Book Description
The First Comprehensive Book to Examine the Teaching Methods of the Artist Renowned for the Homage to the Square Paintings.
Josef Albers (1888-1976) has long been admired for his progressive vision as an artist who blurred distinctions between fine and applied art, but rarely has his work as a teacher been examined in detail. The German-born artist was a remarkable classroom performer whose colorful language, wit, and dramatic flair held his students spellbound and turned his lessons into high adventure. Whether at the Bauhaus in prewar Germany, Black Mountain College in rural North Carolina during the 1930s and 1940s, or at Yale in the 1950s, Albers was driven by one thing--the desire to open his students' eyes to a different way of perceiving art and, ultimately, life.
JOSEF ALBERS: TO OPEN EYES by Frederick A. Horowitz and Brenda Danilowitz, is the first book to focus on how the legendary artist Josef Albers influenced generations of artists, architects, and designers, including Robert Mangold, Robert Rauschenberg, Donald Judd, Bertrand Goldberg, and Tom Geismar, through his work and legacy as an educator. Marking the 30th anniversary of Albers's death, the book examines his life and teaching methods, and reveals his philosophies on art, life, and the nature of perception based on first-hand accounts of more than 175 students and colleagues spanning more than 40 years. The book will coincide with a major exhibition at the Whitney Museum of American Art which will run from November 2, 2006- January 21, 2007.
JOSEF ALBERS: TO OPEN EYES takes the reader through Albers's life in teaching. He began his career in 1923, when Walter Gropius invited him to join the faculty of the Bauhaus in Germany, where he quickly replaced the school's standard course curriculum with his own innovative methods. After moving to the United States in 1933, he and his wife Anni became founding members and teachers at the experimental start-up Black Mountain College. In 1950, he was appointed to head Yale's newly restructured Department of Design and remained there until he retired in 1958.
Although he is widely perceived as a strong-minded theoretician, as this book reveals, Albers opposed rigid dogma and encouraged his students to develop lively and original solutions to his many and varied design exercises. On their first day in his classroom, Albers's students were informed that his goal was to educate their eyes and that he was going to teach them how to think and to see--an agenda belied by the somewhat prosaic course names "Basic Drawing" and "Basic Design" and "Color."
With energy and flair, Danilowitz and Horowitz have charted Albers's world-changing role as a teacher. Through their archival research of original correspondence, documents, student course notes, and student work produced in his courses, and their interviews of former students, colleagues, and associates of Albers, they reveal the way that Albers's ideas on education and his complex personality have made an indelible imprint in the lives and work of artists all over the world. This book provides not only a compelling study of a key figure of 20th century art, but also ponders what constitutes art and how it is made and taught.
Customer Reviews:
Outstanding Description of the Methods of A Superlative Art Teacher.......2007-02-08
Josef Albers: To Open Eyes by Frederick A. Horowitz and Brenda Danilowitz, is a beautiful, magnificent book about this internationally eminent artist, teacher of art, and theorist of design and color. It simply could not be better.
Brenda Danilowitz, Chief Curator of the Josef and Anni Albers Foundation in Bethany, Connecticut, writes about the biography of Albers, 64 pages, while Frederick A. Horowitz, a former student of Albers at Yale, who taught a The University of Michigan School of Art & Design in Ann Arbor and at Washtenaw Community College, devotes 181 pages to Albers as teacher of design, drawing, color and painting. An additional 34 pages cover Notes, Bibliography, Sources, Illustrations and Index. To find out what made Albers such a unique and revered teacher Frederick Horowitz interviewed a total of 160 students at Bauhaus, Black Mountain College, Yale and Harvard as well as 9 of his professional colleagues.
Albers was first a student and then a member of the faculty of the original Bauhaus in Germany. When Hitler took over Germany in 1933 and the faculty, led by Mies van der Rohe, closed the Bauhaus, Albers came to the U.S. to teach, first at Black Mountain College in North Carolina and then, beginning in 1950, at Yale as Head of the Department of Design. By 1962 Yale University awarded him an honorary Doctorate at the same time she similarly honored President John F. Kennedy and former Secretary of State Dean Acheson.
