josh pincus is crying

This week’s Illustration Friday’s challenge word is “brave”.

John Sedgwick graduated from the United States Military Academy at West Point in 1837. He entered the artillery as a lieutenant and fought uneventfully in the Seminole Wars and the Mexican-American War. However, upon his return from Mexico and he entered the U.S. Cavalry as a major.

Sedgwick became a colonel at the start of the Civil War. He missed combat action at the Battle of Bull Run, as he was recovering from cholera. Promoted to brigadier general, he commanded his own regimen at Yorktown and Seven Pines and was wounded at the Battle of Glendale. Afterwards, he was promoted to major general. He was wounded again at the Battle of Antietam and his corps arrived to late at the Battle of Gettysburg.

But it was at the Battle of Spotsylvania Court House that Major General John Sedgwick gained his dubious fame. His regimen was preparing for battle against the left flank of Confederate forces. Major General Sedgwick was directing the placement of artillery, when his troops came under fire from a handful of Confederate snipers about a thousand yards away. Sedgwick strode around bravely, out in the open, as his men dove for cover behind rocks and trees. Angrily, Sedgwick berated his men. “What are you doing?,” he asked, as his men cowered. He continued his ranting, “Hiding from single bullets? What will you do when they open fire along the whole line? I am ashamed of you. They couldn’t hit an elephant at this distance!” At that moment, a bullet struck Sedgwick in the head. He died instantly.

This week’s challenge word on the Illustration Friday website is “perspective”.

Giorgio de Chirico was a pre-surrealistic painter and an early influence on Salvador Dalí. His works from the early twentieth century were jumbled assemblages of shapes and arches and empty buildings and mannequins in skewed perspective and random placement. As his career progressed, he adopted a classic style, reminiscent of old masters like Raphael. He also spoke out as an opponent of the modern art movement. Even later in his career, he began painting in a Baroque style, heavily influenced by Peter Paul Rubens. Curiously, during this time, de Chirico began creating back-dated self-forgeries of his earlier work for the sole purpose of profit. He denounced his early originals as fakes.

He remained prolific until his death in 1978 at age 90.

In spite of how it was presented in his paintings, Giorgio de Chirico actually had a great sense of perspective. He was just fucking with us.

This week’s challenge word on the Illustration Friday website is “propagate“.

In reference to the ever-propagating Duggar family, I’m reminded of a quote (often, but incorrectly) attributed to Groucho Marx—
“I love my cigar, but at least I take it out once in a while.”

This week’s Illustration Friday challenge is “adrift”.

Calvin was adrift for days before he realized he was in a giant pot of soup.

This week Illustration Friday challenge word is “muddy”.

Twenty-eight and a half inches of snow fell on Philadelphia today and it got me thinking about warmer times.

On the first Saturday of June 2008, my family and I attended The Appel Farm Arts and Music Festival, an annual outdoor all-day concert. This particular show was the twentieth anniversary of the event and included such diverse performers as nerd rockers They Might Be Giants, crossover folkie Suzanne Vega, singer-songwriter Marc Cohn, 80s retro-rockers Smithereens (see my post about Smithereens frontman Pat DiNizio elsewhere on this blog) and several other lesser-known performers.

We drove a little over an hour to Elmer, a sleepy South Jersey town with a population of just over 1300. Elmer is the home of Appel Farm, a facility that, in addition to the presenting the annual Arts and Music Festival, operates a day camp for 9 to 17 year-olds. On the day of the festival, the camp amenities were closed and off-limits to the concert-going faithful. This presented a potential problem because on this particular day, the temperature at the concert grounds was in excess of 100 degrees with 100 percent humidity. At 9 AM as we passed through the entrance gates, each of us laden with bottled water and other supplies, we were already perspiring like decathlon runners. We were greeted by a crystal-blue in-ground swimming pool surrounded by a fifteen foot high chain-link fence and a huge fluorescent yellow sign printed with a single word —”CLOSED” — in large angry capital black letters. We joined the crowd of attendees trudging off to secure a cool spot on the grassy audience area. As the masses plodded along the macadam walkway, heads turned and longingly eyed the forbidden pool.

