** Spoiler Alert – Parts of the movie “Gone Girl” are described in the post below **
Nick and Amy. Amy and Nick. Who are they really? Characters in Gillian Flynns novel transformed into the sensational cinema hit “Gone Girl. Nick the malignant narcissist. Amy, his borderline sociopathic wifey. The imperfect beautiful couple. I went down to Union Square, in NYC, to the Regal theatre located in the epicenter of the most plugged in center of the universe! I needed a distraction and, being a reading addict of the grossest proportions, read this gem 2 years ago, knew the plot line, and was curious to see the plot unfold in technicolor before my eyes. The theatre was packed, jamming with 20, 30, 40, New York City hipsters , boomer, tourists, all eager to watch the suspenseful debacle unfold!
The book presented an attention grabbing dissection of two young married people fronting, posing, pretending ,ultimately unravelling, the energy of their toxic emotions exploding, their psychological dysfunction, their blatant narcissism, their empty souls spewing cinders of their crumbling relationship. Love gone wrong.
This film, portrays a scenario, where “WHO are you?” Is key. Nick thinks he knows his wife, but nothing could be further from the truth! While caught in his narcissistic web, Amy plots in full view his demise. She will not allow him to escape without paying for his dismissive, inattentive failure as her husband.
The seventies movie, ” Waiting for Mr. Goodbar,” reminds me of the neurotic interplay where you know the characters are dodging a mental minefield, a neurotic brainstorm, which could explode at any moment. Yet, they seem so charming, so friendly, so attractive! And it’s all a facade. A lie. Like Amy and Nick. Pure crap!
Many artists share that mentality. The genius/narcissist promoting himself as god, while simultaneously torturing the people who have the misfortune of fate to show up in their personal lives. Ugh. It’s the crazy maker looking for that special candy, feeding his hunger for more crazy. The crazy that makes him feel ALIVE! Picasso did it with his many submissive women, victimizing, abusing, ruining them, and…….Gertrude Stein, with her self indulgent, obsessive writing, that insane repetition and her statements of deluded grandeur! Road kill incarnate! Can’t stop reading, while loathing her narcissistic ploy as she identifies as “genius” .
Stein cuts and caters to the artists in her ex-pat Parisienne world. She makes or breaks by her acceptance or her rejection, the artists seeking recognition. Stein, star – maker incarnate, unsurpassed in her mind of complete authority and power! She pens the “Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas.” In it she pretends she is her lover, Alice, writing through her mind’s eye. In it, she identifies her take on real genius. There are three. Picasso. Herself. And Alfred Whitehead. No shit Sherlock! Only a narcissist could write ” a rose is a rose is a rose” and call it literature! But she is not alone! There are so many others. Ever read the journals of Anais Nin?
In Norman Mailer’s expose, “Genius and Lust,” he delves into the artist/
narcissist enigma, with a scalpel, revealing the complicated world the narcissist dwells, especially in the artist role relating to another artist also narcissistic. Miller and his lover, June-two narcissists , recounted in his 1600 page novel, depicting his affair and marriage, “The Rosy Crucifixion”. A complete failure as a novel, because as Mailer’ critique states, “the narcissist suffers from too much inner dialogue. These words turn us away from the psychic reality. The narcissist is the scientist and the experiment in one.” It’s a turn off.
Miller’s lover and literary cohort, Anais Nin, shared the bond of loving themselves more than they could ever really love each other, in spite of their rapturous physical love affair. Nin’s journals are love letters to herself. They are written on infinite pages, gushing word vomit, about her, from her, into her, etc. If you manage to get through one of her famous “Diaries”, you will be so overwhelmed by her personality and throbbing EGO, that the prospect of reading another is daunting! I dare you to try! Every thought, every idea in her head, is placed on her personal operating table for dissection. She performs the autopsy and, and the results are her own. 
Whatever she wants them to be. Nin is detached and aloof to other people unless they are as consumed with her as she is with herself. An impossible task, because her narcissism is all consuming. Miller, himself the obvious protagonist, in his “Tropic of Cancer” , and the rest of his tropics, is the center, the beginning ,middle, and end of his realistic fiction, unraveling the tales of his starving, lust consumed days in Paris. On and on he goes, leaving nothing out, he is so important and simultaneously so grotesque. “Narcissists after all do not hand emotion back and forth through their bodies so much as they induce emotion in one another through their minds.” Nin and Miller. Miller and June, “electric and empty, perfect and hollow” – Mailer says it !
Picasso, also a narcissist, his self love, reveals an ultimate disregard, a brutality, towards the women in his life, described vividly in Francois Gilot’s “Life with Picasso”. Picasso was the center and circumference of his being, and the specks of humanity he encountered outside were irrelevant. His art was the penultimate cause d’être of his being. Ferdinand Olivier, his first love, was treated like his slave, as she froze and starved while he toiled away in the Bateau Lavoir, proving his genius, painting canvas after canvas, while keeping his prisoner captive in the pitiful shack of a studio, not letting her go out unless he accompanied her, as she froze, huddled on a straw cot, trying to keep their love alive, through her worship of her lover’s art.
