Men an Explanation: Fame and Creativity

Men an Explanation: Henry Darger and Pablo Picasso

In this episode, Tom and Tim start with Henry Darger- the kind of artist you’re supposed to not want to be, and get to Picasso, the kind you’re supposed to want to be! We unpack it a little, and might come back to this. Ends with a reading from John Berger’s The Success and Failure of Picasso Thanks for listening! 00:00 - Henry Darger 01:28 - Mythic Henry Darger is not who you want to be 3:00 - The Vivian Girls and the mythos 3:45 - Tom's connection to Darger and the discovery of the Darger work 6:00 - "Henry would just scurry" + his life 9:14 - William Blake, rejected and "crazy". Mad and bitter 11:30 - Creative impulses and art school 12:00 - "You want to be Picasso" 13:00 - John Berger's The Success and Failure of Picasso 14:00 - Late era drawings no one talks about the work 15:55 - Joseph Campbell on Picasso, how do you keep going, when you were so accomplished at 13 and 14 years old? 17:00 - Darger's full life 17:50 - We create our own experience to develop from 19:00 - "He's just one of those people" 20:00 - William Blake, unaccepted 20:30 - Blake's nemesis 21:30 - Blake's isolation 23:45 - Darger had no centering principle 24:45 - Darger, impenetrable, Blake not so much 26:00 - Donald Ault, Blake scholar and Uncle Scrooge scholar 27:00 - Tom's reading corner: The Success and Failure of Picasso by John Berger 33:21 - Portrait of Ms. HP and Nude Dressing Her Hair 35:40 - Sees self in women, can only be known via sex, he returns sex to nature 38:40 - Last great works, he has only ever expressed sensations through his own body 41:45 - Picasso, communist 44:20 - Picasso, King of Californie 49:20 - The final 180 drawings. The body ages and the imagination does not. He envies the monkey. The very idea of art attacked by nature. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit tomhart.substack.com [https://tomhart.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1]

Men an Explanation: Kurt Cobain

In this episode, Tom and Tim start with Kurt Cobain, and talk again about the process of making things. Listening to things, cobbling things together, steal from things, inspiration, and all that stuff. And an anecdote about Gene Kelly and also Magic the Gathering. Thanks for listening! Timestamps 00:00 - Preface to the 2019 edition of Kurt Cobain biography, about Kurt's record collection 3:20 - Tom's desperate attempts to consume the Western Canon of literature 7:00 What is culture in the British Empire, being a part of the conversation. 8:00 Cartoonists' canon 9:00 Hey Siri, play Rubber Soul 10:00 Cobain read about and heard about punk music before he heard any. 11:00 The imagination that works in scarcity 12:00 The canon again 13:00 canon as a system, or a narrative. Beowulf, Don Quixote, etc 15:50 Cobain stealing from his resources 16:30 so little time / space for meaningful things. Tim doesn't care what it is anymore. Magic the Gathering 18:30 Preferring literature over gaming. Loving the process of writing 20:30 Following those artists' inspirations. 21:00 Kundera's The Art of the Novel and his inspirations 21:30 Tom never read Cervantes but read the Cliffs Notes 24:00 Tim brings books around and nobody is paying attention and nobody cares 25:00 Back to Kurt Cobain, or Gene Kelly 25:10 Kurt listening to music in his dad's car at work, draining the battery. 27:00 The joy of just creating 27:30 Kurt got to the point where there were so many demands put on by record companies and Mtv etc. 29:00 The Mtv Music awards and the threats to other bands if they didn't play by MTv's rules 30:45 Tom's desire to impress people with art and devising systems to hack it 33:00 The bad reviews and reactions we're trying to avoid. 33:20 Gene Kelly, and Tim's uncle's indoor sports arena, with hockey rinks, basketball courts, etc. 35:00 Gene Kelly beautifully noodling around with a cane 37:00 More about loving the process 37:33 Tom's cartoonist friends who would all rather be drawing what they were drawing in their tweens. 40:00 should have taken more life drawing, to be more like Gene Kelly 42:30 Tim love the process and the moment too. 45:00 Tim feels like accumulating little experiences with art is the thing 46:45 People just catching a breath 48:00 Finish with more Cobain. What part of his art experience was his favorite? 48:30 Kurt's suicide note. Freddie Mercury was enjoying himself 49:30 The hours and hours he spent practicing chords and putting things together 50:00 Being poor, living in his car, criss crossing the country in the van 50:45 Putting creature comforts aside to create something 51:20 "Whatever happens, we still have those memories" 51:45 The medium fills us with elation and we need to keep doing it 52:30 Tim's reading corner: Excerpt from biography of Kurt Cobain This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit tomhart.substack.com [https://tomhart.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1]

