# Artists as sartorialists



## Anthony Charton (May 7, 2012)

I meant to start this thread,a while ago and the recent topic about Beckett reminded me of it. I've always been appreciative of how well some of the artists that I admire most seemed to dress- though that's perhaps not very astonishing, considering clothing as a form of art itself- a graceful arrangement. Hopefully this is of interest to some. Do post more !

https://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/11/bn0j.jpg/

Cesare Siepi (operatic bass)

https://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/849/clki.jpg/

The great Karajan (who later on mainly wore black turtlenecks)

https://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/266/9rvw.jpg/

Tom Wolfe (obviously)

https://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/822/1lqp.png/

Claudio Arrau (concert pianist)

https://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/24/juiw.png/

Jean Cocteau (poet, playwright, painter, filmmaker, socialite, one of my favoured sartorialists)

https://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/9/m07s.jpg/

The infamous d'Annunzio


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## Shaver (May 2, 2012)

Austin Osman Spare. Atavistic resurgent, forgotten intellectual - one of England's finest minds.


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## gamma68 (Mar 24, 2013)

Can't help but post another Samuel Beckett image:

Actor Patrick Macnee with lovely "Avengers" co-star Diana Rigg:










And Macnee again, as John Steed, being measured for a suit in the "Avengers" episode titled "The Wringer":


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## Oldsarge (Feb 20, 2011)

Salvador Dali



Claude Monet


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## Oldsarge (Feb 20, 2011)

Shaver said:


> Austin Osman Spare. Atavistic resurgent, forgotten intellectual - one of England's finest minds.


And a draftsman of extraordinary ability.


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## Anthony Charton (May 7, 2012)

How did I forget Dali ?

Franz Liszt

https://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/23/w75g.jpg/
https://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/23/fcgq.jpg/

Oscar Wilde (obvious as it is)

https://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/692/0bbo.jpg/
Marcel Proust



Shaver said:


> Austin Osman Spare. Atavistic resurgent, forgotten intellectual - one of England's finest minds.


I heard about it from some art historian friends- always meant to delve a bit deeper into the subject.


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## Oldsarge (Feb 20, 2011)

David Hockney


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## Shaver (May 2, 2012)

Aubrey Beardsley. Producer of dynamic (and erotic) lines and powerful affecting images.


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## Shaver (May 2, 2012)

Jack Parsons. NASA rocket scientist and black magician. A unique and dazzling mind.


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## SlideGuitarist (Apr 23, 2013)

I was just reading Proust this weekend, preparing for a Proust-summarizing competition, when I noticed that Swann is described as wearing black when he accompanies Mme. Swann on her late morning promenades (toward the end of the first part v. 2). It struck me because I've been instructed not to wear black blazers. I wondered how the rules for Parisian men of that time differed from what we discuss here (which seems mostly Anglo-American). In Boldini's other portraits, the men are wearing black or gray. Nothing in tweed.

Is Robert de Montesquious, the model for Charlus, wearing gray in this portrait, or medium brown?


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## SlideGuitarist (Apr 23, 2013)

In almost any photograph of Nathan Milstein, he's dressed impeccably. Same for James Carter, the jazz saxophonist, and I do feel compelled to include this link:

I like musicians to look better than I do. Of course you expect Duke Ellington to present himself beautifully, but look up any photo of '50s R&B artists, and they still look great: Louis Jordan, T-Bone Walker, et al. I loved seeing the World Saxophone Quartet perform in tuxedos, and I loved seeing the Art Ensemble of Chicago dress up in idealized African garb and face paint. I even loved seeing Sun Ra's band dressed up in satin and sequins, because they invested it with ritual significance.

Why white popular musicians feel the need to dress _down _is an interesting question...maybe.


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## Brio1 (May 13, 2010)

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture...-sales-Lucian-Freud-as-we-rarely-saw-him.html


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## SlideGuitarist (Apr 23, 2013)

Miles Davis in the '50s: https://www.esquire.com/blogs/mens-fashion/miles-davis-trousers-one-icon-one-detail-031913


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## gamma68 (Mar 24, 2013)

William Faulkner in Donegel tweed


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## gamma68 (Mar 24, 2013)

SlideGuitarist said:


> I like musicians to look better than I do. Of course you expect Duke Ellington to present himself beautifully, but look up any photo of '50s R&B artists, and they still look great: Louis Jordan, T-Bone Walker, et al. I loved seeing the World Saxophone Quartet perform in tuxedos, and I loved seeing the Art Ensemble of Chicago dress up in idealized African garb and face paint. I even loved seeing Sun Ra's band dressed up in satin and sequins, because they invested it with ritual significance.