But the narcissist fails in this in the end, because the underlying problem with the narcissist is boredom. “Vanity is the antidote to claustrophobia.” It is the reason narcissists like Miller, Picasso, Nin, are forever falling out of love, jobs, places, and addictions.” Mailer has his magnifying glass, highlighting this phenomena in his “Genius and Lust.” Boredom is the catalyst that sends the narcissist hunting for new supply to live his otherwise empty life with the blood of his new chosen victim.
In “Gone Girl”, we observe the classic narcissist husband floundering in their marital cesspool with his borderline wife. What a crazy mix, a real bond, they possess, feeding off each other in their vampiristic thirst for survival. Of course, they destroy themselves individually, and each other, as their need to consume the others attention becomes fatal, when satiated, they are left alone to drown in their own personal self love. These two neurotics cannot exist as a couple. Impossible! As Amy festers in her rage and the need to exact revenge and punish Nick, Nick portrays the ultimate narcissistic failed artist. The writer who quits, delusioned, but so self-absorbed, he is oblivious to the contained rage his wife is consumed with. The narcissist’s attention is all about him, blind to what’s going on around him, only to be shocked when the blowback spins him back into reality! Reality is not pretty for the artist narcissist, living in a dream world of himself and the art he creates. It is difficult to see anyone outside of that bubble world. Diego Rivera’s relationship with Frieda Kahlo was one of the Narcissist with the sickly borderline female. Textbook. His multiple affairs, and personal successes in the art world left little for her, but she clung in desperate dependence , accepting her second place status as all she could maintain in his life. Her death would not be from her paralyzingly illness, but Rivera’s abandonment of her! She hung on for “dear life”.
In “Gone Girl”, Amy does fight back, as she attempts to hold onto a shred of pride, as she sees Nick’s abandonment as a cruel betrayal. She is not about to allow him to win! Her revenge is exact, thorough, and evil. He is left spinning in the wind, her intent, a success, until the end where we are left with a question. Who is the real winner here in this twisted psycho drama?
The life of the artist, in whatever the particular genre may be is one of focus, isolation, imagination, and genius. These qualities can lead to an over obsession with ones own inner life to the extreme. Often there is nothing left for anyone else. The failed artist is at risk for this as his failure won’t be accepted or admitted to, but rather the fault of extenuating circumstances, people, events. Nick, the failed writer had to find another exciting channel, to obtain the supply narcissists thrive on. The vampire’s blood so to speak. Amy had to punish him, in order to claim his attention once again. And like the vampire draining his victim, of their life’s blood, their pursuit of more victims continues to keep them alive. The hunt makes the victims being pursued ru . The vampire needs the supply, in order to live. His victims need the narcissistic vampire in order to feel alive! Their death is his life! While his life becomes their death! A paradox intrinsic in every narcissists life!
Truth or Fiction????
Like Amy?
The definition of a “flaneur” loosely stated is “the art of strolling”. A flaneur is an “idler, a man or woman of leisure, a street connoisseur, an urban explorer”.
The cities London, Paris, and New York are the flaneur’s heaven. Exploring by foot, at leisure, is not only enjoyable, accessible, and exciting, but is also a way to fill the creative well. One goes out with a blank mind and returns with an overflow of sensory information. The walk is not just a walk , simplistic in meaning , but a “gastronomy of the eye” as Balzac aptly called it! Getting out of the studio, the office, ditching the computer , is a welcome journey for the creative to go on, the simple stroll, becomes a hunt for jewels to fill the treasure chest of the mind !
In the mid 19th century, when the flaneur became a “thing” in Paris, it was associated with the lifestyle of the “dandy”, the idle rich with excess time on their hands to stroll the city’s streets at their leisure. Oscar Wilde, Baudelaire, and Gerard de Nerval, the French Romantic poet, who actually walked his pet lobster around on a blue silk leash, were a few of these “dandys”. When questioned about his unusual lobster walking habit, Nerval retorted, “why should a lobster be any more ridiculous than a dog?” Of course, Nerval was utterly and completely Mad! But an original flaneur in every way!
