A few great artists come to "own" their territory. As Joseph Mitchell once owned New York and Zola owned Paris, Harvey Pekar owned not just Cleveland but all those places in the American Heartland where people wake up every day, go to work, do the best they can--and in spite of the vast and overwhelming forces that conspire to disappoint them--go on, try as best as possible to do right by the people around them, to attain that most difficult of ideals: to be "good" people.To be good. To keep trying. To not let down the people around you. This is the essence of the Midwest, and why I feel at home here. This tells me that Pekar, despite his reputation as a curmudgeon, probably would have agreed with me about choosing Cleveland. Which was my point in posting this.
Harvey Pekar's death touches a chord
Many of my fellow Clevelanders have shared Anthony Bourdain's tribute to Harvey Pekar with one another. I didn't know Harvey, and to be honest I'm not that familiar with his work (the American Splendor graphic novel, which spawned an independent film). But this paragraph of Anthony's tells me that Pekar might have been my kind of guy:
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American Splendor is very good, as is the Terry Zwigoff film of Pekar. He was a unique guy, but 100% American.
ReplyDeleteI should put the film in my netflix queue. I avoid too much exposure to people described as curmudgeonly, because chronic negativity makes me not want to get out of bed. But it sounds like he was an honest guy.
ReplyDeleteI feel that way about Pittsburgh myself.
ReplyDeleteBTW, condolences on the whole Lebron James treason - a hit to small-market cities everywhere. I can understand the exit, but not the style or tactics.
Jeez, last week I couldn't order a hamburger without being drawn into a discussion about Lebron. Really, the ten-story mural of him on the side of a building downtown ("we are all witness") said it all: Cleveland put way too much stock in that guy. (Though to be fair, it was an ad.) It's fine to be happy when your team wins (or your friend gets a promotion) but it's a cop-out to let it set the tone for the whole way you view your city.
ReplyDeletePekar was a crank, but an honest, consistent and very intelligent one. His point of view dictated his attitude, but he seemed from that view to see middle class Americans in a unique way. He was often bitter but rarely mean and always amazed at people and how they get on with their lives.
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