Jazz musicians of the 1940s-1960s seemed to _always _dress well when performing. John Coltrane was no exception. Love that jacket he's wearing at the Guggenheim:


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## CMDC (Jan 31, 2009)

This thread reminded me of this post of AldenPyle's from a few years back. Jacob Lawrence and probably the most perfect suit....

https://askandyaboutclothes.com/community/showthread.php?97066-Jacob-Lawrence&p=977036#post977036


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## SlideGuitarist (Apr 23, 2013)

Saul Steinberg favored bespoke suits, and the word "dandy" appears in nearly every account of his life: https://static.guim.co.uk/sys-image...66708100223/Portrait-of-Saul-Steinber-015.jpg.


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## Flanderian (Apr 30, 2008)

The king of the BD -


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## Flanderian (Apr 30, 2008)

SlideGuitarist said:


> In almost any photograph of Nathan Milstein, he's dressed impeccably. Same for James Carter, the jazz saxophonist, and I do feel compelled to include this link:
> 
> I like musicians to look better than I do. Of course you expect Duke Ellington to present himself beautifully, but look up any photo of '50s R&B artists, and they still look great: Louis Jordan, T-Bone Walker, et al. I loved seeing the World Saxophone Quartet perform in tuxedos, and I loved seeing the Art Ensemble of Chicago dress up in idealized African garb and face paint. I even loved seeing Sun Ra's band dressed up in satin and sequins, because they invested it with ritual significance.
> 
> Why white popular musicians feel the need to dress _down _is an interesting question...maybe.


Has there ever been a vocalist with a richer bass than Johnny Hartman? :thumbs-up:


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## Jovan (Mar 7, 2006)

Flanderian said:


> The king of the BD -
> 
> View attachment 9432


I thought that was a collar bar?


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## Flanderian (Apr 30, 2008)

Jovan said:


> I thought that was a collar bar?


You know, you may very well be right! I found some other photos that *were* obviously BD's, but the photos weren't as good. I'm pretty sure that I once read somewhere that he used to order BD's from Brooks. (And not too far fetched either since Brooks introduced the mode.)


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## H&W (Aug 25, 2013)

The splendid Professor Tolkien, to whom all Englishmen (excepting Communist sympathisers) should aspire:



















:icon_smile_big:


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## Shaver (May 2, 2012)

^ Just as long as we don't have to read his dratted books.


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## Jovan (Mar 7, 2006)

Is there a single famous author you do like, Shaver?



Flanderian said:


> You know, you may very well be right! I found some other photos that *were* obviously BD's, but the photos weren't as good. I'm pretty sure that I once read somewhere that he used to order BD's from Brooks. (And not too far fetched either since Brooks introduced the mode.)


Lenin ordering American shirts. Now that's one I never heard before! Interesting.


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## Brio1 (May 13, 2010)

^

Yes, I've heard tell of his fondness for this authoress: https://daniellesteel.com/ :icon_smile:


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## Shaver (May 2, 2012)

Jovan said:


> Is there a single famous author you do like, Shaver?


Dickens, Shakespeare, Sartre, Camus, Dick, Amundsen, Bradbury, Gogol, Wells, Burroughs, Poe, Wilde, Stapledon, Easton Ellis, le Fanu, Rossetti, Moorcock... just straight off the top of the old noggin. :icon_smile:

Lord of the Rings is possibly the single most over-rated piece of dross in the entire English language.


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## SlideGuitarist (Apr 23, 2013)

Flanderian said:


> Has there ever been a vocalist with a richer bass than Johnny Hartman? :thumbs-up:


Hartmann's voice is too lush for some people. A friend who teaches cultural history at U. Mich. and loves this music, claims that Trane's slightly cutting tone (less so than on _Live at the Village Vanguard_!) creates the perfect contrast w/ Hartman.

