MONO Lessons (Part XXII: 440-463)

Meditatively Obtained, Novel, and Observational (MONO) Lessons

440. Spring finals are the absolute worst.

441. I don’t understand the whole superhero comic book thing.  Especially Thor.  Thor is a Nordic god…not a comic book character…

442. Chris Evans must be an actual superhero since he has played The Human Torch and will be playing Captain America…the hero with the lamest name ever.

443. The Avengers are:  The Incredible Hulk, Iron Man (whatever that is), Thor, and Captain America.

444. Need to Know on PBS is simply outstanding journalism.  I highly recommend it.  Oh, and donate!  ;-)

445. Allegra is a non-drowsy lifesaver.  Now also available in generic form from your local grocery store knock-off brand!  Yay!

446. Some things never change.

447. Facebook ads…holy crap.

448. Apparently, people have pornographic slides.  Yes, I said slides.

449. Divorce isn’t a bad thing.  It just gets a bad rap.

450. I can easily use a video game analogy to explain my ideas correlating physics, spirituality, and a “higher power.”

451. RENT four times can be rather emotional; especially during a highly emotional time in your personal life.

452. Lesson #157 stated “I’m not ‘RENT’ gay.”  Correction, I am “RENT” gay.

453. Jagged Little Pill would make a great musical.

454. The Matrix is why I freed my mind.

455. Kaboom.  That is all.

456. I prefer having the world end at the end of apocalyptic-like movies.  Especially if aliens are involved.

457. Abercrombie & Fitch models feel nice.

458. I refuse to watch Criminal Minds because I can’t take Greg, yes, from Dharma & Greg, seriously.  And he’s missing Dharma…

459. Sexuality, gender, and sex are all amazing things and deserve more conversational attention.  Taboo is destroyed by conversation.

460. Depression and anxiety are rampant.

461. Depression and anxiety are rampant among gays.

462. Judy McLane is a sweetheart.

463. Being a gay teenager still sucks, unfortunately.  But at least it’s slightly less dangerous…

Richard Avedon's Marilyn Monroe

This posting is a bit different for me. I would like to take a blog moment to pay tribute to my favorite portrait photograph. I was first introduced to this portrait of Marilyn Monroe by Richard Avedon in my Digital Photography class Spring semester of 2008. I fell in love the moment I saw it. So in love, in fact, that I now have an almost-life-sized print of this photo beautifully framed and hanging in my house. If that doesn't emphasize my passion about this portrait, I don't know how else to convince you. ;-)

Below you will find the following: said portrait, a video clip from American Masters - Richard Avedon: Darkness and Light (1996) where Avedon recounts the moment this portrait of Marilyn was captured, a critique on the photograph by Maria Morris Hambourg and Mia Fineman from their elegant book Avedon's Endgame, and my own closing critique and remarks. Enjoy!

Marilyn Monroe, Actress, New York City, May 6, 1957 Richard Avedon (American, 1923-2004) Gelatin silver print

Marilyn Monroe, Actress, New York City, May 6, 1957 Richard Avedon (American, 1923-2004) Gelatin silver print

This is a clip from PBS American Masters, Richard Avedon: Darkness and Light, Directed by Helen Whitney, 1996. Here, Avedon himself reflects on the exact moment this glorious portrait was taken.


I really enjoyed the following critique on this portrait. Please note, these are not my comments, but those of Maria Morris Hambourg and Mia Fineman from Avedon's Endgame; I want to make sure they receive the credit for their insightful remarks:

"In Marilyn Monroe, Avedon found a virtuoso of theatrical self-impersonation and with her pursued the mysterious point of convergence between actor and character, between the private self and the public role. 'There was no such person as Marilyn Monroe,' he explained in an interview with the filmmaker Helen Whitney [clip above]. 'Marilyn Monroe was someone Marilyn Monroe invented, line an author creates a character.' Recalling a session that took place at his studio on a May evening in 1957, he continued: 'For hours she danced and sang and flirted and did this thing that's -- she did Marilyn Monroe. And then there was the inevitable drop. And when the night was over and the white wine was over and the dancing was over, she sat in the corner like a child, with everything gone. I saw her sitting quietly without expression on her face, and I walked towards her but I wouldn't photograph her without her knowledge of it. And as I came with the camera, I saw that she was not saying no.'

"The famous portrait that resulted from this session is a study of the complex nature of celebrity. Entombed in her body, Avedon's Marilyn is a secular madonna mourning some indefinable loss. The picture is imbued with a sense of inferiority that seems worlds away from the rigid mask in Andy Warhol's posthumous silk screens of Marilyn as a gaudily glamorous pop icon. While Avedon's portrait foreshadowed the tragic figure Marilyn would soon become in the popular imagination, Warhol's silk screens, made shortly after her death from a drug overdose in 1962, have the still and distant quality of memorials. Yet neither Avedon's humanist portrayal of a sad seductress nor Warhol's luric canonization of her vivacious, wet-lipped counterpart reveals the real Marily Monroe. The truth of Avedon's portrait lies in a new character, a melancholy heroine collaboratively created by the photographer and his subject."

Hambourg, Maria Morris, and Mia Fineman. Avedon's Endgame. New York City: Harry N. Abrams, Incorporated, New York, and The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2002.

This is a picture of my framed print of this portrait. This print was originally made for sale during a special exhibition of Richard Avedon's work at The Metropolitan Museum of Art September 26, 2002 - Jan 5, 2003. After a year of searching, I finally got my hands on it!

I am still at a loss to fully explain why I am so moved by this picture. I didn't (and still don't) know a lot about Marilyn Monroe and her life, but when I was first struck by this portrait, I knew enough to let it take me away. Her facial expression and bodily posture say, "What have I been doing? What have I done? Why am I doing this? And when will it end?" We all do things we're not proud of, get lost in the moment, and have these same striking realizations where we ask ourselves those same questions.

I guess, for me, I found solace in this portrait through empathy. Marilyn Monroe, oddly enough, became someone for me to relate to. Would I have felt the same had I not known anything about the personal life of the woman in the picture? I'm not sure. But either way, her facial expression and posture would ask the same questions. I believe the same message would be conveyed, but it is even more powerful with it being conveyed through this seemingly uncharacteristic, yet stunningly beautiful portrait of Marilyn Monroe.