We dropped our gear on the hot grass, unfurled our blanket and, each of us grabbing a bottled of water, readied ourselves for a full day of musical entertainment. The grounds boasted two stages, each nestled in a protective cover of trees and separated by a large flat field whose perimeter was lined with local artisans displaying their wares. Off to one side of the field were several food vendors offering selections of veggie-based hippie food along with the standard over-priced hot dogs and burgers.

The scheduled performers alternated from one stage to the other. If one wished to see all of the performances, a trek across the vendors’ field was required. As the day progressed, the temperature rose like the visible steam coming off the grass. It was hot, hotter than anyone could remember. People were dumping their water bottles over their our heads. Some clever patrons came with spray bottles filled with water and kept them stowed in their coolers along with their drinks and snacks. Everyone was visibly uncomfortable and many were obviously sizing up a plan to get to that pool.

 Around four o’clock, my wife, my son and I were walking back to our plot at the big stage after an energetic performance from They Might Be Giants. As we crossed the field, we spotted a crowd gathered just to the right of the fenced-in pool. As is the policy at most public swimming pools, a shower is required before entering. Appel Farm’s was no different. A large, industrial-looking pipe rose six feet out of a small concrete block embedded in the grass. The pipe was topped with a curved showerhead and long chain for activation. This set-up was outside of the confining fence and was discovered by several of the concert-going youth. The shower was situated on a sloped area that I suppose assisted in drainage. In a scene reminiscent of Woodstock, the children were soaking themselves under the shower and them sliding in the muddy runoff that was now flooding the slope of grass. The more the shower ran, the muddier the grass became. The muddier the grass became, the more kids joined in. They rushed from all directions, stripping down to shorts (some to underwear) and diving head first into the murky turf and dousing the crowd with big sloppy spatters. Some rolled around in the sodden but cooling grass. Others dropped handfuls of drippy ooze on their heads and bodies. The whole scene brought to mind a primitive tribal ritual. We were mesmerized, though not enough to join in. We hurried off the catch Marc Cohn’s set, the final act of the day. Marc, we agreed, would have to be phenomenal in order to top the performance we just witnessed.

The weekly challenge on the Illustration Friday website is “focused”.

Andy Warhol fooled everyone. The iconic pioneer in pop art and experimental film was fully focused on one thing, and one thing only — making money. He took everyday objects — Campbell’s soup, flowers, knives, Coca-Cola, Brillo scouring pads — and forced the public to view them as art. He painted them as any artist would paint a portrait or a still life. He put them on display and said it was “art”, so it was. And he did it because he knew the public would buy what they were familiar with. Andy said this about his fascination with Coca-Cola:

“What’s great about this country is that America started the tradition where the richest consumers buy essentially the same things as the poorest. You can be watching TV and see Coca Cola, and you know that the President drinks Coca Cola, Liz Taylor drinks Coca Cola, and just think, you can drink Coca Cola, too. A coke is a coke and no amount of money can get you a better coke than the one the bum on the corner is drinking. All the cokes are the same and all the cokes are good. Liz Taylor knows it, the President knows it, the bum knows it, and you know it.”

In the 1970s, he painted commissioned portraits of rich celebrities, including Liza Minelli, Elizabeth Taylor, Michael Jackson and The Shah of Iran. Andy said of these portraits, “Making money is art, and working is art and good business is the best art.”

His controversial films — “Sleep” showing poet John Giorno sleeping for six hours and “Eat” consisting of a man eating a mushroom for 45 minutes — were early examples of “art films” and forerunners to performance artists. But, Andy’s goal was to stir up enough interest to entice people to view his films, and in turn, make more money.

Sure, Andy Warhol was a great innovator and forever changed the art world. But he also said, “An artist is somebody who produces things that people don’t need to have.”

Andy Warhol died in New York City on February 22, 1987. He had been making a good recovery from a routine gallbladder surgery when he died in his sleep from a sudden post-operative cardiac arrhythmia.

This week’s challenge word on the Illustration Friday website is “clumsy”.
This is the second illustration I’ve done for this topic. HERE is the first.

