Mt. Rushmore
I call this painting “Mt. Rushmore.” I have brought my limited skill and unlimited zeal to an attempt to portray seven figures who have meant a lot to me at various stages of my life. You can click on it for a better view.
Please note that (a) the quotes are not above the appropriate people’s heads and (b) the absence of women is not intentional and is certainly not intended as any kind of comment. Your heroes are your heroes.
In the (not unlikely) event that I haven’t rendered them well enough to identify by sight, I have (a) put some tributes/hints below and (b) put the subjects’ names in a comment. So:
Tributes/hints, left to right:
1. Many, many people identified with the anxieties of the child protagonist of your comic strip.
2. Your innovation was that your costumed heroes, in addition to having fearsome powers, had confused inner lives and, as you once put it, feet of clay.
3. Your skills in the ring were nearly matched by your fearlessness, integrity, and bragging ability outside it — while the gleam in your eye let us know that the bragging wasn’t serious.
4. Your warm, hilarious comedy albums helped at least one person come through childhood with his sanity intact.
5. The sixteen-year-old narrator of your resoundingly successful, literature-altering novel made alienation seem cool and let some of us know we weren’t alone.
6. You converted your pain, rage, compassion, bravery, and literary skill into heartfelt novels and beautiful essays that illuminate the American condition.
7. Less famous than the others, you nonetheless made the term “black American” seem not an oxymoron but a redundancy, and you cleared up a lot of confusion.
11 Responses to “Mt. Rushmore”
Left to right: Charles M. Schulz, Stan Lee, Muhammad Ali, Bill Cosby, J.D. Salinger, James Baldwin, Albert Murray.
Boy–Salinger certainly brings up the old problem of admiring the art and not the artist . . .
I’m sure Amy and the girls are very glad you haven’t taken him as a personal role model.
Mari — I imagine you’re right! What’s interesting to me is that as much as I loved “Catcher,” my daughters couldn’t be less interested in it. According to a New York Times articles I read, they have a lot of company among young people. The influence of that novel may finally be on the way out. (My girls never really took to Charlie Brown, either — he’s “depressed and depressing,” as one of them put it.)
Where’s Julie Andrews? You must have a woman in there…
In my country, J.D.Salinger’s “Glass” menagerie is compared mostly to the Partridge Family, a bunch of “artists” one is encouraged to live vicariously through. As for Catcher in the Rye, I must admit I was never seduced by the narrator’s tough-guy talk. He seemed, and still seems, to me, a self-pitying child.
I see your Mount Rushmore as a collection of influences you must now scramble free of, as Cary Grant did so memorably on the silver screen.
Becky — When I was ten I LOVED “The Sound of Music” (which, I don’t mind telling you, made me highly unusual where I grew up). I also watched quite a bit of Mary Tyler Moore and listened to a lot of Supremes songs, experiences I enjoyed greatly. The guys I tried to paint, though, are those who I feel influenced my outlook or the things I’ve tried to do (with the exception of Ali; as a boy I tried my best to avoid fights, sometimes failing memorably). Georges — good to hear from you, it’s been a while. I would say I have mostly freed myself, though maybe I’m not the best judge. W/r/t Cary Grant: no doubt I’m missing the joke, but who even preceded him on the screen who would have had to be broken away from? Finally, Holden Caulfield’s narration seems to me the opposite of tough.
I refer to Cary Grant’s character in North By Northwest. Pursued by James Mason and the ineffably creepy Martin Landau, does he not truly attain independence by traversing the perilous noses and chins of former American presidents?
Ah . . . of course.
It took having a few days off from work to lead me back to your site. So now I see what I’ve been missing and why it’s not a good idea to work all the time. Here’s to catching up. I love Mt. Rushmore.
Thank you, Phyllis!
You, you..’You’re Good..You’re good, doc!…KEEP PAINTING, ALWAYS!
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