Soir Bleu

I've written here before about my love for Edward Hopper-esque paintings. But as Marvin Gaye would be the first to tell you, there ain't nothin' like the real thing.

There are so many Hopper portraits of lonely, isolated people unable to connect with themselves or anyone else, staring out windows or alone in a crowd at diners, it's hard to zone in on any one in particular (although for me, Nighthawks will always be the benchmark).

I'm not sure why I'm so drawn (SWIDT?) to these pictures, but I am.

Years ago the wife and I saw a Hopper exhibit at the Whitney in New York. It's one of the best exhibitions I've ever been to, and definitely my favorite (yes I look at other things besides comic book art).

Anyway, for some reason I was in a Hopper mood today, started going through his paintings and came across this one I'd forgotten about: Soir Bleu. Or as we say in English, Blue Night.

I don't know what to love about it first. The devastatingly sad and defeated clown (worked with him), as far from comical and funny as he could be. The far eastern lamps, swaying ever so slightly in the breeze. The eclectic cast of characters dining with and around the clown, including the man behind the post who looks suspiciously like Vincent Van Gogh.

Here is one of my favorite descriptions of what Hopper is trying to convey:

Soir Bleu is a vivid and monumental work painted in 1914, almost four years after Hopper's last sojourn in Paris. Its grand scale is an indication of how strong an impression Parisian life had made on the young Hopper.

At home in his New York studio, he created this melancholy allegory from reminiscences partly literary, partly art historical, and certainly personal. The artificiality of Soir Bleu is inevitable and intentional.

Hopper, as dramatist, has assembled a cast of characters and traditional types that play out timeless roles of courtship, solicitation, and tragic self-isolation. One of these characters is described in a preliminary drawing with a note, the shadowy isolated figure of the procurer seated alone at left. Hopper has also included a classically attired clown in white, a military officer in formal uniform, a bearded intellectual in a beret, perhaps an artist, and a well-dressed bourgeois couple. Standing beyond the balustrade, as though presiding over this mixed company, is a haughty beauty in gaudy maquillage, her painted face demanding attention in the brilliant glow of oriental lanterns in the cool blue night.

In Soir Bleu, we witness Hopper's early attempt to create, rather than merely record, a sophisticated, anti-sentimental allegory of adult city life. Back in America many years later, he would stage the masterpiece Nighthawks (1942) with all the worldly reality he sought in Soir Bleu but was too young to make emotionally convincing. However, this major early painting gives a clear indication of Hopper's enormous ambition for his art.

Now I realize no one comes to this blog for a discussion about the meaning of art, its nuances or relevance to the current culture. In fact I'm not sure why anyone comes to this blog at all. My guess is it's a combination of typing errors and glitchy routers.

Nonetheless, occasionally I like to take a break from writing snarky posts, agency bashing and random rambling and appreciate the inspiring, creative genius of true masters like Hopper.

You might be concerned about the fact I'm attracted to paintings that leave me feeling melancholy, depressed and isolated. Don't be.

I work in advertising. I'm used to it.

850

Break out the champagne, drop the balloons and cue the DJ. This post right here you're feasting your eyes on is my 850th blogpost. Well, 850th published one.

Like all bloggers, I have a whole slew of drafts and false starts—over 70 of 'em—that, for one reason or another I didn't deem particularly post worthy. They have titles like "The creepy clown" "Jasper is enough" and "I'll have what he's having."

Maybe they were too long. Too short. Too bad. Too late. Too serious. Too light. Too revealing. Too sexy (always a problem). Too similar. Too repetitive. Too likely to get me sued. Too poorly written. I know what you're thinking: "I've been following you for a while. Since when is 'poorly written' a criteria?"

OK smartass. Let's talk about it after I see your 850 posts.

The point is at least I have some kind of filter. Occasionally though, shields are down, my judgement is off and something gets put up here that shouldn't be. But thankfully I have a support system of several other exceptional writer friends that let me know immediately when they think I've crossed a line and should take a post down. Sometimes they're gone before you even know they've been there.

The posts, not the writers.

