JULES OLiTSKI
bored Zadonsky to the point of exasperation. Also, Zadonsky
was taking a positive dislike to Dostoyevsky. He thought his
eyes were shifty and he didn' t approve the way he arched his
left eyebrow the way actors are wont to do. He mistrusted
actors and thought them vain and stupid.
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I must say on the whole I agree. I'm vain and stupid too, but
there are different ways of being vain and stupid. Period. There
are exceptions, of course. Who? Well, I'm sure there are some.
Perhaps James Cagney, but I don't know, he might be vain and
stupid like the others. Not that' actors have the monopoly on
vanity and stupidity-nor does it seem to matter as far as their
acting is concerned. There are some great artists too who are
vain and stupid. I'm not referring to myself (I mean about being
great), but to artists I know. It's hard to explain. How can
someone be a great artist and be vain and stupid at the same
time? Doesn't making great art have to do somehow with
character? I believe it must. But there is the evidence all around,
great artists living and dead who were vain and stupid. Some of
the living ones I can vouch for, vain and stupid like you
wouldn't believe! There is perhaps a simple explanation. It
doesn't take place at the same time-the being vain and stupid
and
producing great art. When they are vain and stupid, they're
not being great artists, they're being vain and stupid. When
they're being great artists, naked, so to speak and alone with
themselves in their studios they're not being vain and stupid.
You can't be vain and stupid at the same time as you're making
great art. No way. So when they're making their art they don't
allow themselves the need-if there is such a need and I think
there is-to feel vain and be stupid. Such character as they have
and I insist they must have, gets exercised in the privacy of their
studios when they're doing their thing. (I don't like that current
coinage.) Anyway, back to my narrator and Zadonsky.
He gave Dostoyevsky some penance or other and dismissed
him.
A word or two about my narrator before getting back to his
masturbation fantasy. First of all, you surely agree, he has pretty
