Ugliness

So you think the octopus is ugly.
Well, here's something for you:
It just so happens that the octopus
May think you're ugly too!

--Oscar the Grouch

I told my psychiatrist once that I fantasized about having a blind girlfriend.  He suggested that meant that I see myself as ugly.  I hadn't thought of it that way!  Maybe it's more that someone who can't see me can't judge me.

I'm interested in the grotesque style.  That means ugly in a grandiose sort of way.  My singing teacher Giuseppe told me once that he loves Popeye cartoon but hates The Simpsons, which he considers "grotesque." I said, "Well, Popeye's a bit grotesque too," and he said, "That's different.  Popeye is a caricature!" I suppose it depends on your point of view.  Like when I was little, we had a Homemaker's Encyclopedia with the volume "Beauty and Personal Charm." The cover of that volume showed a ca. 1950 model in a fancy Christian Dior-type dress.  At my early age, she struck me as grotesque!

In the movie Chinatown, there's a line about how ugly buildings get respectable with time.  When they first built the Eiffel Tower some Parisians considered it an eyesore, yet now it's the city's emblem.  Like Prince Charles, I guess I have old-fashioned architectural tastes.  The Robarts Library looks pretty ugly to me. (It reminds me of the sort of place that could be the setting for those British puppet shows like Thunderbirds or Captain Scarlet.) But maybe it'll stand the test of time.  I've read that it's an example of the "brutalist" school of architecture.