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Need an utterly preposterous dedication for your book or film? Ask Kanye and co Need an utterly preposterous dedication for your book or film? Ask Kanye and co
(7 months later)
I know a man who dedicated his book “to my daughter Rachel – a model of inarticulacy”. He neglects to mention that she was just six months old at the time. So the news that the one-man hubris turbine Kanye West has named his two children (one aged two and a half, the other six months) as “creative consultants” in the liner notes to his new album, The Life of Pablo, doesn’t strike me as so odd.I know a man who dedicated his book “to my daughter Rachel – a model of inarticulacy”. He neglects to mention that she was just six months old at the time. So the news that the one-man hubris turbine Kanye West has named his two children (one aged two and a half, the other six months) as “creative consultants” in the liner notes to his new album, The Life of Pablo, doesn’t strike me as so odd.
After all, inspiration, much like an STI, can come from anywhere. Just look at the infamous end credits to the VHS version of Rambo III, which read: “This film is dedicated to the brave mujahideen fighters of Afghanistan.” Put that in your Kochi tent, Bowe Bergdahl. What I wouldn’t give to ask Sylvester Stallone how, why and when he decided to change that dedication to “the gallant people of Afghanistan”. Not to mention what his mujahideen friends made of the conker-coloured muscle stack running around the screen, sporting the Rachel haircut and a black sweatband.After all, inspiration, much like an STI, can come from anywhere. Just look at the infamous end credits to the VHS version of Rambo III, which read: “This film is dedicated to the brave mujahideen fighters of Afghanistan.” Put that in your Kochi tent, Bowe Bergdahl. What I wouldn’t give to ask Sylvester Stallone how, why and when he decided to change that dedication to “the gallant people of Afghanistan”. Not to mention what his mujahideen friends made of the conker-coloured muscle stack running around the screen, sporting the Rachel haircut and a black sweatband.
The creative dedication is, in many ways, a chat-up line: an apparently simple compliment, but with extraordinary leeway for offence, errors, misinterpretation, scandal and deceit. I’ve always rather liked this one from Agatha Christie: “To all those who lead monotonous lives in the hope that they experience at second hand the delights and dangers of adventure.” Which, coming from a woman who spent much of her life in Torquay, seems particularly pointed.The creative dedication is, in many ways, a chat-up line: an apparently simple compliment, but with extraordinary leeway for offence, errors, misinterpretation, scandal and deceit. I’ve always rather liked this one from Agatha Christie: “To all those who lead monotonous lives in the hope that they experience at second hand the delights and dangers of adventure.” Which, coming from a woman who spent much of her life in Torquay, seems particularly pointed.
Related: Kanye West – The Life of Pablo review: 'You can see why his immodesty rubs people up the wrong way'
The Beatles famously closed their helmet-haired romp Help! with the title card: “This film is respectfully dedicated to the memory of Mr Elias Howe, who, in 1846, invented the sewing machine.” Who cares that, for one, he didn’t, and for two, The Beatles were probably about as involved in writing the end credits as Antonio Banderas was in squeezing the musk’s anal glands to make his signature perfume, Blue Seduction. To dedicate an album to a 19th-century engineer, who apparently dreamed up his most famous patent in an actual dream about a savage king in a strange land, is perfect.The Beatles famously closed their helmet-haired romp Help! with the title card: “This film is respectfully dedicated to the memory of Mr Elias Howe, who, in 1846, invented the sewing machine.” Who cares that, for one, he didn’t, and for two, The Beatles were probably about as involved in writing the end credits as Antonio Banderas was in squeezing the musk’s anal glands to make his signature perfume, Blue Seduction. To dedicate an album to a 19th-century engineer, who apparently dreamed up his most famous patent in an actual dream about a savage king in a strange land, is perfect.
Mike Tyson’s autobiography, Undisputed Truth, opens with the arresting (not least because it’s in FULL CAPS) testimony: “This book is dedicated to all the outcasts – everyone who has ever been mesmerized, marginalized, tranquilized, beaten down, and gotten the wrong end of the stick. And incapable of receiving love.” Indeed – God love all those people who’ve gotten the wrong end of the stick.Mike Tyson’s autobiography, Undisputed Truth, opens with the arresting (not least because it’s in FULL CAPS) testimony: “This book is dedicated to all the outcasts – everyone who has ever been mesmerized, marginalized, tranquilized, beaten down, and gotten the wrong end of the stick. And incapable of receiving love.” Indeed – God love all those people who’ve gotten the wrong end of the stick.
