I think I'm loving the more surrealistic Hy-Arts. The woman on the couch in via Boucher, the woman on her backside is a very famous Wyeth, and the sailboats are from Feininger.
Thank you Denys, for addressing my insecurity about overlong entries (see yesterdays comments) You see, someone for whom blogging lies at the center of their creative expression, something done on a daily basis come rain, sleet, snow or fog of night, tends to imagine all sort of things. Brian over at Acidreflux actually asked "who do I have to suck to get a comment around here?" I think the reason I am so assiduous about posting the Hy-Arts is that anyone who finds me overly verbose or is challenged for time can at least check in just to see the visuals. I have no problem with someone saying: "Oh Marc's blog! I read it for the pictures!"
Last night my sister called to recount her comment on The Fate of Ping--the piece about my Mom-- over the phone, because for some reason it hadn't stuck when she tried to leave it on the blog. It turns out that her daughter has two pet boy rats, and she woke up one morning to find another third rat, a female, had appeared in the cage. She was very small and had managed to squeeze through the bars. I immediately labeled her a golddigger, tired of life on the streets, working hard for the money, if you catch my drift. She must have been observing the cage for a while, this utopia where food and water appeared magically, trying to figure out which man-rat she wanted to be her new sugardaddy and possibly father of her children.
Watch what you pray for. Her presence created some major problems in the cage. (In fact, these is a pretty interesting science experiment. Erica, make a note if it for Natalie when she hits the eighth grade in 5 years.) My niece noted the boy rats were fighting, and then woke up to discover they turned on the female and pummeled her mercilessly. She was near death when my niece pulled her from the cage, and nursed her back to health. The poor little rodentette now walks with the gait of a boxer who's been hit once too many times, listing to the left.
Let this be a lesson to us all. A gilded cage is still a cage. I daresay this very thought might be on the mind of Boucher's lady on a sofa. She poses in the nude eating grapes, but her inner self stares into the distance, dreaming of racing sailboats into the wind.
MCO 2008
I totally ignored your reference to the length of some of your entries because how can the pot get away with calling the kettle black? At least you are succinct even in your lengthiness. (Why does that statement sound risque?) I never worry about my lengthy posts. I always assume that people read as much as they find of interest and then move on. I write until I'm done.
I visit your journal for many reasons including your writing style, the substance of your posts, your ability to boil things down to their essence, and I'm not going to say more because I need to make certain that you retain your humility.
I love your combination of artists. Like Robin, I've viewed Anna's World many times and never would have imagined her in this setting, but your assessment of Boucher's lady is so bittersweet in its reasonableness