Albers experimented with color relationships in the form of nested squares of color. His great dedication resulted in a retrospective exhibition of his oeuvre at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, an honor only rarely given to a living artist. Another retrospective was organized in 1988 at the Guggenheim Museum in New York.
At Yale all first-year graduate students in architecture, undergraduates majoring in architecture and design, and all students in design took Albers' courses in color and in drawing, while his basic design course was meant for undergraduates majoring in architecture.
Albers had a wide influence on generations of artists, architecture and design. The book makes it eminently clear why Albers was as influential a teacher as he was and why his courses and theories became the basis of art teaching all over the United States.
The text of this truly remarkable book is very informative and well written. The illustrations are superlative, carefully chosen and in many instances unique, not available anywhere else since they come from the Albers Foundation. I counted 284 illustrations, 103 in color.
By describing the life and artful work of Josef Albers this book demonstrates to teachers and lovers of art at all levels how to impart a life-long desire to experiment with fundamental principles of art and with novel materials to create new objects of art.
Relevance.......2006-12-30
"Josef Albers: to Open Eyes" by F.A.Horowitz and B. Danilowitz is not only a review into the life and work of a great complex artist and teacher. It also signals the end of a debatable era called "postmodernism" whose glitz, pomp and kitsch we have been witnessing universally since Tom Wolfe's pamphlet "From Bauhaus to Our House". "Josef Albers: to Open Eyes" also gives hope to the rediscovery of relevance. This elaborate study deserves to be part of the curriculum of the future art generation in its defining process.
Frank R Schmidt, Princeton, NJ
An Essential Book for Art Teachers Everywhere.......2006-12-20
Many people may not know that Josef Albers played a large part in revolutionizing teaching art in the 20th Century. Many people do not know how many 2oth century artists lives were in some way affected by his teaching--either directly or indirectly.
It is surprising that it has taken this long for a book on the remarkable teaching career of Josef Albers to appear, but here it finally is. Fred Horowitz and Brenda Danilowitz do a superb job of bringing the pedagogical thinking of perhaps the greatest 20th century art educator to life as well giving us a clear picture of the teacher himself. If this is the only book you ever read on teaching art you will give yourself the greatest gift possible.
The explanations and analysis of individual projects in four foundations courses, are coherent and represent the meat of this remarkable book. Plentiful fine illustrations from the Albers Foundation Archives, the Bauhaus and Black Mountain College make clear the descriptions of the problems and the reasons Albers found these to be indispensible in developing visual thinking--in opening eyes.
The choice of type weight, spacing, margin widths, and the light value of the ink may make reading the text a little difficult, but you should persevere--because real gold lies within the text. This is not just a book for the pictures!!
The publishers should take note, however, that Josef Albers as a designer would have deplored the way the layout and typography makes the reading a difficult task. I wonder whether the book designers took the trouble to read the text, or if they might benefited from some of the basic lessons imparted in Albers' famous Design courses.
I hope that with the publishing of this book, the vital lessons that Albers made the core of his life teaching will once again be brought alive and vigorous into the Foundations classrooms of colleges and art schools worldwide.
Superb narrative of a brilliantly talented man.......2006-12-11
What a mammoth yet intriguing and masterful study of the brilliantly talented Josef Albers! This book has many substantial insights, but I was personally fascinated with the depth of passion that Albers demonstrated both for his art and his pedagogy. Fred Horowitz has elegantly evoked the ways that Albers sought to "open" the eyes of his students, so they could "bring the conscious mind to bear on the task at hand" and take risks as they became "creative, self-reliant, [and] independent."
