Good stuff, Marco. I try to keep an open mind and see what connections present themselves. Veloso does look like a buggy-eyed funky dude as a youth. The expression on his face in the photo of him in youth, with the big bushy poodle hair patted down and parted in the middle, has something self-deprecatingly funny about it, like maybe it’s self-conscious parody of a popular music performer, with him playing at being wide-eyed and bushy-tailed, so as to set up shocks in departures from what was expected: like a woman who dyes her hair blonde and acts stupid, when in reality she’s smart and knows exactly what she’s doing. I think that Veloso is gangly and not necessarily handsome actually adds to his appeal. We might have a discussion about the kind of beauty or handsomeness which can be found within so-called ugliness. There are varieties of ugliness which are so unusual and distinct that they bring appeal to character. Attraction doesn’t only come through the eyes.
In the photo of Veloso as an older man, with his hair closer-cropped, a bit mussed up and graying, he definitely appears less carefree and exuberant, harder, more sober and weatherbeaten, himself no longer needing to exist with a mask on. But the slight upraised eyebrow and the subtle glimmer in his eyes, peering out of the shadow of weariness, suggests there’s still mischief-maker in him.
I see these photos and think, for instance, of Bob Dylan, Mick Jagger, David Bowie, Leonard Cohen (and many others), in their trajectories from youth to old age in the public eye. You can see the changes in their lives, the transformations they undergo, for better or worse. There is something impressive about the longevity of a career in the spotlight, of individuals who do try to keep creating new material to the very end, all the more impressive when one thinks of how many are actually destroyed by the process, how many create one great work, one great record, one great series of pictures, one great novel or poem, and then live the rest of their lives in its shadow, hounded and cursed by it to the grave. Youthful freshness is inevitably lost, and the artist must leap again into the unknown and change, not only in material dealt with but in appearance too, if he or she is not to become pathetic and ridiculous.
Interestingly, not unrelated to this, check out this relatively recent interview of Penny Rimbaud, formerly of Crass. (I connect this to my comment in Caroline Savery’s latest post: On the Politics and Ethics of Empowerment) In this interview you can see a photo of Penny Rimbaud now and a photo of how he appeared as a young man. You get a sense of his own trajectory from youth to the elder he is today. I don’t feel he has compromised himself at all. He has never sold out, never fallen into the trap of repeating himself, resting on his laurels, to cash in. He has become more and more of himself through the years. I really admire and respect him. The co-op idea is very much alive in his own life practice.