1. IrvingSnodgrass - Feb. 26, 1999 - 6:00 PM PT
Have a look at Jacob Weisberg's latest Browser column in Slate. He makes a case for the world being divided into two kinds of people: Apollo-Matisse-Armani-Beatles people and Dionysius-Picasso-Versace-Stones people. More examples of the divisions can be found here.
So, what kind of person are you? Is this a valid division? What other pairings can you think of?
If we're lucky, Jacob Weisberg himself will join us here to discuss this concept.
2. trouserpIlot - Feb. 26, 1999 - 6:08 PM PT
I'm more of a Zeus-Pollack-Sears-Mingus kinda dude.
3. trouserpIlot - Feb. 26, 1999 - 6:08 PM PT
Accent on Zeus.
4. thoughtful - Feb. 26, 1999 - 7:13 PM PT
Hmmm. Interesting possibilities and combos.
I'm in the Eris-Parrish-Goodwill-Gershwin type. What do you suppose that means?
5. arkymalarky - Feb. 26, 1999 - 7:48 PM PT
I must be in the first, because I refuse to belong to any group that has the Stones in it.
6. verdeazul - Feb. 26, 1999 - 7:49 PM PT
Hmmm...Zappa , Zapata,
Zapatista, Type 'A' Negative Taipei
(Matisse...butter...bettah') Typo Type.
zappatatatatazul~
7. Judithathome - Feb. 27, 1999 - 6:15 AM PT
I'm an Appollonian Dionysian.
I think there are some interesting pairings we could come up with, though; are you:
A Jaguar or a Corvette?
A Frayster or a TableTalker?
A pasta person or a macaroni lover?
An FM person or an AM person?
An Eloi or a Morlock?
A Siskel or an Ebert?
8. cllrdr - Feb. 27, 1999 - 6:47 AM PT
It's kind of like asking "Are you Laurel or are you Hardy?"
Enough!
9. Judithathome - Feb. 27, 1999 - 7:01 AM PT
Well, cellar, sorry if we're boring you today. First you post zzzzzzzzzzzs on Politics and now you're dissing this thread...what's with you? Is the Fray not scintilating enough for you..."how're ya gonna keep him here at the Fray, after he's been to TT???" ;-)
10. cllrdr - Feb. 27, 1999 - 7:15 AM PT
No Judith. I'm just picking my teeth waiting for the next real story to come our way. My grazing in Table Talk has turned into arm-wrestle with one particular habitue of that forum. It's way too disorganized for me over there.
11. lemwalker - Feb. 27, 1999 - 7:20 AM PT
You can put people in boxes. But to get them to stay in said box, they should be killed first.
12. Judithathome - Feb. 27, 1999 - 7:37 AM PT
re #11:
Death penalty or no death penalty?
13. KurtMondaugen - Feb. 27, 1999 - 12:18 PM PT
This is a very silly article. I, as well as most of us here I'll assume, am proudly, defiantly neither.
14. shaka1 - Feb. 27, 1999 - 2:51 PM PT
I am a very complicated human being and absolutely refused to be pigeonholed. Therefore, I'll not participate in this thread.
15. AzureNW - Feb. 27, 1999 - 3:57 PM PT
What a bunch of party poops.
16. RyckNelson - Feb. 28, 1999 - 7:10 AM PT
I wrote a perfectly Picasso piece last night and lost it as would only happen when a 'perfect' would define it for oneself.
A belief that a person will be either Matisse or Picasso is just too easy. I am both and more and that's just too easy too. It will have to be defined with levity and good humor and the patience of an audience. However, in my experience here in the fray unless one is respected and esteemed an audience will not materialize. Therefore to continue posting here will have to require some self indulgence from the poster, being self indulgent I probably will put in one more or so posts.
Crisp folds of formal cloth....
oh, it would have painted upon the cyber canvas, poetry of life. I'm disappointed to lose last nights prose.
17. Judithathome - Feb. 28, 1999 - 10:23 AM PT
Lighten up, people...this is just a humorous little exercise and a chance for all you wits out there to post some ephemera. Take a break from solving all those earth shattering problems and from arguing endlessly over who posted what insult when.
Life is not always serious.
And for those of you too lofty to be put into a category, you just pegged yourselves as IN one already: too cool for school.
18. Jenerator - Feb. 28, 1999 - 1:16 PM PT
I tend to favor Matisse over Picasso. Both were extremely talented, but quite honestly neither of them are my favorite artist.