Men an Explanation: Fame and Creativity

In this episode, Tom and Tim talk more about fame and inner worlds and creativity . It ends with a reading by Tim from Wallace Stevens’ letters. Thanks for listening! 00:00: When parents and teachers only have their kids/students to unburden themselves onto; Tim tells the story of a friend’s friend 04:46: Tim asks why he’s writing poetry and stories, when he’s surrounded by music all the time; Mr. Rogers and Jimi Hendrix 08:04: Tom being torn up about AI and the greedy cannibalization of everything people have created 11:29: Tim is avoiding going to talk to a grade school class about poetry, prayer, and privacy 12:40: Tim’s most intense learning experiences were largely private; his story about cat-sitting and reading “Macbeth” 15:40: What would Tim do if he met Tori Amos or Robert Smith? And talking about the distance that fame puts between people who are well-known, and those who admire them 20:36: Tim talks Son House, and how he was able to still give intensity to songs he’d been singing for thirty years 23:03: Tim talks about Wallace Stevens, walking to work each morning and composing poems in his head; he reads part of his poem, “Final Solioquy of the Interior Paramour” 25:27: Tom talks about singer and poet Ivor Cutler, and even sings one of Cutler’s songs 27:09: The effortless creativity of children 29:10: Tom and Tim talk about how creativity is ground out of people 29:55: Tim talks about carrying drafts about his poems around at his early jobs, to keep them in front of his mind; more about private moments 31:05: For Tim’s Reading Corner, he spends time with The Letters of Wallace Stevens [https://www.amazon.com/Letters-Wallace-Stevens/dp/0520206681/ref=sr_1_1?crid=M4QLMQ5WM90O&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.GVKvNMtyPtslHvonpqn3xH1_0XmdW3boiJM0K_ubm5ILLk3BImiRyNsdvU5OoeejfoNU9-cPuwefNtAuELWax9mykPYfE9kouZ939nQaO15qFyL4GnEi52OB-mkuH8ETVkApW5hjK96MMTS0GRFMmMShH8SNobgYOhynBkYLBNnaffGpj4V0dkLUNmg53b2ihvzVrq9eOE5pv66B-W7aONhlDE2cGRlVjQe-Q71HES0.hs6i1KhVo7A9T4w5TBQYB9Ih9Xw6KThc9rt4NbYtNqU&dib_tag=se&keywords=wallace+stevens+letters&qid=1776948354&sprefix=wallace+stevens+le%2Caps%2C533&sr=8-1] Thanks! This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit tomhart.substack.com [https://tomhart.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1]