There is a certain fatigue behind F Scott Fitzgerald’s dedication of The Great Gatsby: “Once again to Zelda.” It is the cheek-kiss of literary dedications, the bunch of Budgens carnations of credits. Mind you, this is the woman, as Hemingway relays at the end of A Moveable Feast, who apparently told her husband that “the way I was built I could never make any woman happy”, leaving him so distraught that old Ernie had to take him on a tiny penis tour of the Louvre by way of reassurance. Still, at least Zelda never went as far as Ayn Rand, who dedicated Atlas Shrugged to both her husband and her lover. On the same page.There is a certain fatigue behind F Scott Fitzgerald’s dedication of The Great Gatsby: “Once again to Zelda.” It is the cheek-kiss of literary dedications, the bunch of Budgens carnations of credits. Mind you, this is the woman, as Hemingway relays at the end of A Moveable Feast, who apparently told her husband that “the way I was built I could never make any woman happy”, leaving him so distraught that old Ernie had to take him on a tiny penis tour of the Louvre by way of reassurance. Still, at least Zelda never went as far as Ayn Rand, who dedicated Atlas Shrugged to both her husband and her lover. On the same page.
Some of the best dedications come after a knuckle-breaking, sweat-stained round of fighting. Who can forget (and many have tried) Tyson Fury’s beautiful rendition of Aerosmith’s I Don’t Want To Miss a Thing, followed by brilliantly heartfelt if strangely anonymous “I love you my wife”. There is also a certain optimistic charm whenever an Ultimate Cage Fighter dedicates their latest victory to God. Because sure, God is up there watching cage fighting, it’s not like he’s got anything else going on.Some of the best dedications come after a knuckle-breaking, sweat-stained round of fighting. Who can forget (and many have tried) Tyson Fury’s beautiful rendition of Aerosmith’s I Don’t Want To Miss a Thing, followed by brilliantly heartfelt if strangely anonymous “I love you my wife”. There is also a certain optimistic charm whenever an Ultimate Cage Fighter dedicates their latest victory to God. Because sure, God is up there watching cage fighting, it’s not like he’s got anything else going on.
Other tributes are quieter, but no less emotional. I am moved despite myself by CS Lewis’s dedication to his goddaughter in the opening pages of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe: “I wrote this story for you, but when I began it I had not realized that girls grow quicker than books. As a result you are already too old for fairy tales, and by the time it is printed and bound you will be older still. But some day you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again. You can then take it down from some upper shelf, dust it, and tell me what you think of it. I shall probably be too deaf to hear, and too old to understand a word you say, but I shall still be your affectionate Godfather.”Other tributes are quieter, but no less emotional. I am moved despite myself by CS Lewis’s dedication to his goddaughter in the opening pages of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe: “I wrote this story for you, but when I began it I had not realized that girls grow quicker than books. As a result you are already too old for fairy tales, and by the time it is printed and bound you will be older still. But some day you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again. You can then take it down from some upper shelf, dust it, and tell me what you think of it. I shall probably be too deaf to hear, and too old to understand a word you say, but I shall still be your affectionate Godfather.”
Of course, the few words which precede a book can sometimes be more powerful than an entire novel. Gloria Steinem’s memoir My Life on the Road opens with a striking dedication – to the doctor who illegally performed an abortion for her back in 1957. “Dear Dr Sharpe,” she writes, “I believe you, who knew the law was unjust, would not mind if I say this so long after your death: I’ve done the best I could with my life. This book is for you.”Of course, the few words which precede a book can sometimes be more powerful than an entire novel. Gloria Steinem’s memoir My Life on the Road opens with a striking dedication – to the doctor who illegally performed an abortion for her back in 1957. “Dear Dr Sharpe,” she writes, “I believe you, who knew the law was unjust, would not mind if I say this so long after your death: I’ve done the best I could with my life. This book is for you.”
As its dedicare root suggests, burgeoning from the Latin for “set apart”, a dedication can sit aside from, above and quite independent of the thing itself. Which reminds me: I would like to dedicate this article to you, the headstrong army marching under the line. To the commenters, the opinionists, the armchair philosophers, the meninists, the offended, the recommended, the haven’t-read-the-article-but-am-giving-my-two-pence-worth-just-the-samers, the blamers, the furious, the curious, the heartfelt, the badly spelled, the tenuous and the generous. This one’s for you. Don’t ever change.As its dedicare root suggests, burgeoning from the Latin for “set apart”, a dedication can sit aside from, above and quite independent of the thing itself. Which reminds me: I would like to dedicate this article to you, the headstrong army marching under the line. To the commenters, the opinionists, the armchair philosophers, the meninists, the offended, the recommended, the haven’t-read-the-article-but-am-giving-my-two-pence-worth-just-the-samers, the blamers, the furious, the curious, the heartfelt, the badly spelled, the tenuous and the generous. This one’s for you. Don’t ever change.