You can't beat Hartman for sheer vocal beauty, but I love this album:

Finally, unable to control myself, I have to point to this double album, which I own in LP format. Ornette dresses with considerable _sprezzatura_ inside and out:


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## Pale_Male (May 20, 2013)

Anthony Charton; I meant to start this thread,a while ago and the recent topic about Beckett reminded me of it. I've always been appreciative of how well some of the artists that I admire most seemed to dress- though that's perhaps not very astonishing, considering clothing as a form of art itself- a graceful arrangement. Hopefully this is of interest to some. Do post more !

No pics, but how about... Whistler & Sargent -- Oscar & Beardley mentioned, but Bosie always looked amazing -- Graham Robertson, whose portrait could double for Dorian Gray [though I prefer the Earl of Dalhousie, myself] -- Thomas Mann....

Even the Socialists used to dress well.


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## Jovan (Mar 7, 2006)

Shaver said:


> Dickens, Shakespeare, Sartre, Camus, Dick, Amundsen, Bradbury, Gogol, Wells, Burroughs, Poe, Wilde, Stapledon, Easton Ellis, le Fanu, Rossetti, Moorcock... just straight off the top of the old noggin. :icon_smile:
> 
> Lord of the Rings is possibly the single most over-rated piece of dross in the entire English language.


I think you just need to lay back and enjoy something instead of picking it apart like crazy, man.


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## Flanderian (Apr 30, 2008)

Jovan said:


> I think you just need to lay back and enjoy something instead of picking it apart like crazy, man.


? ? ?


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## Jovan (Mar 7, 2006)

Nothing, nothing. Just another boring episode of "Shaver Hates Everything and Jovan Doesn't Understand Why".


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## Flanderian (Apr 30, 2008)

Jovan said:


> Nothing, nothing. Just another boring episode of "Shaver Hates Everything and Jovan Doesn't Understand Why".


Ah!

As a lapsed English major, I welcome literary controversy. One might observe of literary critics that controversy is their business, and business is good! :icon_smile_wink: But beyond that, I've often found that literary controversy creates a greater understanding and appreciation of the work considered in parties on both sides of an issue.


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## Anthony Charton (May 7, 2012)

https://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/27/o9l3.jpg/

Hemingway

https://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/854/xkhd.jpg/

And Francis, of course.


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## SlideGuitarist (Apr 23, 2013)

Flanderian said:


> Ah!
> 
> As a lapsed English major, I welcome literary controversy. One might observe of literary critics that controversy is their business, and business is good! :icon_smile_wink: But beyond that, I've often found that literary controversy creates a greater understanding and appreciation of the work considered in parties on both sides of an issue.


As a former literary academic (Cornell Ph.D.), I can attest that most academics don't like Tolkien, not just because of his conservatism, and not simply because of his actual popularity. His style is very 19th century, not in and of itself a bad thing, but it only been influential downward, so to speak, on fantasy literature. Whereas Beckett...

I've read all of LotR recently, in order to enjoy the films more, but by _The Return of the King_, the archaisms really began to go out of control. I just can't say it had the same effect on me that Proust had (to which I came late), or Anthony Powell.

Finding well-dressed British writers is altogether too easy. Just search for images of Evelyn Waugh, Kingsley Amis (both before they began to look like sick old alcoholics), Henry Green, Anthony Powell (all Tories so far...I don't know if that's meaningful), P.G. Wodehouse (c'mon, _I_ shouldn't be the one to bring him up)...whom have I missed? Auden was apparently a slob (sorry, Left!), but usually looks completely trad; Isherwood looks very good.

The current generation has fallen off: Martin Amis, Julian Barnes, et al. I can't find images of them wearing neckties!


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## Bjorn (May 2, 2010)

Shaver said:


> Dickens, Shakespeare, Sartre, Camus, Dick, Amundsen, Bradbury, Gogol, Wells, Burroughs, Poe, Wilde, Stapledon, Easton Ellis, le Fanu, Rossetti, Moorcock... just straight off the top of the old noggin. :icon_smile:
> 
> Lord of the Rings is possibly the single most over-rated piece of dross in the entire English language.


I think it's a rather lovely story though, LOTR, literary aspirations aside. Archaisms don't bother me much. I don't understand the fascination for Moorcock though, I have to admit.