19. RyckNelson - March 1, 1999 - 5:17 AM PT
I've looked for door knobs in Picasso work. Wanting to open the door and see the soft underbelly of life, like a Matisse painting.
20. Judithathome - March 1, 1999 - 6:41 AM PT
Ryck:
That was beautifully put.
21. jonesatlaw - March 1, 1999 - 7:56 AM PT
I would like to be a Matisse person, as that is what my profession aspires to, but I am a Picasso person. I even sometimes think of myself as a Matisse person, but when we get down to cases, I'm not. My office looks as close to a picasso as one could get- all energy and chaos, with little evidence of order.
Anyone else want to be other than their type?
22. ChristinO - March 1, 1999 - 11:08 AM PT
Jones,
I fall along the Dionysian-Picasso (since I can't pick Dali or Parks) line as well and while I certainly enjoy being Dionysian------I'd pick it over Appollonian if I could only be one-----I resent the implication that there is no reason, logic or order in my universe which is just not true.
It's why I have a really hard time with the Keirsey Personality Test. I'm not an either/or type of person. I'm a short answer kind of person.
Which I suppose just makes me more Dyonisian than ever.
I still like the Beatles and I don't particularly care for Armani or Versace. Could we do a little Vera Wang?
23. katewrath - March 1, 1999 - 12:48 PM PT
Only distantly related to the topic at hand:
Over the weekend, I realized that my office is split along Dionysian/Apollonian lines, but here, these are understood to be female and male characteristics. Mad-cap hilarity, showing off and making a spectacle of one's self=a female quality. Rational, orderly, mature handling of responsibilities=a male quality.
Okay, but the bizarre thing is that in our office, the men lean heavily on their feminine sides, and women lean heavily on their masculine sides. But this has not resulted in changing the perception of which qualities are gendered male or female. When men are giddy and ridiculous (I have a strange workplace), it's understood that they are setting aside their serious, manly personas, and when women are aggressive and critical, it's understood that they are adopting these same serious, manly personas. None of which ever comes across as limiting or sexist, since everyone is constantly crossing into other territories.
The only explanation I can offer is that by gendering these qualities this way, we manage to convince ourselves that everyone in the giddy or serious room is the same gender as ourselves, and thus, there's no sexual tension (which there isn't, miraculously, considering the people who work here.)
24. RyckNelson - March 1, 1999 - 5:46 PM PT
Katewrath,
was their a musician with the knickname katewrath? way, way back i asked if you were 'the' katewrath and i've doubted the musician lived ever since. can you clear that up for me?
your work place sounds totally wonderful. personas are such a drag.
judithathome,
wow, what a nice compliment, thanks.
25. joezan - March 1, 1999 - 7:30 PM PT
Man!
I can't believe my submission, Yogi Berra/George Will, didn't even make the list!
Yeeesh!
(Weisberg probably never read a Will baseball piece).
26. wabbit - March 1, 1999 - 8:31 PM PT
I remember being bored with this game when I was in Junior High and decided I wasn't either a Beatles or a Stones person, but I'll play along in what I take is the spirit of the article. It sounds like Weisberg is gently poking fun at Yves-Alain Bois and the others who are connected with the premise of the Matisse-Picasso exhibit. That puts him squarely into the Matisse camp, opposite Bois, Krauss and Greenberg, of course.
I have to take exception with some of the people/ideas/whatever on the list. Bush and Reagan? How the hell did either one even get mentioned here? Also the Windows/Macintosh and right brain/left brain pairs, sheesh. England/France? I can just hear Matisse turning in his grave. And someone needs to tell Weisberg that all artists are bi, so the hetero/homo pair should go.
But most egregious is that Slate is listed under Matisse. I must insist this galling error be corrected immediately. Please remember that Matisse WORKED EVERY DAY.
[takes a deep breath...]
Ok, I'll keep that in the tech thread from now on.
Me, I'm having a Liftrasir-Witkin-FotL-Chopin kind of day. Tomorrow will be something different.
27. uzmakk - March 2, 1999 - 6:10 AM PT
OR, are you a Hyperborean, who worships Apollo in the style of Dionysis?
28. CharlieL - March 2, 1999 - 6:33 AM PT
Am I a Matisse or a Picasso person?
The other morning, after my shower, I noticed a large Granny Smith apple directly in front of my face blocking my view, causing me to be a nude painfully and inadvertently descending a staircase.
So I just can't make up my mind.
29. CharlieL - March 2, 1999 - 6:34 AM PT
Message #1 "If we're lucky, Jacob Weisberg himself will join us here to discuss this concept."
