Joyce says "Confusium hold'em!" I hope that Roaratorio will act to introduce people to the pleasures of Finnegans Wake when it is still on the side of poetry and chaos rather than something analyzed and known to be safe and law-abiding."
-John Cage
http://www.themodernword.com/Joyce/music/cage_roaratorio.html
That is an interesting question, Ron: what is the difference between "reading" and "wanting to be seen reading"?
the logical historical conclusion then is the end of monroes' life
the girl all alone on the weekend
and nobody calls
or was she really just casually dispensed with by the mafia
no doubt
an important paradigm was established there
the image doesn't seem to die
but the girl herself
god
what a mess
yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes
the girl all alone on the weekend
and nobody calls
or was she really just casually dispensed with by the mafia
no doubt
an important paradigm was established there
the image doesn't seem to die
but the girl herself
god
what a mess
yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes
It looks to me in the first photo that MM's reading the inside back cover, not actual text.
Your belief that she's reading the "same page" in both photos is a pure dream.
But a good dream it is. It makes for a much more blood engorged fantasy, doesn't it, to think of the leggy beauty reading Molly on the kid's toys? Intelligence combined with an avocation to read gets me going every time, I must confess.
I put this photo in the same catergory -- fantastic reveries of sight -- as the one of the military school students at their desks, all reading Howl.
Your belief that she's reading the "same page" in both photos is a pure dream.
But a good dream it is. It makes for a much more blood engorged fantasy, doesn't it, to think of the leggy beauty reading Molly on the kid's toys? Intelligence combined with an avocation to read gets me going every time, I must confess.
I put this photo in the same catergory -- fantastic reveries of sight -- as the one of the military school students at their desks, all reading Howl.
Steve,
In the larger format of the P&W cover, it's clear that she still has some pages to read.
And I wrote "the same chapter," not the same page -- you're the one having fantasies here.
Anyone who was a regular at Ear Inn during the heyday of that series knows that West Point cadets were told to come into Manhattan once a term to attend a reading somewhere. A daytime reading in a place that served beer & left your evening open was perfect. There is nothing anomalous about the cadets reading Howl, which is in fact what's strange about it.
In the larger format of the P&W cover, it's clear that she still has some pages to read.
And I wrote "the same chapter," not the same page -- you're the one having fantasies here.
Anyone who was a regular at Ear Inn during the heyday of that series knows that West Point cadets were told to come into Manhattan once a term to attend a reading somewhere. A daytime reading in a place that served beer & left your evening open was perfect. There is nothing anomalous about the cadets reading Howl, which is in fact what's strange about it.
was just this morning connecting wit someone in my own way re:
John Cage and those pervasive renderings of "m"... well John C did in fact after-the-fact of his "chancing upon" (his) M (see the 1973 book so titled) listed of a dozen or so names/things that began with the letter "m"..
after getting my copy (in 1973) of his book I
dropped him a post-card saying.."well, you forgot to lis Marilyn Monroe."
he also lived near The Ear Inn
after a visit with him I and my friend, Fay Chin, went to the inn to drink at the bar and write (my) notes in a notebook...
soooo three connects here delightful MM, JC and Ear Inn all that is missing
Mailer's book re: MM
she was no "dumb blond"
everybody owns a copy (of Joyce's Ulysses AND Finnigan's Wake very have completely read either...
every page in each a place (point) to "take off from"
John Cage and those pervasive renderings of "m"... well John C did in fact after-the-fact of his "chancing upon" (his) M (see the 1973 book so titled) listed of a dozen or so names/things that began with the letter "m"..
after getting my copy (in 1973) of his book I
dropped him a post-card saying.."well, you forgot to lis Marilyn Monroe."
he also lived near The Ear Inn
after a visit with him I and my friend, Fay Chin, went to the inn to drink at the bar and write (my) notes in a notebook...
soooo three connects here delightful MM, JC and Ear Inn all that is missing
Mailer's book re: MM
she was no "dumb blond"
everybody owns a copy (of Joyce's Ulysses AND Finnigan's Wake very have completely read either...
every page in each a place (point) to "take off from"
Okay, MM read the book, I was wrong. There's a news article only a few years back, easily enough pulled up on the web, suggesting that MM did her own free-association tape recordings, apparently inspired by Joyce's Molly.
These photos still gotta be staged images, though. I really doubt MM put on her bathing suit, went out to the playground with her book, and then Eve Arnold just happened by with her camera.
It's a fantastic reverie of a photo, what with the cultural image of MM (reinforced here by the bathing suit attire with all the skin) versus that of the book.
And I didn't write that cadets reading Howl was anomalous. I said it was a photo that sparks fantastic reveries. Underlying those reveries is the sharpness of the contrast between the readers (the cadets) and the text.
Think about those guys, at a school whose purpose was to train them to kill on the command of of a hierarchal government, reading in addition to the title poem, Ginsberg's "America."
Go fuck yourself with your atom bomb.
Your machinery is too much for me.
...I used to be a communist . . I'm not sorry.
Etc.
Imagine a photo of George W. Bush reading. say for example, Ketjak. The same kind of strangeness would arise.
These photos still gotta be staged images, though. I really doubt MM put on her bathing suit, went out to the playground with her book, and then Eve Arnold just happened by with her camera.
It's a fantastic reverie of a photo, what with the cultural image of MM (reinforced here by the bathing suit attire with all the skin) versus that of the book.
