By Thomas Christensen, based on historical photos by Nadar and Etienne Carjat
Digital image, colored pixels
Via the Sleep of Reason

This image of nineteenth-century French poet Charles Baudelaire (1821-1867) is part of a set of contemporary hagioagraphic portraits of historical figures that occupies a wing in MoFo’s historical galleries. Known among MoFo staff as St. Stupid’s Corridor, the wing is often recommended to visitors who are agonized by convulsions of laughter, because of its sobering effects.

Baudelaire is best known as the author of Les Fleurs du Mal (variously translated as “Flowers of Evil” or “Crummy Flowers”) and other splenetic and synesthetic collections of verse, but he is also the author of an essay entitled “On Laughter.” In this essay he contrasts satire and farce (which he calls the “significant” and “absolute” forms of comedy).

According to Baudelaire, laughter is commonly linked to the ancient fall of humankind from paradise. Therefore, he says, laughter must express debasement, and consequently it must be satanic. Since it is satanic, it must be human. Since it is human, it must be contradictory.

In short, laughter is “at once a token of an infinite grandeur and an infinite misery,” and the artist who elicits such laughter is a doubled person. This, no doubt, explains the doubled portrait shown here.

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St. Charles of the Flowers, 2008 is a post from: museum of folly

Mofo Store Manager Kenneth  Whirlow is pleased to announce the acquisition of a special addition to our store’s rare books selection. The book is a rare signed first edition of Plato’s Republic. Whirlow (acting on a tip from famous book scout Nico) was able to acquire the book from EBay of all places; the original listing follows:

In case you have trouble reading the text, it says “1st edition of The Republic signed by its author. There is of course a reasonable amount of wear and tear, (light highlighting and underlining, dog-eared pages, back cover missing, etc.), but it is in overall good condition considering its age.” We are pleased to have been the lucky purchasers of this unique item.

Shown below, Whirlow inspects the book, from pioforsky’s photostream.

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ms page shown at top from euclides

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Signed first edition of Plato’s Republic is a post from: museum of folly

Indonesia, Tegal, Central Java
Wood, cloth, and mixed media
via Asian Art Museum; From the Mimi and John Herbert Collection

Jesters or clowns are among the most popular figures in the folk puppet traditions of Java, Indonesia. The rod puppets (wanage golek) — not to be confused with the more aristocratic shadow puppets (wayang kulit) — are made of brightly painted, carved wood, and are often dressed in batik clothing and bedecked with sequins and beads.

A singled puppeteer manipulates all of the puppets in a performance (most often stories from the Ramayana or Mahabarata), turning their heads and using rods to deploy their long arms, which are hinged at shoulders, elbows, and wrists, in dramatic gestures.

The appearance of jesters is keenly awaited by the audience, which delights in their antics. The jesters provide comic relief and sometimes biting social commentary. Unlike other figures, they tend to speak in the argot of the villages rather than the elevated language employed by other characters.

These puppets are on temporary loan to the Museum of Folly from the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco (where there is a large and constantly rotating selection of such puppets on permanent display). The Asian’s curators report that puppet performances “continue for many hours, and must not be interrupted for fear of causing disruptions in the everyday world, which the puppet world is seen as paralleling. Because the puppet theater, in addition to portraying furious battles and raucous comedy, examines the most serious issues facing society, in the old days a master puppeteer was thought to possess great spiritual power.”

Clockwise from upper left: The jesters Petruk (F2000.85.31), Togog (F2000.85.33), Semar (F2000.85.29), and Cepot (F2000.85.30).

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Indonesian Jester Puppets, perhaps 19th c. is a post from: museum of folly