104. Mice in Auschwitz
I.
Itās pretty much the Mount Everest of graphic novels: Maus by Art Spiegelman. I read it this week. Lately, Iāve been really focused on stories about or from the Second World War. It must be the time of year ā or perhaps because the world is in turmoil.
In Maus, two timelines intertwine. In one, Art Spiegelman visits his father Vladek to talk to him about what happened to his Jewish parents during the Holocaust. In the other timeline, those memories come to life. All the characters are drawn as animals: Jews are depicted as mice (Hitler called the Jewish people vermin) and the Germans as cats. The style is black and white, with scratchy lines and mostly confined to small panels.
Vladek has been through a great deal. His story is impressive, just as there are thousands of impressive stories to tell about people who survived the Holocaust. But Spiegelman was right not to make Maus merely a family story set in the past. By extending it into the present, it becomes truly clear how the war changes people permanently. And how subsequent generations are also burdened by it.
A beautiful book, still essential reading. A few years ago, the Pulitzer Prize-winning work made the news again when an American school board banned it due to ācrude languageā and nudity. Sure, the war was terrible and all that, but do we really have to depict it in this way?
Yes. We must.
II.
Donald Trump shared a bizarre video on his Truth Social account. The clip depicts the Gaza Strip as Dubai 2.0. Skyscrapers lining a beach, belly dancers, a golden statue of Trump and Elon Musk partying whilst it rains banknotes.
The video was intended as satire, creator Solo Avital told The Guardian this week. It took the Los Angeles-based filmmaker just one working day to piece the footage together using AI. He posted the clip online for a laugh, but was quite taken aback when he saw how quickly his creation was shared. āWe are storytellers, not provocateurs,ā says Avital.
When Trump himself shared the video without any comment, the tone shifted from satire to propaganda. The US president had just said that all Palestinians had to leave Gaza so that the US could take over the area and turn it into a āMiddle East Rivieraā.
It certainly gave Avital a wake-up call, as it showed him how fake news spreads when people take videos and share them with their followers without any context whatsoever. āAnd this was made in a couple of hours,ā he tells the BBC (https://www.bbc.com/news/videos/cdrxkm6r856o). āJust imagine if weād spent a week working on this ā you wouldnāt have been able to tell the difference from a video that was actually filmed.ā
Trump is a ripe target for pranksters who love to create video hoaxes. Over the past week, all sorts of AI videos have also emerged of Trump getting into a fistfight with Volodymyr Zelensky. What times we live in, folks.
PS.
Musician Garth Hudson passed away at the end of January. He was the last remaining member of the incomparable band The Band (and according to Dylan the real driving force behind the band). Iāve finally got round to watching The Last Waltz, a film about The Bandās farewell concert in 1976, directed by Martin Scorsese. What a line-up of musicians ā itās unbelievable. Extra applause for drummer Levon Helm on this version of The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down.
- - -After watching the film Civil War Iām not even most impressed by how realistically this civil war in modern America is portrayed, but by the fact that journalists apparently still enjoy some degree of protection. The American press finds itself in a precarious position, as reported this week in the FD. The websites of the Washington Post, New York Times and Wired were blocked for officials at the US Social Security Administration. The media had written critically about Elon Muskās involvement with the agency, where he wants to cut thousands of jobs. Report on Wired: Social Security workers arenāt allowed to read this story.
Just a few more weeks to bid on all sorts of film props, including the risquƩ sketch Jackie Treehorn draws whilst on the phone in The Big Lebowski (that film is 27 years old this week).
This website collects sketches and stories on coffee shop receipts.
Jack Cox creates hyper-realistic clay heads. They are enlarged, caricatured 3D portraits of New Yorkers you might bump into on the street there. The faces remind me of the portraits from the game Whoās Who?
- - -Thanks to an article in de Volkskrant I know that there is currently an exhibition of photographer Lee Millerās work on display in Antwerp. She was a model and photographer at Vogue before working as a war photographer, taking important photographs of recently liberated concentration camps. Last year, a beautiful film was made about her life, starring Kate Winslet ā which has received far too little attention.
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