Leezer

paying the bills sucked

i thought i’d clean out the fridge

the bills were still there

it’s bad enough now

but when you gain fifty pounds

that monkey will too

asked to be famous

sold your soul to the devil

he’s come to collect

Because I am somewhat of a Prima Donna[1]I went to lunch at 11:30 a.m. yesterday and didn’t return until 2:00.  It wasn’t the clichéd three martini lunch; I went to Pottery Barn for some frames in which to hang my daughters’ art.  You’re undoubtedly asking yourself “Leezer, why are you supplying me with such tedious minutiae?”  And the answer is “NPR.”  NPR, unless broadcasting endless pointless drivel about the sad state of the Middle East, is a deep pool of amusement for me.  When I’m in the car listening to NPR, I’ll stretch the trip out in order to listen to the end of Terry Gross or Garrison Keilor or whomever.  “Where’s Leezer?”  My boss will ask.  “Oh I think she’s driving around Bellevue in circles listening to the radio” someone will say.

Take yesterday’s Day to Day program, for instance.  Interviewed was an English artist and transvestite named Grayson Perry, who also serves as the Art Critic for the London Times.  Perry has made it his personal crusade to improve the quality of artwork displayed in hospitals.  Perry believes that art is intended to challenge the intellect of the viewer, and is not intended to sooth and comfort.   Perry’s battle cry is “out with the row boat on the calm lake” and “In with The Crucifixion by thirteenth century artist Giotto”:

The program’s host asked the obvious question: Doesn’t a person in a hospital go there to get well, not to be challenged by art?  (She was reading my mind, as I was having second thoughts about asking my auto mechanic to tutor me in the works of Emily Dickenson.)  Perry said no.  He believes that people in hospitals need to think about their own mortality and what it means to be human.   He then cited Francis Bacon’s works as appropriate for display on hospital walls:

I can’t think of anything I’d want to see more as I’m lying on a gurney being wheeled into surgery with an IV in my arm than out of focus Pope seated in the middle of a boxing ring.  On second thought, I might assume that there was some LSD in the IV.

Taking Perry’s argument to its logical extreme, perhaps hospitals should display within each hospital department art that is relevant to the department’s function.   For example, if you are hospitalized for leg or ankle surgery, you might contemplate this photograph taken by the famous Civil War photographer Matthew Brady:

If you’re in for a hair transplant, what masterpiece would stir the intellect more than The Death of Jane McRea by the Flemish Master John Vander Lyn (1804)?

If a vasectomy is the reason for your hospital stay, your experience might be made more thought provoking by Goya’s What more can one do? From The Disasters of War (1805):

Giving birth?  Don’t be lazy.  After your admission onto the maternity ward, you might study Saturn Devouring One Of His Children (1804):

Of course, how would a visit to the neurosurgery ward to have that benign brain tumor removed be complete without contemplating Giovanni Bellini’s Head of St. John the Baptist (1464)?

 Clearly, art is in the eye of the beholder.  One man’s trash is another man’s treasure.   And speaking of trash, Leezerslawpartner refused to attend his high school reunion last summer but nonetheless read his classmates’ bios.  Apparently, one of the more intellectually talented of Leezerslawpartner’s classmates veered off the beaten path and - instead of venturing into politics or medicine - decided to take pictures of ladies with weeds stuck to their lady parts. 

Mr. Sargeant and Grayson Perry should put their heads together and come up with a unified hospital art-plan (UHAP).   Perhaps together they could petition the Cedars-Sinai Medical Center to display Sargeant’s photographs in the waiting room of the labor and delivery ward.

[1] Highly paid professional with enormous sense of entitlement.

Grocery Clerk 1:  I can’t figure out why I’m so tired today [yawning].

Grocery Clerk 2:  I think it’s the weather.  [It was sunny and 68 degrees]

Grocery Clerk 1: No, I think it’s my intestinal parasites.

It is 3 a.m

i hear a crash and a bang

holly exploring

buisness in the front

party in the back, and a

bay window below

my little squirrel

you are quite resourceful sans

opposable thumbs

My boss to new employee:  I’ve talked you up, and they’re looking forward to meeting you.

New employee:  Can I trust them?

My boss:  They’ll tell you if you have spinach in your teeth.