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## Bjorn (May 2, 2010)

Literary academics are perhaps like musicians, who like the oddest bands


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## gamma68 (Mar 24, 2013)

SlideGuitarist said:


> You can't beat Hartman for sheer vocal beauty, but I love this album:


Joe Williams came to my mind as well when I read the comment about Hartmann...


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## SlideGuitarist (Apr 23, 2013)

Bjorn said:


> Literary academics are perhaps like musicians, who like the oddest bands


The Black Mountain School were as resolutely modernist as anyone. In response to a review in the LRB (https://www.lrb.co.uk/v23/n22/jenny-turner/reasons-for-liking-tolkien), one of the surviving members wrote: "I read The Hobbit in 1940, at the age of ten, and Lord of the Rings in my twenties. The other great fan in our circle was the poet Robert Duncan. Charles Olson, Robert Creeley, Ed Dorn and Joel Oppenheimer wouldn't read stuff like this. _Leave it to the fruitcakes _[italics mine - Slide]! It puzzles me to read Turner (and Philip Pullman on several occasions) going on about Tolkien's 'dreadful prose style'. Tolkien is even taken to task for using the word 'noisome'. Gosh all hemlock, as people used to say. Philip Sidney used 'noisome'. And a decade or two before Tolkien, H.P. Lovecraft used 'noisome' like there was no tomorrow. I have reread Lord of the Rings maybe five or six times over the past forty years and every time I am thrilled by the language. The style is direct, transparent and unadorned, making it perfect for all the descriptions of the landscapes, while the characters say affectionate and modest natural things to each other. What could be better?"


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## gamma68 (Mar 24, 2013)

*Don't forget the Irish masters...*

*James Joyce*

*Samuel Beckett*


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## Flanderian (Apr 30, 2008)

SlideGuitarist said:


> As a former literary academic (Cornell Ph.D.), I can attest that most academics don't like Tolkien, not just because of his conservatism, and not simply because of his actual popularity. His style is very 19th century, not in and of itself a bad thing, but it only been influential downward, so to speak, on fantasy literature. Whereas Beckett...
> 
> I've read all of LotR recently, in order to enjoy the films more, but by _The Return of the King_, the archaisms really began to go out of control. I just can't say it had the same effect on me that Proust had (to which I came late), or Anthony Powell.


While I've found some Victorian literature tough going, I've had no difficulty with _LOTR_ and _The Hobbit_, having read both about 5 times since finding it in young adulthood in 1965. Like many works of literature, they can be appreciated on different levels. At the highest I consider it a masterpiece in a genre of one. Tolkien was a mythologist, and a Oxford don philologist who obviously had great fun creating a fictional world complete with its own history and languages to rival that in which his specialty of Middle English was spoken. On that level alone it is an outstanding achievement. But at it's heart, it's a journey of self discovery, a consistent literary theme, and perhaps the greatest.

Art of all sorts goes in and out of fashion with each generation of academics making their bones by debunking the previous generation. I agree with Updike that critically a work needs to be considered on its own terms. And I have little doubt the Tolkien will alternately be championed and reviled, but will still be around for quite some time.

I found the films very disappointing. They're good action/adventure films if that is what one is looking for, but that's not what the books are about.


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## Shaver (May 2, 2012)

Jovan said:


> Nothing, nothing. Just another boring episode of "Shaver Hates Everything and Jovan Doesn't Understand Why".


This perplexes me - I have just provided a substantial list of writers I adore.

You may have noted my apoplexy of delight for Equus belts, moleskin trousers and so on and so forth scattered accross the fora. I am always banging on about the things which grant me pleasure.

Just because I consider Tolkein to be an utterly boring writer, with limited imagination, who is considerably over-rated by folk who simply do not know any better, to be in essence a twerp who employs a desperate paucity of literary structure, and dreary simplistic motivations for his *ahem* 'characters', none of this can be taken to mean I am churlish to the world in general. :cool2:


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## Odradek (Sep 1, 2011)

gamma68 said:


> *James Joyce*
> 
> *Samuel Beckett*


A suitable time to drop this short diversion into the conversation. (Dialogue may be NSFW, especially if you're outside of Ireland)


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## Shaver (May 2, 2012)

Jovan said:


> I think you just need to lay back and enjoy something instead of picking it apart like crazy, man.


'Picking apart' is otherwise known as critical analysis, this is the sublime method by which we disassemble, employ feature extraction, reintegrate to construct a perceptual whole, and thus evaluate to discern the quality of an item and reveal the fullest splendour of its content.

