9.10.2004
NPR Watch - der Spiegelman
Continuing with a running theme, of no particular importance: Tuning to NPR's Morning Edition on the drive to work this morning, I caught host Steve Innskeep's interview with noted MAUS cartoonist Art Spiegelman.
Speigelman has produced another book of cartoons entitled “In the Shadow of No Towers.” Innskeep's probing was designed to elicit the rich emotion of a good artist. I listened, waiting...
It came with this (approximate quote): He was stunned by the high-jacking and attack on the towers by terrorists, followed by the "high-jacking and attack on the world by America's government afterwards." Innskeep let that one go right home without so much as a by-your-leave.
Yes, it's free speech, and it sickens me to hear this drivel pronounced with such 'high-falutin' aires of erudite importance.
But it ain't just them high-falutin aires. Mr Spiegelman considers himself an exile of sorts following 9/11. The following isn't from the NPR segment (oh, would but that NPR had time for an in-depth segment, drat); it comes from an earlier James Lileks piece on the artist where he quoted from an interview of the artist by a Milanese paper:
Q. Do you consider yourself a victim of September 11?
A. "Exactly so. From the time that the Twin Towers fell, it seems as if I've been living in internal exile, or like a political dissident confined to an island. I no longer feel in harmony with American culture, especially now that the entire media has become conservative and tremendously timid."
Well, Mr Spiegelman, we may be fast approaching Gulag status. Last I checked though, it's still easy enough to get a boarding pass and take off for sunnier climes, say Madrid? Better hurry. How about Bali? Or just go for broke...I'm sure they'd love to have you in the south of Sudan. I'm just kidding. Bet you think yourself warmly received in Marseilles or Berlin...It's a free country...for the time being...before that Manhattan island you're internally exiled on gets the chain link...
Speigelman has produced another book of cartoons entitled “In the Shadow of No Towers.” Innskeep's probing was designed to elicit the rich emotion of a good artist. I listened, waiting...
It came with this (approximate quote): He was stunned by the high-jacking and attack on the towers by terrorists, followed by the "high-jacking and attack on the world by America's government afterwards." Innskeep let that one go right home without so much as a by-your-leave.
Yes, it's free speech, and it sickens me to hear this drivel pronounced with such 'high-falutin' aires of erudite importance.
But it ain't just them high-falutin aires. Mr Spiegelman considers himself an exile of sorts following 9/11. The following isn't from the NPR segment (oh, would but that NPR had time for an in-depth segment, drat); it comes from an earlier James Lileks piece on the artist where he quoted from an interview of the artist by a Milanese paper:
Q. Do you consider yourself a victim of September 11?
A. "Exactly so. From the time that the Twin Towers fell, it seems as if I've been living in internal exile, or like a political dissident confined to an island. I no longer feel in harmony with American culture, especially now that the entire media has become conservative and tremendously timid."
Well, Mr Spiegelman, we may be fast approaching Gulag status. Last I checked though, it's still easy enough to get a boarding pass and take off for sunnier climes, say Madrid? Better hurry. How about Bali? Or just go for broke...I'm sure they'd love to have you in the south of Sudan. I'm just kidding. Bet you think yourself warmly received in Marseilles or Berlin...It's a free country...for the time being...before that Manhattan island you're internally exiled on gets the chain link...
// posted by HunterByrd @ 1:58 PM 
