Toklas Dylan and Art

from Mo Feinbine -

Alice B. Toklas, Bob Dyland and their influence on culture

Alice B. Toklas, Bob Dylan and Jewish “Art”

First, the disclaimer: I am no anti-Semite. Anyone who says that the Jews are completely without talent and have no contribution to make to this world is foolish. It’s true that the Jews as a collective have a very nasty historical record stretching back over two millennia, but that does not mean they won’t someday shock the world and redeem themselves. History, after all, is funny, as Mr.-Mrs. Toklas-Stein observed.

Those interested in Jews, for whatever reason, would do well to keep up with The New Yorker. I have learned much about the Jews through that publication. New York is a Jewish town in so many ways. The New Yorker features many Jewish writers, some with deceivingly goyish names, and is read by many American Jews.

When writing about themselves and for themselves, Jews let down their guard. A goy reading The New Yorker will learn things about the Jews he would never encounter elsewhere. Plus, the magazine has a marvelous sense of humor. Just check out the caricature of George W. Bush in a china shop, on the cover of the Nov 13th 2006 issue.

These are my random thoughts on the Jews’ great promise and potential and on all the very real ugliness of Jewishness. The Nov 13th 2006 issue of The New Yorker features a fascinating article on Alice B. Toklas, the Jewish wife/husband of Jewess Gertrude Stein. I am not interested in the issue of lesbianism. One takes it for granted that the Jews are always involved in the most radical and innovative processes of social and sexual experimentation. The author of the New Yorker article, Janet Malcolm, informs us that Toklas was the passive half of the lesbian pair and sexually was serviced regularly by her active partner Stein. Whatever. Sounds like a Woody Allen movie with too many insider Jewish jokes.

What fascinates me about Malcolm’s article is, first of all, the frightening photograph of Toklas (p. 54). Malcolm quotes a Toklas acquaintance, who described her as “…hideous. Alice was sort of spiky. She looked like a witch. She had this moustache. Alice was not warm and welcoming” (p. 55). Studying the photo of Toklas framed by valuable works of art on her walls and the silver table settings, I am overcome by her hideous physical ugliness, the basic, simple repulsiveness of her face and expression, more a caricature than a genuine human face.

In my own contemplation on the physiognomy and the personality of the Jews, Alice B. Toklas represents some random Jewish medium. Alice is ugly. And according to Malcolm’s biographical summary, her physical ugliness was reflected in her dealings with other people.

Concerning their physical characteristics, the Jews represent a central point in human physiognomy and biology. It has something to do with their geographical origins at the center of the universe. If you cross a blonde, blue-eyed Scandinavian with a coal-black African pygmy, you get something close to a Jew. It should be a positive characteristic of the Jews: to have something in common with every race of the world, though it often appears to be some divine curse.

Alice B. Toklas be ugly, ugly as no other human being I ever seen. Ugly as in the result of centuries of racism and ethnocentrism. Unfortunately for the Jews, the inbreeding has taken its toll over the centuries. Consistent mating too close to home produces negative biological features, especially among those for whom racism and ethnocentrism are religiously and culturally institutionalized. A Jewess once made this off-the-cuff remark to me, as if apologizing for her stereotypically Jewish husband and son: “Do you think the Jews really looked like this two thousand years ago?” There was shame behind her remark. Another Jew, showing his students an old bus pass dating back to a summer of foreign study, claimed with obvious doubt that his photo revealed a “generic” mug. Yes, if he were a Hassidic, the wiry hair, nose, nostrils, glasses, and teeth in the photo might have seemed normal. Why was he asking for our confirmation that his stereotypical Jewish features were somehow “generic” for humanity?

The physical appearance of many Jews is repulsive. Arched, pointed noses, the flared nostrils which wrap around gently bucked teeth towards the tip of the schnozz, stiff wiry hair, sensuous pouting lips. The impression is all the worse among the Ashkenazi, especially the Hassidics, with one ugly mug hardly distinguishable from another, like one ugly black fly similar to another. Combine such a physical appearance with loud, pushy, obnoxious behavior and you get the stereotype of the Ashkenazy Jew. The Sephardim are not so cursed.

The New Yorker has recently featured a couple of articles on Bob Dylan, or Robert Zimmerman, as he once was known. If Alice B. Toklas could be considered as some random representation of the worst of Jewish physiognomy and behavior, then Bob Dylan might randomly represent Jewish creative genius. Dylan also is ugly, but in a somewhat different way from Alice.

Decades have passed since the 1960s, but Dylan still preserves his persona. He remains a cult figure for many Americans. The term genius is often thrown around. He’s weathered well, thanks to some great PR work. Look at what happened with the Beatles and the Stones, and then note how Bob Dylan has survived the decades.

Bob Dylan can’t sing very well. He never really learned to play the harmonica. When it comes to the guitar, he’s still a’strummin’ some basic chords he learned in the 60s. His lyrics certainly are not poetry, though maybe they suit his tunes. If he has any talent at all besides PR, it is in thinking up those tunes.

Part of Dylan’s appeal lies in his persona of the alienated artist of the cosmopolitan intelligentsia. His secret is in his posture, his attitude towards the rest of the world. Dylan is less important for his creative product than he is for what he says about himself and his audience. He still defines what they ARE NOT. The elite he represents has always prided itself on its superiority, whether intellectual or ethnocultural. Even though his “work” hasn’t weathered as well as his persona, Dylan remains a reminder for the elite that they will somehow always be better than the masses.

Jewish creativity is overrated. That’s certainly evident when you look at classical music, painting, sculpture, or classical architecture. Despite their privileged position in the world of art, whether as professional “artists,” university professors, or managers of the business of art, the Jews seldom are able to turn those opportunities into genuine, enduring art. The Jews have been most productive in literature, which makes sense in light of their preoccupation with their scriptures over the centuries. All their textual analysis and the related Talmudic debate have provided them with a certain flexibility and productivity when it comes to the written word. But very little of it is original. The Jews were doing cut and paste with ideas, plots, and entire texts long before anyone ever thought up a computer. But quantity of creative product never equals quality. Contemporary Jews like to point to their “greats” of literature. But a century from now who will be reading Norman Mailer, Saul Bellow, Joseph Brodsky, or Philip Roth? Just a few descendants of people who still listen to Bob Dylan.

Mo “Mojo” Feinbine