If we were lucky, Weisberg would have never written the stupid piece to begin with.
30. shaka1 - March 2, 1999 - 7:03 AM PT
Pat Buchanan, the candidate of the working person, is about to speak in Manchester, New Hampshire.
Finally, the Democrats have two people running for president in 2000.
31. shaka1 - March 2, 1999 - 7:11 AM PT
Sorry. Wrong thread!
32. stostosto - March 2, 1999 - 7:44 AM PT
There are two kinds of people: Those who divide people into two kinds of people, and those who do not.
33. CharlieL - March 2, 1999 - 7:57 AM PT
There are three types of people: Those who can count, and those who can't.
34. tmachine - March 2, 1999 - 9:23 AM PT
why does Weisberg not mention the original framing of this type of proposition, Isaiah Berlin's The Hedgehog and the Fox? In which literature is divided into two types, the Fox (as exemplified by Leo Tolstoy), who knows a great many things, and the Hedgehog (Fyodor Dostoevsky) who knows only one thing--but it is a big thing.
personally I listen to the Beatles, but dance to the Stones.
35. Pseudoerasmus - March 2, 1999 - 9:27 AM PT
How are the Hedgehog, who knows One Big Thing, and the Fox, who knows Many Little Things, comparable to the Apollonian/Dionysian dichotomy of Nietsche's?
And even if the two dichotomies were comparable, how could it be original to Berlin, when Nietzche came before?
36. Pseudoerasmus - March 2, 1999 - 9:32 AM PT
Well, I suppose they are in fact comparable.
37. tmachine - March 2, 1999 - 9:38 AM PT
well, thanks a bunch pe. you are right. Nietzsche came before Berlin. But the question is: which is which? Is Tolstoy Apollonian?
38. tmachine - March 2, 1999 - 9:38 AM PT
Does Dostoevsky have Sympathy for the Devil?
39. Pseudoerasmus - March 2, 1999 - 9:55 AM PT
Apollonian = the Fox
Dionysian = the Hedgehog
The reasoning. What was Byron? He was definitely Dionysian. Did he know One Big Thing, or a Few Little Things?
I think living to fuck, getting drunk and fighting for Freedom, qualifies knowing One Big Thing.
What was T. S. Eliot? Definitely Apollonian. What did he know? He knew a lot of subtle things. Thus, a fox.
40. Pseudoerasmus - March 2, 1999 - 9:57 AM PT
Dostoyevsky was a Dionysian.
Sorry, but Apollonians don't hysterically leap to the feet of whores and grovel before them.
41. uzmakk - March 2, 1999 - 10:10 AM PT
I suppose my #27 would have been better and shown a more skillful use of the computer if it had gone--
OR, are you a Hyperborean who worships the God Apollo in the style of Dionysis. Clearly, one need not make the distinction.
42. Raskolnikov - March 2, 1999 - 10:11 AM PT
Dostoevsky was a compulsive gambler. 'nuff said.
43. Raskolnikov - March 2, 1999 - 10:14 AM PT
But I would categorize Jefferson as more of a hedgehog than a fox, and Weisberg has him as a Dionysian - although that one raised my eyebrow.
44. Pseudoerasmus - March 2, 1999 - 10:27 AM PT
Message #40
Of course with relish do I grovel mawkishly at the feet of benignant whores.
My favourite benignant literary whore, however, is not that boring Sonya woman, but the witty and endearing Boule de Suif of Maupassant's short story.
45. CharlieL - March 2, 1999 - 10:38 AM PT
"Of course with relish do I grovel mawkishly at the feet of benignant whores."
I had heard that it was not with relish, but rather with cayenne pepper sauce.
46. tmachine - March 2, 1999 - 11:20 AM PT
pe: remind me of what happens in Boule de Suif. I haven't read it since I was sixteen, I should go back and read Maupassant!
47. Pseudoerasmus - March 2, 1999 - 11:48 AM PT
It's a mawkish story of how a prostitute with a heart of gold is mistreated by a bunch of mean and greedy bourgeois. Much of the story takes place in a coach ride full of passengers fleeing the Prussian army. Of course the passenger list is contrived to implausibly reflect the variety of society and humanity of mid- to late 19th century France. Really the best part of the short story is the gentle though withering barbs contained in the description of the passengers.
48. tmachine - March 2, 1999 - 11:54 AM PT
thanks. I guess a lot of the stories are somewhat O. Henryish. La Parure made me cry.
49. Pseudoerasmus - March 2, 1999 - 11:58 AM PT
Tmachine, I shed tears at the slightest provocation, whether it's a story or a play or a movie.