There is an unwritten rule among laboratory workers and those who carry out experiments. NO EATING IN THE LAB! Alexander Graham Bell’s famous words weren’t “Watson, come here! I need you! And bring me a sandwich!” Thomas Edison didn’t invent the incandescent light bulb so he could better see his barbecued brisket. If only Vladimir Likhonos, a young chemistry student from the Ukraine, had followed that simple rule.

25 year-old Vladimir was fond of chewing gum and had gotten into the habit of dipping his gum into citric acid to prolong the flavor. Vladimir was working with some volitile chemicals in a lab. He had two similar looking plates before him. One contained powdered citric acid and one contained a powdered form of an extremely powerful explosive. Vladimir dipped his gum into one of the plates and popped it into his mouth. The combination of his chewing and his saliva caused a reaction and — BOOM! — Vladimir had dipped his gum into the wrong plate.

Emergency workers found Vladimir dead, with his bottom jaw blown off and most of the lower part of his face gone.

This week’s challenge word on the Illustration Friday website is “clumsy”.

Tennessee Williams was one of the greatest American playwrights. He wrote The Glass Menagerie, A Streetcar Named Desire, The Rose Tattoo  and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, to name just a few.

Williams used eyedrops on a daily basis and had a ritual in which he applied them. He would sit down, unscrew the cap and place it in his mouth. He’d draw the precise amount of liquid into the eyedropper, lean his head back and, with a gentle squeeze of the rubber bulb, let the drops fall into his eye. On February 24, 1983, in his room at the Hotel Elysee in New York, Williams choked to death on an eyedropper bottle cap.

This week’s challenge on Illustration Friday is “wilderness”.

After several days, Boffo decided that the wilderness was no place for a clown.

The current challenge on the Illustration Friday is “confined”.

Colleen Stan’s seven year nightmare began when she was hitching a ride to a friend’s birthday party in May 1977.

Twenty-year old Colleen accepted a ride from a couple with a baby. While they drove, the man, Cameron Hooker, made idle conversation with Colleen as she sat in the back seat with his wife, Janice, and the baby. Soon, Hooker drove to a remote area and shut off the car’s engine. Janice took the baby and left the car. Colleen was confused, until Hooker put a knife to her throat and told her he would kill her if she didn’t do as he instructed. Hooker blindfolded and handcuffed Colleen. Janice returned to the car and they resumed driving. Unknown to Colleen, Hooker had made a deal with his wife. He would allow her to have a baby and, in exchange, he would be allowed have a fantasy slave.

They arrived at the Hooker home and Colleen was led to the basement where she was stripped naked and hung by her wrists several feet off the ground. Hooker and his wife had sex on the floor beneath Colleen. Sometime later, Hooker returned alone to beat and torture Colleen. He did this regularly, sometimes several times a day. When she wasn’t being tortured, Colleen was confined to a locked wooden box hidden beneath Hooker’s bed. After seven months of regular beatings and rapes, Colleen was forced by Hooker to sign a slavery contract that he had prepared. He convinced Colleen that their activity — their every move— was being watch by a powerful, all-seeing organization called “The Company”. He created an elaborate story about “The Company” finding her family and killing them if she tried to escape. Constant reinforcement of this idea eventually brainwashed Colleen. Her daily routine of torture, beatings and rape continued for years, as did her confinement to the wooden box.

After four years, Colleen was granted privileges including permission to work in the Hooker’s yard and care for the Hooker’s children. (Janice had delivered a second baby on the bed under which Colleen was held captive.) Colleen was even allowed to visit her family, while accompanied by Hooker posing as her boyfriend. She was so terrified by the idea of “The Company” that she did not dare reveal the truth about her situation to her parents. She appeared happy and smiling. Her parents were concerned at first, but they were so pleased to see her, they didn’t wish to pressure her, fearing they’d never see her again.

Hooker told Janice he wanted more slaves. Janice was fearful of her husband for years, but that suggestion was all she could take. After seven years, in August 1984, while Hooker was at work,  Janice told Colleen “The Company” didn’t exist. She drove Colleen to the bus station and then went to the police. Janice told of Colleen’s abduction, the torture, the beatings and the brainwashing. She eventually testified in court against her husband. Hooker was sentenced to 104 years in prison. Janice and Colleen were relocated with new identities.