43 Comments
Nov 3Liked by Greg Olear

‘Without art there’d be no life for me any more nowadays‘ I feel the same 😍

Thank you for another fantastic Sunday Pages!

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Thanks, Kim. Sunday is for Beelzebub. ; )

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Nov 3Liked by Greg Olear

This was a great piece. Thank you, Greg!

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Thanks, Kris!

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I try NEVER to miss the 5-8!! I learn so much AND have fun!

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Thanks, Dana. This week was a fun one!

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We may take out the trash, but what walks back watching friends become magats, half the population succumbing to brainwash, the nation descending into Bosch-Dali collab. Looks like Witkacy may have contributed color.

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I drove down into a more conservative part of NYS yesterday. So many Trump signs, with some houses going all-out, like it's fucking Halloween. I don't know how these people are going to take the L, but I'd much rather that than win and lord over us with their cruelty and their stupidity. We all know people who have gone done the path. There are many reasons for it. But I hope they all wake up on Tuesday.

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Nov 3Liked by Greg Olear

What about "Gimme Shelter"--with "just a vote away" substituted in the chorus? Good one, eh?

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I love that song so much. The original lyrics are also true...rape and murder are also just a vote away -- that's the MAGA platform.

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Nov 3Liked by Greg Olear

Greg, you’re fascinating. This one from out-of-nowhere to me, is awe inspiring. Who knew? Well, apparently YOU. Thanks to your inquiring mind, we do too. Now onto Kamala music & your list of presidents….

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Thank you, Samani. No, I didn't know! I just discovered him on Friday, but he's so talented and so interesting. I may tweak the Kamala list...

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Nov 3Liked by Greg Olear

I don't know much about my Polish ancestry, and my Polish great aunts and uncles are all long gone now, so this is fascinating to me. I'm also now craving golumpkis and chruscikis.

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I'm going to do more deep diving on the period. It seems like an extraordinary group of artists there at that time...all done away with by the twin killing machines of Hitler and Stalin. Ugh.

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Nov 3Liked by Greg Olear

Loving this one, the link to the art is amazing and you got me to reinstall Spotify. I am enjoying the playlist. May I nominate a Stephen Stills song? It’s “We Are Not Helpless “; it’s been living in my head for a while now.

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Thanks, Teri. I'm always good for Stephen Stills. "Suite: Judy Blue Eyes" is peak him, IMO. I will check that one out.

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Nov 3Liked by Greg Olear

Thanks for the enlightening story of Stanislaw Witkacy. I have to say that "Sunday Pages" has been the most enjoyable part of your weekly musings. It's the manner by which a bit of separation from the previous week's mostly irritating news is achieved. And it elevates the literary and artistic mode of seeing the world that daily life often avoids.

As for Huxley, how I have remembered him has less to do with Brave New World, but rather the means of his exit from living:

He took his final "trip" by ingesting LSD with the assistance of Mrs Huxley, and this might be apocryphal -- I heard it via a talk given by Dr. Richard Alpert, aka Baba Ram Dass -- his final word was singular.... "Extraordinary".... most likely uttered in that inimitable "British" way.

The final irony.... and why it has alway stuck in my memory... is the date:

November 22, 1963

https://www.laphamsquarterly.org/intoxication/miscellany/aldous-huxleys-lsd-death-trip

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Oh, wow, I didn't know that! The Huxleys had a fun, Bohemian marriage, too, from what I understand. Thanks, Bruce!

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And Thanks for the Add.... even though I AM a Bernie Bro....

It takes a Village.

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Nov 3Liked by Greg Olear

Universal symmetry, celebrated a friend's birthday yesterday at a Polish restaurant, this morning a great column on a Polish artistic marvel. Thanks Greg for exposing me to Stas.

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Thanks, Old Man. One thing you can always depend on the Poles for is that they will fight the Russians...

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Yes. Was in Krakow visiting my grand mother,'s birthplace. Happened to be during a soccer world cup. That night Poland v Russia on the big outdoor screen. Didn't get to halftime before Poles and Russian supporters were fighting in the Square.

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Nov 3Liked by Greg Olear

Great story.

I wonder what effect Witkacy might have had on Camus and Sartre?

