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2001-02-19
Well I was just so inspired by the sight of Yo' Mama's Last Waxing at the Brooklyn Museum of Art on Saturday that I spent all day Sunday (and much of today, I confess it) putting together a BONUS LONG ESSAY as the surprise I'd been promising.
I have always wanted to finish this piece because I love the title, which I stole from a sculpture by Louise Bourgeois�I believe the sculpture to have stolen it previously from Gertrude Stein, but I cannot prove that.
With all due respect to the creator(s), publishers, distributors, readers, admirers, and dangerously ego-bonded "fans" of Harry Potter, I felt it appropriate to illustrate the text�but how? This was my question, and I was steeling myself to go through my unused collages and all the stacks of old postcards and source books which are everywhere about the place. I faced a daunting task�when suddenly, tucked behind a lamp where it's been hanging on my sister's wall, I spied the perfect picture�it's one she painted several years ago, which is in perfect keeping with the text.
You see, it ILLUSTRATES the text�its purpose is to enhance the reader's AESTHETIC EXPERIENCE and to provide MORE BEAUTY. See, for instance, also in the YOUNG ADULTS section:
Alice in Wonderland
The Wizard of Oz (and others by L. Frank Baum)
The Rescuers (and other Miss Bianca books)
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
James and the Giant Peach
The Phantom Tollbooth
From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler
Of course, as my sistah points out, there will be many more editions of the Harry Potter books�there will be "collectible" collectors' editions and "rare" special leather-bound sets for the really unhealthily rich�and these will have to have illustrations, otherwise they won't sell. Perhaps (listen to me, a grown woman, "perhaps")�of course they're in production already. It's just, you know, the people buying them now who can go screw. And 700 pages, please�I say of this woman just what I say of David Foster Wallace and his grants: they should use the money to plant trees.