Men an Explanation: New and Ancient Religions

In this episode, Tom and Tim mostly talk about the kids these days with their Greek Mythology and altars and dice, and about Therians, and Furries, and other ventures into new and old religion. It ends with a reading by Tim from Dave Grohl’s biography, about a vision of Kurt Cobain on the road. Thanks for listening! 00:16 Tom talks about middle-schoolers who, inspired by Percy Jackson books, have begun practicing their own form of Greek paganism. 3:12 Tom talks about middle-school Therians who have a better life than Tom, because they know what they believe. 4:35 Tim talks about a book on ancient religion that he came across that wants to be more rigorous about the subject than more popular works; Tim admires this impulse, but also admits that the DIY middle-schooler Greek paganism is valid too. 10:36 Tom wonders why journalists aren’t writing about Therians. 12:28 Tom and Tim talk about Furry Conventions; and on the wonderful profusion of merch and adornments and ways of belonging to these groups. 18:46 Tom talks about not having found his group, or a religious/ritual practice, leading to Tom and Tim talking about ritual, certainty, and doubt; Tom thinks his ritual is actually his art-making. 22:46 Tim brings up the novelist George Saunders and Buddhist meditation; as long as the impulses aren’t harming to himself or others, Tim doesn’t want to keep himself from being attached to messy/ephemeral emotions and reactions. 25:59 Tim admits that his idea meditation, first come upon in his early 20s, may have been too-idealized. 26:31 The perfect meditation is reading, or is underlining in books. 27:16 Almost anything can become a religious practice; but it can almost too-easily become a form of orthodoxy. 27:58 Tim talks about his own practice of Judaism, and the pull towards an idealized practice and discipline there, too; he also admits that becoming Rabbi Tim would take away from doing a podcast with Tom. 30:39 Tom talks about how we have so much fewer shared experiences anymore. 32:52 Tom realizes that he probably has found his group, beyond making art and music, since he is in charge of a school of artists; he talks about finding community there through publishing projects and reacting to the current horrors and joys in the world. 38:56 For Tim’s reading corner, he reads from Dave Grohl’s memoir, The Storyteller. In the aftermath of Kurt Cobain’s death, Grohl talks about mourning, worrying that he is losing touch with music, and the moment when he found it again. Thanks! This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit tomhart.substack.com [https://tomhart.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1]

Men: An Explanation. The Ecstasy and The Demented, and Bigfoot

In this episode, Tom and Tim talk about the shared internal world, the lack of an internal world, the internal demented world, and spiritual experiences with Bigfoot. Lots about Tom’s crush on Christina Listens [https://www.youtube.com/@OKCHRISTINALISTENS] and how they love the same things, and then even more about Bill Clinton and other politicians. And storytelling and religion and Bigfoot. Timestamps 0:00 Tom on diminished minor 7ths. 3:45 Youtube Christina Listens, on Tom’s favorite Firth of Fifth 8:45 He rides majestic, past homes of men, who care not, nor gaze with joy 9:30 Tim presses Tom on shared inner world, shared ecstatic experience 10:45 All I want is for people to experience freedom and joy, a release from boundaries and of self 11:30: Tim on Bill Clinton, and the exact opposite 15:00 Tim on watching people watch Rick Perry at a campaign stop 17:00 The lack of an internal life 18:20 Clinton and a demented inner life 20:24 Proximity of power, Tim doesn’t experience it 21:30 Christopher Nolan in Pittsburgh, Tony Bennett in New York City, Ving Rhames in LA. 22:30 Bill Clinton apologist, finishing up with Clinton 25:15:I wasted so much energy on the George Bush years 25:30 Bigfoot documentary 28:00 Bigfoot and the religious, inner, personal religious experiences 29:30 Everything we value, poetry, culture, etc. was a private unknown thought 31:00 When you go to another family’s house, as a kid or an adult 31:50 Domineering father cult leaders 32:10 How do you become as demented as Steven Miller 33:00 Bigfoot documentary and people trying out storytelling skills 34:00 Tim listening to his parents as an adult, realizing they are good storytellers 35:30 Tom on being in his family dynamic one last time before his mother’s death. 37:43 Tom’s reading corner. Tom reads from The Creature [https://www.reddit.com/r/bigfoot/comments/15v7yng/the_creature/], a 1970s seminal text about Bigfoot. 13 minutes AI says to smash that subscribe button This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit tomhart.substack.com [https://tomhart.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1]