Where was their mother?

What a fucking sicko. I"m emailing NYU and the foundation. Maybe if enough people do, they'll be forced to act.

Good thinking momof4, I will too.

http://library.nyu.edu/forms/feedback.html

Gretchen, their mother apparently participated in the whole thing herself. Ugh.

If I were them, I'd get a lawyer and find an opportunistic Congresscritter, and then accuse NYU of keeping child pornography in its archives. But then, I'm mean and nasty.

Sidenote: The NYT article mentioned the work of Sally Mann, who has photographed her (young) naked kids as they ran around being naked, essentially. More here:

http://www.nytimes.com/1992/09/27/magazine/the-disturbing-photography-of-sally-mann.html

I'd distinguish that from the Rivers' collection, but others may feel differently. The significant difference right now, of course, is that the kids don't mind being photographed at all...but I wonder how they'll feel in their teens, 20s, etc.

Remember when Brooke Shields did "Pretty Baby"? I think she was around 11 and appeared nude or semi-nude in some scenes, playing a prostitue. There were no cries of child pornography then.

I'm not saying it's right, but we've had a seizmic shift about this issue in recent decades. There's even been criticism of that photographer who shoots babies - you know, the ones in flowers and pea pods. Cute, not creepy, in my view, but some now see child pornography.

That said, I can see why the daughters would like them destroyed. It's an interesting issue for artists. Many of us have nude drawings/paintings of models that were done at art school or in studios. When it's considered "art", do the models or subjects have a claim?

Brooke Shields wasn't coerced, and she wasn't talking about herself and her developing body while someone was asking questions.

Here's NYU's response to my letter (Summary: NYU doesn't have them, the Rivers Foundation does):

**********

Hi Nicole:

According to the NYT story these films were not included in the archives that were deposited at NYU. See below from the NYT website:

University Doesn’t Want Film of Artist’s Children
By KATE TAYLOR
After it came to light last week that films and videotapes made by the artist Larry Rivers included footage of his two daughters naked, New York University informed his foundation that it did not want those materials included as part of the archive it was purchasing, said John Beckman, a spokesman for N.Y.U.

That leaves the question of what to do with the films and tapes, which are now in the hands of the Larry Rivers Foundation and which Mr. Rivers’s younger daughter, Emma Tamburlini, wants turned over to her and her sister, Gwynne Rivers. Mr. Rivers died in 2002.

The foundation’s lawyer, Peter R. Stern, confirmed in an e-mail message on Thursday that it would not transfer the materials to the university. As to whether it would turn them over to Mr. Rivers’s daughters, Mr. Stern said that the foundation’s board “has not had an opportunity to fully consider the issues which have been raised” and “will be thoughtfully reviewing the entire subject.”

Mr. Rivers filmed his daughters at six-month intervals, beginning when each was about 11, from 1976 to 1981, for a series that he titled “Growing.” He filmed them either naked or topless and made comments and asked questions about their changing bodies, particularly their breasts. Ms. Tamburlini has said that she felt very uncomfortable about being filmed and that it contributed to her becoming anorexic as a teenager.

Mr. Beckman said that both the content of the tapes and Ms. Tamburlini’s disagreement with the foundation over what should happen to them came as a surprise to N.Y.U. The foundation had requested that the “Growing” series be restricted during the daughters’ lifetimes. Mr. Beckman said that N.Y.U. was “led to believe that the restrictions on the materials represented a resolution between the foundation and the family.” He added that “obviously we ultimately came to understand” that they did not.

While the controversy has not threatened N.Y.U.’s acquisition of the rest of the archive, Mr. Beckman said, the university has asked the foundation “to look through the entire archive to see if there is any similarly problematic material that should not come to the university.”

He added, “We have strongly urged the foundation to come to a resolution with Ms. Tamburlini that all parties can embrace.”

Reached by phone, Ms. Tamburlini said that she still wanted the foundation to return the films and tapes to her and her sister.

“I just want to see the foundation do the right thing,” she said. “I mean, who is really interested in keeping the film?”

>>Remember when Brooke Shields did "Pretty Baby"? I think she was around 11 and appeared nude or semi-nude in some scenes, playing a prostitute. There were no cries of child pornography then.

Lovelysoul,

Yet I have the impression the the only reason I ever even knew about the movie Pretty Baby was the endless discussions about the pervy exploitation of a very underage actress in the name of film art?

Maybe I am mistaken...

Marion, I actually just read an article yesterday about Sally Mann.

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/Model_Family.html?device=iphone&c=y

There seems to be a very different dynamic in the relationship between her and her kids and this guy and his. It sounds like Larry Rivers' work did far more damage to his subjects. And the whole thing sounds fucking creepy anyway--what adolescent girl wants to discuss her sexual development with her dad at all, much less topless and on camera??

/sacrasm turned up to 11

Let me make it simple and clear for you, Ms. Alkon:

Here, this artist makes a higher-order commentary on the patriarchal nature of exploitation of women entering reproductive age. As such, it is not proper to adopt an "objective" view of the work (which we know is impossible for most people in this turgid, phallo-focused society).

Instead what is proper, in the sense of a gender-equalized normative world, is to grasp the archness of the creator's vision, and see that the creator's vision here included an awareness of the duality of the meaning inherent in this work. He is not exploiting; he is revealing. Revealing not *his* cruelty and vile nature--bourgeois middle class concepts try and impose such values on individuals, if you can believe it--but rather he is revealing to the bourgeois middle class its own cruelty and vileness as a group. In sum, it is all men who do this, at all times. The artist is simply showing us this reality via his filtered rendition of our society's daily crimes against females.

(When I say "creator", I do not mean to suggest the artist was warping reality in some masculinized-rape of the world around him to satisfy his urges. Rather he was an evolved intelligence filtering reality in a non-violent, cooperative manner.)

The post-modern, nay, post-post-mnodern transitional modalities of the post-modern, or post-post-modern status, if you will, of filtering intelligence at work on reality is worthy of archiving here. So you can see, Ms. Alkon how we, as viewers (and curators), should categorize the resulting creator's filtered reality different from your initial, bourgeois reaction. This work--no matter how larger society may try to categorize it using oppressive out-moded, pre-post-post-modern conceptual frameworks of reality-interpretation--is a construct of the proper mindset. So it is not subject to intepretations *you* might impose which are, sadly, outmoded, due to your lingering oppressed filtering framework. Rather the intepretation a less-oppressed mindset like NYU should apply.

I hope that makes it more clear, and you will hereafter listen to your betters in these matters.

And if you think for a moment about questioning the government grants and money-grabs that make our lives possible,...

/sounds of union goons approaching from behind you

There's a huge difference between filming girls and pressuring them to talk about their developing bodies on film while semi-naked and taking innocent pictures of kids being kids (Sally Mann). I have similar pictures of my kids and there are pictures of me and my brother from the 70s that my dad took that are like that too. I have never been embarrassed by naked kid pictures and those who get upset over such things show a lack of ability to use reason and logic, perhaps imagination too.

We have this weirdly uptight and simultaneously overly permissive and sexualized culture that results in this upside down thinking. That there is "controversy" over Sally Mann while NYU would hold on to a film that sounds like it's painful to watch because it's just wrong and unnecessary really says a lot, not that I expect better from a modern university.

This one made me smile because it reminds me of my youngest daughter. I just can't see how anyone would look at this and think "pornography." That's just idiotic. It's a beautiful portrait.

http://www.artnet.com/AUCTIONS/Pages/Lots/19557.aspx?lotId=19557

Of course, I've had plenty of disapproval for letting my kids outside like this:

http://chaoticmuse.smugmug.com/photos/942486997_z7WUr-L.jpg

to know that there are a lot of idiots out there.

