Letters to the Editor
Mister Marker
Published Letters: 198 Editor's Choice: 7
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The Responses Thus Far Are VERY Upsetting
[Read the article: Here's looking at you, "Kid"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Come on, people, read the article a little more carefully. Marla's father more or less admits to what most of you are charging: He encouraged his daughter to paint at a very young age so HE could paint in peace. He's her father, for God's sake. You think there wasn't encouragement?
As to the "preposterous" nature of her "skills" - hello, she was watching her father, a decent painter, from the age of freaking one. Think she might have learned something from all that observation, especially given that visual artists are, ya' know, given to learning visually? Yeah, I think so too.
All of this criticism, second-guessing and prognosticating strikes me as redolent of bad faith. Face it, people, contrary to what quite a few of you have written, you DON'T want to believe Marla painted these herself. Why? Perhaps because YOU can't or, more to the point, your CHILD can't.
Enough already. I think the documentarian is and was acting like a prick. And all of you are enabling him.
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@ikuiku
[Read the article: "The Heartbreak Kid"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Are you sure we're talking about the same Ben Stiller?? He "never" stretches himself? What about the Ahnoldesque weirdo he plays in DODGEBALL. Or the airheaded dork he plays in ZOOLANDER??
Watch more of his movies and then come and talk with me.
The Rest of You,
Yeah, Will Ferrel "inhabits" his roles the way Bob Denver "inhabited" his - technically proficient but without an ounce of humor, wit or laughs.
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Wow --Anonymous @7:53pm
[Read the article: Here's looking at you, "Kid"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Your response was a weird two-fer. You not only didn't read O'Hehir's article carefully, you didn't read my letter carefully either.
NOBODY lets "60 Minutes" into their home or office anymore if they are a fraud. That's because damn near everyone on the PLANET knows their reputation. The irony of that is that "60 Minutes II" did a lot to besmirch that reputation. Unlike the classic investigative pieces done by Rather and Wallace in the 70s, Most of "60 Minute II"s investigative pieces were cheap attempts at insinuating fraud where none really existed. And that's not just my opinion, it's the consensus of everyone from Howard Kurtz to James Wolcott to Tom Shales.
Yes, you're right, I do believe this little girl is the sole artist. I also believe that when you start a prodigy off at the ripe old age of one three years is like a lifetime. She watched her father paint, and probably started off by mimicing him. At some point her own paintings took off like rockets and he, having been trained as an artist however good, bad or indifferent, immediately took notice. He undoubtedly enoucraged her and gave her a few tips.
I find it genuinely laughable when people write letters claiming that there is "absolutely no way a mere CHILD could have done" this or that. I would agree, no "mere CHILD" could do what Marla has done, but a prodigy sure as shit could have done it, and DID. You're the kind of people who undoubtedly thought at the time that Mozart's father was the true genius and Mozart himself was a fraud. And how right you were, weren't you? Bah!
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@sajwan
[Read the article: Here's looking at you, "Kid"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]No, it doesn't.
Real talent is rewarded with absurd sums of money (take a look at sports). The issue in this case is two fold. One is the talent faked or mis-represnted and two when it comes to art, who is considered a hack, vs untalented vs a "real talent" has an infinite array of answers.
BZZZZT!!
Sorry, but you don't get the hundred dollars *duck ascends back to studio ceiling*
Take a look at sports??? Talk about apples and oranges! It is precisely because of the money-making potential of such talent that it is "rewarded with absurd sums of money." What scares the beejesus out of America is talent that does NOT produce huge sums of money, and that's why we loath people like Marla, why we laud them like freaks and then destroy them, why so many of them are shunted aside like John Kennedy Toole or Frederick Exley, so that when they fail we can point and laugh and say "LOSER!" Google those two names and read the articles about them and their books, and you'll see what I mean (well...in Toole's case OLDER articles). Bukowski only missed the same fate because he peaked in the 60s and 70s, when our culture was perhaps more free than it had ever been, or ever would be again. Ditto Noam Chomsky, who really was invisible but at least could get published in that era.
I'm sorry but you are very wrong about our culture in general and this child in particular.
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This One Approaches the Best of "Bloom County"
[Read the article: Opus]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Very funny and very pertinent! I loved the way Bill the Cat sloooowly disappeared to be replaced by a picture of Cheney, who makes Spiro Agnew look like Teddy Roosevelt. Great stuff!!
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I Once Had a Friend Exactly Like Dave
[Read the article: I Like to Watch]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]And I put up with him for entirely too long before finally booting him out of my life, but permanently. Best decision I ever made.
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Other Thoughts
[Read the article: I Like to Watch]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]"Pushing Daisies" has a giant, "Moonlighting"-style self-destruct device at the center of its plot. You see, the main character brought his girlfriend back from the dead. Problem is, if he touches her a second time she'll be dead permanently. As the grows in popularity - and I believe it will - there will be pressure on its creator (who, as the creator of "Dead Like Me" has a serious death fetish) and writers to happily resolve this problem. Sadly, once they give in to that pressure, the show will jump the shark.
I'd really like to see Heather address the decline of "60 Minutes." Scott Pelley's interview of Mahmoud Amadinaejad was a national disgrace, whereas the great investigative pieces of the 70s and 80s were a national treasure. "60 Minutes" became an icon. Berke Breathed used the Mike Wallace "gotcha!" interview as satiric trope in "Bloom County", and the popular movie "Romancing the Stone" included this line: "If I wanted the truth I would have hired '60 Minutes'."
So what do you say, Heather? Care to take on this subject??