All Poway, CA is abuzz with excitement. In just three month’s the city’s new jewel in its urban tiara, the $187.2 million CowboyMetrics Museum will open. And no one is prouder than the museum’s curator “Tex” Roland. “I’m just fit to bust,” said the beaming Tex. “For decades now, folks plain just associated cowpokes with roping, herding, and advanced statistics. Well, . . .” Tex stops to spit expertly on a red ant. “. . . that just ain’t true no more. We have our sensitive, avant-garde side, too.”
Indeed. Yesterday, Tex the famed rodeo king and speedy inverter of matrices, favored me with a private tour of his cutting edge museum. How would I describe the place? Should I start with the goose bumps on my arms, the shiver running up an down my spine, the rumbling in my bowels? How about the gratis lavish jumbo Gulf spread or the sumptuous Swedish meatball bar both supervised by the internationally acclaimed chef Pierre Le Boeuf?
No, let’s start with the breath-taking canvases. I gazed intently at two giant green squares, one atop the other, on a bold in-your-face white canvas. “That looks like a double-green square from Candyland, you know that game played as kids,” I said to Tex. “Sure, it is,” said the worthy curator. “Candyland is plum near the alpha and omega of modern art. Milton Bradley might have done made that game to entertain the youngin’s of this great land, but they also done said the final word in modern art. There ain’t been no more artists of any note since Candyland came on the scene.”
“What about Jackson Pollock?” I said.
“Pre-Candyland,” said Tex.
And you know he was right. I walked subdued down the long hallways overhung with massive Bohemian chandeliers and on floors made with the finest Tuscan marble. On the walls hung paintings of all the Candyland playing cards done up in fine style on vibrant white canvases from Pierre of Paris. There they were, red squares, blue ones, double greens, and there, there, in a room all by itself, Queen Frostine on forty-five foot canvas.
Well, humanity has truly reached the pinnacle of artistic brilliance in our lifetime. But, I don’t know whether to swell with pride or cry.
- Paul R. De Lancey, First Lord of Fun
visit his blogsite at www.lordsoffun.com
How come we have never heard any American president fart at a press conference? True, the percentage of one’s day devoted to tooting is rather small. However, by now our august leaders have logged tens of thousands of press conferences without a single toot. How many of us have even gone ten hours without letting it rip?