OK Spartee...you made ME laugh I'll say that.

Rivers cast himself as something of a wild man, and in his 1992 autobiography, “What Did I Do?,” he chronicled, among other things, his heroin use, his effort to sleep with his mother-in-law and numerous affairs, including one, when he was in his 40s, with a 15-year-old girl. In describing his own early experiences, he wrote that his father tried to molest the first girlfriend he brought home and said that an 11-year-old boy in his neighborhood forced him to perform a sex act when he was 6.

Ms. Tamburlini said her father filmed his daughters every six months over at least five years for a body of work he titled “Growing.” If she objected, she said, she was called uptight and a bad daughter. When she confronted her father as a teenager about the films, she said he told her “my intellectual development had been arrested.”

That pretty much sums up what's wrong with Larry Rivers and why comparing him to Sally Mann is an insult to the latter as well as to good taste. Nasty man.

Marion,

I read about the Sally Mann photography, too. I think that intent is a big part of this, also, the age of the children.

I think modesty is important to impart in kids growing up, but kids like to run around in their underpants for a while. Capturing that can be funny and provide excellent opportunities for parents to embarrass their offspring to future spouses! It's a fine line to balance modesty and also help engender an appreciation for the body and build confidence in one's body. We shouldn't be *ashamed* of our bodies, but should understand it's good to cover them up sometimes.

Sally Mann's photos went beyond simply capturing family memories as she profited and displayed them for the public, also I think her naked son is 11 in the pics, too? That's a little old for that. However, I don't know if it was Sally or someone else to photographed kids in a naturalist town or something. That's also a different scenario: those kids are raised in a nudist environment so being viewed nude in and of itself isn't exploitation b/c it's a different set of values. WE are the perverts for looking at nudists and thinking "you're sexualizing your kids!". They're not necessarily doing that - we're projecting our values on to them. If everyone is naked and doesn't think twice about it then it's not really sexual.

Rivers is a sick fuck and is nothing like the other examples referenced. He was probably jacking off to the pictures/videos and exploited his daughters.

>>This one made me smile because it reminds me of my youngest daughter. I just can't see how anyone would look at this and think "pornography." That's just idiotic. It's a beautiful portrait.

http://www.artnet.com/AUCTIONS/Pages/Lots/19557.aspx?lotId=19557

Thag,
I agree the photo is a stunning portrait and not remotely pornographic.

But I can also see that the portrait brilliantly calls attention to the artless suggestion of the chosen pose.

(I'm not arguing with you! Just saying it's a wonderfully thought-provoking image - and quite different from, say, a glorious head-and-shoulders shot of the same child.)

"Capturing that can be funny and provide excellent opportunities for parents to embarrass their offspring to future spouses!"

I occasionally kid relatives about showing goofy childhood pics to their prom dates. But I would never actually do it; it would be a breach of familial trust and comfort. And those relatives would be correct to trust and like me much less after that. I would have interferred in their romantic relationships in a perverse, unwelcome way.

I think modesty is important to impart in kids growing up

After a while, this does come naturally to most kids. The average 11-year-old isn't going to want to change by the paddling pool at the park the way a 3-year-old will. I think allowing them to be "immodest" while they are young is healthier than forcing clothes on them (and it really is a battle sometimes with littler kids). Does anyone suppose all those twits posting semi-naked pictures of themselves on facebook were raised by nudists? Not likely.

I find it odd that people get uptight over a female child's nipples showing but dressing a 2-year-old in a bikini isn't considered a little silly at the very least. I remember getting comments for being outside without a shirt when I was 9 or so and wondering what the big deal was since, at that point, there was really no difference between me and my brother, yet he could go about as he pleased without comments from halfwits about needing a shirt. Of course, that little bit of peer pressure quickly changed my ways but I resented it a bit because it was hot out! Maybe that's why it pisses me off when I see a Muslim girl dressed from head to toe (in my city!) while her brother wears western sports clothes that fit the environment.

FTR, I grew up to be a fairly conservative, modest adult who doesn't feel a big need to display my wears to anyone besides intimate partners.

"They're not necessarily doing that - we're projecting our values on to them. If everyone is naked and doesn't think twice about it then it's not really sexual.

Rivers is a sick fuck and is nothing like the other examples referenced. He was probably jacking off to the pictures/videos and exploited his daughters."

Yes, but this was very much the mindset of artists at the time...exactly like that of nudists - that nudity was natural and anyone who was truly enlightened shouldn't have a hang-up about it. I mean, I was in art school during this period - at only 18 - and that was the expectation. We'd all get naked in front of each other, trading off drawings, and part of it was proving how "not uptight" we were about our nakedness.

It seems to me that this was River's attitude, not necessarily that he was a pervert. It's interesting that his daughters aren't making that claim either. Were they actually molested?

As cringe-worthy as the films are (mostly, the talking about breasts and development part), they don't prove he was a pedophile.

No, lovelysoul, but the fact that he insisted on using them for his art, even though it seems at least one of them objected and was uncomfortable with the situation, and that he would belittle them in the face of confrontation seems abusive to me. Fathers should be protecting their children from that kind of shit, not subjecting them to it.

"Remember when Brooke Shields did "Pretty Baby"? I think she was around 11 and appeared nude or semi-nude in some scenes, playing a prostitue. There were no cries of child pornography then."

One, there should have been. Two, Brook Shields was a celebrity not a private citizen. Permission was granted with a contract (offer) and compensation (acceptance). However, I am sure if Brook wanted, she could probably stir the pot with it because she was not legally old enough to sign the contract - her mother did, and she was too young. But that is not the issue here.

The issue is 1) they are underage and 2) they are private citizens (and 3) their father was a pedophile).

"Many of us have nude drawings/paintings of models that were done at art school or in studios. When it's considered "art", do the models or subjects have a claim?"

They were paid to model. They probably were not underage.

Muddying the waters again I see.

"It seems to me that this was River's attitude, not necessarily that he was a pervert. It's interesting that his daughters aren't making that claim either. Were they actually molested?

As cringe-worthy as the films are (mostly, the talking about breasts and development part), they don't prove he was a pedophile."

Truly, lady, you make my skin crawl.

I'm pretty crunchy. I don't have a problem with changing in front of, skinny dipping with, sharing a bathroom with etc. family members of various genders. I don't see it as salacious.

BUT

This sounds rather creepy from the description. It sounds like it is focusing too much on the developing sexuality. Granted, I haven't seen the films, just read the description. I... -suppose-... such a film could be innocent and natural, but from the description it just doesn't sound like it.

When skinny dipping on camping trips people don't usually sit there and discuss their developing genitals or breasts. They just... swim.

Honestly, if the one daughter wants any justice she should find out where the stuff is kept and steal it. If thats not possible, burn it/blow up the archive.

To make this public is just beyond comprehension to me. These girls were not of age and not the age of legal consent.

Also, what Amy said about not being a public figure, that is correct.

> Yet I have the impression the the only reason
> I ever even knew about the movie Pretty Baby
> was the endless discussions about the pervy
> exploitation of a very underage actress in
> the name of film art?

Exactly. Thanks.

Seeing that introduction to public life, for a person of roughly contemporary age whom I might be expected to take at least a passing, showbizzy interest, I resolved never to consume any Brooke Shield product. And it's worked out great! Three decades now.

(She snuck onto Letterman once, uninvited, but he made fun of her.)
______________________

I don't think the material should see daylight: Given Godly powers for a morning, I might return the material to the daughters and that would be that. But there's much to admire in a curator whose resists the censoring impulses of his age, especially the fiercest ones, and who declines to destroy work in any case. That's not the gig.

