Against Happiness or Sailor Jerrys Tattoo Stencils

Against Happiness: In Praise of Melancholy

Author: Eric G Wilson

Americans are addicted to happiness. When we’re not popping pills, we leaf through scientific studies that take for granted our quest for happiness, or read self-help books by everyone from armchair philosophers and clinical psychologists to the Dalai Lama on how to achieve a trouble-free life: Stumbling on Happiness; Authentic Happiness: Using the New Positive Psychology to Realize Your Potential for Lasting Fulfillment; The Art of Happiness: A Handbook for Living. The titles themselves draw a stark portrait of the war on melancholy.

More than any other generation, Americans of today believe in the transformative power of positive thinking. But who says we’re supposed to be happy? Where does it say that in the Bible, or in the Constitution? In Against Happiness, the scholar Eric G. Wilson argues that melancholia is necessary to any thriving culture, that it is the muse of great literature, painting, music, and innovation—and that it is the force underlying original insights. Francisco Goya, Emily Dickinson, Marcel Proust, and Abraham Lincoln were all confirmed melancholics. So enough Prozac-ing of our brains. Let’s embrace our depressive sides as the wellspring of creativity. What most people take for contentment, Wilson argues, is living death, and what the majority takes for depression is a vital force. In Against Happiness: In Praise of Melancholy, Wilson suggests it would be better to relish the blues that make humans people.

Publishers Weekly

This slender, powerful salvo offers a sure-to-be controversial alternative to the recent cottage industry of high-brow happiness books. Wilson, chair of Wake Forest University's English Department, claims that Americans today are too interested in being happy. (He points to the widespread use of antidepressants as exhibit A.) It is inauthentic and shallow, charges Wilson, to relentlessly seek happiness in a world full of tragedy. While he does not want to "romanticize clinical depression," Wilson argues forcefully that "melancholia" is a necessary ingredient of any culture that wishes to be innovative or inventive. In particular, we need melancholy if we want to make true, beautiful art. Though others have written on the possible connections between creativity and melancholy, Wilson's meditations about artists ranging from Melville to John Lennon are stirring. Wilson calls for Americans to recognize and embrace melancholia, and he praises as bold radicals those who already live with the truth of melancholy. Wilson's somewhat affected writing style is at times distracting: his prose is quirky, and he tends toward alliteration ("To be a patriot is to be peppy" "a person seeking slick comfort in this mysteriously mottled world"). Still, beneath the rococo wordsmithing lies provocative cultural analysis. (Feb.)

Copyright 2007 Reed Business Information

New interesting textbook: Time It Was or Big Squeeze

Sailor Jerrys Tattoo Stencils

Author: Kate Hellenbrand

American tattoo master Sailor Jerry Collins of Hawaii is best known for his remarkable tattoo designs, blending the fluidity of Asian motifs into classic American tattoo imagery. Until now, most of Sailor Jerrys work has been controlled by a handful of collectors, seen only at museum or art gallery exhibitions or in short-run, self-published books. Here is a sizeable portion of Sailor Jerrys stencils, the newest tattoo collectible, spanning his tattoo career, from the 1940s to the early 1970s. The basic line work of hundreds of his staple and surprisingly beautiful designspin-ups, roses, bluebirds, hearts, and banners, and Jerrys infamous military/political cartoons. The stencils themselves were handcut in celluloid, vinyl or acetate sheets by the master himself for use during his day-to-day thriving tattoo trade in downtown Honolulu. They are, in the best sense, permanent tattoos carved in plastic, enduring through time. In their original condition, most carry residual charcoal dust from their last use. All are signed by Jerry with one of his several distinctive signatures. This is the only book of its kinda workbook for artists, and a design catalog for folk art historians. The value of the stencils is included, along with descriptions of stencils and their usage and a glossary of tattoo terminology.