Book Description
Although it lasted only twenty-three years (1933-1956) and enrolled fewer than 1,200 students, Black Mountain College was one of the most fabled experimental institutions in art education and practice. Its art teachers included Josef Albers, Ilya Bolotowsky, Willem de Kooning, Buckminster Fuller, Franz Kline, and Robert Motherwell, and among their students were John Chamberlain, Kenneth Noland, Robert Rauschenberg, Dorothea Rockburne, and Cy Twombly. The performing arts teachers included John Cage, Merce Cunningham, Lou Harrison, Roger Sessions, David Tudor, and Stefan Wolpe, and among the literature teachers and students were Robert Creeley, Fielding Dawson, Ed Dorn, Robert Duncan, Francine du Plessix Gray, Charles Olson, M. C. Richards, and John Wieners.
This book, which accompanies an exhibition organized by the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sof in Madrid, contains nearly 500 color and black and white illustrations, many never before published.
Most of the images directly support the ideas and evidence presented in the book's four essays, all commissioned for this book. Poet Robert Creeley recounts his first meeting with his mentor and friend Charles Olson. Composer Martin Brody gives a history of the musical world of the 1930s to 1950s, in which Black Mountain played a significant role. Critic Kevin Power looks at the history and content of the experimental literary journal The Black Mountain Review, which was instrumental in the launching of the Black Mountain school of poetry. Curator Vincent Katz discusses the philosophy of the college's founders, the Bauhaus principles followed by art instructor Josef Albers, and the many interactions among the arts in the college's later years. The book also contains detailed histories of the careers of sixty-five Black Mountain artists, drawing on new interviews with John Chamberlain, Robert Creeley, Merce Cunningham, Fielding Dawson, Joseph Fiore, Richard Lippold, Kenneth Noland, Pat Passlof, Arthur Penn, Dan Rice, Dorothea Rockburne, Gerald van de Wiele, Susan Weil, and John Wieners.
Book Description
It was at Black Mountain College that Merce Cunningham formed his dance company, John Cage staged his first "happening," and Buckminster Fuller built his first dome. Although it lasted only twenty-four years (1933-1957) and enrolled fewer than 1,200 students, Black Mountain College launched a remarkable number of the artists who spearheaded the avant-garde in America of the 1960s. The faculty included such diverse talents as Anni and Josef Albers, Eric Bentley, Ilya Bolotowsky, Robert Creeley, Willem de Kooning, Robert Duncan, Lyonel Feininger, Paul Goodman, Walter Gropius, Franz Kline, Robert Motherwell, and Charles Olson. Among the students were Ruth Asawa, John Chamberlain, Francine du Plessix Gray, Kenneth Noland, Arthur Penn, Robert Rauschenberg, Kenneth Snelson, Cy Twombly, Stan Vanderbeek, and Jose Yglesias.
In this definitive account of the arts at Black Mountain College, back in print after many years, Mary Emma Harris describes a unique educational experiment and the artists and writers who conducted it. She replaces the myth of the college as a haphazardly conceived venture with a portrait of a consciously directed liberal arts school that grew out of the progressive education movement. Proceeding chronologically through the four major periods of the college’s history, Harris covers every aspect of its extraordinary curriculum in the visual, literary, and performing arts.
Book Description
A powerfully influential artist, who has been designated both the principal member of the New York Correspondence School and founder of Mail Art as a whole, Ray Johnson discovered in Black Mountain College the perfect environment in which to nourish his distinctive creativity. His work after his departure extends the exploration of freedom championed by the school perhaps as far as any other student at Black Mountain College.
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A Palpable Elysium: Portraits of Genius and Solitude
Jonathan Williams
Manufacturer: David R Godine
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
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ASIN: 1567921493 |
Product Description
As a country, America has never been a slouch at producing "originals," a term applied loosely and glibly to everyone from rock stars to CEOs. But if any place of the past century really did spawn originals like a breeding box, it was Black Mountain College, and among its many illustrious graduates is Jonathan Williams: poet, publisher, raconteur, and eclectic collector of like spirits. In this wonderfully quirky book, Williams has made the rounds and produced his inventory of poets, painters, writers, and artists whose only commonality is their unequivocal distinction. And what a world it is, populated by his friends, some alive and some quite dead, people he knew, and people he wished he had known; famous people (Ezra Pound, Henry Miller, Paul Strand, Buckminster Fuller, William Carlos Williams), people who should be famous but aren't (Basil Bunting, Frederick Sommer, Aaron Siskind, Wendell Berry, Charles Olson, James Laughlin), and the gravestones of some who were once famous, are now interred, and whose memories he'd have us honor (H.P. Lovecraft, Wallace Stevens, Erik Satie, James Thurber). Musicians, writers, composers, and especially the white and black geniuses of Outsider Art (Howard Finster, Elijah Pierce, Keith Smith) are all here, alive and kicking, in Williams's heaven of honorary prodigies.