A few years ago, there was an article about people –mostly black people, Bobby Short was one of them– who collected racist figurines and advertising ephemera from the late 19th and early 20th centuries. They didn't display the stuff in their homes, and they didn't share it with friends, exactly. But they knew the stuff ought not be allowed to vanish, as if it were never created.

There's more to moving forward than forgiveness.

"They were paid to model. They probably were not underage.

Muddying the waters again I see"

They weren't always paid. In the school studios, yes, but, as I said, we posed for each other. No money exchanged. We traded off to help each other out with assignments. There are probably countless nude drawings/paintings/photos of me out there. Yet, I would never assume I had a claim to anyone's else's artwork just because I was the subject. It's an interesting question for the attorneys out there.

Feebie, it makes my skin crawl to think of sitting around nude, talking to my dad about my breasts and development too. My only point is that Rivers was (I assume, giving him the benefit of the doubt) looking at it as an "artist" with that same "nudity is natural" mindset so many of us had back then.

I knew many young artists who expected they would raise their kids to be "totally free" as far as nudity goes...like hippies. Pedophilia wasn't on everybody's mind back then. I don't recall anyone in the art world declaring that "sick".

They do now, but as Gretchen pointed out, that's often about imposing other values/fears on the situation. "WE are the perverts for looking at nudists and thinking "you're sexualizing your kids!"

At least in the art world, there was nothing wrong with nudity, and it wasn't all about sexuality. Now, it seems perverted, but it's not clear that was his motivation.

His ACTIONS are all I care about LS. I don't give a shit what his intentions are.

More Polanski weirdness. Everyone is absolved if they were an "art-EEST" and people act indignant to these young girls. It's sick.

And LS - you modeling nude...you were of legal age, right? mmmkay, thanks.

Given that child sex is one of the great voodoo realms of our age, I'm surprised the daughters don't instigate some sort of legal action, criminal or civil, to have the items recovered. (Not that they'd want them pass through a typical city's evidence-handling offices, but still.) In today's climate, jury support would be a slam-dunk. I'd think lawyers would be offering competitive rates for the task, and preening prosecutors would be enthusiastic.

"And LS - you modeling nude...you were of legal age, right? mmmkay,"

Mmmmm....barely, (at 18), but yeah.

There's a difference. Polanski IS a pedophile. He admittedly had sex with a very young girl. River's daughters are not claiming they were ever sexually molested. What he did was icky, but not evidence that he's a pedophile.

Of course, today, he'd be considered one just for taking/possessing the films, whether for artistic purposes or not. And so would the director and/or cinematographer of "Pretty Baby". They'd probably do time today.

I'm all for locking up true pedophiles, but I'm against falsely convicting men of these kinds of crimes. PeeWee Herman, for instance, was charged just for possessing some nude artwork. This paranoia regarding molestation can get a little extreme.

Tell it to the anorexic.

LS, the problem with your reasoning is that you seem to forget that these girls were not exactly consenting and resistance was met with verbal degradation. That isn't nearly the same as voluntarily being a nude model at any age. Furthermore, being a nude model for your classmates is quite different to having your father film your genitals while asking about your developing sexuality - that is just sick.

Children and minors are autonomous beings, not an "artist's" materials, father or not. And as Feebie said, any possible highfalutin motivations are irrelevant when the result is that his daughters were traumatized by the experience. Art at any cost is not worth having, not that the result sounds very deserving of being called art in the first place. Cheap voyeurism might be closer to the truth. It's a gross abuse of power to coerce minors into doing a film like this.

And before anyone says "well, Sally Mann's kids didn't give their consent," her kids were not traumatized and were photographed tastefully and not prodded to talk about very private and awkward subjects while being recorded. There's a world of difference. As I said, my dad took pictures of me and my brother dancing naked in the yard and neither of us ever gave a rat's arse about it. If he'd filmed us the way this creep filmed his daughters, I'm pretty sure I'd feel a whole lot differently.

Stop trying to justify repulsive garbage and see it for what it is. How about Larry Rivers imposing his twisted "values" on his daughters, as if everyone should be a licentious exhibitionist?

Polanski IS a pedophile. He admittedly had sex with a very young girl. River's daughters are not claiming they were ever sexually molested.

Please read the article: "Rivers cast himself as something of a wild man, and in his 1992 autobiography, “What Did I Do?,” he chronicled, among other things, his heroin use, his effort to sleep with his mother-in-law and numerous affairs, including one, when he was in his 40s, with a 15-year-old girl."

Is that underage sex good enough for you? And do you think that because there was no reported physical molestation of his daughters, that this wasn't a very invasive and wrong thing to do to them? Why are you refusing to look at the EFFECTS on them? Why is this asshole's "art" more important than the human beings used as unwilling subjects?

I'm not justifying it. The whole concept is creepy. I think more because of the dialogue than the nudity.

I just don't know that it rises to the level of a crime. If the daughter says she felt abused, that's one thing, but I'm not hearing her saying that...or saying her father is a pedophile. As Crid notes, she'd have a much stronger case in getting the films back if she called them evidence of a crime, rather than just a reminder of an awkward, uncomfortable time.

And it's not clear why this lead to her anorexia -other than young women, models of all types, see themselves on film and believe they're too fat.

To me, a pedophile is a guy who literally jacks off to photos of young girls or boys. It's what stimulates him - often the only thing that stimulates him.

Rivers may be that kind of pervert, but I'm not ready to say so based on this alone. The daughters would know...but they may not want to say so publicly.

Oh, I didn't see the 15 yr old girl part, Thag. Yeah, he's a pedophile.

You'd think the daughters would be saying that. Is he still alive?

> As Crid notes, she'd have a much stronger
> case in getting the films back if she called
> them evidence of a crime, rather than just
> a reminder of an awkward, uncomfortable time.

I said nothing of the kind. I regard her claim on this material as obvious and absolute, far exceeding any authority the mere law might ascribe to it.

My comment addressed practicalities. There are many people in this world who can't wait for another reason to hate NYU and its milieu. A case like this would be red meat mixed with meth and rye whiskey for those folks, and they wouldn't be entirely wrong.

I don't think he's still alive, but either way, I do think they have a right to have the films. I would hate to have that hanging around somewhere and I can totally understand why they would want them destroyed. They deserve to have that much dignity at least. It's not a matter of law but of what's right and what's reasonable. Would it really be a great loss to the world to not have these films? I doubt it.

Did Reubens have to register as a sex offender?

It's just a travesty. They've been after him since he got caught whacking off in the movie theater...because he's different, likes to entertain children, and he's gay. He MUST be a pedophile.

I'm pretty sure Brooke Sheilds has come out with being unhappy she was in that film. I could be wrong, but I seem to remember reading an interview with her on that.

Kids can't consent. We have that law for a reason. "Art" should not trump the law. Period.

LS- you are way off base here. Waaaaayyyyyy off base.

I just swiped this update (from the NY Times, July 16) from the "Larry Rivers archive" discussion on metafilter.

Basically, the story is over.

The piece pretty much shows the NYT is taking the credit for the university NOW refusing the problem material in the archive purchased from the Larry Rivers Foundation. (Thag is correct, Rivers himself passed on to the Big Studio in the Sky in 2002.)

"After publication of this Op-Ed article [a week or so earlier], New York University told The Times that it had decided not to accept the Larry Rivers film "Growing" as part of the archives it purchased from the Larry Rivers Foundation. Though the university had reached its agreement with the foundation on Tuesday, the arrangement had not been publicly announced."

Full story at the link:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/16/opinion/16shapiro.html

Thanks, Jody. Good news there.

