It’s said that most geniuses are borderline crazy. Herre are a few facts that might interest you.
MARK TWAIN
Mark Twain was born in 1835 in the year when Haley’s Comet could be seen from Earth, and fulfilling his own death prophecy, he died in 1910, the next time the comet cycled near the Earth, 76 years later.
The Museum of Modern Art in New York City hung Henri Matisse’s painting Le Bateau upside down for 47 days before an alert art student noticed the error.
Poet Ezra Pound wrote The Pisan Cantos while imprisoned in a U.S. army camp in Pisa, Italy. He had been arrested for treason because he had broadcasted Fascist propaganda from Italy during World War II. Eventually judged insane, Pound spent 12 years in a Washington D.C. mental hospital before finally returning to Italy.
Novelist Edgar Allan Poe was once a student at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. Poe flunked out in a particularly spectacular way. An order came for all cadets to show up for a full-dress parade “wearing white belt and gloves, under arms.” He followed the order all too literally, appearing wearing nothing but a belt and carrying his gloves under his naked arms.
EZRA POUND
Robert Lewis Stevenson (1850-1894) wrote Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, a book of 60,000 words, during a six-day cocaine binge. He was also reported to have been suffering from tuberculosis at the time.
British writers Aldous Huxley and C.S. Lewis both died on November 22nd, 1963, the day of John Kennedy’s assassination.
American author Norman Mailer once stabbed his wife and then wrote a novel about it called An American Dream.
Both William Shakespeare and Miguel de Cervantes, who was considered by some to be Shakespeare’s literary equivalent, died on the same day: April 23, 1616.
I have upon occasion been called a sarcastic smartass. Truth be told, I’ve been called that on many occasions by many people and I wear that mantle with pride. It probably will explain this post that concerns two of my all-time favorite people, Oscar Wilde and Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain), two of the most famous smartasses in the world. History calls them humorists, rascals, and intellectuals but that’s just history being kind. They took biting humor and sarcasm to new levels and did it in such a way as to make people love and respect them. Fortunately, I don’t have to worry about that. Here’s a little personal information on Oscar with a collection of his quotes.
Oscar Fingal O’Flaherty Wills Wilde (16 October 1854 – 30 November 1900) was an Irish poet and playwright. After writing in different forms throughout the 1880s, he became one of the most popular playwrights in London in the early 1890s.
“Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.”
“To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all.”
“Always forgive your enemies; nothing annoys them so much.”
“I am so clever that sometimes I don’t understand a single word of what I am saying.”
“We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.”
“If one cannot enjoy reading a book over and over again, there is no use in reading it at all.”
“It is what you read when you don’t have to that determines what you will be when you can’t help it.”
“The truth is rarely pure and never simple.”
“You can never be overdressed or overeducated.”
“Never love anyone who treats you like you’re ordinary.”
Now for a little taste of Mark Twain. He was a good old down-home boy who had the ability to make politicians shiver in their boots and the rest of us to laugh at his humorous way of seeing things.
Samuel Langhorne Clemens (November 30, 1835 – April 21, 1910), best known by his pen name Mark Twain, was an American writer, humorist, entrepreneur, publisher, and lecturer. He was praised as the “greatest humorist the United States has produced”. Here a a few pearls of wisdom from Mark.
“The best way to cheer yourself up is to try to cheer somebody else up.”
“A person who won’t read has no advantage over one who can’t read.”
“Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect.”
“I have never let my schooling interfere with my education.”
“The secret of getting ahead is getting started.”
“Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear, not absence of fear.”
“Humor is mankind’s greatest blessing.”
“Success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful.”
Back in my college days when I thought I knew everything but really didn’t, I had a professor once ask me what person living or dead would I like to sit down and have a meaningful conversation with. I can’t remember my answer but I’m sure it was stupid and meaningless because at that time I was totally clueless. If I could communicate with him now these two gentlemen would be my first and second choices. Better yet, I’d love to have them both sitting with me in a corner of a dark quiet pub sharing a bottle of brandy or bourbon and puffing on a cigar to discuss the state of the world or anything else they’d like to tell me.
Thinking outside the box is a rarity these days. Some people do it automatically in everything they do and are called, weird, odd, strange and a host of other not so nice descriptions. Unfortunately the great majority of people that are truly out-there are artists and creative types. In order to create something that people will pay attention to you must be out-there. I’ve been lucky enough to be labeled out-there since I was seven or eight years old by my parents and friends alike. That to me has always been a badge of honor and always will be.
People continuously use the word weird for those of us who are strange, little off center, or just plain different in our way of thinking. I’ve been called much worse by many people over the years due to my unusual approach to the art I create. I understand that some people are offended by that description but I never was. I’m a firm believer that if you walk by any of my projects and didn’t stop for a second look, I wasn’t getting the job done.
Many years ago I created a piece called “Death Penalty”, and it was displayed in a museum art show. To my great surprise it actually won an Honorable Mention award from the judges. I created a miniature electric chair with all the bells and whistles of a real one. It sat upon a base covered in a collage of death penalty photos and newspaper articles which made quite the graphic statement about the death penalty, both pro and con.
I stood on a raised stage nearby drinking coffee and watching the main floor of the exhibit. People were milling around but I was more interested in those looking at my piece. It drew quite a crowd and a lot of discussions were occurring. I mingled among the crowd anonymously listening to comments and the numerous and varied conversations. The consensus of opinion was that the artist was a little weird and totally off-the-wall. I was absolutely thrilled. That meant even more to me than the Honorable Mention award. I was later approached by the father of a young Goth girl who attempted to buy the chair for her Christmas present. I didn’t have the heart to sell it and I kept that chair for many years before it eventually fell apart during one of my many moves. I’ve always had a hard time selling my art after putting so much effort into producing it. It’s like losing a child.
Now let’s drop back few decades to my days in college. I was inspired by a fellow student after being requested to do some sort of display that would sell a fictional product. This was a commercial art class and a required subject which I truly detested. I thought it was too blatantly commercial and I complained to everyone. A fellow student on the day of the final review took me aside and said “your taking this stuff way too seriously”. He took me into another room and under a sheet on the table showed me his final project. He’d set up a place-setting with a knife, fork, spoon, lacy napkins, and a half filled bottle of Coke. Directly behind the place-setting was a a faux campfire. Over this fire he’d placed a headless baby doll on a spit. He spray painted the doll with a reddish paint to make it look roasted. I was a little shocked at first until he uncovered the last part of his project. He pulled the the sheet away to show me a large, round, red, Coca-Cola sign. It simply stated “Things Go Better With Coke”. I was blown away and thrilled to have met someone who was truly out-there. All these years later I still remember him, the piece, and the attitude it took to make it. I also remember that he got an “A” on the project and I didn’t. I’m carrying on his philosophy as best I can to this day.
If you’re a creative type and I hope you are, don’t let people put you in a box. It’s been my experience that the further out-of-the-box you can take yourself the better your work will be. There are way too many people spending way too much time being critical of virtually everything. To be an artist, poet, or writer is to put your creations “out there” for public viewing. It’s the most rewarding risk you can take.
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