This self-contained galaxy, this "home-made world" of extraordinary personalities captured on film and then decoded in extended captions, presents people of genuine accomplishment who are never going to be feted in the pages of People or interviewed on Oprah. As Davenport writes, "He is not a journalist looking for feature stories, nor a critic with an agenda, nor a lion hunter collecting names to drop. A cultural anthropologist? I see parallels with Ruskin finding forgotten painters of the Trecento." Here is the flip side of America, where fame seldom intersects or coexists with true talent, and where the truly gifted often inhabit their own domains, hermetic, unseen, unheralded, but always present in the creative flux of our cultural landscape.
Book Description
Fannie Hillsmith was personally picked out by Josef Albers to replace him as a 1945 summer teacher at Black Mountain College, where she taught alongside Lyonel Feininger and Ossip Zadkine and was succeeded by Robert Motherwell. Inspired principally by Klee and Cubism, she exhibited frequently and successfully with the American Abstract Artists as one of its most notable female members.
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Gwendolyn Knight: Discovering Powerful Images: Black Mountain College Dossier n7 (Black Mountain College Dossiers)
Glenis Redmond
Manufacturer: Black Mountain Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
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ASIN: 0964902079 |
Book Description
This monograph is part of an ongoing series focusing on former Black Mountain College students and teachers. As the wife of Jacob Lawrence, arguably America's most famous African-American artist, Gwendolyn Knight has been completely overshadowed. Yet, with her husband's encouragement, she painted her whole life, and has continued to work since his death.
Book Description
As both student and teacher, artist Joseph Fiore had one of the longest personal associations with Black Mountain College, where he experienced both the discipline and liberation of modern painting at the hands of regular professors such as Ilya Bolotowsky, Charles Olson, and Josef Albers, as well as significant visitors like Jacob Lawrence, John Cage, and Willem de Kooning.
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- Where does Schiffer find these people?
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Polyester: The Indestructible Fashion (Schiffer Book for Collectors and Designers.)
Matthew Boyd Smith
Manufacturer: Schiffer Publishing
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
Fashion Design
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ASIN: 0764304240 |
Book Description
Polyester: The Indestructible Fashion is a picture book which explores the art of prints in collectible and wearable polyester clothing from the 1970s. Over 330 creative photographs of men's and women's clothing were taken in high-energy, urban settings to present this dynamic clothing that projects energy of its own. Today, in the late 1990s, the younger generation has embraced polyester once again! Not only are today's fashion designers clamoring to redesign the styles from the past, but the market is growing, too, for the exciting, one-of-a-kind, vintage pieces. This is truly a style of fashion that will not fade. The author has produced fashion shows in Philadelphia from his extensive collection of polyester clothing. He is a physical education teacher, artist, and part-time student at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts.
Customer Reviews:
Where does Schiffer find these people?.......2000-01-04
I have been finding it hard to take any fashion book from this publisher seriously. I can count on Schiffer for books by amateurs written by beginners, of which I am neither. Buyer beware.