I don't know why you all are so outraged. He's an artist and therefore a Leftist. As we're constantly told by such folks, such things as accountability and morals and a sense of right & wrong are solely oppressive mantras of Right-Wing Conservatives. It's much better to be a Progressive and be free of all such guilt!!!

P.S. LOL

"You'd think the daughters would be saying that."

Mind-boggling.

Do they have to? Any respectable and reasonable human being is going to look at this scenario and find it quite apparent what happened to these women AS CHILDREN was absolutely wrong, indefensible, abusive and unconscionable.

To me, announcing to the public what else may have happened to them (these things typically are considered private for most people) is none of anyone else's business. They don't want their pain ripped wide open for public gawking, neither do they want the video documentation of probably one of many offenses out for public viewing.

If they want the materials back, that is good enough for me. They were exploited as children.

Feebie,
I agree with you on this completely.

There was also another good comment at the metafilter thread - by a commenter who used to work in museums. In response to someone asking WHY this whole flap was even an issue, given the strength & validity of the daughters' feelings, she wrote:

"Well, when a piece of artwork is given or sold to a collection or a museum or an archive of some kind, than the rights to the piece go to that archive. Now, it is all very well to say, that film was made without the models' consent and it is child porn and it should be destroyed but unfortunately, if you do that, then you are opening up a giant can of worms that nobody really wants to see opened. Suppose another painter has a body of work that contains noncontroversial nudes and one of his children becomes a born again and demands that they all be burned? Whose rights do you uphold then? Suppose that, say, an heir of the Ben Shahn estate suddenly becomes right wing evangelical and demands that his left wing work be destroyed? What about those writers - can't think, offhand, of one, but I know there's been at least one - whose widows burn their last books? That said, I'm also surprised at NYU that this work didn't end up in the 100 years of silence category and perhaps that is where it should be. And on preview, I see that it is."

(Obviously, this was written before the update).

"Suppose another painter has a body of work that contains noncontroversial nudes and one of his children"

I would say that if the daughter had a problem with it (born again or not) that because she was not of legal age, the subject of the pictures (*with a personal interest*)- she gets them back even if they weren't considered pornography. Because she could not, nor did she ever consent to them being taken.

Sorry, I do demand a tremendous amount of accountability, and responsibility for consenting adults. You can do, say, feel, engage in anything sexually as you damn well please if it's consensual but that just doesn't apply on any level to children.

If you are taking non-controversial nudes of children then accept the responsibility for the risks involved or don't use them as subjects of your artwork unclothed.

It is from my own personal experience that I feel this way, and that will probably never change.

As I've heard it, in France an artist can order his work destroyed (or destruction prevented) or his book retracted and its publication stopped, he has control over his work regardless of whom has purchased it after production.

In this particular case, sounds like a pedophile trying to get away with pedophilia by calling it art.

Obviously, Rivers was a pedophile, and probably got some lewd enjoyment out of these films. They weren't "art". Some pedophiles won't physically molest their own children, but that doesn't mean they won't stare at them and/or photograph them purely for sexual gratification.

My concern is that parents across the country have been prosecuted for taking innocent photos of their children nude or partially clothed, so it's a very fine line. I think intent should play a part in whether someone is declared a pedophile. We've lost that component, as is evidenced by the Ruebens case. It can become a witchhunt.

If someone isn't getting a sexual thrill from the act, it shouldn't be deemed a sexual crime. It may be a really boneheaded thing to do, but they shouldn't be locked up for it.

The director of "Pretty Baby", for instance, isn't necessarily a pedophile, even though he's filming a nude, or partially nude, 11 or 12 yr old girl. That, in itself, doesn't make him a pedophile....but if he also stated he loved sleeping with 12 yr old girls...well, then, it's pretty obvious.

Journalists who take photos of primitive children, nude or partially clothed, aren't pedophiles either. But I fear we're getting to such an extreme state of paranoia about molestation that any such photography or possession of such photography - or legitimate artwork - can be a crime.

Lovelysoul, [apologies if s/o hit this already, briefly skimming for mental floss break at work] -I presume the models you sketched nude in art school were adults of full legal age, capable of, and legally comptenet to, sign a release to so use thei images. Kids under 18 are not. - A lawyer (don't tell Mom, she thinks I play piano in a bordello!)

The age of consent and what is permissible both worlwide and in the USA varies greatly . . .

http://www.avert.org/age-of-consent.htm

The footnotes at the above link are quite entertaining . . .

Footnotes

1. In Queensland, the legal age of consent for anal intercourse is 18 (regardless of gender), while for vaginal intercourse it is 16.
2. Although the Austrian age of consent is basically 14, it is illegal to have sex with someone under 16 by "exploiting their lack of maturity".
3. In Brazil, authorities may not choose to prosecute if the younger partner is aged 14 to 17 and does not lodge a complaint.
4. In Canada, unmarried persons under 18 cannot legally consent to anal sex according to national law, although provincial laws may vary.
5. In Denmark, sexual intercourse is legal from the age of 15 in most cases. An exception is when the younger partner is an adopted child, step-child, foster child or the older person is entrusted with the education or upbringing of the younger person. In this situation, the younger partner must be over 18.
6. In Finland, sex with someone under 16 is not deemed sexual abuse of a child if "there is no great difference in the ages or the mental and physical maturity of the persons involved." Similarly in Norway, a prison sentence may not be imposed "if those who have committed the act of indecency are about equal in age and development." In both countries, lesser punishments may nevertheless be imposed.
7. In Germany, sexual intercourse is legal from the age of 14 in most cases. An exception is when the older partner is aged over 18 and is "exploiting a coercive situation" or offering compensation, in which case the younger partner must be over 16. In addition, it is illegal for someone aged over 21 to have sex with someone under 16 if they "exploit the victim's lack of capacity for sexual self-determination".
8. India's age of consent for heterosexual sex is 16 except in Manipur, where it is 14. If the partners are married then a lower age of consent applies (13 in Manipur and 15 elsewhere). A law banning "carnal intercourse against the order of nature" was overruled in a Delhi High Court ruling, meaning that consensual homosexual activities between adults are now legal. A full copy of the descision can be found on the Naz Foundation
9. Although the age of sexual consent in Japan is 13 years of age, prefecture law usually overrides federal law, raising the age up to 18.
10. In Mexico the federal law varies according to the age gap between partners and is often overruled by regional laws.
11. In Papua New Guinea, anal sex is illegal in all cases. The age of consent for vaginal sex is 16 for females and 14 for males.
12. Paraguay sets the age of consent at 14 within marriage and 16 outside of marriage.
13. The age of sexual consent in the Philippines is 12 for all, but contacts with minors (under 18) are an offence if the minor consents to the act for money, gain or any other remuneration or as the result of an influence of any adult person.
14. In Portugal it is illegal to perform a sexual act with a minor between 14 and 16 years old "by taking advantage of their inexperience".
15. Although Thailand's age of consent is usually said to be 15, the laws can be interpreted to allow prosecution for sex with someone under 18.
16. Anal sex is illegal in Tonga regardless of age and gender.
17. In some U.S. states a lower age applies when the age gap between partners is small, or when the older partner is below a certain age (usually 18 or 21).
18. It is illegal for an American citizen or resident to have sex in another country with someone aged under 16, unless the age difference is less than 4 years, in which case the minimum age is 12.
19. Under some circumstances it is possible for members of the U.S. military to also be charged under state laws.

"My concern is that parents across the country have been prosecuted for taking innocent photos of their children nude or partially clothed, so it's a very fine line."

