It's nothing new when artists or figures of genius proportions are lauded, studied and replicated once they're dead.
I was at the museum last week. Mistakenly, I went on a Saturday. Even with high ceilings and central air, the place was a zoo. All types of sounds, smells and sights in housed in a space designed to crystallize genius immortality.
We all came to see this artist's exhibit. It doesn't matter who, because the point is, he's dead and more relevant than a god or terrorists. Which actually may be a better figure to worship...
His, the artist that is, his journal entries were on exhibit. His journals. Each page was torn out, probably with a laser, and then framed. Some were enclosed in Plexiglas, as if the fumes from his number two pencil needed to be protected by our raunchy breath.
I'll tell you, I am no better than the people who were taking photos of his scribbles, doodles and smudges. I was there to ogle too. Maybe catch a whiff of whatever artistic genius that wasn't enclosed behind bullet proof glass.
It wasn't until I saw a framed composition notebook page that was only filled with three words:
1. milk
2. bread
3. ink
I got irrationally angry. So angry that I wanted to rip down the frames, punch the Plexiglas and steal each page from the walls, away from everyone's stoic gazes.
This man's grocery list is up for display along with the inner workings of years' worth of torment, glee, doubt and in this case, hunger. And it's all displayed neatly, cleanly, under high security cameras and fluorescent lab lighting; when I bet when these journals were alive,
they were run over,
stepped on
crinkled,
cut,
spat on,
ashed on,
burnt
and even drowned.
If I owned these pages, I'd be one of two things: pissed that my secrets are revealed, or piss drunk laughing at how my grocery list is framed, like I'm some god damn marvel of human nature.
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