In which I am clueless, save for the interwebz

The Google header today is this:

'S pretty, yes? Very pretty. Very pretty and....um....significant? Something artsy? Reminiscent of some kind of ....artist? Composer? Architect?

Gah!

WHAT IS IT????

Take a hint, Tiff: look at the filename, which is straight from Google itself.

"Chagall."

(rosebud)

Ah. Marc. Happy birthday.

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As I become older, I begin to see more merit in so-called 'modern' art. In the olden days, say when I was in my 20's, I was an avowed lover of realism, of the great masters, of the deft brushwork that rendered masterworks in true-to-life detail. The way the richness of ermine robes and taffeta dresses jump off the canvas, the way that delicate lacework was recreated in paint, the way the hands of nobility were configured with long tapering fingers and strangely placed rings, all got my admiration.

Naturally then, I had no love for the masters of modern art, especially those artists who doused a canvas in one shade of paint and called it 'an introspective amalgam of moral rectitude in time of crisis' or some such other poppycock. Those people were no more artists than a monkey with a paintbrush!

But something happened.

I blame it on the impressionists, because they are the ones who introduced the slippery slope of non-conformist art in the first place, and as such it was the genre that allowed toehold into something other than Middle Ages Masterworks to be recognized by me as 'art.'

Monet (the big daddy of impressionism, BTW) and his water lilies, for example. Seurat and his pointillism. The fathers and mothers of Impressionism made accessible, colorful, INTERESTING art. Those dudes who broke the mold off the art world, who infused it with something fresh, were the first step into a vivid experimental world. Rigidity and tradition flew out the window in late 1800's Paris, defenestrated by artists who needed room to grow this new art movement.

Naturally, the impressionist movement spawned new impressionists, cubists, colorists, artists who broke painting down into its most spare form. Some of it I don't 'get,' and probably never will. Nobody has to like everything, you know? But as I continue to open my eyes to how people express themselves, it amazes me what people can do. Yeah, that all-red canvas might not ever make it into the Tiny House, but one that looks like a wiring schematic overlaid with shreds of a telephone book just might.

Because it's interesting, and that's good enough for me.

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I saw a man at the mall yesterday who looked like he'd glued an overdone knockwurst to his right ear.

Only it WAS his ear.

Ew.

(yes, I KNOW it's not nice to mention these kinds of things, but then you stop to consider that this guy's earlobe was brushing his shoulder and that his whole ear bobbled up and down as he tottered down the mallway and that the ear looked like it would burst if touched by the tip of a pin, and that indeed I'm right off any kind of reddish sausage for a while, then you'll realize that I simply HAD to tell you about it because, well, who can keep stuff like that to themselves?

Nobody, that's who).

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Have yourselves a merry little Monday, folks. I'm off to work (finally) wherein I shall no doubt slay many a corporate dragon, or at least beat the snot out of some business-casual fireworms.

Hiyo, y'all!