Quote of the Day (Oscar Wilde, on Retrieving One’s Youth)

“To get back one's youth one has merely to repeat one's follies."—Anglo-Irish playwright, novelist, and short-story writer Oscar Wilde (1854-1900), The Picture of Dorian Gray (1891)

Movie Quote of the Day (‘Revenge of the Pink Panther,’ With Clouseau in Disguise as Toulouse-Lautrec)

[Chief Inspector Jacques Clouseau, disguised as Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, explains why he can't tip the postman.]

Clouseau [played by Peter Sellers]: “I'm a little short.”— Revenge of the Pink Panther (1978), screenplay by Frank Waldman, Ron Clark and Blake Edwards, directed by Blake Edwards

The French painter, printmaker, draughtsman, caricaturist and illustrator Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec died 120 years ago today at only age 36, from the combined effects of alcoholism and syphilis, in Château Malromé, Saint-André-du-Bois, France.

There are all sorts of reading materials for anyone interested in finding out more about the life and art of this consummate artist of Parisian nightlife, including this post, from the blog of the Milwaukee Art Museum, by Christa Story.

But non-art majors may have encountered his work already, in John Huston’s 1952 film Moulin Rouge, with Jose Ferrer as the artist, bringing Oscar nominations to both star and director. Though not particularly accurate as to the facts of the artist’s life, the movie is usually considered, along with Vincente Minnelli’s Lust for Life (1956) on Vincent Van Gogh, as among the great artistic biopics of the Fifties.

It is the indelible image created by Ferrer that Sellers and Edwards are sending up in the above quote. At roughly six feet tall, Ferrer had to subject his body to all manner of contortions to simulate the diminutive Lautrec (unable to grow beyond five feet because of a congenital bone disease).

Sellers may not have found this process quite as agonizing as Ferrer, for this was the second time he dressed up as the chronicler of the Parisian demimonde, following his appearance in in the 1967 James Bond spoof Casino Royale. But his inimitable detective Clouseau donned several other disguises, too, in Revenge of the Pink Panther: priest, Mafia don, even the boss he literally drove insane, Inspector Dreyfus.

You don’t have to press too hard to get me to confess that it’s Sellers’ Lautrec, not Ferrer’s, that I remember. But that’s because comic genius carries everything before it.

Except for Trail of the Pink Panther, a collection of outtakes from the earlier The Pink Panther Strikes Again that were released after Sellers' death, this was the final collaboration of the actor and Edwards. The writer-director was frustrated, and sometimes alarmed, by his star's mental deterioration (e.g., displaying increased difficulty in coordinating his lines with his physical bits, calling Edwards overnight to say that God had just told him how to solve a problem with a scene). 

But the two men brought enough to this last time together to produce some of the most laugh-out-moments of the series, and to intrigue viewers like me in researching further into the objects of their humor.

Quote of the Day (John Steinbeck, on Texas as a Mystique)

“I have said that Texas is a state of mind, but I think it is more than that. It is a mystique closely approximating a religion. And this is true to the extent that people either passionately love Texas or passionately hate it and, as in other religions, few people dare to inspect it for fear of losing their bearings in mystery or paradox. But I think there will be little quarrel with my feeling that Texas is one thing. For all its enormous range of space, climate, and physical appearance, and for all the internal squabbles, contentions, and strivings, Texas has a tight cohesiveness perhaps stronger than any other section of America. Rich, poor, Panhandle, Gulf, city, country, Texas is the obsession, the proper study, and the passionate possession of all Texans.” — American novelist and Nobel Literature laureate John Steinbeck (1902-1968), Travels with Charley: In Search of America (1962)

Something to keep in mind, as the nation focuses on Lone Star State debates on abortion, COVID-19 policy, and—perhaps most basic—the meaning of its history.

Quote of the Day (Evelyn Waugh, on a Modest Applicant for a British Teaching Vacancy)

“‘But I don’t know a word of German, I’ve had no experience, I’ve got no testimonials, and I can’t play cricket.’

“‘It doesn’t do to be too modest,’ said Mr. Levy. ‘It’s wonderful what one can teach when one tries. Why, only last term we sent a man who had never been in a laboratory in his life as senior Science Master to one of our leading public schools. He came wanting to do private coaching in music. He’s doing very well, I believe. Besides, Dr. Fagan can’t expect all that for the salary he’s offering. Between ourselves, Llanabba hasn’t a good name in the profession. We class schools, you see, into four grades: Leading School, First-rate School, Good School and School. Frankly,’ said Mr. Levy, ‘School is pretty bad. I think you’ll find it a very suitable post. So far as I know, there are only two other candidates, and one of them is totally deaf, poor fellow.’” —English novelist Evelyn Waugh (1903-1966), Decline and Fall (1928)

Though Waugh’s satiric novel takes place roughly a century ago, in post-WWI Wales, Mr. Levy could have made quite a bit of money as a contemporary brand consultant, employment counselor, or politician with that statement, “It doesn’t do to be too modest.”

The image accompanying this post shows Jack Whitehall as Paul Pennyfeather (the prospective teacher in the above quote), in the 2017 BBC-1 adaptation of Decline and Fall, which, as a picaresque comedy of a naif hurtling from one disaster to another, has reminded many of Voltaire’s Candide.

Quote of the Day (Alan Garfield, on Unions, Corporations and the Free-Market Economy)

“Misbehavior by individual unions does not undermine unions’ inherent value any more than corporate misbehavior undermines corporations’ value.  Both institutions play a vital role in a free market economy: one for organizing labor and the other for organizing capital.  Society should rein in abuses by either institution. But law-abiding unions and corporations should be encouraged to flourish.”— Prof. Alan Garfield, Widener University Delaware Law School, “Bench Press: Labor Unions and Corporations,” www.DelawareOnline.com, Jan. 7. 2016

For the last 40 years, the labor union movement has been set back on its heels. It's important to keep in mind Prof. Garfield's observation as we celebrate Labor Day. Many of us (this writer certainly included) owe our place in the American middle class to fathers and grandfathers who were union members.

The Minnesota Workers Memorial Garden, at the Minnesota State Capitol in St. Paul, is dedicated to all Minnesotans who have given their lives in the workplace. The memorial was created Craig David (mural design), Mark Wickstrom (sculptor), and Jean Garbarini and Jennifer Germain (landscape architects). Ken Lund took this photograph of it on Aug. 15, 2018.

Spiritual Quote of the Day (Alice McDermott, on How Souls Are Saved by the Writer’s Art)

“All objects in fiction, even the most mundane, shimmer with mystery and meaning, with the souls of the dead as well as the image of some ultimate reality. Burnished buttons or shell-shaped cookies, mummified remains in a museum's glass case or a mundane registration card from the Florida DMV, these things are no longer simply the things themselves, but something transformed by the writer's attention, saved and stored and treasured by the writer’s art.”—Irish-American novelist Alice McDermott, “Last Word: Things,” Commonweal, July/August 2021

The image accompanying this post was taken by Slowking4, showing Alice McDermott reading at the 2018 Gaithersburg Book Festival, May 19, 2018.

Quote of the Day (Sydney J. Harris, on Superior People)

“Superior people are only those who let it be discovered by others; the need to make it evident forfeits the very virtue they aspire to." —American syndicated essayist and drama critic Sydney J. Harris (1917-1986), Pieces of Eight (1982)