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ACROSS
1 Set into motion
8 Golf alternative,
briefly
15 Red bowlful
16 __ Itzá: Mayan
ruins
17 Classic leading
man who
moonlighted at a
pharmacy?
19 Second of 24
20 L.A. Kings’ org.
21 Management
22 Fiji’s region
25 Pulitzer-winning
writer who
moonlighted in a
nightly news
studio?
32 Saying that often
goes without
saying
33 Breaks down
34 One with a
handbook
36 Tony winner
Huffman
37 Bolshoi outfit
38 Kitchen bar
39 “I’d strike the sun
if it insulted me”
speaker
43 Folklore threats
44 Actor who
moonlighted in a
brass band?
47 Makes
complementary
(to)
48 “Here Come the
__”: 1945 college
comedy
52 Actor Stephen
53 18-Down
competitor
57 English author
who moonlighted
at LensCrafters?
61 Enhances in the
kitchen
62 “That’s my
recommendation”
63 Reply to “That’s
enough!”
64 Pool workers
DOWN
1 Rhyme scheme
in many sonnets
2 Bear up
3 Moderate pace
4 Open org.
5 “__ du lieber!”
6 From that place
7 Rembrandt and
Picasso, at times
8 Obsolescent
family room fixture
9 Justification
10 Puzzle
sometimes
framed
11 Hose shade
12 Southeast Asian
language
13 Garden party
protection
14 Garden party
intruders
18 53-Across
competitor
22 Resistance unit
23 Collar
24 A-listers
25 City SSW of
Dallas
26 Praise to the
heavens
27 To help, to Henri
28 Piece of toast?
29 Expenditure
30 Activity of great
interest?
31 __ One: vodka
brand
35 Scam
39 Proper
40 In a lather, with
“up”
41 Words with take
or lose
42 Fund-raiser
43 Like “fain”: Abbr.
45 Poe of the
Baltimore
Ravens, for one
46 Certain agent’s
area
48 Mozart title
starter
49 General Motors
subsidiary
50 Substitute in a
list
51 Ph.D. hurdle
53 Both, at the start
54 Contests
55 Smithsonian,
e.g.: Abbr.
56 PD ranks
58 Italian diminutive
suffix
59 Venom
transmitter
60 Arguable ability
By Jeffrey Wechsler
©2015 Tribune Content Agency, LLC
11/13/15
11/13/15
ANSWER TO PREVIOUS PUZZLE:
RELEASE DATE– Friday, November 13, 2015
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Dear Gillian,
I love to paint, but all my best
work is of nudes, and my mom
doesn’t want
to hang them up in the house.
I
feel
like
she does not
appreciate my
talent
or worse —
she sometimes
seems
embarrassed
of
my
art.
What should I
do?
-
Artist
Under Wraps
*******
Dear Wraps,
The first thing we need to
figure out is whether your mom
doesn’t like your art or doesn’t
like the nudity in your art. If it’s
the art, there’s not much you can
do. Though I’m sure your art is
striking, everyone is entitled to
their opinion when it comes to
art appreciation and there’s no
accounting for taste. I would
say just ask your mom straight-
up if she thinks your nudes are
pornography or just poor artistry.
But let’s assume it’s the former,
then I’d say your job is to help her
work out her hang up and hang up
your work out in the open. Don’t
settle for a wall in the guest-room-
turned-storage-unit. Gallery space
is difficult to score; you at least
deserve prime real estate in your
family home.
While I can’t provide criticism
on form and composition, I can
comfort you with the knowledge
that you are part of a timeless
lineage of artists who have
navigated the narrow straits
between celebration and scandal
when it comes to the nude
subject (some have deliberately
run aground on either side).
Maybe your mom can take
comfort in it as well.
On the ceiling of the Sistine
Chapel, Michelangelo depicts
the Temptation and Fall of
Adam and Eve with two scenes
in narrative sequence. On the
left he paints the original couple
blissfully nude, possibly in the
middle of a shame-free sex act.
