Saturday, February 2, 2013

14.



The evolution of youth
as a function of its environment--
the art of slicing and dicing 
our genes into acid-washed,
frayed-kneed mutations of cool--
can be most elegantly studied
by sequencing the posters
on the walls of a room. 

So if in middle school I was 
The Little Mermaid--
naive and sheltered, 
embarrassingly simple, really--
by college I had to be many things, 
simultaneously and emphatically:

R.E.M.,
Van Gogh,
Star Wars,
The X-Files,
and, of course, 
the irrepressible Jane Austen.

The key was to cover every inch
and leave no room for indecision. 

This self-curated,
iconographical assault
(now pinned to walls with
considerably more white space
via Twitter, Blogger, Facebook, etc.)
seemed to be saying,

"Here I am!
Feel free to read that Starry Night 
as a shorthand for Sarah.

(whoever that is . . .
get back to me later, maybe?) 

But I know I like these guys
as opposed to those.
They speak to me. 

Does one of them
(probably . . . no?)
speak to you
so we could talk
or something?"



--
These days, I favor Matisse, Picasso and the smiling faces of our kids, one of whom will pay me back someday for posting that picture of her cheesy poster when she's transitioned into her whatever's-the-2020-equivalent-of-Nirvana phase. Angry Birds, on the other hand, will stay eternally cool. 

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

I love this. I was smiling hugely by the end.

Ah, the Nirvana phase. :)

I can't believe you are doing one of these each day. I really can't.

Amazing.

Sarah Hina said...

Quick--favorite Nirvana album? (Mine is sort of a cheat: MTV Unplugged!)

And I know you had a Pearl Jam poster. I JUST KNOW it.

I'm trying not to think too much about doing one-a-day. And yet, a little voice piped up today and whispered, almost halfway there...

:)

Charles Gramlich said...

My tastes aren't very sophisticated, I'm afraid.

the walking man said...

I am so mid 20th century that I only know angry birds are the ones that get basted. And they are over being angry.

God knows this is a wonderful progression of your (everyone's) life Sarah.

I wasn't much of a poster paster but I have my memories to sustain me.

These days I am still enamored of the way the Peale family used light and color in their portraits and still life paintings. But I also could be seduced by the 16th century European Religious and Secular paintings as well.

Sarah Hina said...

Charles, authentic enjoyment beats sophistication any day.

Mark, of all the pre-Impressionist painters, I think Vermeer might be my favorite. There's a touch of magic in the way some of those painters represented light.

Aniket Thakkar said...

Did I tell you that I visited Picasso's art school in Spain?

Did you smoke a lot of pot in college? You did look kinda high in that picture of you in paris.

Okay, now I'm listening to - The man who sold the world.

Sarah Hina said...

I never smoked pot in college. For real.

I was an exceptionally boring college girl.

Now I'm depressed. I might have to start listening to REM again.

Aniket Thakkar said...

Nah, freaky college parties are over-rated.

But I do wonder, what sort of things you would right when you let loose your mind. Write something when you are shit-drunk next time, will you?

Sarah Hina said...

I meant to respond to this days ago!

And I don't even have alcohol to blame.

I HAVE tried writing drunk. It's a depressing endeavor and I don't get very far.

But next time. Just for you, Aniket. And you can WEEP at the results (or laugh, more likely).