WHAT A TURKEY!

My cousin Tanya has about 2000 followers on Twitter.

 

 

I know that's not terribly impressive but to me it seems incredible. You see, when we were kids, my parents used to bribe me in order to get me to play with her. She always had this wonderful talent for alienating people.

It's not that she was ugly (though she was far from pretty - I think the proper term of art back then was that she was 'plain'). And she wasn't especially mean or at least she wasn't any meaner than the rest of us. I think she just gave off this invisible disagreeable indiscernible aura that was nonetheless unmistakably palpably and annoyingly bad.

 

Now that she's in her twenty's and is over-educated and under-employed and since she never fully outgrew her ability to repel the people around her she has embraced social media with grateful and ravenous dedication. 

Though (or because) her observations, pensées and
aperçus are dull and predictable and are rarely about anything even remotely approaching consequence she manages to attract loyal devotées who eagerly await her every quip.

She started working out recently (did I mention that she was always somewhat dumpy) and I have to say that after shedding 30 extraneous pounds she does look a lot more fetching, at least from behind.

 

With her new body has come a new wardrobe and her double-jointed dexterity with her cell phone has enabled her to approach the tricky art of the postable selfie with mastery and ingenuity.

 

 

But honestly -

 

My parents still have to bribe me to join her and her family for Thanksgiving.

THE FINAL COFFIN NAILS

I recently fell in with a small gaggle of fairly disreputable artists whose work, though marginal and at times fairly sentimental, nonetheless effectively remind us of the lamentable yet irreversible death of painting.

All associated with the the Southern California Figurative Art Collective or SCFAC, these guys -and they're mostly guys - consider themselves the best and last bastion of artistic integrity and craft. Far from Luddite, these fellas never met a digital photograph they didn't love. They literally cream in their collective jeans at the appearance of any new electronic graphic gizmo or picture enhancing app. Where they differ from most techno-nerds is in their obnoxious evangelism.

Yahweh Was Here, acrylic on wood panel, Gary C. Crest 2013

Gary C. Crest, a thirty year-old former fitness trainer, has a thing for churches. With bright acrylic paint which he redundantly shmears with the loving disdain of a gravy-stained deli man, Crest falls on the decadent side of Saenredam and Hendrick van Vliet. Known more as a teacher than as an artist, his work is little known outside a small circle of smitten sophomores and sympathetic family members.

Cute Children, oil on linen, Jimmy Ballarta 2014

Jimmy Ballarta is, I'm afraid, of an entirely different level of magnitude. It's been suggested by more acerbic observers than myself that Ballarta should go into partnership with a dentist, such is the confectionery nature of his hideous grisailles. One can only hope that this grievous offender against Western Civilization looses all his own teeth save for the one that aches him.

Sean Har-Nof desrves a few grace notes for his choice of subject matter.

Danton #73, acrylic on paper, Sean Har-Nof 2014

With the obsession of a Cézanne he has chosen a motif and has produced literally hundreds of variations upon his limited theme. His Mont St. Victoire is none other than my beautiful and erudite colleague Dahlia Danton. But unlike the great master of the late 19th century, Har-Nof lacks both vision and talent.

Why Danton agreed to this indignity only thickens the enigma behind this brazen waste of paint.

Knowing Danton, she probably thought it would boost her career.

Sorry Dahlia ... wrong pony ...