Or not, in Tolkein's case.


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## Bjorn (May 2, 2010)

Shaver said:


> 'Picking apart' is otherwise known as critical analysis, this is the sublime method by which we disassemble, employ feature extraction, reintegrate to construct a perceptual whole, and thus evaluate to discern the quality of an item and reveal the fullest splendour of its content.
> 
> Or not, in Tolkein's case.


Sounds like nit picking to me 

You might just be a bit if a goblin 

Warg-ride in your tweeds much?


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## Shaver (May 2, 2012)

Bjorn said:


> Sounds like nit picking to me
> 
> You might just be a bit if a goblin
> 
> Warg-ride in your tweeds much?


I'll pick *your* nits if you give me any more of your guff. :mad2:


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## Bjorn (May 2, 2010)

Shaver said:


> I'll pick *your* nits if you give me any more of your guff. :mad2:


You're Scottish by way of ancestry, right?


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## Flanderian (Apr 30, 2008)

Shaver said:


> and dreary simplistic motivations for his *ahem* 'characters'


I sympathize with anyone for whom such fiction disappoints, but _LOTR_ is a morality play that just happens to be dressed as a fairy tale. And as such, to complain that it lacks the characteristics of naturalist fiction is akin to complaining that a hammer is a bad screwdriver.


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## Bjorn (May 2, 2010)

Flanderian said:


> I sympathize with anyone for whom such fiction disappoints, but _LOTR_ is a morality play that just happens to be dressed as a fairy tale. And as such, to complain that it lacks the characteristics of naturalist fiction is akin to complaining that a hammer is a bad screwdriver.


Agree. All fairy tales are tales of morality, of course, among other things.

Fairy tales, mythology in general, is the original vein of discussions on morality and life in general. Without getting desert religion dreary, obsessing about other peoples sex life's.


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## oxford cloth button down (Jan 1, 2012)

I am with Shaver on this one, but I will let it be known that I do not care for any sci-fi, wizardry, fantasy, hobbits, or magic in the books that I read. I prefer Turgenev, Tolstoy, Camus, Orwell, and the list goes on.


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## oxford cloth button down (Jan 1, 2012)

Flanderian said:


> I sympathize with anyone for whom such fiction disappoints, but _LOTR_ is a morality play that just happens to be dressed as a fairy tale. And as such, to complain that it lacks the characteristics of naturalist fiction is akin to complaining that a hammer is a bad screwdriver.


It definitely is a morality play. J.R.R. Tolkien wrote, "_The Lord of the Rings_ is of course a fundamentally religious and Catholic work; unconsciously so at first, but consciously in the revision."


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## roman totale XVII (Sep 18, 2009)

Maybe not to everyone's tastes here, but I've always appreciated David Hockney's personal style. Many great and very Ivy pics of him in the 60s on the 'net


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## Jovan (Mar 7, 2006)

No sci-fi? No fantasy?  I can't imagine my life without them.


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## Shaver (May 2, 2012)

Jovan said:


> No sci-fi? No fantasy?  I can't imagine my life without them.


I am considering opening a thread on the Interchange on precisely this subject, sci-fi. Whilst we Europeans were sci-fi's parents still the midwifery of the Americans really allowed the genre to flourish.

I cannot imagine my life without Bradbury and Phil Dick, both these astonishingly talented gentlemen have substantially informed my world view.

*WARNING: VIEWER DISCRETION ADVISED:

*


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## Shaver (May 2, 2012)

Flanderian said:


> I sympathize with anyone for whom such fiction disappoints, but _LOTR_ is a morality play that just happens to be dressed as a fairy tale. And as such, to complain that it lacks the characteristics of naturalist fiction is akin to complaining that a hammer is a bad screwdriver.


Tolkein sucks. :icon_smile_wink:


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## eagle2250 (Mar 24, 2006)

Shaver said:


> I am considering opening a thread on the Interchange on precisely this subject, sci-fi. Whilst we Europeans were sci-fi's parents still the midwifery of the Americans really allowed the genre to flourish.
> 
> I cannot imagine my life without Bradbury and Phil Dick, both these astonishingly talented gentlemen have substantially informed my world view.
> 
> ...