But what about photographers famous or otherwise? Watching, looking, recording strangers, wars, society, celebrities, buildings, faces, light, scenes, landscapes, the exotic, the banal, the photographer’s work in progress is an on going documentary of life as seen through the cameras eye. Certain Nyc photographer – flaneur’s , like, Diane Arbus, Vivian Maier, Robert Frank, Edward Steichen, Cindy Sherman, were always on the GO, walking the streets , looking for new material, and thousands of photos later, we get to experience the city as they did . In the film “Finding Vivienne Maier”, we are taken on this illusive mystery woman’s city walks, her camera focused ,watching, walking, and waiting for the photo she wanted. Robert Franks, in his “The Americans”, the dynamic expose of our society in the 1950’s, Weegee’s crime scene photos from the underground Nyc life, also pre 1970, Ron Galella, celebrity photographer, stalking his obsession Jackie O, up and down the city streets, Doisneau’s, iconic black & white, photographs of Paris, are spectacular records of the street life, and give us a view of early 20th century life we can only experience through photos such as his. Amazing stuff, stepping into a time capsule, that only the flaneur, armed with camera, or sketch pad, or journal, can give us, from his street perspective, up close, we get to see what he sees and that is a special experience. Diane Arbus’s freaks, her attraction to the atypical as her subjects, the circus freaks, the retarded child, the vagrant, the downtrodden, city characters she came across during her flaneuring in NYC, sealing her place in history ! The writer, Edmund White, cites French photographer Eugene Atget, as a “scientific flaneur.” “An obsessed photographer, determined to document every street in Paris, before it disappeared forever in the new construction looming in the future.” These flaneur’s armed with cameras, have the ability to document the city scape as it changes, is torn down, rebuilt, transformed over time, with the photographs left to document what once was. In Vivienne Maier’s stunning collection of thousands of NYC photos, now available in a book, “Street Photographer” one is given a historical photographic journey of a city that no longer exists.
Henry Miller, the charismatic novelist, spent his early writing life on the streets of Paris, with his lover Anais Nin, usually looking for a meal, but also gathering material for his banned book “Tropic of Cancer”, and the future tropics to follow. Miller is always walking the streets of Paris, from Pigalle to the Bastille, to Montparnasse, the Right Bank, the Left Bank, he covers by foot, every avenue, every “rue” of old Paris. Miller, the Brooklyn boy, writer in training, expat, soaking up the sights, the people, the language, living as a true “starving artist”, pursuing his dream, his walks taking him into Zola’s “Belly of Paris”, and giving the world his gritty life view in the pages of his often controversial, raw, rough, provocative novels!
provided by their walk! Van Gogh’s paintings of the potato planters, his sight holding them in his artist’s eyes, as he walked through the Dutch countryside, Utrillo’s cafe scenes, clearly from his meanderings through the winding Monmartre streets in his absinthe haze, Lautrec’s cabaret posters, his brothel paintings, walking with his infamous cane, that held a beaker of absinthe, or brandy in it’s hook, making his flaneur experience compatible with his drinking. The SITTER has a very different experience. One is stationary, compact, confined. Whereas the WALKER is movement, freedom, mobility, unleashed!” Transitory poetic in the historic” Baudelaire says. As only he could, using his poetic liscence freely. Yes, there is the possibility to “achieve transcendence” as you wander, walk, stroll stride, saunter the city streets. It’s the unexpected encounter, the surprise event, the sudden illumination, the street action, people, traffic, energy, all carry the flaneur’s ahead, around, and towards new sights, different views of old sights, and unfolds untapped resources of the mind that your walk inspires!
While Oscar Wilde, the poet, playwright, gay icon was serving his prison sentence in 1897, for sodomy, “gross indecency” with other men, he wrote a journal he entitled, “De Profoundis”.
Writers and artists have always carried on a clandestine love affair between the pages and on the canvas. Life gets expressed through the visual, and the literal, and both genres meld as they influence and are influenced in a mutual admiration society giving to the world the unique perspectives through the combined literary and art expression. This is a blending of spirits, of like minded souls, and it’s pretty awesome! Check out “Just Kids” Patti Smith’s, personal expose of her artistic journey with her soulmate, the avant, underground, photographer, Robert Mapplethorpe. These two comrades in their artistic journey into the unknown, wandered through the East And West Village, in the 60’s and 70’s, searching, dreaming, ultimately knowing that their future was intertwined in the Netherlands of art, its pain, it’s passion, the fuel driving it’s undeniable rewards. She is enamored of the French poet Rimbaud, and her dual identity as both writer and singer is clarified by her own words, “Please no matter how we advance technologically, please don’t abandon the book. There is nothing in our material world more beautiful than the book.” There. She says it. And she means it. Her story, ” Just Kids ” is pure gold, for us pioneers, the writers and painters, who have walked the walk so to speak. If you are a “creative”, ignoring this book is a BIG mistake! Get it ASAP! It is a love story, a trippy art journey, and it also gives the younger reader a chance to experience a glimpse of the downtown hippie lifestyle of the past, far removed from today’s hipster world of tech, commerce, and astronomical student loans!
