A reference to the WTF-ness of Trout Mask Replica in another thread has got me thinking – and that often means a thread in the Afterword. Aren’t you lucky?

Last week I went to an exhibition of Surrealism and very good it was too. Starting with the post WWI Dadaist movement, we were taken towards original works by Dali, Man Ray, Magritte and a film by Rene Clair. It was about two hours in another world and I can imagine that it must have been thrilling to be a part of it. However, I have this gnawing feeling of pragmatic cynicism like a devil on my shoulder, telling me that this was something constructed by well-off academics who seemed free of the need to work for a living.

Bill Bryson observed that an unusually large number of great writers, artists and poets were employed by their church – vicars who tended to have a nice domestic set-up with a parsonage all set up for them, usually with staff. It wasn’t until the 20th century when we started to educate en masse so that literacy was a basic standard rather than something available only to a privileged upper class. » Continue Reading.