The other thing is 850 may not be a big number to other, more prolific writers (which would be about all of them). But it's my number and I'm happy about it.

Any writer will tell you filling the page can be challenging. But I have a feeling I'm going to have plenty of things to write about for the next four years. Or with any luck, the next two.

In the meantime, stay tuned for 851. I don't know when it'll be here, but I hear it's going to be worth the wait.

De-Christmafied

Not so merry now, is it?

It's been twelve days since Christmas, and on the twelfth day my true love gave to me a house de-Christmafied. The wreaths are down, the ornaments have been boxed and put away until next year. And the tree has been kicked to the curb.

As I wrote about here a couple years ago, I've always had kind of a love/hate relationship with our Christmas tree. On one antler, I love the fun, hopeful and joyous spirit it brings to the house during the season.

On the other, I always see it taking the house down in flames.

I'm always sad to see the holidays end, but this time it was less of an ending and more an act of mercy. Our tree stopped drinking water about the third day we had it, and it was dry to the touch and slightly brown. Plus the needles had started to fall all over the place. And since Santa didn't bring me a new vacuum, I wasn't particularly excited about that development.

That's not our tree in the picture, but it may as well be. It's one of the many you'll see lining the curbs if you drive down my block today. All ghosts of Christmas past, they're waiting for the city trucks to come by tomorrow morning starting at 6:30 to pick them up.

There is of course still the matter of the lights that decorate the exterior of the house. The further away from Christmas we get, the fewer houses still have their lights on at night. We happen to be one of those houses. But the lights don't have a shelf life like the tree does, so they're always the final act in the de-Christmafying process.

So tomorrow, when the recycling truck driver takes the tree
Then gives his team a whistle
They'll fly past the homes like the down of a thistle
And I'm sure I'll hear him say as he drives until night
Merry Christmas to all, let's get this trash out of sight.

Organizational chart

It's always great when someone teaches you about something you didn't know. Like the time I was in a radio session with Tress MacNeille and she taught me the word "dirtnap." Which I always try to use whenever I can.

For example, "Looks like that campaign idea is taking the big dirtnap."

Anyway, my art director pal Kathryn and I were working on an assignment. She had a great idea, and to help me see what she was thinking she had us look at a website called Things Organized Neatly.

It was love at first landing page.

It's a web blog that's exactly what it says it is: from typewriters to car parts to crayons to movie props to sets of scissors to bicycle parts and more, all perfectly organized and displayed neatly.

I'm not a neat freak, but if I was doing a production of The Odd Couple I'd be Felix. A fatter, more Jewish Felix.

I have trouble breathing when things are too out of whack and unorganized. I like order, and knowing where everything is. The way I do that is I put things back where they belong every time. That way I don't have to send out a search party when I'm looking for my phone. Or my keys. Or my shoes.

The site is also inspiring in it shows that anything with more than one component can be organized neatly. Music to my eyes.

I want to be clear. I'm not saying things should look sterile or unused. I don't want everything to feel like the couch wrapped in plastic at Grandma's house that no one can sit on.

I'm just saying if you're going to use something every day, make a point to put it back where it belongs. (Mike, Lori and Imke: you know the joke that goes here).

Because I'm a giver, tonight I thought I'd pass along the site for your perusal in case you appreciate things organized neatly as much as I do. Frankly, I could look at it all night long.

But I have to finish organizing my books by height. Right after I alphabetize them.

Go fish

This reminds me a little bit of Edvard Munch's famous painting, The Scream. Except, you know, with a fish.

The goldfish you're looking at above is Kenny. I don't know how long we've had him. All I know is I try to have as little as possible to do with him.

For starters, I'm a dog person not a fish person (or a bird person - saving that for another post). I also went through the fish faze (see what I did there?) when my kids were younger.

We had goldfish won at school fairs. A couple we picked up at the aquarium side of Petco. They lived in big bowls like Kenny. And if they lived long enough to grow larger, which a few of them did, we bought small aquariums with filters and little Diver Dan statues for them to swim through and around.