Customer Reviews:
Absolutely stunning .......2006-11-22
This review if for the hard bound "Absolute Authority Vol 2"
The Authority are today's super heroes, They are more like a De Facto JLA on drugs. They think and act like regular Joes, that just so happen to be blessed with super human abilities, which for any human being become a self defeating plague. Each member of the team has their own demons and issues to deal with, top that off with combating super villains and totalitarian Governments and they inevitably fall apart. They have weaknesses and defects which makes them easier to relate to and care about. They struggle and just when you think it's over they overcome. A true underdog comic, no Superman always wins and pretty daisy for all the damsels. This book pushed the envelope and was even subjected to censorship which was the cause for the leading artist to eventually walk off the project. The editor forced them to change many detail they deemed too controversial ( too much similarities to present day political figures and facts, the high tone violence and adult language)The story telling is dark and twisted, the art is equally horrifying, something Frank Quitely manages to keep clean and precise. Mark Millar does wonders following Ellis's run and manages to give us in inside look at the destructive nature and price that heroes have to pay in order to save the world. His writing is clever and witty, and the story lines disturbing yet all too realistic. Frank Quitely who pencils the majority of the book is a breath of fresh air in an industry filled with unrealistic and super model heroes. His art is clean and un pretty, which makes it stand apart from the Jim Lee, Marc Silvestri Era comics. I would compare his style to the McFarlane era Spider man. My only dislike are the gaps between Quitely's run only because the art seems very rushed and in my opinion unprofessional. Thank God Quitely does the majority of the pencils, he's one of my favorite artist around today and is one of the reasons I love this book so much. D.C. comics has hit a miles stone with their Absolute editions line, which are all in large format and come in a book case with tons of extras. A great addition to any collector looking to read their favorite comic with out having to go through the hassle of digging through their stash or risk damage to their collection each time they have the itch to re-read them. I recommend this to any fan of Frank Quitelys work on All Star Super man and New X-men.
Highly original and highly human, even for super-types.......2005-11-03
This volume of issues 13-29 of the original comic is my first exposure to the "Authority" series and I'm definitely going to have to go back and locate the first collection. (Although the backstory is nicely conveyed, too.) The superheroes who make up the Authority are "manufactured" rather than being aliens or supernatural beings, and they're often not very nice, and the Good Guys are perfectly willing to use cattle-prods to get information from captured Bad Guys. They've also decided they're allowed to make the law better than any corrupt government. Unlike the "WHAM! POW!" style of the Golden and Silver Ages, there's a good deal more blood and forthright pain on the page. On the other hand, there's no doubt who the *real* Bad Guys are here -- they're the international conglomerates who control mere national governments so they can more easily strip the earth of its natural resources and enhance the bottom line. The members of the Authority aren't patriotic, nationalist flag-wavers and take pleasure in overthrowing the dictatorships they come across. In the first of the three stories in this collection, they deal both with an Evil Genius (eventually co-opted) and with political refugees while coming to grips with the replacement of their late leader -- the "spirit of the 20th century," a neat concept. In the second story, the earth-destroying force they have to fight turns out to be the Earth itself -- another interesting and original idea. The third story involves the replacement of the Authority by the G-8 nations by a bunch of creeps they con control. In other ways, this comic is very much a 21st century product, with an openly gay couple, domestic violence themes, and a drug-addicted "world shaman." Physically, it's a very nice book, too, with a slipcase and built-in-bookmark.
Book Description
A mention of flatulence might conjure up images of bratty high school boys or lowbrow comics. But one of the most eloquent - and least expected - commentators on the subject is Benjamin Franklin. The writings in Fart Proudly reveal the rogue who lived peaceably within the philosopher and statesman. Included are "The Letter to a Royal Academy"; "On Choosing a Mistress"; "Rules on Making Oneself Disagreeable"; and other jibes. Franklin's irrepressible wit found an outlet in perpetrating hoaxes, attacking marriage and other sacred cows, and skewering the English Parliament. Reminding us of the humorous, irreverent side of this American icon, these essays endure as both hilarious satire and a timely reminder of the importance of a free press.
Customer Reviews:
An iteresting read.......2007-09-25
I have to say that I rather enjoyed reading Franklin's lesser known works/letters. At one point I was even chuckling out loud.
However the book was ruined at the end by the editor's own political agenda. He assumes to many things and discredits his own opinion about the freedom of speech (if it is true that no one is allowed to speak their mind or are afraid - how is it that you got published).