On the other hand, let’s go on a vastly different trip with Steve Martin as he takes us from North to South, literally speaking, from the authenticity and earthy Greenwich Village experience of Patti and Robert, to the cold culture where Cash is King, and art is a commodity of the pocketbook first, not the innate soul purity of “Just Kids”.
But getting into the nitty gritty so to speak one should start with “The Recognitions”, published in 1955, Bill Gaddis’s, lengthy, detailed, wordy, story of the life of Wyatt Gwyon, art forger, describing his craft of fakery, this book is an expose of the contradictions life offers in Wyatt’s counterfeit world where real is fake and fake appears to be real, and the perception as seen from the outside is everything, similar to viewing a painting, so subjective, yet coming from that intangible mix of the inner and outer mechanisms of mind and matter combined. In this fat novel, books and paintings are intertwined. The philosophies expounded by the characters release so much expertise and insight from the writers, artist, painters, business, point of view, that though a heavy read, it’s challenging, and it forced me to delve in with the persistence of a miner digging for gold in that pit of dirt. The results SO worth it!
La creme de la creme for me is “The Philosophy of Andy Warhol.”He NEVER disappoints. His philosophy is sooo simplistic, yet in it’s simplicity, abstract and really profound. I just Love his statement on page 112- where he talks about the “So What?” Saying “so what” puts every big awful “thing” in its place and instantly you feel better. This gem is full of nuggets like this one, and if you haven’t gotten acquainted with Andy’s philosophy than you are really missing some cool observations from the Master of Cool. This guy made a soup can famous! Remember??? The brilliant Voyeur whose quote “Everybody will be famous for 15 minutes” made headlines with it’ Andy Fabulous Truth! The Reality Shows of today prove Andy’s prophetic words beyond what anyone would have ever imagined!
There are many reminders of the indisputable link writers have with artists and vice versa. Witness Picasso’s best friend Max Jacobs, and the poet Appolinaire, known for his “AlCools,” devoted, bonded in their artistic life, in their Montmartre Bohemia, where eating, and sleeping came far behind creating, and dreaming. The true sustenance being, the preferred art of the subjects at hand, be it Satie and his classical Gymnopedies,Lautrec and his bordello posters, Picasso, and his circus paintings of harlequins and acrobats, or Valladon and her nudes. Perhaps it was Baudelaire and his absinthe infected poetry, or Jane Avril, friend and model for so many of Lautrec’s posters, celebrity of Montmartre, as star attraction at the Moulin Rouge, they all had a common goal -Art- the making, living, eating, breathing, the food they thrived on that kept them alive, and provided them with nourishment that no simple meal ever could!
Henry Miller, the novelist of all times, love him or hate him, he can’t be ignored! He was a self taught water colorist, which he claims was fulfilling, in a way that transcended his writing. Thousands upon thousands of watercolors, he produced joyfully, giving away randomly, at his will, to friends and fans. Talk about a writer – art love affair, Miller, epitomized this duality with his novels , his Tropics series, and his future essays, where he talks as if he’s sitting with us , about his favorite subjects like, art, writing, spirituality, people, Big Sur, Anais Nin, and Paris! In Big Sur, The Henry Miller Museum, is a unique dream place, a stone’ s throw from his old hangout Nepenthe, the former love nest of Orson Welles and his lover Rita Hayworth. It was recreated into a bar, restaurant, hanging off a cliff over the Pacific Ocean, a favorite hangout for Miller and his friends during his Big Sur years. The museum, a picturesque cabin, and the former home of his best friend Emil White, displays his works, paintings, and obscure writings, not commonly found in your local Barnes & Noble. Standing under the majestic Redwood trees, Pacific Ocean crashing below the rocky coast, this humble cabin holds a wealth of artistic bounty, that only the fortunate traveller is led to discover!
Miller’s watercolors are a spontaneous, pure, colorful expression of his thinking, always soulful and pure. In his novel, Big Sur and the Oranges of Hieronymus Bosch, he confirms his spiritual relationship to the Divine, as authority for the creative genius he has expressed through his prolific writings, his paintings, and his individual life story, from Brooklyn to Paris to California!
One of the most interesting artist stories in contemporary fiction is “Spending”, by Mary Gordon. A sexy, hot and spicy, page turner, depicting a tale of the relationship between a powerhouse commodities broker, who decides to collect her work while also being her Muse. It’s a lush, witty, sophisticated story of this complex relationship in which art and commerce meet and lead to an emotional quagmire. He spends and she spends and both of them achieve an ambiguous cocktail of experiences as they mix the artist with the money man.
The San Francisco Beats, hung at the Cedar Tavern, in Nyc with the ab – ex painters of the day like, Kline, De Kooning, Pollock, all sharing a similar life force, mutual interest and ambition. Rarely will you find a division. when people love painting, they usually have a fully stocked library as well. It’s a natural match.