On the right side is the moment
after Adam and Eve have eaten
of the forbidden fruit; the newly
self-aware pair are leaving Eden
shamefully covering their naked
bodies. Art historian Kenneth
Clark is great on the distinction
between naked and nude: “To be
naked is to be deprived of our
clothes, and the word implies
some of the embarrassment
most of us feel in that condition.
The word ‘nude,’ on the other
hand, carries, in educated usage,
no uncomfortable overtone … a
balanced, prosperous and confi-
dent body.” This, Wraps, might
be helpful in determining the
interpretive
framework
with
which your mother views your
paintings. Are you rendering
human vulnerability and eroti-
cism, or do your canvases glow
with divine idealized beauty?
To follow one art historical
thread down this path: Botticelli’s
Birth of Venus is celebrated as an
elegant and natural depiction of
a nude, a goddess — an idealized
form of a woman — and her
sexuality is soft and unobtrusive.
Titian’s Venus of Urbino takes
one step toward the risqué
plucking Venus from her heavenly
surroundings and placing her in
an earthly bedroom. Yet Titian’s
soft application of paint and
the graceful body language of
Venus allow viewers to hold on to
highbrow associations. Eduoard
Manet
steps
defiantly
over
the nude/nakedness line with
Olympia, first shown at the 1865
Paris Salon where it was met with
harsh criticism and outrage. With
the same composition as Venus
of Urbino, it’s the black choker
of a prostitute and challenging
gaze that render Olympia overtly
sexual and shocking — viewers
are forced to confront the sexual
naked body and can’t hide behind
the pretense of ideal beauty. It
gets worse with Sally Mann’s
Venus After School (1992), but we
won’t go there.
I don’t know your gender or
that of your nudes, but the naked/
nude division applies equally in
depictions of the male body. From
Michelangelo’s sculpted David
in the early 1500s celebrating
human beauty and excellence as
those humanists liked to do in the
Renaissance to Robert Mappletho-
rpe’s silver gelatin print Dan S. in
1980 that toes the line between
art and pornography. No discus-
sion about the history of nudity in
art, not even in an advice column,
is complete without a word about
the gender dynamics of the artist/
subject relationship. I don’t know
if the objectification of gaze is the
right foot to start off on with your
mom, but it probably affords the
most insight into the topic.
In the visual arts, it is usually
the subject that is nude. But
in some of the other creative
disciplines,
it’s
the
artists
themselves. Dance is a stark
example.
The
(sometimes
controversial)
dance
critic
Alastair Macaulay approves of
nudity in dance where it advances
the artistic intent of a piece,
such as by conveying intimacy
or
highlighting
musculature
where those are among the
choreographic
themes,
but
condemns it where it is purely
prurient, raunch for raunch’s
sake. He repeated ballet dancer
Robert
Helpmann’s
famous
observation
of
the
problem
with nakedness in dance: When
you stop on the music, not all
the parts of your anatomy stop
at the same time, which leads
to the conclusion that slow
choreography can be done nude
but a fast dance, only buck-naked.
So, my dear artist U.W., not
to get too psycho-sexual, but as
Milan Kundera’s “The Unbearable
Lightness of Being” teaches us,
there can be engrained personal
aversions to the human body. In
the novel, Tereza’s greatest fear
is being reduced to nakedness
with no way to distinguish herself
from anyone else’s fleshy body.
If your mom’s aversion is not as
deep-seated as Tereza’s, take the
most nude and least naked of your
works, bring images and source
materials of the great nude works
of the creative arts and open the
debate with your mom. I’m sure
she’ll come around. Unless your
work is all down by the naked end
of the spectrum. That’s cool too,
but you might have to get your
own apartment.
*******
Dear Gillian,
I sent my boyfriend a nude photo
of myself and he didn’t say anything
back.
Later,
he
replied
via
text
message: “No thank you.” It’s hard
not to
take this personally. Should I
try again? Maybe from a different
angle this
time?