And I didn't write that cadets reading Howl was anomalous. I said it was a photo that sparks fantastic reveries. Underlying those reveries is the sharpness of the contrast between the readers (the cadets) and the text.
Think about those guys, at a school whose purpose was to train them to kill on the command of of a hierarchal government, reading in addition to the title poem, Ginsberg's "America."
Go fuck yourself with your atom bomb.
Your machinery is too much for me.
...I used to be a communist . . I'm not sorry.
Etc.
Imagine a photo of George W. Bush reading. say for example, Ketjak. The same kind of strangeness would arise.
I once walked into a cafe in the south of France & found Jacques Roubaud reading The New Sentence. That was pretty special, but it's probably the closest I'll get to a famous person sighted reading my work.
There's no question that the shoot was staged, but Eve Arnold also appears to have been a friend. And the whole idea of what it means to "stage a shoot" has changed considerably in the 53 years since these photos were taken.
There's no question that the shoot was staged, but Eve Arnold also appears to have been a friend. And the whole idea of what it means to "stage a shoot" has changed considerably in the 53 years since these photos were taken.
@steve of course it's *staged*, i mean, her outfit (i don't think it's a bathing suit, i think it's a "play outfit" with very short shorts, like children wear to play on the playground) matches the playground equipment and she's made-up and she was being watched by a photographer. and she probably wasn't actually reading the book when these pictures were being taken (who could concentrate?). but that doesn't mean she didn't actually read the book at some other point. we could discuss why Arnold (presumably the orchestrator of the photographs at level of color coordination) chose to photograph MM on playground equip., in playclothes, barefoot, rather than say curled up in a reading chair or some other more adult and natural reading position. Considering MM's film shooting schedule it was probably more likely that she would be reading the book while under a hairdryer or between takes, or on a plane between SoCal and NYC. Besides the obvious beauty of the bright colors and MM's celebrated figure, what are the motivations of the photographer for creating this disjunct (bright, pretty, colorful, childish MM vs dull-colored, dense, esoteric JJ)?
That Ulysses & Monroe has long been a favorite of mine. I have the same edition of Ulysses. It's my reading-outside edition.
"My guess is that this is Miller’s copy of Ulysses. Monroe is working to fit into Miller’s world."
WTF? That made me laugh out loud & not in a good way.
She was a reader -- when they auctioned off her stuff a while back, there were a lot of books.
What made you assume that?
WTF? That made me laugh out loud & not in a good way.
She was a reader -- when they auctioned off her stuff a while back, there were a lot of books.
What made you assume that?
ps and Bettie Page was salutatorian of her high school in Nashville, and went to Peabody College (now part of Vanderbilt) with a BA in English.
Arnold's photo seems brilliant for several reasons. The built-in voyeurism at work: a half-clothed sex symbol caught reading literature (and erotic literature at that). The child's playground adds a hint of taboo (the thicket of off-kilter trees in the background helps this along). The photo's staged, but feels candid and amazingly rare: we come upon MM and for once she's seemingly unaware of her audience and her photographer. Her focus is instead on her own intimate experience. The photo offers up a strange duality of making her seem accessible (human) because we are viewing what appears to be a personal moment, yet in this moment she's entirely unavailable to us. What she's feeling as she reads the book is all hers. This culminates in a most delicious recipe for arousal on the part of the viewer. Pornography for the thinking man (and woman). Sort of as good as it gets.
Jilly,
It's the timing. This was right in the middle of the run-up to marrying Miller, and I'm presuming that somebody who is willing to change her religion is making a considerable effort to restructure who she is & wants to be. I will concede that I could be completely wrong on this, that she read the book & he never did. But Occam's razor suggests otherwise,
Ron
It's the timing. This was right in the middle of the run-up to marrying Miller, and I'm presuming that somebody who is willing to change her religion is making a considerable effort to restructure who she is & wants to be. I will concede that I could be completely wrong on this, that she read the book & he never did. But Occam's razor suggests otherwise,
Ron
i'm looking at her face
i'm trying to see the person there
there is a mask
her left eye betrays something
perhaps pharmeceutical distortion
something plastic
but of course
we are three or four steps
of
abstraction removed from the actual scene
i want to see her face
i would like to know
how she really appeared
before the dragon swallowed her whole
she bought the wrong ticket
for the wrong show
did she long for the boring life
dimly lit and tedious
before all was said and done
i'm trying to see the person there
there is a mask
her left eye betrays something
perhaps pharmeceutical distortion
something plastic
but of course
we are three or four steps
of
abstraction removed from the actual scene
i want to see her face
i would like to know
how she really appeared
before the dragon swallowed her whole
she bought the wrong ticket
for the wrong show
did she long for the boring life
dimly lit and tedious
before all was said and done
There are no accidents ... but if you take Eve Arnold's letter excerpt about the event, as quoted in the beginning of the P & W, at face value, she claims that they came to do a shoot, and while Arnold was setting up, MM was killing time reading. She got the film in the camera and saw a shot. She says that MM told her she liked to read the book aloud, though she admitted to not understanding it. Arnold also said that MM kept the book in her car.
Staged or not, inspired by Miller or not, she was invested in dipping into the thing, most likely with more effort and devotion than I ever opened those pages with.
Amy King
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Staged or not, inspired by Miller or not, she was invested in dipping into the thing, most likely with more effort and devotion than I ever opened those pages with.
Amy King
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