The Culture of Politics and Vice Versa

[Zeno]

The French adore Patti Smith

From the Article:

' Smith, 58, was presented with the insignia of Commander of the Order of the Arts and Letters by Culture Minister Renaud Donnedieu de Vabres.

The ministry, in a statement, noted Smith's appreciation for 19th century French poet Arthur Rimbaud, and praised her as "one of the most influential artists in women's rock 'n' roll." '

Arthur Rimbaud was a wild and savage romantic, drunken rebel and rambler, sexual misfit shot by his male lover, who composed his entire oeuvre of poems between the ages of 15 and 19, mostly under the influence of absinthe and opium. After that he stopped writing poems and lead a wondering and worthless life until he finally decomposed into a deliurm at Marseilles. He is buried in his home town, Charleville-mezeres near the Belgium border.

He is a perfect mirror for the French, right down to his Grand Poems.

-Zeno

[Arnfinn Madsen]

LOL,
they probably adore him for great poems. BTW, having a male lower and using some dope is something that many Parisians would not raise their eyebrow about.

[mslif]

I studied his poems in France. They are beautifully written. As for your comparison to all french... Don't be an idiot please!

[Arnfinn Madsen]

[ QUOTE ]
I studied his poems in France. They are beautifully written. As for your comparison to all french... Don't be an idiot please!

[/ QUOTE ]

Being from a country, that praises a bad actor who then went on to support dictators conducting massacres, he has nothing to brag about Mslif. He has lost before it starts.

Silly game though.

[Zeno]

The country one is born in is a random joke of the universe and does not require a defense.

You got a laugh from my initial post. That is all I was really after.

Aganist the assult of laughter nothing can stand. - Mark Twain.

.

[Zeno]

[ QUOTE ]
Don't be an idiot please!

[/ QUOTE ]

If it pleases me to be an idiot I will do so and that is my business.

But the mirror I spoke of was in regards to two different revolutions - The American and the French. The American Revolution carried on and when forth in a positive manner, The French Revolution decomposed into a delirium of violence and then a dictator sprang forth from Corsica and led the French into a war orgy. All done in the Grand Manner. Sort of an analogy to Rimbuad's teenage years. I approve of all this rubbish just to make that clear.



If you find nothing amusing about the French honoring the Punk Rocker Patti Smith in addition to the cultural minister making reference to Patti's infatuation with Arthur Rimbuad, then I submit you have no appreciation of the absurd.

All praise to Paul Verlaine.


Le Misanthrope

[mslif]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Don't be an idiot please!

[/ QUOTE ]

If it pleases me to be an idiot I will do so and that is my business.

But the mirror I spoke of was in regards to two different revolutions - The American and the French. The American Revolution carried on and when forth in a positive manner, The French Revolution decomposed into a delirium of violence and then a dictator sprang forth from Corsica and led the French into a war orgy. All done in the Grand Manner. Sort of an analogy to Rimbuad's teenage years. I approve of all this rubbish just to make that clear.



If you find nothing amusing about the French honoring the Punk Rocker Patti Smith in addition to the cultural minister making reference to Patti's infatuation with Arthur Rimbuad, then I submit you have no appreciation of the absurd.

All praise to Paul Verlaine.


Le Misanthrope

[/ QUOTE ]

You are so right... The american revolution lead to hapiness and everything being "positive"... Slavery was just such a wonderful time in your history.
I'll admit that comparing Rimbaud to Patty Smith is completeky idiotic and an insult to french literature but don't put an entire culture in the same bag.

[Zeno]

Positive progression comes in steps, not wholesale, that is human nature. Don't you start being an idiot, now.

-Zeno

[mslif]

[ QUOTE ]
Positive progression comes in steps, not wholesale, that is human nature. Don't you start being an idiot, now.

-Zeno

[/ QUOTE ]

If your theory is good for you and then it applies to France as well, smartass.

[Cyrus]

Of all the anti-French things to come down the pike, this surely takes the cake. Or should I say the soufflet?

You dare take on the French at what they excel? In culture??

You seriously want to compare the state's attitude towards the arts, between the United States and France? Boy, is this one lost game!

The French culture policy always had guts. Do I dare bring up Malreaux, who served as Minister of Culture under that most revered of right-wing French icons, the General? The Imaginary Museum of his is only the tip of the iceberg. In order to comprehend the chasm between how the two states viewed Art, I will only point out that the French policitians of the ruling elite have always maintainted that the Right has the Elysées and the Left has Rive Gauche (ie the Arts). This is why the French (right-wing) minister of Culture has no problem whatsoever, in fact relishes the occasion, in awarding a mdeal to a (former) punk rocker whose lyrics once called for his decimation!

But the examples are virtually endless.

As to Arthur Rimbaud, it's saddening to see his life belittled so pithily and ignorantly, he of the most stellar course across the poet's sky. Since when has it become a thing to mock stopping writing poetry (what a mystery, right there!) at 19 years old and then embarking on the most pedestrian of lives, with all its pettiness and tedium? This is what most writers have dreamed of doing, but instead did it, if they were gifted and lucky, in reverse: Growing old unnoticed and living in tedium and then finally some quick recognition - then death.

The day that Washington takes a leaf from the French cahier about Art & Politics is the day we should truly start to worry. In the meantime, America's leaders remain as parochial and inconsequential (and as dangerous) as ever.

--Cyrus