Fun day yesterday. Carole got a Thanksgiving spread of cold cuts, pasta, potato salad, ham, turkey, beef, pickles, cucumbers, refried beans, hot sauce and pumpkin pie. We met in the conference room at noon and had a feast and it was delightful. Jana was in the house, so we laughed and laughed. Dave and Doreen Daiss came with their son (he’s 30).
Ted landed TNT, and we talked about dealing with a certain problem client, who is a pain in the tootie (as Carole would say).
Worked all morning on finishing the Dalton Raid copy for Classic Gunfights. Finally finished tweaking all the cutlines and layout after lunch. Left around 2:15 and came home to do artwork.
Got a good wash going on the Dalton disguises. They supposedly wore fake whiskers and almost everyone in Coffeyville recognized them anyway, so the disguises couldn’t have been that good. It’s a bit of a challenge to illustrate this: how do you make a mustache and goatee look not real? Let me tell you, it ain’t as easy as it sounds. In fact, I’ve been bending the shape and tone of it to make it unreal and I’ve created some of the best looking Real mustaches I’ve ever painted (see sketches).
Worked until around 5:40. Went over to the house and built a fire in the fireplace, and started cooking. Made a batch of spaghetti and cooked salmon for Kathy.
Warning: major negativity ahead. If you are depressed or off your meds, do not read.
Everything conspires against “history.” Almost nothing is remembered accurately. Photographs are lost, destroyed, misidentified. Oldtimers make up windies, eye-witnesses can’t agree two seconds after the event. The fix is in: you can’t retrieve the past, or the truth. It’s all an approximation. I have vivid memories of the 1950s, but of course they are from the perspective of a kid. Last weekend when I was watching the film “Far From Heaven,” which is an homage to Fifties movies, I was constantly nitpicking the cars. Too shiny, too new, too Classic Car Show. I’m guessing that some car group was invited to the movie set to show off their cars. So you had all these cherry autos lined up and down the street, with several ‘57 T-Birds parked prominently. I realize Todd Haynes (the director) was doing the idealized Fifties, but it still bugs me. It’s just false, faux, fake, a cheap abberation. It’s ultimately depressing. Why do we try? What difference does it make?
“The great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie –deliberate, contrived, and dishonest -- but the myth –-persistent, persuasive, and unrealistic.”
—John Fitzgerald Kennedy
“The world is full of cactus, but we don't have to sit on them.”
—Old Vaquero Saying