Wednesday, September 10, 2008

The Rain is But a Pretext for the Raincoat



1. If I could paint, I would make an wall sized portrait of two boys I saw in the metro last weekend. They were dressed in suits and dress shoes, and situated at that particular border of adolescence at which they may or may not be old enough to be pallbearers and wedding ushers. They sat across from each other, propping up their feet on each other's seats, communicating hilarious messages back and forth in short, low tones. Liberated from the event that required formal behavior, they experienced a secret shared thrill from being so elegant in the metro together. I would paint them like that: young and happy together.

2. As a grad student, I have noticed that it is useful to say that thing B is just a pretext for thing A. Example: The photograph is just a pretext for the painting. The jar of rasperry preserves was just a pretext for the sandwich as a whole, for the diagonal line. The diagonal line is just a pretext for getting to know you better. Try it! The umbrella...

3. My roof doesn't look anything like this photo, but I can't get my camera out of the delayed shot setting. Help!

1 comment:

Jessica said...

i think you should go ahead and paint that. or get some watercolor pencils and do it, because whatever you make i'm sure will be wonderful. we keep missing each other on skype. sigh.