I was hoping that like Barney and the Wiggles, the kids would eventually outgrow goldfish. After all, they're older now and they don't seem that emotionally attached to him. But the second I mention getting rid of Kenny, I get a firm "No!" from everyone else in the house.

So Kenny swims to see another day.

I can't help feeling bad for him. I keep thinking he must be lonely, all by himself in that big jar. And depending what kind of cooking we're doing and how much of the kitchen counter we're using, his home can get relocated under a cabinet where it doesn't get much sunlight.

Apparently none of this seems to bother him. He just keeps swimming around his jar, recognizing me in my black t-shirt, and giving me those big wide eyes that say, "What's a fish gotta do to get fed around here?".

As predictable as I can be, I know the kind of jokes you're expecting right about now. How he never went to school. How I bought him for a fin. How he's been drinking all day, but it'd kill him to stop. I also had a few Nemo jokes, but I can't find them right now (I'll be here all week. Tip your waitress).

I'm sure at some point, like dozens of goldfish before him, we'll wind up relocating Kenny to a part of the room with more light and counter space.

Or the toilet.

Recommitting to recommitting

ROTATION AND BALANCE

                                    

                          ROUND SEVENTEEN

Every year I recommit to doing a better job with this blog. I don’t know why. It’s not like my nine readers are demanding any more from me in the way of quality. Besides, the truth is you can’t get blood from a stone. And after more than 900 posts, frankly this is as good as it gets.

I know. I’m as disappointed as you are.

Nonetheless, here we are at the start of a new year. Even though I believe most of the world only has seventeen days left as of this writing, I’m still going to recommit to recommitting. You can take that to the bank. Although don’t take it to Wells Fargo. They’ll just make you open additional accounts you don't want or need.

Anyway, I’m giving you my word every year from here on out, I’ll make a point of telling you how much better this blog will be. More consistent with postings. More topical with subjects. More entertaining because, let’s face it, when I want to I can bring the funny. I am recommitting to the idea that I will be prolific in the amount of recommitments I’ll be posting.

But let's not forget who we're dealing with. I'm not going to go crazy and be as prolific as say my pal Rich Siegel over at Round Seventeen. Although the stats for 2015 do not lie, and show that thanks to a deliberate effort on my part, I matched his blog post for post and in fact beat his numbers by a solid eight posts for that year. Although the electoral votes still aren’t in yet.

Don't pay no never mind to the numbers for the other years. It's a painful memory.

Besides, I think if committing is good, then recommitting is better. It reminds me year in and year out of the promise I’ve made, even if I have yet to keep it.

It’s not hard for me to recommit to writing more on here.

For one reason, I’m sure you’ve already recommitted to not reading it.

Have the best 19 days ever!

Happy New Year! I think this one is going to be spectacularly great. I mean that. After all, it can't be any worse than 2016, amirite? Truth be told, I think 2017 will be the best year any of us can remember. All nineteen days of it.

I know, I can hear you saying, "But Jeff, aren't there 365 days in a year?" Well sure, in a normal year. But 2017 isn't going to be a normal year. For starters, our dipshit elect is going to be sworn in on January 20th. Which coincidentally, I believe, is the day the world as we know it will end.

We already know, and he confirms it on a daily basis, that he will be the most mentally, emotionally and morally unqualified person ever to hold the office of President of the United States. If anything good is going to happen before he gets us into a nuclear war with China, sinks the stock market, destroys the environment and makes the air unbreathable, it's going to happen in the first nineteen days of the year.

So my recommendation is live it up. Go to Vegas, fly to Paris, pour gas on the credit cards, kiss whoever's there at the moment, drive fast (I mean even faster), eat badly (I mean even worse) and get ready to go out with a big, fat, toothless, trailer-trash smile on your face.

And if for some odd, unexpected reason—a speedy impeachment (please, please, please) or an act of God (this is the prayer to answer)—he's removed from office quickly and we all manage to continue on with our lives, don't even give a second thought to the many acts of complete abandon, ribaldry and debasement you just committed.

Decency, truth or consequences for your actions won't be coming back for at least another fifty years.