HILO Heroes, April
By:
April 7, 2009
Happy birthday to some of our high-, low-, no-, and hilobrow heroes.
- Abraham Maslow (HI: life’s work); Jimmy Cliff (LO: life’s work); Samuel R. Delany (HILO: life’s work); Method Man (LO: life’s work)
- Ron “Horshack” Palillo (LO: Welcome Back, Kotter); Buddy Ebsen (LO: The Beverly Hillbillies); Max Ernst (HILO: life’s work); Camille Paglia (HILO: life’s work); Émile Zola (HILO? a test case)
- Jennie Garth (LO: Beverly Hills, 90210); Eddie Murphy (LO: life’s work); Jane Goodall (HI: life’s work); Marlon Brando (HILO?: a test case)
- Muddy Waters (LO: life’s work); Marguerite Duras (HI: life’s work); Comte de Lautréamont (HILO: Les Chants de Maldoror); Andrei Tarkovsky (HILO: life’s work)
- Agnetha Fältskog (LO: ABBA); Frank Gorshin (LO: life’s work); Roger Corman (LO: life’s work); Bette Davis (LO: life’s work); Spencer Tracy (LO: life’s work); Thomas Hobbes (HI: life’s work)
- Paul Rudd (LO: life’s work), Merle Haggard (LO: life’s work)
- Jackie Chan (LO: life’s work); James Garner (LO: life’s work); Billie Holiday (LO: life’s work); Donald Barthelme (HILO: life’s work)
- Shecky Greene (LO: life’s work); John Fante (HILO: life’s work); Vivienne Westwood (HILO: life’s work); Edmund Husserl (HI: life’s work)
- Hugh Hefner (LO: life’s work); Charles Baudelaire (HILO: life’s work); Valerie Solanas (HILO: life’s work)
- Max Von Sydow (HILO: The Seventh Seal, Wild Strawberries, The Exorcist, Flash Gordon, Conan the Barbarian, Strange Brew)
- Louise Lasser (HILO: Bananas, Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman)
- Shannen Doherty (LO: life’s work); Herbie Hancock (HILO: life’s work); Tiny Tim (LO: life’s work); David Letterman (HILO?: test case)
- Don Adams (LO: life’s work); Samuel Beckett (HILO: life’s work); Jacques Lacan (HI: life’s work)
- Sarah Michelle Gellar (LO: life’s work); Loretta Lynn (LO: life’s work); Daniel Clowes (HILO: life’s work); Fredric Jameson (HI: life’s work)
- Seth Rogen (LO, but — uh-oh — heading towards MIDDLE: life’s work); Da Vinci (HILO: life’s work)
- Merce Cunningham (HI: life’s work); Charlie Chaplin (HILO?: another test case); Tristan Tzara (HILO: life’s work)
- Posh Spice (LO: life’s work)
- Conan O’Brien (HILO?: test case); Kathy Acker (HILO: life’s work)
- Tim Curry (HILO: Rocky Horror Picture Show)
- Harold Lloyd (LO: life’s work); Joan Miró (HILO: life’s work)
- Iggy Pop (LO, despite Jarmusch-ification: life’s work)
- Aaron Spelling (LO: life’s work), Eddie Albert (LO: life’s work); Henry Fielding (HILO?: test case); John Waters (HILO: life’s work); Immanuel Kant (HI: life’s work)
- Lee Majors (LO: life’s work); Roy Orbison (LO: life’s work); Vladimir Nabokov (HILO: life’s work); Shakespeare (HILO: life’s work); J.P. Donleavy (HILO: life’s work); George Steiner (HI: life’s work)
- Willem de Kooning (HI: life’s work)
- Björn Ulvaeus (LO: ABBA); Ella Fitzgerald (LO: life’s work)
- Carol Burnett (LO: life’s work); Wittgenstein (HI: life’s work); Marcus Aurelius (HILO: life’s work)
- Ace Frehley (LO: life’s work); Jack Klugman (LO: The Odd Couple)
- Ann-Margret (LO: life’s work), Terry Pratchett (LO: life’s work)
- Jerry Seinfeld (LO: Seinfeld); Hasil Adkins (LO: life’s work)
- Willie Nelson (LO: life’s work); Jaroslav Hašek (HILO: The Good Soldier Švejk); Al Lewis (LO: life’s work); Larry Niven (LO: life’s work); Lars von Trier (HILO?: test case)





Just discovered your site — this is very interesting. Questions: Why is Fante Lo and Hitchens Hi? What’s the low element in Tarkovsky? The religious emotionalism? Please forgive my laziness — I could spend the time it would take to figure these out by navigating around your site, I suppose, but I prefer to ask you direct.
Oh, yeah — read the title of your tweet, and Zizek’s definitely HiLo — hope this doesn’t ruin anything…
lecompte
You ask excellent questions. You should write for us! Anyway, you’re right, Fante should be HILO. We’ll change that now. See what happens when you comment? Are you saying Hitch is Middlebrow? We could be convinced, but please make the case. As for Tarkovsky: Yes, you got it.
Update: Decided that Hitch and Kingsley Amis were snobs, not highbrow or HILO, and removed them.
RE: “Jaroslav Hašek (HILO: The Good Soldier Švejk);”
Make sure you get the new English translation of The Good Soldier Svejk available at http://zenny.com. More information about the Svejk phenomenon at http://SvejkCentral. Also, Svejk is on FaceBook now: http://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Good-Soldier-Svejk/133349009873?ref=nf