June 3, 2008
Winder Up!
Images today from Winder, Georgia, whilst panhandling for Change and Hope:
A magnificent bust of Sir Richard Brevard Russell, foyer of the Barrow County Courthouse. Patron saint of Unrepentant Velocibigots, and wicked folk who like apple butter on their toast.
Next:
A brilliant fresco by Marion Sanders, circa 1939. Now this is beautiful stuff. New Deal art, commissioned during the Depression and placed in post offices throughout the country so the Common Man could enjoy and appreciate it. Most of these commissions were murals; this was a bas relief. And gorgeous it is. Weighing Cotton, it's called. I'll tell you, though: Farmer Bohannon didn't give a fumping fuck about Weighing Cotton, or Art Deco. He just wanted his God damn relief check. The fey Ivy League marioneteers in Washington wanted Bohannon to enjoy Art, though, so there you are.
I'm also amazed at how closely New Deal art resembled Soviet and Nazi art. It's all propaganda art. Jonah Goldberg could tell you a lot more about that than me. But the stylization, the Deco, the exploitative themes, gudammumighty.
Of course, Roosevelt and Stalin and Hitler were very grudging fans of each other, but can you imagine the envy Hitler and Stalin felt for Roosevelt? Sure, Stalin could persecute the kulaks and Cossacks and peasants, and Hitler could persecute the Jews and queers and Gypsies, but Roosevelt? Imagine Hitler, pissed that that fucking Roosevelt didn't take the whip to those fucking schvartzes! Oh, what he could have done! He just didn't realize that Roosevelt was taking long cool drags off those cigarettes and planning on fucking every damned citizen in the country. The only thing you have to fear is me, you cornpone motherfucker.
I digress.
Do you realize how hard it was to find that fresco? I knew it was in the post office, but the new office was built in 1962 ( by President John Fitzgerald Kennedy, neckfucked by LBJ on Air Force One November 22, 1963, they say, somewhere over Memphis, Tennessee). The old post office is now the fire station and Fire Station Museum. The museum curator didn't know what I was talking about, but the old Fire Chief sent me to a castle like building behind the old courthouse ensconcing the Russell bust (wheels within wheels, Velocibigots!) where the ancient curator there didn't know what I was talking about, either, but some other old biddy did.
And there the fresco sat, leaning against a wall instead of hanging proud.
Where was I? Oh, yes. Change. And Hope. Change? $6.75 and a Speed Racer toy.
Hope? Not a fugging sliver.
Neckfucked.
What are the tools in front of the fresco? They look more like War of Northern Aggression surgical implements than they do fireman tools.
Posted by: Arcs at June 4, 2008 8:07 AMhope has been longing for your madness in texas. come and get it, end o june. oh. and we have squirrelly shit for you to document here as well. a replica of stonehenge just 5 miles from the meet. you must consider it.
Posted by: SuperGurl at June 4, 2008 9:20 AMThere is such a mural in our old post office, now a county museum. You're right. Standard Stalinist art. Muscular, tanned, stern faced men (hey, no sallow faced, hook-wormy sharecroppers, they!) with their axes, hammers, and sickles across their shoulders. A field of amber waving grain in the background(this is cotton & corn country) with a barn and windmill(hey, toto this ain't Kansas) off to one side. The men are staring off at the horizon. To the future maybe? (Not likely... probably spotted neighbor John's sixteen year old daughter out feedin' the chickens in her nightshirt with nothin' on underneath.)
Frankly, the locals would have appreciated it more if they could'a related to it. If it showed their ancestors shootin' indians, or slaughterin' the local wildlife. Maybe sendin' a double load of cannister into a line of Yankee infantry or a couple of 'shiners tendin' their still. That would'a warmed their peapickin' hearts.
Those Yankee artists didn't know sh*t anyhow.
Wow! Two posts in two days! The Earth must be fixin' to get sucked into the Sun!
Good observation on Depression-era Peepul's Art. WPA, Stalin, Maoist, or Diego Rivera, it all looks alike. Arbeit Macht Frei. Happy Workers, toiling toward a Glorious Future. How come they never show Happy Republicans in madras patchwork Jackass Pants, toiling toward a golf handicap below 8?
Posted by: Elisson at June 4, 2008 4:20 PMUplifting, as usual.
Posted by: Bane at June 4, 2008 6:02 PMNobody could paint oppression like Diego Rivera.
His depictions of the Conquistadors makes white sharecroppers look like benevolent inn keepers. And they still hang there, in the National Palace. Too big to hide behind some old docents in a post office.
Posted by: Joan of Argghh! at June 5, 2008 7:56 AMHow did you know it was in the post office to begin with? What in the world led you down this path? Beautiful stuff, Velociman. You make me feel so ignorant sometimes.
Posted by: Jack Straw at June 5, 2008 10:33 PMwww.wpamurals.com. There's a Charles Trumbo Henry mural in Cornelia, and a Philip Guston mural in Commerce I'm going to check out tomorrow. Channel my inner Trotsky.
Posted by: Velociman at June 5, 2008 11:04 PMI've always had a liking for Thomas Hart Benton's murals. And apple butter on toast. What's so wicked about apple butter? Now mint jelly - there's something nasty. And watermelon pickles ...yech.
Posted by: PeggyU at June 5, 2008 11:46 PMMaybe (not, I adore apple butter) but if you have not blended Jalapeño jelly with cream cheese, and had it on wheat thins, well, you are just a filthy Communist now, aren't you?
Posted by: Bane at June 6, 2008 9:00 PMBane: I've had smoked salmon with cream cheese and jalapeno peppers on crackers. That's pretty fine.
Posted by: PeggyU at June 8, 2008 3:18 PMJalapeno and PBandH. Try it, the PB smoothes it out and the honey makes it sweet. Makes for painful evacuations too.
Posted by: JohnB at June 11, 2008 8:29 PMmmmmmmm.... applebutter
Posted by: The Other Mike S at June 14, 2008 3:42 AM