It really isn't. I would come to any parents defense if it was honestly innocuous material that stayed within the home (although, you tend to over exaggerate issues in support of your own argument as epidemic in proportion to what is reality). I would be 100% against non-pornographic photos of children when held in the privacy of ones own family being deemed pornographic.

But these photos/artwork taken by families of their children are not for:

Reproduction for public viewing
Reproduction for sale to the public
For their own sexual gratification

So there is not a fine line. I mean, how did law enforcement get a hold of those "innocent" photos anyway?

Hate to pile on the chorus criticizing lovelysoul, but I have to say that the position she espouses is hard to reconcile. A consensual affair between two sexually mature people is more offensive than nonconsensual, extended filming of two young girls' naked bodies, accompanied by their interrogation? By their own father? This seems very, very backwards to me.

Rivers is an awful guy. I think there's a question as to whether he actually committed a crime, but he most definitely behaved immorally towards his daughters. The two key issues here are sexual maturity and consent - if one of those isn't present, something is wrong.

"The age of consent and what is permissible both worlwide and in the USA varies greatly . . ."

1) We are in the U.S. and this happened in the U.S. (other countries would require me to wear a burqua without my flippin' consent, so I don't see how that is relevant, Jay)
2) This happened to a child by an adult, and not only any adult but their own father (with their mother's consent).

Exploitation, pure and simple. There are no excuses for this.

Well Feebie, it's art and that takes care of illegality here in the USA. If you don't like it don't view it.

> it's art and that takes care of illegality
> here in the USA. If you don't like it
> don't view it.

I'm distressed by both of those sentences, especially after your encyclopedic review of global standards.

> I'm pretty crunchy.

I'm pretty sure that's something good to know about you. I think it will make flirting with you easier at Amy's summer picnic next month. (I won an Ipod in '07.) But I don't actually know what it means to be crunchy. (Tell me it doesn't mean you have lots of tats and piercings.)

__________________

So if the school doesn't have these things (and good for them), then who's is in possession?

If the materials are the hands of a private collector, you'd think all the daughters would have to do would is walk up to him at a cocktail party, one in which he's surrounded by western women of child-bearing age, and demand that he hand them over.

If the materials are the hands of an institution of any kind, the pressures described earlier could be applied.

One of my favorite guys is Peter Norton. He made a gazillion dollars in the most exciting industry of my lifetime, then became an insightful and amusing columnist, and then became famous for his charities. For some time, he was the "emergency" guy in Los Angeles. If you had a summer camp for blind orphans and crippled children, and all of the sudden rain was threatening to wash out your annual fund-raising soiree late on a Friday afternoon, you could call his office to ask for IMMEDIATE help, and he'd send you a few trucks full of tents... No committees, minimal paperwork... It was an important and innovative function in the region's network of community service.

(I spoke to him at a coffee house in Brentwood once, and told him of my admiration... His wife beamed. And yes, he was wearing a pink oxford with his sleeves rolled up, just like on the software packages.)

A few years ago, a woman who'd had an affair with reclusive author J.D. Salinger decided to sell some of his love letters for a quick buck. Knowing that man he liked was about to be humiliated, Norton swept in, paid the woman's price, and passed the letters to Salinger without opening them and without comment.

I've never heard of Rivers, and don't know what position of respect (or disrespect) he holds in monied America... But maybe there's a rich person out there who could do something along those lines for his daughters.

If one looks at the URL I posted, you'd see that the USA is listed with each state's standards, not just other countries of the world. The URL isn't talking about art though, we are. Mapplethorpe or Bob Crumb might not be to you taste either, so don't view the former's photos or the latter's artwork with your freedom of choice -- but I'll decide for myself too.

It's the artist's call to decide what art is. If an artist calls a pile of dung art, then it's art even if it is a pile of dung to you and me. If Rivers' daughter wants his art and he doesn't want to sell or give it to her, that's his choice.

Why would love letters written by Salinger humiliate him? Maybe they're worth reading instead of hiding.

I think Jay and LS would make a lovely couple.

>>Why would love letters written by Salinger humiliate him? Maybe they're worth reading instead of hiding.

Actually the loss of those letters - assuming Salinger destroyed them - dismays me too, Jay.

I just wish more writers were like Mark Twain.

Don't shred all your tricky & personal stuff - just ban the publication until a century after your own death.

"...an extensive, outspoken and revelatory autobiography which [Mark Twain] devoted the last decade of his life to writing is finally going to be published...."

The first volume - out of three -is due in November!

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/news/after-keeping-us-waiting-for-a-century-mark-twain-will-finally-reveal-all-1980695.html

> Actually the loss of those letters -
> assuming Salinger destroyed them -
> dismays me too, Jay.

How could their contents possibly, possibly be any of your beeswax? They were fucking love letters.

Golly, good thing I'm not a man of achievement... It would be a shame to have to sacrifice privacy just because folks have weird ideas about "posterity".

Didn't mean to equate Rivers with Mann directly -- just to add to the discussion a bit. I think Mann's kids will be fine -- apparently, when her son was teased by classmates about some of the photos, he retorted that his mom paid him lots of money for posing. (Not quite true -- apparently the kids are paid 25 cents per photo.) When Mann decided against publishing a certain book of the photos until later, her kids got angry at the delay. Etc. That having been said, this did creep me out for totally non-sexual reasons:

Still, "Immediate Family" includes a picture from 1989 that may be the most gruesome so far: a nude Virginia seeming to have hanged herself by a rope from a tree.

YMMV.

I mean, how did law enforcement get a hold of those "innocent" photos anyway?

Typically, the parents take the film somewhere to be developed and someone with too much time on his or her hands looks as the photos and deems them to be Bad.

If Rivers' daughter wants his art and he doesn't want to sell or give it to her, that's his choice.

The creation of his "art" wouldn't have been possible with her coerced/forced participation. Once you choose to involve a living human being in your "art" -- creating something totally dependent on that person's participation -- your "art" is no longer solely your own. Rivers could have hired an 18-year-old to discuss her boobs and had her sign a contract giving up her rights to the art. He chose to browbeat his daughters into participating instead, for free. This is the result.

You guys are naive to the fact that most of the innocent parents who have been charged took their film into the local CVS. They were not trying to distribute film. These are parents who took photos of their kids in the bathtub, for instance, and then they were charged with child pornography because some photo tech at CVS decided it was obscene.

"Rivers is an awful guy. I think there's a question as to whether he actually committed a crime"

That is my only point. I think what he did is disgusting and creepy, but is it actually a crime? And, if so, how does that effect all of us who may just film our kids playing around in the bathtub?

>>How could their contents possibly, possibly be any of your beeswax? They were fucking love letters.

Crid,
How can you possibly know precisely what these letters contained?

I do find the lives of certain writers fascinating - warts and all. Outrageous prurience, I guess.

> How can you possibly know precisely what
> these letters contained?

I don't! That's the point! They're private, or at least private again. They weren't "lost", they were restored to their owner after a pathetic, loathsome breach of trust. When people want things known, they usually tell.

Oh good grief.

No, lovelysoul, the director of Pretty Baby, or of any film that sexually exploits a child may not be a pedophile...but he or she definitely knows that the product is for pedophiles. It doesn't much matter if the actual director/cameraman/whatever is motivated by the intrinsic pleasure of exploiting a child or by the money or artistic recognition that other people hand over in exchange for the images of the exploited child---what matters is that the child was exploited!

Journalists who take pictures of nude or partially nude children in primitive cultures aren't pedophiles. Of course they're not, and they know they aren't making a product that is FOR pedophiles. Pictures of a naked child playing on the beach or the famous picture of the naked little girl running from the jungle in Vietnam aren't sexual; a video of a naked adolescent talking about sex is. It's not simple nudity, here.