My friend, your post leaves me wondering if I ever really gave Ray Bradbury sufficient credit for his art? LOL.


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## oxford cloth button down (Jan 1, 2012)

I take that back Jovan. I do enjoy Vonnegut and his books are often a little fantasy/sci-fi, but his themes are right up my alley. He is also hilarious. Sorry for being so quick to judge. It is a bad habit


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## Shaver (May 2, 2012)

^ Ahh Vonnegut, especially Slaughterhouse 5 with its usage of my favourite literary conceit, the unreliable narrator. This proposed Sci-Fi thread is gripping me ever more firmly. I shall attend to it when I have the time.


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## efdll (Sep 11, 2008)

I am persuaded by Shaver and OCBD on Tolkien. Everyone's entitled to his (or hers, in case women lurk here) pleasure, but for me life's too short for Tolkien, and so far for that other ring author, Wagner, though I may still get around to his Nordic thunder. I'm also in agreement with them regarding Vonnegut. Great writer. Sci-fi? Possibly. I think of him and other Americans as kin to their Latin magical realist neighbors, among whom Mario Vargas Llosa is possibly the best dressed (upper-class Peruvian) while Guillermo Cabrera Infante was an Anglophile dandy -- the only English writer who wrote in Spanish, he would say. Artists in most media dress like hipsters these days; in fact, they are the hipster role models. Back in the day they all dressed with style, even the Leftists and the slobs and the Leftist slobs. So what do the gentlemen here think of the most sartorial of contemporary writers, Tom Wolfe? Both as a dresser, something of which he cares about a lot, and a writer, ditto (this seems to be a thread about lit crit as much as about clothes). Met him once, delightful man, very warm, unlike his biting prose. Saw but did not meet Vonnegut once. It seems that when Mark Twain died he left Kurt Vonnegut his hair and Tom Wolfe his suits. His talent he left to us all.


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## Bjorn (May 2, 2010)

Magical realism... Bah! It's for housewives who can't stomach real fantasy


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## Shaver (May 2, 2012)

A production I had the pleasure to experience last year of Das Rheingold was the most spiffing delight I have ever seen upon the stage. From the magical four minute prelude in E, to the eighteen tuned anvils beaten with fervour, to the bombastic Entry of the Gods into Valhalla finale. You can't knock old Wagner.


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## Fading Fast (Aug 22, 2012)

eagle2250 said:


> My friend, your post leaves me wondering if I ever really gave Ray Bradbury sufficient credit for his art? LOL.


"Fahrenheit 451," like "Atlas Shrugged" or "House of Mirth" is one of those books that I regularly think about as some news item or other current event will echo back to the wisdom and insight of those authors. This argues that they - all writing at different times about different societies - hit on underlying truths that transcend their period and do what great literature does: Enlighten us to those truths and help us see them in our world through the noise and distraction of the day to day. That's my reason for adding another vote for Bradbury (and Rand and Wharton).


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## efdll (Sep 11, 2008)

Bjorn: I guess that makes me a housewife. Desperate? Who knows, or as Tonto says, Kemo Sabay.
Shaver: I figured you for a Wagnerian. Some of my best friends, etc.
Fading Fast: Rand, the horror! I confess I read Atlas Shrugged when I was around 16, but even at that impressionable age the ideology did not sink in -- guess I already was just a Leftist slob. What impressed me, even back then, was her distaste for jackboots and her love of angularity, even in the sex scenes, which are sort of Cubist. I honestly thought she'd wind up in the dustbin of literary history or any history, but what do you know? She's a rock star these days. I agree with William F. Buckley, Jr., whose style I admire more than his politics, but whose dismissal of Rand I second.
Hey, what about Wolfe, y'all?


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## Flanderian (Apr 30, 2008)

Shaver said:


> Tolkein sucks. :icon_smile_wink:


Well, we can at least agree about Bradbury. I grew up on him. Marvelous stories and prose style! :thumbs-up:

Another writer alternately reviled and embraced by academia.


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## SlideGuitarist (Apr 23, 2013)

Many academics love Philip K. Dick, for what it's worth (and IIRC). I was unable to find an image of him in which he's well-dressed, but that's no longer the thread, is it? Priceless quotation: "Despite his heavy amphetamine use, however, Dick later said that doctors had told him that the amphetamines never actually affected him, that his liver had processed them before they reached his brain" (cf. Wikipedia).

