Boucher was certain she had, and went on to support, encourage and teach her – and, crucially, introduce her to Rodin. However, in the 19th century, it became home to several famous sculptors.Ĭlaudel’s father sent her work to their artist neighbour, Alfred Boucher, to rule on whether his daughter had talent. Her mother, who had committed her to the asylum in 1911 within months of the death of Claudel’s stern but affectionate father, never came.Ĭlaudel and her family lived for just four years in Nogent-sur-Seine, a small French town south-east of Paris, but crucially it was where, as a 12-year-old, she first began sculpting in the local clay.Īpart from the good clay, the small hardworking town with its large mills on the river – and now a nuclear power station, clearly visible from the top floor of the museum – has no obvious attractions for an artist, although Gustave Flaubert loved it and set his novel A Sentimental Education there. Claudel’s brother Paul, who became a poet and diplomat and was once her beloved companion and the subject of several loving portraits on display in the museum, is believed to have visited 12 times in 30 years. And we may want to pat ourselves on the back, ever so modestly, for being a little more skeptical now.Lipscomb, and her husband William Elborne who took the photographs, were among a handful of visitors to Claudel in the decades she vanished from the world. It may be worth asking why we Americans were ever ready to glorify this poser. The American dialysis patient found in Pakistan hunting Osama Bin Laden with a cutlass – but since Idema got there first, he found more success being taken seriously, and left a longer trail of havoc. Other dangerous lunatics have come and gone – most famously Gary Faulkner, Now that he’s gone, he’s just the most recent example to show why those came to be seen as virtues in the first place. He was a sort of hometown anti-hero,Ī military groupie who displayed none of the military values of service, stoicism and quiet competence. Given his record, and his tendency to make hay out of his brief Special Forces time, it’s no surprise that there are few places less eager to mourn him than Fayetteville. During his final years, he was attempting to sell boat tours to vacationers in Mexico, and his former partner, Penny Alesi, accused him of intentionally passing his H.I.V. Threatening to sock Geraldo Rivera in the face, and in the 1990s passing himself off as a nuclear proliferationĮxpert. So it’s instructive to recall the ease with which he wormed his way into prominence, looking tough and serious on a book-jacket, reportedly Special Forces, plus a scattering of failed military and non-military businesses, and prison time in the United States for fraud. Idema’s actual accomplishments were modest: a few undistinguished years in the U.S. Observed had been more entertaining than any soap opera. They say they didn’t know Idema but the eccentric comings and goings that they The women at the plumbing supply shop across the street chortle at the memories of Idema’sīusinesses and bizarre tenants, which included a kennel, a counterterrorism consultancy and an evangelical storefront church. The single-story building registered to his corporation at 450 Robeson Street is derelict, with chains on the doors. Army Special Forces are headquartered at Fort Bragg. Idema is remembered mostly without fondness when he is remembered at all, particularly here in the town where U.S. The look, plus shameless and self-serving tale-spinning, brought him a moment of fame that he would almost certainly not have achieved in these more jaded and enlightened times. Idema was pure trouble, and his death brings us closer to the end of a weird era when sociopathic frauds could be taken seriously just because they looked the military part. Last weekend he died from AIDS complications in Mexico at the age of 55. Him in 2007 as part of a general amnesty.Īfter his time in Afghanistan, he sank deeper and deeper into obscurity. Randomly off the street, and choosing them partly by beard length.) Hamid Karzai pardoned government to hunt terrorists, but in fact he seems to have been kidnapping his “suspects” almost But here’s an unequivocal one: with each year, we’ve heard a little lessĪbout Jonathan “Jack” Idema, the self-styled mercenary who surfaced in Afghanistan in late 2001, fed credulous journalists lies about his work with the Northern Alliance, and later was convicted by an Afghan court of running his own private torture chamber in a Kabul cellar. citizens were tried for running an unlicensed jail in Afghanistan.įAYETTEVILLE, North Carolina - The War on Terror hasn’t produced many clear signs of progress in the last decade. Shah Marai/Agence France-Presse - Getty Images Jonathan Idema addresses the media after appearing in court in Kabul in July 2004.
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