The most appalling thing is the question "were they actually molested?" YES! Being coerced, as a child with no power, by your father (a man who has the legal power to hit you, send you away to school, punish you harshly) to take your clothes off for a video camera IS molestation. Whether he actually touched his daughters is irrelevant; Rivers absolutely abused him and someone is continuing to profit from that abuse. Disgusting.

Spartee,
All of that intellectual rhetoric doesn't change the fact that his young daughters were uncomfortable. They grew up here with other children who would be uncomfortable. Just bc Dad is an artist and is capable of grasping those concepts that you put down in such an intellectually detatched way, doesn't change the fact that he used his daughters.
Being used hurts. When Chagnon was living with the Yanamamo he recorded their reactions to the missionaries who brought christianity to the Amazon. When the christians showed them paintings of Yanamamo people being pushed into a fiery hell pit they were horrified bc they didn't know the dif between a painting and a photo- they thought it really happened and were pressured by the belief system being thrust upon them. The christians had an agenda and so did Rivers.
These young girls didn't understand that this was only a commentary on the exploitation of young girls by the bourgeois blah blah blah or whatever...and they shouldn't have been pressured to participate. He just perpetuated the process he was attempting to illuminate. I haven't seen the films, but from the description it sounds like you're probably right about what Rivers may have been trying to convey. I understand that, but as a human being with *feelings* I do not think it was right for these young girls to be objectified and used by their father.

Because I'm sarcasm challenged.

Also, anorexia isn't about seeing yourself on film and thinking you look fat. It's about control. People who feel they have no control in other areas will assert some control by starving themselves. It's VERY common in sexually abused kids.

Crid, I have no tats or piercings (except my earlobes), but my crunchy self is married and six months pregnant and looking more like Venus of Willendorf every day!!! :)

Lovelysoul, you're right about the CVS bathtub photo drama, there was recently an article on salon about a parent who'd taken pictures of their kids running around naked on a camping trip who got into all sorts of trouble.

It's hard to draw a line between casual nudity and salacious nudity. It's like that judge who "knows it when he sees it". There are certain poses, certain expressions, certain actions that seem more sexual.

I think we would all agree that a kid with his/her mouth on someone's penis would be kiddie porn (black area)

I think we would all agree that a baby playing with a rubbery ducky in a tub in a family photo album would not be (white area)

What do you do with the shades of grey?

@NicoleK, maybe with the shades of gray, we have to listen to the child depicted, and give full credit to their feelings. That's a major difference between the Sally Mann photos and Rivers' work; the Mann children aren't saying (yet) "Please don't show my naked image to people; it was a hurtful situation then and it is now." I would be surprised if the Mann children did decide to do that, because they don't seem particularly bothered by it, and because their photos are of them as very young children. It's much harder to look at a picture of a five or even ten-year-old and match it to the adult he/she grew up to be, vs. a 15-year-old. But, if the Mann children did decide to do that as adults, then, yes, their wishes about at least the most revealing photos should be respected, at least by major universities.

Of course, I don't think this is at all a gray situation---focusing the camera on pubescent breasts and genitals is pretty much always considered inappropriate.

Exactly, Nicole. I wasn't suggesting the director of "Pretty Baby" was a pedophile or that photo journalists were either. I was basically asking: When do we start locking people up?

Is it enough to *believe* that the director *knows* his movie will be enjoyed by pedophiles? That is a very slippery standard.

Doesn't a father who posts a cute photo of his baby daughter/son in the bathtub on Facebook also know that pedophiles might view and enjoy it?

Is it a crime? If there's no corroborating evidence of pedophilia...no charge (by a victim) of pedophilia? Is possessing/creating the photo/film/nude artwork enough?

Is the Rivers film ALONE enough to have put him in jail? Some of you obviously think so. I was just challenging you to state why.

BTW, my cousin, a former assistant DA in Mobile, AL, was recently accused of being a pedophile for supposedly chatting online with a 16 yr old girl.

He claims he was set up by political enemies. They raided his house, took his computer, ransacked everything looking for kiddie porn, and smeared his reputation in the papers.

He resigned and, though I don't know all the details, he's never been charged with a crime, which says to me that it was a witchhunt.

The scary thing is that all that was alleged was a chat....not that he met her, not that he touched her. Is a chat enough?

>>That's the point! They're private, or at least private again. They weren't "lost", they were restored to their owner after a pathetic, loathsome breach of trust. When people want things known, they usually tell.

Crid,

You don't appear to have a clue what you are talking about when you sound off about background to the the Salinger letters.

Sure, it's perfectly sweet that you once fleetingly met the famous guy who bought these letters to save Salinger's blushes, and that the guy's wife actually "beamed at you".

(I do enjoy your occasional personal narratives, Crid!)

But using this frail foundation, you've simply taken your familiar position of righteous curtain-twitching outrage, like a revved up audience member at a Jerry Springer show taping, responding to a cue card saying "Boo Now!!".

And I have no stomach for getting into yet another marathon bitch-slapping session here with you in which your willful ignorance of what is being discussed, your contempt for the subject itself and your narcissistic regard for your opinions dominates the thread.

(Also, I learned long ago: it's pointless to discuss rows about novelists with people - like you - who brag about never reading novels.)

Legally, the letters themselves -the ones written by Salinger, - were OWNED by the woman to whom they were SENT.

Some background, though why I fucking bother...

"When Sotheby's announced the June 22 auction of fourteen love letters written in 1972 by secretive novelist J. D. Salinger, then 53, to teenage prodigy writer Joyce Maynard, then 18, the American press raised up a wild howl of pit bull journalism, chasing a non-scandal without reference to truth or justice.

One hideously cruel column, by Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd, who called Maynard a predatory "leech woman," had the facts so wrong that it strengthens the case for truth-in-journalism laws. Joyce Maynard was merely one of the teenage females Salinger is known to have pursued by mail, seduced and abandoned."

Much more at the link:

http://www.cafecancun.com/bookarts/joyce.shtml

lovelysoul, I can certainly see how your cousin's experience would you cause you to look at things like this skeptically. But, respectfully, it's not at all the same. Your cousin, and the poor saps on To Catch A Predator and the like are being harassed or prosecuted for crimes they *might* commit. I HATE those sorts of things, because there is no victim. Even if the other person sending naughty messages is really 16 and not a cop, it's still not victimizing her to talk dirty in a chat room she can leave at any time.

Here though, whether Rivers actually committed a crime (I believe he did) is really moot. He's dead, there's nothing to be done. All his daughter wants is for people to stop looking at pictures and videos of her naked body, obviously taken for provocative purposes, that she could not and did not consent to have taken.

>>Lovelysoul, you're right about the CVS bathtub photo drama, there was recently an article on salon about a parent who'd taken pictures of their kids running around naked on a camping trip who got into all sorts of trouble.

NicoleK,

I've just read that - holy hell....

(I realize the story is from 2006 - but it's doing the rounds (again?) now.)

http://www.salon.com/life/feature/2006/07/18/photos/index.html

> You don't appear to have a clue
> what you are talking about

Yet you haven't identified any factual errors in my comment.

> But using this frail foundation,
> you've simply...

My foundations are sturdy and tight. They're the envy of the foundation industry. My peer foundationalists, envious but respectful, sometimes send notes when they see a particularly good one. And while I am –as you concede– "perfectly sweet", Norton's wife beamed at her husband, not at me.

> And I have no stomach for
> getting into yet another
> marathon bitch-slapping session
> here with you

Aw, c'mon!...

> in which you your willful
> ignorance

...here we go...

> of what is being discussed, your
> contempt for the subject itself
> and your narcissistic regard for
> your opinions dominates the thread.

