American Fez

Polyphemus in Polyester

You will pleased to hear that the spirit of adventure is alive and well within my hardy, optimistic soul. At least it is now that warmer temperatures have finally arrived and the Calypso of Spring is singing her alluring song. Last weekend, for instance, armed only with a GPS equipped smartphone, protein bars and refillable water bottle, I cycled down an unfamiliar path towards an unknown destination. Who knew to what obscure Jurassic wildernesses such previously unexplored trails may lead? I could have pitched up, Lord preserve me, marooned at some godforsaken Java Shack table, rather than discovering the promised land of that independently-owned, fair trade cafe I had heard so much about. Nevertheless, I embarked upon my expedition with all the optimism of an Argonaut of old, assuming they also rolled up their pant legs to prevent oil stains from getting on them.
As I rode pluckily along the dusty, unmapped road, flanked by alien chain-link fences, unkempt hedges, padlocked warehouses and all sorts of strange urban detritus, I was inspired to recall the epic quest of Odysseus in Homer's poem, eventually concluding that there were absolutely no similarities between his heroic seafaring exploits and my leisurely afternoon jaunt. Except that I also found my progress blocked by a man-eating cyclops. Alas, nice weather apparently brings out these classical horrors from their wintry lairs as well.
This cyclops was really just a novice rollerblader, dangerously flailing around in a ludicrous outfit of over-sized protective pads and lurid spandex. I'm only assuming he was also the one-eyed monster of myth because his peripheral vision was obviously severely limited. In fact, the ungainly beast seemed completely ignorant of any other objects in his immediate vicinity, be they animal, vegetable or plastic bag full of illegally dumped household trash.
I was filled with dread and apprehension as I approached, lest I be knocked down by a savage whack from his windmilling arms or one of his wildly dangling, wheeled feet. Fortunately, right before I entered striking distance, his knees buckled, his legs locked, the rollerblades skidded and screeched, and the cyclops uttered a blood-curdling yelp before veering off into a ditch at terminal velocity. Thus are the imitation terrors of antiquity hoist by their own petard.
Since this particular nemesis destroyed himself, I can't claim any great feats of strength during the course of my adventure. I'm more Argonought than Argonaut. It is unlikely that tribes would huddle spellbound around their campfires to hear sonorous bards sing tales of my uninteresting deeds; nor would any lyric poets be moved to compose lengthy verses about my relatively uneventful journey, except maybe Philip Larkin. So perhaps it wasn't worth writing a blog about it, either? Oh well. Too late now.

Orders From Porlock

Alas, there will be no missive from me this week, besides this one, obviously. Despite the Rite of Spring being performed everywhere else, my tiny crumb of Earth is still snowed under with work. It is a profound woe of life that a brown smudge of triviality like work can dominate the mind to such deleterious effect. Nevertheless, I should be thankful, I suppose, that I still have a job, even a soul-crushing one like mine can be at times.