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That I don't know...Witkacy is 15 years older than JPS and 25 years older than Camus, so something, would be my guess. I bet his work was translated into French...there's always a big Polish-French connection.

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Nov 3Liked by Greg Olear

Bravo. I had no idea. Insatiability is on the way, although my like for Amazon has gone to disgust since hearing of Bezo’s bended knee to the Orange Shit, really? Of all people to appease, really disgusting

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Thanks, Richard. I'll be curious, if you read it, how you find it. The reviewer says its dense and probably hard to translate, with lots of Polish puns and internal Polish references. I worry that it may veer into being racist, although it seems like he admires the Chinese. And, given the status of China and Japan at that time. it's interesting which one he picked as the great conqueror...

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I'm too filled with dread to say anything intelligent. At that first scene, my thought was how well Mel Brooks would handle this. The video of his paintings was mesmerizing. I love the art and the people of that period. Thank you, Greg.

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Thanks, Sharon. Hang in there! One more day!

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Nov 3Liked by Greg Olear

Fascinating, I was only vaguely aware of his work, but love viewing the evocative portraits & reading his descriptions of Maga’s precursors. Those Surreal Absurdists certainly suffered mightily for their art & I feel the present morass we’re living through world also prove too heavy for his sensitive artist’s soul.

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Thanks, Amy. He goes right onto my "I wish they were still alive because their Twitter feed would be amazing" list with Ambrose Bierce, Dorothy Parker, and Oscar Wilde.

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Nov 3Liked by Greg Olear

Great follow-up piece to last week's Tuesday column, Greg. You never cease to amaze me with your ability to make a subject I'd normally give a cursory look at and make it interesting and informative. For me, my favorite piece of art in that video is the pink lady giving the side-eye, about halfway through the video -- I would have that on my wall! Guanification, which is in no dictionary that I could find, I assume means people's brains turning to bat shit? Of course it does. It's a perfect description of MAGAts.

This column also tells me that I have successfully taken Trump out of my newsfeed. I had no idea of the fellatio stuff at a rally until I read it here. Are there any words left to say about him? I still like to remind myself when I hear stuff like this that the man is running to be the President of the United States. The PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES!!! Kamala Harris is the only person I can see who is acting like she's running for President of the United States. The other guy is, I don't know what he's doing other than trying to stay out of prison where he belongs.

I saw "The Apprentice" last night. I did my best to approach it with an open mind and was not disappointed in the film. I have to say though, that although Sebastian Stan did excellent work becoming Trump, that it was Jeremy Strong as Roy Cohn who was the backbone of the film. I see an Oscar nomination for Strong and probably one for Stan too, but if I were a betting man, I'd put Strong just the slightest bit ahead of Stan. I don't see a Best Picture nomination, but who knows? Stranger things have happened -- *cough* CRASH 2006 *cough*.

Finally, for those that read the WIRED article that I posted on Tuesday, here's the follow-up that is also completely unsurprising: https://www.wired.com/story/canvassers-elon-musk-america-pac-fired-stranded-michigan-mistreatment/

Also, Greg, I could have SWORN you said on the Five-8 last week that it was the last show before the election, so I missed Friday's live show. I have to catch up this afternoon.

TWO DAYS LEFT! Can anyone believe that it's FINALLY coming to an end? I've been waiting for this day for almost four years, and FINALLY here it is!!

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Thanks, Steve. I may well have said that...with all the crap in my brain, my math skills, once a strength, have completely abandoned me. Ugh. We are doing a Five 8 on Wednesday night this week, and then a members-only show Friday, and then the live in NYC show Sunday.

Strong was also awesome in The Apprentice. So was Maria Bakalova. All so good.

I know that pink lady. So good. I just love his aesthetic.

Here is LB talking about Trump's BJ simulation:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_2BqBfNXRgw&t=13s

And here it is:

https://x.com/gregolear/status/1853142878114951643

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I was busy all day, so I’m reading now. And I’m sick of MAGAs, therefore it’s The 🍺 Brewzelbub 🍻 Sonata. Cheers! ❤️

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I'm all in on the Brewzelbub Sonata. That's a great name for a brew pub, actually...

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