In what way am I ignorant of what was being discussed? It's all right here on this page. Push the 'Home' key, start reading, and you've got everything you need. (Sometimes there are helpful links to other pages on the World Wide Web, but I usually don't bother with those. It's a time thing.)

What "contempt for the subject"? I've done nine hundred words on a topic whimsically selected by someone I've never met. How much more respectful to a subject can one be?

My love for my opinions isn't narcissism, it's neatly calibrated admiration. Dammit, I'm just plain right! If this "dominates the thread", it's because no one else has the time to blow as hard or the candlepower to say anything more interesting. Amy assures us that disk space is cheap. No resources are being squandered here.

If you've come to this venue to read something that's more convincing, more amusing, more focused to the topic or more enriching, write it.

> it's pointless to discuss rows
> about novelists with people -
> like you - who brag about never
> reading novels.

And yet here you are. And the weird part is, this isn't a 'row about a novelist', it's about about a pervatoid artist and the continuing pain he brought to his daughters. I don't give a flying fuck about Salinger; I thought Catcher was a short story for an airport lounge, and can't imagine why people would be so concerned with the guy who wrote it....

I got nothing against the man personally, though. He ought to be able to pursue personal communications –including flirty letters to adoring, wannabe-authoress teenage girls– without fear that his messages will be sold to the highest bidder.

> Legally,

Who's arguing legality?

> the letters themselves - the ones
> written by Salinger, - were OWNED by
> the woman to whom they were SENT.

And like a shithead, she sold off a slice of her dear intimacy to the highest bidder, hoping to earn the cash by quenching the lascivious fascination of someone who didn't have her good fortune to be shown fond personal attention from a man so many regard as gifted. I know nothing of the woman, and don't care to explore further; if she'd had the pony-muscle to make something of herself, we'd know. But the affection she received from this man went on for years, and I'd not be surprised if it was the greatest attachment of her life. Yet girlfriend has bills: "Maynard said she was forced to auction the letters for financial reasons." (As if we're supposed to be impressed; as if the rest of us don't struggle with economics across a lifetime; as if anyone who could still wash floors would trade earnest ardor for taco money; and as if we weren't talking about a beloved man who, even to my disinterested generation, was known as much for his desire for righteous privacy as for any skill with a quill.)

I would describe this woman's conduct as "cuntlike". I would describe Norton's response to it as "gallant".

> though why I fucking bother...

It's a good question. She was 18 years old at the start, not a child, and not going to grow into a successful talent.

We've talked about this here in earlier years. Some people want to think that being a writer –a successful writer– is itself a distinguished condition, rather than the happenstance phenomenon of thoughts and words that actually mean something to people. For those of us not in the game, who don't fire up the computer every morning to check our Amazon ranking, it's hard to understand why mere authorship is an elevated realm (or worthy and permissive of Maynardian intrusion). And we don't understand how aspiring to that exalted status, but falling short, could leave one poised for the most galling exploitation available... Especially when, as is so often implied, writers are to be admired for their sensitivity and attention to emotional minutiae.

And we don't understand why artists should be allowed to twist and poison the sexuality of their daughters.

In retrospect, isn't this the core of our topic?:

> it's pointless to discuss rows
> about novelists with people -
> like you - who brag about never
> reading novels.

Why should anyone have to read novels? How should words in his books have any bearing on how people feel about Maynard's conduct?

Same question, different issue:

Why does Davis employment as an "artist" excuse his wretched conduct to his daughters?

Or:

If a plumber mugs a greengrocer, is he excused because the ballcocks in his toilets bob so agreeably?

Thanks for comin' by, Jody! Always a pleasure sorting this stuff out with you!

>>I don't give a flying fuck about Salinger

Good-oh.

But have you read this yet [below], Crid?
It seems everyone in Hollywood has forwarded or linked it in the past 24 hours - it's that brilliant!

(Blog entry - NOT a novel!!!!)

http://hucksblog.blogspot.com/2010/07/sledgehammer-and-whore.html

I've mentioned the book before. As Phillips ascends in thunderous applause to the stage of the Dorothy Chandler to receive Best Picture for "The Sting", her co-producer leans to her ear to whisper: "It still drags in the middle."

Long-ass anecdote for a blog post. Is this screenwriting storyteller getting in his own way?

>>Long-ass anecdote for a blog post. Is this screenwriting storyteller getting in his own way?

Did you not finish it, Crid? (It's really, really worth it).

I did like bits & pieces of "Lunch".

Maybe there are cup-of-tea factors.

18. It is illegal for an American citizen or resident to have sex in another country with someone aged under 16, unless the age difference is less than 4 years, in which case the minimum age is 12.

Aside from armed services members and forign embassy personel how the hell is that even legal to maintain jusidiction over a citizen in a forigen jurisdiction let alone even prosecute?

OK, best passage: "There is nothing to be gained from studying Lost's success. It's a Black Swan, or an Outlier, or one of many other books on my Kindle I'll never read now because, let's be honest, it's on my Kindle."

>>OK, best passage: "There is nothing to be gained from studying Lost's success. It's a Black Swan, or an...

Genuinely flummoxed, Crid.
Why do you regard that as the best passage?
(Just idle curiosity!)

>>"...or one of many other books on my Kindle I'll never read now because, let's be honest, it's on my Kindle."

My word, Crid.

Please ignore my last question to you. I see now I've been astonishingly thick!

I was just lightly dusting my marble busts of great writers - when I figured out what's going on in your runtlike brain.

You pretended to admire ["OK, best passage..."] - those two comparatively unremarkable sentences from the Hollywood screenwriter's latest fabbo - if lengthy - blog entry I just linked, because you figured they proved he, too, wasn't a great one for book-reading!

So first you seem to have missed one of the main points of the Hollywood writer's little joke: that actively downloading a ton of books to your Kindle isn't proof a chap is well-read. On the contrary, it becomes positively off-putting to have instant access to multiple 'must-read' e-books.

And, secondly, if I'm right about the staggeringly petty reason you highlighted that rather pedestrian passage, your conclusion is also up shit creek.

I've been reading Josh-the-Hollywood-writer for years. (I only wish he was more prolific with his blog entries).

I know exactly which fiction authors he most adores, and he once admitted that if he was not in the screenwriting business, he'd be either a high school English teacher, or the poet laureate of Rhode Island!

Dude's a bookworm, dummy!

> because you figured they proved he, too, wasn't
> a great one for book-reading

Naw, it was just a funny line. Guy doesn't like Kindle

OK— Also, the guy's not missing much by ignoring Gladwell. I've never felt his radiant magic either.

Can somebody please explain Gladwell's radiant magic?

>>Naw, it was just a funny line. Guy doesn't like Kindle

You fib, you runt!

I am shuddering with suspicion that what was formerly trumpeted as the "best passage" in your opinion, is now downgraded to "just a funny line."

You've either a tin ear for the guy's obvious comic strengths - or you didn't even GET to the best part!

(I honestly thought the piece might give you pleasure.)

Either way, Crid, I am confirmed in my hunch there's absolutely no joy to be had wrassling literary matters with you! Likewise, I'm sure!

> "best passage" in your opinion, is now
> downgraded to "just a funny line."

No downgrade, both descriptions apply.

What IS the best part? What's the payoff?

(Also, what's everyone so excited about with Salinger and Gladwell?)

>>What IS the best part? What's the payoff?

Crid,

I am so pointlessly optimistic - you know what I first hoped?

That you'd find the payoff in the Hollywood piece all on your ownsome.

And that you'd experience an unfamiliar physical sensation - a little tug upwards at one corner of your mouth, and a tiny, generous trickle of pleasure at the gift of a stranger's comic talent...