Desert Island Discs

I've always considered the concept of "Desert Island Discs" to be profoundly flawed. Castaways usually base their musical choices on soundtracks for specific occasions or moods, rather than the harsh realities of being stuck on a desolate beach for decades, looking like a cross between Moses and the Last of the Mohicans. How can anyone possibly guess which songs or tunes they might draw comfort from when abandoned to such a barbarous fate?
Sitting safe at home, surrounded by all the conveniences of the developed world, you might idly decide that both Dubussy's La Mer and Bobby Darin singing Beyond the Sea would be ideal discs to bring to your desert island. Later, however, when you're actually squatting by the  remorseless shore with only a single palm tree leaf to protect your head from the unbearable heat, with nothing to drink but briny water and stale coconut milk, when only endless wave after endless wave of an indifferent ocean can be seen upon the watery horizon, then you might find yourself growing a trifle weary of listening to La Mer and Beyond the Sea and wish you'd brought Johann Strauss' Tales From The Vienna Woods instead.
Most people's musical preferences can change with the weather too, quite literally. Eight tunes chosen on a rainy day might suddenly  seem inadequate when sun finally breaks through the clouds, and vice versa. But anyone marooned on a desert island will probably experience a preponderance of sunny days, so logic might compel him to err on the side of cheerful songs (with one moody chanson set aside for the - hopefully brief - monsoon season).
Then there is the question of Man Friday's feelings: should we take his musical taste into account or just please ourselves? A knotty problem made even more Gordian by the fact that we would be obviously unaware of what type of music Man Friday liked when departing from the initial shipwreck. There are so many convoluted administrative issues requiring resolution before any actual disc choice is made that the sane castaway is tempted to choose no discs at all, and listen solely, as Robinson Crusoe must have done, to the songs of local seabirds while the wind strums across the sand.
Personal maturity also plays an important role in desert island disc selection. That pop song once thought so profound in teenage years, for example, gradually loses its appeal as the former fan drifts ever nearer to the coast of fifty; its place in the list of essential discs is usurped by the symphonies of composers who've been dead for centuries, live tapes of obscure jazz groups playing in long demolished basements, or possibly even ancient recordings of some grimy hobo playing the banjo in a cow field. Such highbrow discs as those are a guarantee of tropical sophistication, so I suppose we can excuse an item of pop juvenilia also, if you really want one, just for nostalgia's sake (even though pop music is clearly the bane of any cultured eardrum).
Of course, the most depressing aspect of making any musical selection is discovering how mundane and conventional your final choices actually are. You may regard yourself as an exceptionally progressive intellectual who enjoys the works of Stockhausen and Anton Webern, but when the last lifeboat is leaving and decisions need to be made, well, few sane listeners would wish to be stuck with that challenging pair on a desert island for eternity. So at the eleventh hour, like every other castaway, you will surely seize upon run-of-the-mill classics such as Jupiter, Bringer of Joy and The Lark Ascending instead.
The best desert island discs, then, would appear to be a broad selection of refined yet still humdrum genre melodies that lack any semblance of an aquatic theme. The aim should be to conjure inspirational memories of a previous, more congenial and civilized lifestyle, and also attempts to relieve the endless tedium while not provoking hostilities with Man Friday or whatever ravenous wildlife might be sniffing around your makeshift camp. I would offer some suggestions here, but I don't wish to boast of my own exquisite taste and culturally advanced sensibility. Suffice it say, many of my favorites require an ancient 78 RPM phonograph with a cranking handle; Edwardian technology that I'm certain Man Friday would love to learn how to operate for me.

The Social Zeitgeist and Me

For quite some time I believed that the surgical scar running vertically down my chest was just an unsightly blemish on an otherwise pristine torso; a post-operative skid mark between two nipples, rather like a smudge of screeching tires bisecting a pair of traffic cones in a failed driving test. As spring approaches, however, I realize that scar tissue can be quite the social boon; a conversation piece for the gruesomely inclined; a fibrous bond between disfigured individuals who share a common medical experience. Almost everybody loves exhibiting their scars for the morbid scrutiny of others, and any gathering can become an arena for such normally private exposures.
In fact, encouraged by the success of this blog with the teenage ghoul demographic, I was actively seeking an interactive, web-based forum for iPhone pictures of my more graphic welts and bruises. I researched all of the popular image hosting sites, eventually settling on Pinterest: a sort of online cork board where members pin items that they consider to be inspiring.
My first Pinterest board is called "The Emperor Adds A Red Sash To His New Clothes," and contains various photographs of my chest incision scar taken over a six month period. I can already boast of accumulating seven followers since my board went live. For some reason they are mostly goth rockers from Berlin who call me the George Grosz of post-expressionist cardio-representational art.

Of course, the key to producing quality visual art, besides the infamous rule of thirds, is proportion. For example, the artist only needs to sit at an alfresco cafe in the Piazza San Marco to observe how the ridiculous verticality of the Campanile ruins the harmony of the otherwise short and squat buildings in the square, making it impossible for tourists to capture good, all-encompassing shot of everything suitable for their "Travel" board on Pinterest.
Consequently, when framing photographs, I ensure that the angry red streak of my scar is proportionally balanced by any other vertical elements in the composition. These are usually limited to extremely coarse chest hairs and whatever type of drink I may have accidentally dribbled over myself while fiddling with the camera. The results don't really bear comparison with the mastery of Grosz's colorful paintings, obviously, but I certainly wouldn't feel ashamed to stand shoulder to shoulder with, say, the works of Alberto Giacometti or blue period Picasso.
I guess I consider myself to be an "outsider artist," a figurehead of the pinning zeitgeist, whose confrontational images permeate their way into public consciousness via Pinterest, rather than by means of a conventional gallery showroom. If you are interested, my scar photography can also be liked on Facebook, followed on your Twitter feed, located on Foursquare (I'm already mayor of my incision), and are available for purchase on Cafe Press as anatomically correct t-shirts (as long as you are roughly the same size and build as I am). Enjoy!