- Laid Bare
********
Dear Laid,
I see how you would take this
personally. Your gesture was
one of giving and vulnerable
commitment.
In
Federico
García Lorca’s poem “Casido of
a Reclining Woman,” he writes:
“To see you naked is to remember
the Earth, / the smooth Earth,
clean of horses, / the Earth
without reeds, pure form, / closed
to the future, confine of silver.”
Your body represents a lot, if not
everything, and its gift should
be accepted joyously and with
wonder and gratitude.
A nude photo may serve the
same purpose, after a fashion,
as Walt Whitman’s poem “Song
of Myself” in which he sings the
song of himself, representative
of his being, and shares it with
the implied listener/reader of the
poem: “I celebrate myself, and
sing myself, / And what I assume
you shall assume, / For every
atom belonging to me as good
belongs to you.” He, too, makes
the distinction between naked (“I
will go to the bank by the wood and
become undisguised and naked”)
and nude (“Who goes there?
hankering, gross, mystical, nude”)
in this piece. So I completely
understand your resentment and
your instinct to refuse to take no
for an answer.
To my eye, L.B., your boyfriend’s
response is not to the angle of the
photo — I’m sure your photo was
stunning — but rather is born of
prudence. Perhaps he assumes
you are opening up a graphic
conversation in which he is meant
to respond with a photo of his own
nude body, and is rejecting the
suggestion of this sext exchange.
This particular art can be toxic,
having felled its practitioners from
teenagers — see the novelist Helen
Schulman’s “This Beautiful Life”
— to Congressmen, not to mention
the effects on their loved ones.
“Nudity
quickly
becomes
unremarkable
when
generally
practiced,” wrote the philosopher
Martha Nussbaum in “Hiding
From Humanity.” Compared to
the feelings stirred in the midst of
your physical presence, the effect
of the nude photo might just not
do it for him. Worse, the prospect
of having it available all the time
might rob your intimacy of its
specialness.
This, L.B., is not to say that
nude selfies, well executed, cannot
be artful and worthy forms of
expression — they can. Look
at the early expressionist Paula
Modersohn-Becker’s Self-Portrait
(1906) or Latoya Ruby Frazier’s
Self Portrait United States Steel
(2010). So maybe the solution
here is to put your artistic all into
your next photo, paying attention
to lighting, focus and frame, not
just exposure. Consider black
and white or other monochrome
effects. Try to achieve an image
that conjures a mood much larger
than the bare sum of the parts.
Then, once you’ve got it firmly
on the art side of the nude-naked
continuum, send it via Snapchat!
Send an email to DearGillian@
michigandaily.com or
anonymously here describing
a quandary about love,
relationships, existence or their
opposites. Gillian will attempt
to summon the wisdom of the
arts (literary, visual, performing)
to soothe your troubled soul.
We may publish your letter
in the biweekly column with
your first name (or penname).
Submissions should be 250
words or fewer and may be
edited prior to publication.
CULTURAL CURES COLUMN
Dear Gillian:
The art of the nude
TV NOTEBOOK
How ‘PC’ shapes
our TV watching
PC culture has
changed acceptable
humor
By SOPHIA KAUFMAN
Daily Arts Writer
There is one phrase I use at
least once a day that is guaran-
teed to make my roommate roll
her eyes every time: “That’s not
PC.” (Of course, it could be pos-
sible that she’s rolling her eyes in
frustration at the fact that I say
it a lot when she’s watching “It’s
Always Sunny in Philadelphia,”
but I’ll get to that in a minute).
“Politically
correct”
is
a
phrase that has subtle differ-
ences in different contexts. If
something isn’t PC, it’s offen-
sive or non-inclusive; a com-
mon example would be using
certain words to refer to a per-
son’s identity (race, ethnicity,
gender, sexual orientation, etc.)
that aren’t socially acceptable
anymore based on their history.