My recommendation is to rip out that section of the book and enjoy what a gifted writer and thinker has to say - Ben Franklin
Great for all fans of Ben Franklin.......2007-02-11
The last chapter is the best one and the only one that at all references the title (fortunately). Some of this is better for people who already have some background in the period. I would not recommend this book for anybody who does not have an interest in the history and politics of the era of the American Revolution. If you love Ben Franklin, as I do, then this book is a must-read.
Franklin is my new hero, but I wish the editor would shut his trap.......2006-12-29
Benjamin Franklin, as I knew him (mostly from elementary school TV cartoons), was a busy old man who spent his time inventing stoves and bifocals, getting electrocuted by lightning, writing newspapers, and admonishing us to work hard and "unite or die".
Franklin, it turns out, was also a brilliant humorist and satirist. The opening essay of "Fart Proudly", suggesting the Royal Academy of Brussels drop their efforts on cute mathematical theorems and focus instead on finding ways to make farts smell pleasant, is a riot. Franklin tops it later in his essay "On Choosing a Mistress", which expands upon the merits of older women ("there is no hazard of Children, which irregularly produced may be attended with much Inconvenience." "covering all above with a Basket, and regarding only what is below the Girdle, it is impossible of two Women to know an old one from a young one. And as in the dark all Cats are grey, the Pleasure or corporal Enjoyment with an old Woman is at least equal, and frequently superior, every Knack being by Practice capable of improvement.")
Once you get used to the style, the book goes very quickly, and you can read it in an afternoon easily. And, in addition to being a deep repository of wit, the book is also a fun history lesson, as through a variety of Franklin's satirical essays on politics ("Three Fables", "Rules by Which A Great Empire May Be Reduced to a Small One", "Transporting Rattlesnakes") you can see the evolution of Franklin's grievances with Britain from a perspective far more entertaining than a history text.
My only complaint is that Japiske, the editor, is an ignoramus, and exactly the kind of gentleman Franklin would have gone out of his way to mock mercilessly in print.
Wicked! .......2006-03-09
This book is a terrific compilation of Ben's lesser known writings. Reading this, I have to say - if I could invite any one person to dinner, past, present or future, it would be Benjamin Franklin. He's smart, funny, rebellious, irreverent, and eloquent.
Every schoolteacher in every elementary school history classroom across America - or the world - should have multiple copies of this book freely available at all times. There's a reason Ben was a hero in other countries besides the states.
That said, the preface sucked. Using Ben to push your own politics? Get over it. I agree, but I dislike being told what to think.
So - definitely buy the book, definitely skip the preface, definitely laugh your musical behind off.
The footnotes your history book skipped........2004-12-03
Bland history makes great men look great. Bad history makes great men look bad. This makes a great man look great being a 'bad boy' - a tasty bit of irony and accuracy.
Franklin was one of the first printers in the US - he was a material supporter of freedom of the press, and a severe critic of irresponsible press. He was a statesman and clown, when clowning made his point the best way. He was a politician, scientist, and bawd - how else to take in so much of the human condition?
This collection captures some of the contradictions that comprised Benjamin Frnaklin. Maybe it takes some of the sheen off the gold star that history dumped on him, but it adds toughness and flexibility to the steel that he showed as diplomat. Satire is a voice, and this short book shows a few octaves of his.
I have to admit that poor teachers put me quite off American history. Books like this get me reading history again. It shows Franklin the patriot and firebrand defending the mothers without husbands and deflating the learned academies of Europe. This is short but sweet, and even his choices of words show me a lot about how modern English is used.
//wiredweird
Book Description
Everyone knows Benjamin Franklin was one of the great philosophers of his time. But there was a side to him you were not exposed to in school--a bawdy, scurrilous side that was all too eager to ignite the fires of controversy. From time to time, he would put some of his satirical ideas down on paper. Fart Proudly is a testament to the rogue that lived inside the philosopher and statesman.
