Redtree Times

I couldn’t write about painting this morning. I think it was the specter of yesterday’s meeting of the Generals, with the president’s spoken threat and desire to pit our military against the citizens of this country. If anyone still had any doubts as to what is happening, yesterday’s little get-together, along with last week’s nightmare address to the UN, should have dispelled them. Throw in the government shutdown along with so many other atrocities that have become everyday occurrences that don’t even raise an eyebrow, and it is obvious that we are treading in deep, dangerous waters.

Writing about my work seemed out of place this morning. So, let me rerun a post from several years about someone else’s work, namely Edward Gorey. Actually, I just wanted to post the clip at the bottom which is tangentially connected with Gorey. I needed to hear the defiant sound of this version of La Marseillaise from Casablanca this morning. It always fills me with hope.

I love the work of the late great illustrator Edward Gorey which very often took matters to dark and quirky places. His Gashlycrumb Tinies, a primer style book with small children being done in in a variety of curious ways, is a prime example. I’ve shown a few here. At face value, it’s awful yet there is a quality to it that still makes you smile at the macabre absurdity of it.

It’s often thought that Gorey, who passed away in 2000 at the age of 75, was English, mainly because much of his work looks very Victorian and Edwardian. Lots of well-appointed gentlemen and gowned matrons brandishing cigarette holders. However, he was from Chicago and lived most of his life there, in NYC and on Cape Cod, where he died. He actually only left the USA once in his lifetime.

One little factoid that interested me was that one of his stepmothers was the actress who played the cabaret musician who sang and played guitar in the movie Casablanca. She was playing the guitar during one of my all-time favorite scenes which featured Resistance fighter Victor Lazlo leading the band in a rousing version of the French anthem, La Marseillaise, that drowned out the singing of the Nazis in Rick’s bar. I guess that doesn’t mean much as far as Edward Gorey’s work but I thought it was a neat little detail.

I also like the quote at the top from Gorey. It’s one of those realizations that come only with the passing of time, after years of trying to fit one’s self into a mode of behavior that is acceptable to others. At a certain point one realizes that they don’t have to satisfy anyone’s expectations or beliefs but their own. It’s the beginning of freedom.

Anyway, have a good and Gorey day.