The qualifier “political” stems
from the fact that not using the
PC term for something is a great
way to find yourself with your
foot in your mouth, at best — not
a very dignified or comfortable
position.
The concept of political cor-
rectness isn’t new. The third
most
popular
definition
of
“politically correct” on Urban
Dictionary is “the idealogy of
weird left wing liberals who
want society to be nothing but
accepting of all perverts and
freaks everywhere. The main
basis is not to offend anyone
with one little incorrect word,”
written in 2003 by “John J. Cock
Oiler” (The top definition was
gross so I’m not retyping it).
However, the level of group
censorship based on political
correctness has been rising
— and so has the level of
impatience from those who
think
political
correctness
just means tiptoeing around
the truth (at best) or insidious
censorship (at worst).
Intellectual communities like
universities and think tanks
have been engaging in discourse
about how a renewed emphasis
on political correctness is bleed-
ing into our classrooms; Obama
spoke on this himself recently
in Iowa, disapproving of “cod-
dling” college students. And
with the rise of social activism
on social media, PC culture is
spreading.
We could talk about the
causes and effects of PC culture,
and how they play into identity
politics for weeks without run-
ning out of material, but some-
thing I have been thinking about
recently — especially as the
characters from my roommate’s
shows like “It’s Always Sunny”
or “30 Rock” are constantly
screeching in my head nowadays
— is how PC culture is affecting
our TV shows and habits.
When I hear some of the jokes
that made it onto the final scripts
for episodes of shows like those,
I sometimes find myself laugh-
ing in shock at how not PC they
are. I know that “30 Rock” is sat-
ire, but I still can’t help but won-
der if many of their jokes that
rely on tropes and stereotypes
and would make the cut these
days. This question is especially
relevant for anything marketed
as comedy. The line between
satire and jokes that aren’t OK
is becoming thicker and thicker.
The first time I fully realized
this was after I watched the first
episode of Amy Poehler’s “Dif-
ficult People,” a newish show
on Hulu, in which a horrible
character tweets a joke about
Blue Ivy soon being old enough
for “R. Kelly to piss on her.” The
joke felt uncouth, even though
I understood that the writers
meant it to be a reminder of how
R. Kelly was accused of urinat-
ing on and having sex with a
teenage girl in 2002. I could
understand why Black feminists
especially were angry — jokes at
the expense of Black women’s
bodies are still all too prevalent.
Yet the show was slammed
much harder than it would have
been had it aired even three
or five years ago. Similar jokes
have made the cut time and time
again on older, more established
shows. People are more likely
now to watch their shows online
rather than live, and more peo-
ple engage in discussions pub-
licly online about what they’re
watching. But when shows with
cult-like followings air, discus-
sions about them often trend
on Twitter immediately. So if
something happens or some-
thing is said that isn’t PC, people
quickly find out about it.
PC culture is changing our
TV viewership habits in that the
population of a show’s audience
that is likely to engage in criti-
cal analysis about what they’re
watching is growing — and they
have access to media platforms
from which they can spread
their ideas. People are more like-
ly to take offense at things that
weren’t meant to be taken seri-
ously, and some feel that they’re
being unfairly treated by those
that police political correctness.
What started out as trying
to make sure everyone feels
respected is sometimes turned
into an exercise in hyperboliz-
ing satire and at times silencing
those who don’t hold popular
liberal opinions.
I have to bite my tongue some-
times and remind myself I’m not
the PC police, but at other times
I simply can’t help myself — I
know, I’m everyone’s favorite
classmate (or roommate — #sor-
rynotsorry, Rebecca). But I think
that’s OK. PC culture represents
good intentions that are some-
times taken to extremes, and it’s
up to all of us to educate our-
selves on what those extremes
look like. Our TV shows are
sometimes the best examples of
where the bounds of PC culture
should be: we should know when
to point something out for not
being PC, and when to just shut
up and have fun watching the
damn TV show.
GILLIAN
JAKAB
6A — Friday, November 13, 2015
Arts
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