Customer Reviews:
Laughed out loud.......2005-12-16
When I read this book several years ago, I found myself laughing out loud, so I wrote Dave Barry and asked him if he had ghost-written this book. (The author's name also sounded bogus). I told him that the only time I ever found myself laughing out loud when reading was when I was reading his column. To my surprise, he wrote back and told me that George Will (another of my favorites) had actually written the book.
Still laughing, still THINKING- can't ask for more........2004-07-11
P-U! Hahahaha, I have to say that I never knew Ben Franklin was almost as stinky as me and my friend's daughters. Trust me, we've enjoyed many fire-side chats with this volume (though anyone around us probably thinks we're a bunch of a foul-pantied stinkers, and they're right!). Look, women do it too, no matter how beautiful. If Ben Franklin could stoop to toilet humor, it should be okay for everyone.
True Ben Franklin except for the last section.......2003-05-07
The book was excellent and truely Benjamim Franklin until the last section titled "The Dream". The author put forward ideals as if they were spoken by Franklin, but definitely not ideals Franklin believed in. It is a ... plug for right-wing anti-government thinking. In the end of the book, it [was unsuccessful]. Don't waste your time.
Let one go..........2002-11-30
This is truly a fun little book. It's worth having on your shelf when friends come over and peruse your collection. Without fail they'll pull this one out thinking it's nothing but potty humor. Then they see WHO?!?! Ben Franklin?!?!!? WHAT?!?!?
This very small book is a collection of the satire of Ben Franklin. Those of you looking for a good book of fart jokes will be deeply disappointed. Those looking for a good laugh will not be. Those looking to learn more about Ben Franklin will learn a great deal.
A few must-reads are "Rules on Making Oneself Disagreeable" (though farting is not mentioned), "On choosing a Mistress" (again, no farting, but it's hilarious), and the best of all "A Letter to a Royal Academy" in which Franklin makes a suggestion to a group of scientists: throw away all your abstract theory and find a way to make farts smell nice. It is the most subtle and disparaging piece I've ever read, and it rides that line between "is he SERIOUS?!?" and "is this is a joke!??!"
There are actually historically important pieces in this book, believe it or not. Don't let the title throw you. "Rules by Which a Great Empire May Be Reduced" is cutting satire from right before the American revolution. It ran in papers of the time and made an impact. "The Speech of Miss Polly Baker," about a woman having children out of wedlock, was reported as fact throughout the colonies until Franklin admitted the joke.
And finally, for those looking for good fart humor, there's "The Dream" from which the book takes its title. Read and giggle 'till you cough.
Something the book does not mention is that many of these pieces were originally published anonymously, as was the custom in the 18th century. You would not have seen "'Fart Proudly' by Benjamin Franklin" in the press. Instead there would have been no name on the piece or a false one. Franklin assumed numerous false names throughout his life, as did most authors of the time. Writing was more about what was being written than who was writing it. This has changed drastically in the intervening centuries.
Hopefully this selection will whet your appetite for more Ben Franklin. He wrote an incredible amount, much of it is very funny as well as significant. He was no stodgy old professor, as this book more than proves. If you enjoy this collection, go out and get more, or read a biography. You'll find there's much more to Ben Franklin than you ever thought.
Little Dry at First.......2002-10-15
but then what good fart isn't. Funny book, fun to read, interesting subject matter
Books:
- Josiah McElheny
- Knights of the Brush: The Hudson River School and the Moral Landscape
- Lady Cottington's Pressed Fairy Book: 10 3/4 Anniversary Edition
- Los santuarios de la naturaleza : el patrimonio mundial de la Unesco
- Malaise : A Novel
- Marilyn Monroe: Cover to Cover
- Megaliths, Myths and Men: An Introduction to Astro-Archaeology
- Mickey Mantle: Before the Glory
- Mixing Colors: 3. Dry Techniques (Barron's Art Handbooks)
- Monks and Merchants: Silk Road Treasures from Northwest China
Books Index
Books Home
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Josef Albers: Formulation: Articulation
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The Societe Anonyme: Modernism for America (Yale University Art Gallery)
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