August 05, 2003
QUIZ TIME
Who is the writer describing?
"... he is never 'relevant', 'socially aware' or narrowly political. 'Social relevance' is a modish and peculiarly horrid little disease infecting modern criticism, invented by humourless puritans who are baffled by the magical uselessness of art. Grub Street prigs expect jokes to somehow justify themselves by being 'satirical' or up-to-date; relevant in short.”
Hint: “he” is Australian, and these words were written in 1974. Answer to come in a few hours.
(Via reader John S.)
ANSWER: Several readers got it right. This is from Barry Humphries’ introduction to 1974’s The Penguin Leunig. How the man has changed ...
Posted by Tim Blair at August 5, 2003 12:16 AMI was going to say Barrie Humphries, but then I think I remember reading these words in Humphries' introduction to Leunig's first collected cartoons.
(before L. hit the mid-life crisis, divorce, depression, deification)
Humphries weathered the storm better than Leunig, perhaps by creating so many persona to shelter his demons in.
Mr Squiggle? Margo Kingston? I wish it was Phil Adams, Bob Ellis, or John Pilger for the irony, but the tone sounds like Robert Hughes.
Posted by: Clem Snide at August 5, 2003 at 02:44 AMI'm sort of with Bob, sounds like Barry Humphries to me, who according to Andrew Norton at Catallaxy Files was making jokes about dagos and lesbians just last week.
Posted by: Gareth at August 5, 2003 at 02:48 AMSorry Tim, still too many questions. Cut it down just one more and I think I could handle your man test.
Posted by: Charles at August 5, 2003 at 04:44 AMBazza H. writing on Leunig. He'd have more sense these days.
Posted by: norm's prostate at August 5, 2003 at 06:19 AM
That disturbingly old Wiggle, the purple one of Vietnamese descent?
My guess,"A practitioner of the vituperative arts", like maybe, Steve... no no ...Auberon Waugh.
Posted by: Frank at August 5, 2003 at 09:12 AMI tried and I tried but, not being an intellectual, I could not make an ounce of sense of it. It must be someone from the left writing about somebody from the left.
Posted by: Semi Conductor at August 5, 2003 at 10:48 AMPatrick White, the bitter and twisted old scrote.
(If it had have been female, I would have said Germaine Greer).
Bob Carter: One of Barry Humphries' characters?
Tim Blair: Close, Bob ... but in a way, not close at all.
Then it would have to be Barry Humphries himself, not one of his characters.
I think it was Barry Humphries on Michael Leunig. How times change.
Posted by: Norman McGreevy at August 5, 2003 at 11:32 AMLord Humungus, Ruler of the Wasteland and the Ayatollah of Rock and Rolla?
The Crocodile Hunter guy?
That lady whose baby got eaten by a dingo?
Posted by: Brendan at August 5, 2003 at 12:42 PMThat guy who was hawking Energizer batteries a few years back?
Posted by: Joe G. at August 5, 2003 at 01:32 PM
Whatever idiot created those Subaru Outback commercials?
It's amazing what you find when you go trawling the Net when Tim isn't blogging. Have a look at this.
Posted by: Alex Hidell at August 5, 2003 at 02:15 PMThat's pretty cool but they shouldn't have gone all the way over to the side because I didn;t see the black fellers until they did.
Oh and I think it's Phillip Adams.
Posted by: Gabor at August 5, 2003 at 02:21 PMThe big, white, ugly stiff who "played" center for the Chicago Bulls for a few years? What the Hell was his name?
Posted by: Jerry at August 5, 2003 at 02:22 PMDavid Williamson, Barry Oakley, Jack Hibberd, Tom Keneally, some other leprechaun, Peter Carey, Enid Blyton, Capt. W. E. Johns, Christine Pullein-Thompson, Hal Todd, Lulu, Brian Jones, Brian Epstein, Masterspy, Zarin, Dr Popkiss, Mitch the Monkey, G. P. from Hammy the Hamster, the hairy dog from the Magic Roundabout. I dunno. Who?
Posted by: pooh at August 5, 2003 at 02:24 PMI think you mean Dougall. Zebidee was the pervert with the spring up his arse.
What about Mr. Squiggle?
"The big, white, ugly stiff who "played" center for the Chicago Bulls for a few years? What the Hell was his name?"
Luc Longley?
Posted by: Adam at August 5, 2003 at 03:10 PMDoes anyone here actually know what the "deal" with Leunig really is?
I mean, if the man stepped on an ant he'd probably hold a funeral for it...with notices in the paper, etc. If no one turned up, he'd do a cartoon or write a column about Australia's "growing inhumanity towards everything..."
If Saddam Hussein stepped on an ant, he'd say that the ant was actually trying to "colonise" Iraq and that Saddam had the full support of his people by repelling part of this foreign invading force.
And does anyone here heard whether or not Osama Bin-Laden ever accepted Leunig's Christmas 2001 "apology" to him and his Al-Qaeda chums for all the "suffering" that we have casued them?
Leunig was of the soixant-huit generation,
which had fine hopes that spiritual niceness and culural freedom could make over the world.
Perhaps it can, but not in the era of HECS debts and lowered housing affordability.
He has not forgiven his generational cohorts for selling out from the dream that he and his co-artists so artfully depicted.
Hence the bitterness of so much of his art.
Hitchens is another soixant-huit-er whose reaction to the failed French revolution has been to attach himself to another bout of American revolution, which gives him a new lease of radical life and in addition allows him to punish reactionary co-horts like Leunig.
Humphries has the luxury of hiding his true political ideology behind a changing artistic persona.
Iraq's nothing compared to the war Leunig found himself in a few years ago when he went through a phase of drawing cartoons depicting babies being 'dumped' in childcare.
The feminists rained down on him more WMDs than Saddam ever had.
The poor man's never recovered.
Posted by: ilibcc at August 5, 2003 at 03:58 PMGuy musta failed cartoon school. And funny school also.
Posted by: D2D at August 5, 2003 at 04:31 PMLeunig's point is to depress everyone around him and make life seem bleak and pointless. Ignore him, he wont go away but you'll feel better for it.
Posted by: Jake D at August 5, 2003 at 05:24 PMi was going to guess one of the gibb brothers. oh well
Posted by: Mr. Bingley at August 5, 2003 at 11:33 PM