50. marjoribanks - March 2, 1999 - 12:01 PM PT
wimp
51. ChristinO - March 2, 1999 - 1:14 PM PT
PE,
That is probably the most amazing revelation I've ever read about you.
52. CharlieL - March 2, 1999 - 2:38 PM PT
The most amazing revelation I ever read about PE was when TheJackCat said he giggled.
53. RyckNelson - March 3, 1999 - 4:16 AM PT
cute stuff, ya'all.
i think the third type is DALI. without Dali types where would the fun be?
Picasso, serious to a degree
Matisse, soft yet discerning
Dali, gotta get me some, but which stair should i take ;-)
well?
54. ChristiPeters - March 3, 1999 - 8:37 AM PT
Are you a Matisse person or a Picasso person?
Yes.
55. gollaher - March 3, 1999 - 9:05 AM PT
What's left unexplored is the possibility that an artist's work may include elements of both; and that the tension between them is what engages us. Mark Twain is a perfect example, not of unalloyed wildness, but of an artist caught between wanting to conform to the New England literary establishment (thus writing books like his biography of Joan of Arc) and wanting to express a rude, subversive vision (as he did in "The Mysterious Stranger").
56. CharlieL - March 3, 1999 - 1:31 PM PT
So, gollaher, what you are saying is:
Q. Are you a Matisse or a Picasso person?
A. The Twain shall meet somewhere.
57. rdbrewer - March 3, 1999 - 9:02 PM PT
I'm going with Matasso.
58. CharlieL - March 3, 1999 - 9:09 PM PT
Well, the other option would be Pekinese, wouldn't it?
59. DocBrown - March 4, 1999 - 7:34 AM PT
Where is CalGal when I need her? Placing people in cubbyholes is her specialty.
I classify myself as Matisse, but I would love to take some kind of a test to verify this assessment.
Judithathome: I am definitely a Jaguar. But Jaguar's are prone to electrical gremlins, so I'd rather compare Corvettes to reliable cars like Porsches. In that case I'm a 1988 Porsche 928S in Guards Red with a light grey interior.
I look great when you wash me with Murphy's Oil Soap and cover my body with carnauba wax.
60. TheDiva - March 5, 1999 - 11:12 AM PT
How asinine to characterize Matisse as Appollonian. He was a Fauve, for Godsake....and all those rich, sensuous colors and organic shapes. Completely insane.
*and* I prefer him to Picasso, as I prefer Armani to Versace.
61. TheDiva - March 5, 1999 - 11:13 AM PT
delete as appropriate
p
62. ChristinO - March 5, 1999 - 11:32 AM PT
Diva, for shame! Never delete a perfectly good
p
63. TheDiva - March 5, 1999 - 11:33 AM PT
it's just a small one
64. ChristinO - March 5, 1999 - 11:34 AM PT
oh, insult to injury even!
that must be a bitch of a cold.
65. TheDiva - March 5, 1999 - 11:36 AM PT
(HACK)
yeah
66. Judithathome - March 5, 1999 - 11:37 AM PT
DocBrown:
What other gremlins are Jaguars prone to....not many, I hope?
67. 764444 - March 5, 1999 - 11:52 AM PT
Pinot Noir/Cabernet
68. boohab - March 7, 1999 - 1:17 PM PT
there are three kinds of people in the world.
those who can count and those who can't.
dualism is so eurocentric.
69. DocBrown - March 8, 1999 - 8:40 AM PT
Judithathome: newer Jaguars are significantly better than older Jaguars in the quality department. When Ford bought Jaguar they made some much needed changes. Perhaps the most reliable new Jaguars are also the cheapest: look for the Cleveland built V-6 engine.
For many decades the constant problems with most British cars were their electrical systems. Lucas electronic parts just plain crummy. Lately they have improved. Some British cars can be (or have been) upgraded to reliable German or American electrical components by Bosch or Motorola.
Don't get me wrong; I love British cars. They just need more TLC than American, German, or Japanese cars.
Jaguars could have been much worse . . .
They could have been French.
70. Judithathome - March 8, 1999 - 9:19 AM PT
DocBrown:
Thanks...I'm just beginning to discover how much TLC is involved. But when it's good, it's very, very, VERY good......
It's not electrical problems I'm having, yet. Today I have a power steering fluid leak and something 'thumping' like it's loose. (I suspect from the feel of it a loose bracket on the tail pipe but who knows?)
I'm hoping to be able to drive this car more than have it in the shop...(g)