So many sci-fi fans here and no votes for J. G. Ballard?

I love Wodehouse, but I don't know what there is to analyze in such perfect comic timing. You can construct counter-examples that aren't as funny, I suppose. "There are moments, Jeeves, when one asks oneself, 'Do trousers matter?'" Either you think that's funny, or you don't.


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## Shaver (May 2, 2012)

Flanderian said:


> Well, we can at least agree about Bradbury. I grew up on him. Marvelous stories and prose style! :thumbs-up:
> 
> Another writer alternately reviled and embraced by academia.


Dandelion Wine makes me feel warm and fuzzy. :icon_smile:

I am compelled to mention Wyndham too, what a story teller - despite what that talentless clot Aldiss may say.


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## Shaver (May 2, 2012)

SlideGuitarist said:


> Many academics love Philip K. Dick, for what it's worth (and IIRC). I was unable to find an image of him in which he's well-dressed, but that's no longer the thread, is it? Priceless quotation: "Despite his heavy amphetamine use, however, Dick later said that doctors had told him that the amphetamines never actually affected him, that his liver had processed them before they reached his brain" (cf. Wikipedia).
> 
> *So many sci-fi fans here and no votes for J. G. Ballard?
> *
> I love Wodehouse, but I don't know what there is to analyze in such perfect comic timing. You can construct counter-examples that aren't as funny, I suppose. "There are moments, Jeeves, when one asks oneself, 'Do trousers matter?'" Either you think that's funny, or you don't.


Ballard is in - the master of soon-to-come-true dysotopias.

Crash (remarkably well adapted by that genius of realising the un-adaptable, Cronenberg) is simply thrilling.

Here's a young Phil D - I wouldn't wear that tie but otherwise presentable


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## Brio1 (May 13, 2010)

Shaver said:


> Dandelion Wine makes me feel warm and fuzzy. :icon_smile:
> 
> I am compelled to mention Wyndham too, what a story teller - despite what that talentless clot Aldiss may say.


Freud painted Wyndham:


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## Shaver (May 2, 2012)

Brio1 said:


> Freud painted Wyndham:


Different Wyndham: I refer to the one who is actually called John Wyndham Parkes Lucas Benyon Harris but who writes as John Wyndham.


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## Bjorn (May 2, 2010)

Asimov, 1965


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## Shaver (May 2, 2012)

Edgar Rice Burroughs.


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## Shaver (May 2, 2012)

H G Wells.


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## Acme (Oct 5, 2011)

^ 5,4,3,2...

https://www.smileyvault.com/


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## Shaver (May 2, 2012)

^ zero. I really need to keep my eye on the ball. :redface:


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## Brio1 (May 13, 2010)

Shaver said:


> Different Wyndham: I refer to the one who is actually called John Wyndham Parkes Lucas Benyon Harris but who writes as John Wyndham.


Ah, I stand corrected, sir. :icon_smile:


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## Shaver (May 2, 2012)

Brio1 said:


> Ah, I stand corrected, sir. :icon_smile:


Not at all, my friend. You should have seen the the ghastly embarrassing gaff I had made until Acme was kind enough to give me the old heads up.


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## Acme (Oct 5, 2011)

Shaver said:


> ^ zero. I really need to keep my eye on the ball. :redface:


My apologies to Shaver, I intended no offense (and only a very mild dose of snark).


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## Shaver (May 2, 2012)

Acme said:


> My apologies to Shaver, I intended no offense (and only a very mild dose of snark).


No offence taken, rather my gratitude offered, you corrected the error of my tipsy inebriation (see What Are You Drinking Today thread)


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## teekayvee (Sep 13, 2008)

Cheever, Updike, Thomas Bernhard, Julio Cortazar (on a good day) were all pretty sharp dressers. Among the journalists, Robert Caro, Halberstam, and Patrick.


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## gamma68 (Mar 24, 2013)

Ian Fleming, 1961.


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## Jovan (Mar 7, 2006)

Ian Fleming gets points off for the short sleeved shirts under a jacket.


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## Anthony Charton (May 7, 2012)

^^ Am I the only one too see the resemblance with Shaver ?


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## Jovan (Mar 7, 2006)

Very slight. Shaver also has most of his hair, something I wish I'll still have at his age but we'll see...


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