Here it is (but it falls on stony ground, I know.)

"COP: "My God. That woman SANG LIKE A CANARY."
(For those of you who've never hear that line in real life, trust me, it's even better than you imagine it would be.)"

I swooned at that line - in context, natch.
I know I've now totally oversold the whole fucking thing, still Amy just might enjoy the link?

It was a good line.

> It's not like he's creating anything new

They're like really good magazine pieces. Extremely easy to read, even easier to forget

> It's not like he's creating anything new

wHY THE FACINATION WITH "REALITY" tv?

Many people are, at their core, zombies. Mindles aimless walking sheeple with nary an electron spinning thru the empty void betwen their ears

> You pretended to admire

BTW, how come every word I say is part of an incredibly clever thicket of deception and misdirection and intrigue?

I struggle to be clear. How 'bout some props? How 'bout some good faith? I mean, like, have Soviet-style commie spies (with secret cameras and notes in boot heels and things like that) been a big problem for you in other contexts?

>>BTW, how come every word I say is part of an incredibly clever thicket of deception and misdirection and intrigue?

Crid,
You asked earlier - when the thread took a splendid literary turn: "why should people read novels?"

I assumed your question was rhetorical. But in case it wasn't, my answer?

I don't think people "should" read novels, any more they they "should" watch football.

But it's a pain to discuss novels and novelists and lit. crit with people - like you - who are neither passionate about novels, nor well-informed (fair enough!) and who don't seem inclined to marshal substantive arguments about a text, save for the bog standard "Yeah, well X sucks".

I was having a bit of fun with you, when I said I suspected you had subversive motives for admiring a passage in the blog entry I linked.

I actually agree that accusing people of being untruthful about their personal opinions on the internet is pointless.

But in this case - and I shall try to avoid the solecism in the future - at least I explained exactly WHY I thought you were "pretending" to admire that particular passage. (I gave the reasons, above, fairly clearly, I thought).

And if you sincerely did rate the passage you picked as the "best" passage in the whole article, then it only confirms my sense that we are on a hiding to nowhere trying to exchange views on the subject.

Is that okay?

> You asked earlier - when the thread took a
> splendid literary turn: "why should people
> read novels?" I assumed your question
> was rhetorical.

It wasn't. I asked: Why should anyone have to read novels? Why should I care about this guy's writing before deciding whether it's cool for someone to sell off his private letters? If that happened to a country music singer, I'd feel the same way.

Dismissing a text for abject suckage is completely fair. There are people who can discuss the Randy Travis catalog in great detail, but who cares?

> at least I explained exactly WHY I thought you were
> "pretending" to admire that particular passage.

Only after having presumed a baseline of sinister intent.

PS— Real bookworms -I've met a few- don't watch three TV shows a night.

>>I asked: Why should anyone have to read novels?

Fair enough, Crid.
(FWIW, I did take your original meaning - I just missed the important word when I quoted you without cut 'n pasting.)

>>Why should I care about this guy's writing before deciding whether it's cool for someone to sell off his private letters?

I get it. You don't care. (Except, if memory serves, you took a swipe at the letter-seller for NOT being a literary talent, as if such distinctions made a difference to your judgment?).

>>PS— Real bookworms -I've met a few- don't watch three TV shows a night.

Bullshit. Don't be so silly.

> I get it. You don't care.

No, you're not answering. and it's the whole point of Amy's thread, "A Creep Called 'Artist'". The problem is not that I don't care. Why should someone's art (or writing) excuse creep-tude?

> Bullshit.

Nope! True!... True.

>>No, you're not answering. and it's the whole point of Amy's thread, "A Creep Called 'Artist'". The problem is not that I don't care. Why should someone's art (or writing) excuse creep-tude?

Crid,

Jesus, this is like discussing a wonderful meal with someone who has a raging toothache.

The brouhaha re: the painter/filmmaker + dodgy home movies using his underage daughters is - for me -a totally different kettle of fish to the rather more complex matter of the old row over the Salinger-Maynard letters.

And as this thread has shown, of course, not all photographers who controversially use their own unclothed young children in their work are creeps.
It depends on the context. Right?

You are right that public figures (like Salinger) often give up their privacy involuntarily.

In this case, I can't lose any sleep over the late Salinger's reported outrage re: the letters. Because of the context. That context very much includes his own writing. It includes Maynard's own story. Her writing too.

It also includes the price of bananafish (heh!).

I love reading informative & penetrating biographical studies of writers who fascinate me, whether they like it or not. Because I am insufferably curious about certain writers...

I don't agree with you that Maynard behaved like a creep.
I also don't agree Maynard deserves your mumbled, sexist obscenity "cuntlike," simply because you've decided you don't LIKE her.

Also, Crid. Writers' literary reputations are, on the whole, rather more robust than perhaps you appreciate, despite these super-duper scandals?

Roget and out.
(Not original! That was Tynan...)

> for me -a totally different
> kettle of fish

Naw. As my sister usta say, "Same diff." (We're from Indiana... Everybody knew what she meant.) "For me" distinctions –though also popular in the Hoosier realm– don't count when you're being asked to share insight.

> as this thread has shown, of course,
> not all photographers who controversially
> use their own unclothed young children
> in their work are creeps.

Well, that's what this thread may have argued, but controversy and creepiness are famous dance partners. I always thought it was creepazoid for parents to take naked pictures of the kids, even 'way back in my own child-ly days, long before the contemporary hysteria took hold. While it is hysteria, I don't think the modesty of children is a plaything for parents. My peeps never did that; when I saw families who did, I was all totally, like, WTF?

> Because of the context. That context
> very much includes his own writing.

Right. That's what I'm asking. Unless you're saying that Salinger at one point wrote something like 'My personal communications should be available to strangers, and/or should be sold by my intimates to the highest bidder', then I can't imagine why you used the word "context" twice.

But no, that's not your argument. You're just a little extra-nosy about this guy, so you think you should be permitted some armament for the invasion you earlier conceded to be "prurience":

> I love reading informative & penetrating
> biographical studies of writers who
> fascinate me, whether they like it or
> not. Because I am insufferably curious

Informed penetration! You're not nosy, you're informationally penetrative!

> I also don't agree Maynard deserves
> your mumbled, sexist obscenity
> "cuntlike," simply because you've
> decided you don't LIKE her.

[1.] I didn't mumble. There was extra clear punctuation, and ever'thing.

[2.] Not all wordings which graze the topics of gender and genitalia are "sexist".

[3.] You're plainly mistaken. Girlfriend should be ashamed, though maneuvers like hers will cause us to wonder if she was ever capable of regret, or even reflection.

[4.] It's not a function of whimsical "LIKE" or dislike; the weasel-child plainly misbehaved.

> Writers' literary reputations are,
> on the whole, rather more robust
> than perhaps you appreciate

Don't much care about Salinger's literary reputation either way. I took my own meager shot at his masterwork earlier in this thread... But if no one ever takes heed of my appraisal, well, dammit, I'll be able to live without a squandered stinger.

It's his personal reputation, or at least his privacy, that's been threatened. ALL of us are at risk for that. (Hell, I even have some privacy of my own, and I like it a lot! I use it all the time!)

No, doggone it, the analogy is sturdy. There are probably guys who have an interest in video of topless teenagers being badgered by their fathers; while they too might acknowledge their interest was prurient, they'd publicly argue in favor of it if they thought they could get away with it.

Our culture is improved by their understanding that they can't.

So unless you haven't left your house or dorm room since late September, the chances are pretty good that you've noticed that a number of boot trends are in full swing in preparation for the winter season.