Just another speechless-rendering moment in Trump world. Off in the corner I can hear Rod Serling laughing, “My God! I could always find the passage to the Twilight Zone in the normal. I had no idea that the normal would become stranger than the Twilight Zone ever was!”
Yes, Rod, if you had written any of this, they would have called you a madman and worse, a hack fabulist of the improbable and the unlikely, an insulter of people’s intelligence. But here in Trump world, we are used to outrage, it’s as common as salt on the table and the axiom is, “Trump world is not only stranger than anything you can believe, it is stranger than anything you can even imagine.”
Imagination was the key used to unlock the door to the Twilight Zone and stupidity, raised exponentially to psychosis, flavored with religious hysteria and served on a bed of primal fear, seems to be the key to Trump world. We guess. We’ve been doing nothing for years now but trying to figure it out. Our best minds can’t decipher the meaning of all this and we’ve heard from the worlds of psychology, sociology, political science, history and journalism. And all we know for sure, is that it’s going to get crazier still, each and every day, until it’s done.
Actually, Rod, the real reason we called you is because this is something out of Night Gallery.
Here’s the newest apparition in Trump world, yours for a mere $7,500, the perfect object d’art for a MAGA temple — that’s the old abandoned trailer next to the dumpster — or clubhouse.
So, Rod, anytime you want to favor us with a Night Gallery description of what this signifies, we’ll be happy to hear.
HINT: This apparition is begging for some comment about the eternal struggle between art and commerce — with politics and religion thrown into the matrix. It makes my head explode to contemplate, so I figured I’d kick the can down the road to a better writer — dead or not. If you and Dickens and Vonnegut can’t figure this out, it can’t be figured out, is my guess.
Intro to an episode of Night Gallery:
We welcome you to a salon of seances and surrealism. Paintings and portraits designed to lower the blood temperature and invigorate the hair follicles. And there’s no admission to this display, save for a capacity for imagination, occasionally a sense of humor, and most important, simply a convenient light switch, so that if you look at our paintings in the dark, you needn’t remain there.
I never thought that a presidential election would be a metaphor for a light switch, but, yes, now I see how it is.
Thank you, Rod. You always did illuminate the dark shadows, and God knows, Trump is familiar with those, and the people he imagines are living there. Right up your alley.
Continued evidence of there being no depths AT ALL to which these deplorables can’t sink below.
As I said, art v. commerce. Somebody thinks there’s a buck to be made from this. That’s the only reason Trump is in our lives, because he thought there was a buck to be made in it.
It’s pretty poor quality even as MAGArt. Looks like it’s about 4ft by 6ft, judging by the level next to it.
(It would be fun critiquing it just as art.)
Please be my guest. For openers, don’t you love the hard body and the abs?
Are the spikes in heads up or heads down, or is that grey blood underneath, because there aren’t shadows. (The light’s all over the place.) That twist from shoulders to hips and legs. The flag draped, not particularly tastefully (since it’s the US flag) and flying in the breeze that isn’t affecting anything else. The spear that isn’t going to damage anything. The worshiping dictators on the right and the photographers in the left back. And WTF is Melania doing, waiting for pieces of silver to fall into her hands?
And the cross appears to be tilted so it’s much closer to the viewer at the top than at the bottom.
(I assume everyone here knows they didn’t nail you up through the palms. Through the wrists, maybe, but they were just as likely to tie you in place.)
Hi, Ursula, Yes, see my comment below, asking where his fat was.
OMFG. It gets lower and lower and lower.
I can’t wait to hear what the likes of Robert Jeffress has to say. The pastors of high credibility — John Pavlovich comes to mind — can’t stand Trump. They won’t stand for this level of phony display.
So many thoughts are tumbling through my mind, starting with the assumption it’s painted on velvet like those tacky Elvis painting I used to see in parking lot of truck stop displays. Second – is “Melanie” driving a spike into Trump’s feetsies because it sure looks that way. Not that she wouldn’t mind – at least after she’s collected her “fee for services aka her pre-nup. Then there’s that use of the American flag. Where is the MAGA outrage over use of it in this manner? You can bet it it was Obama on the cross with Trump dressed as a Centurion there would be howls of protest. Also, I can’t help but notice how tiny the twisted portion covering his “junk” is. That probably pisses Trump off! I can see him fuming that it would take a giant flag, the biggest flag ever made to cover up his crank! Of course, I think Stormy Daniels would say a single star on a regular sized American flag would easily do the job and I’d believe her over Trump any day of the week. So many snarky comments to make but it’s all so easy it’s not nearly as much fun as it should be so I’ll quit and see what others come up with.
I forgot something in my comment. It’s not funny but ironic and it has to do with your word play on a quote by Haldane about this all being stranger than anyone can imagine. A brilliant physicist, J.B.S. Haldane said the universe was not only stranger than we imagined but stranger than we could imagine. Haldane, for those who don’t know was British but wound up becoming a citizen of India. Why you ask? Because he was an avowed and vocal Socialist and Marxist and his views in his native Great Britain made him unwelcome enough as the Cold War had ramped up that he left for India in 1956 and eventually became a citizen there.
I’d love for the Trumpist who eventually buys this to please explain how he could spend money on a piece of “art” that so shows such blatant disrespect for the US flag.
Per the US Flag Code, 4 U.S. Code § 8:
(d.) The flag should never be used as wearing apparel, bedding, or drapery.
and
(j.) No part of the flag should ever be used as a costume or athletic uniform.
Granted, this is “artwork” but its depiction in the “art” is still a violation.
Where’s all his fat?
I think this is called “poetic license.” Also, there’s nothing eye catching about a sack of white blubber, which is all Trump is without the makeup, hanging on a hook — or a cross.
I think it is a joke and making fun of Trump. It in no way is trying to make Trump look good. The dictators in the corner gave it away. Then you have Nancy giving it to him. The quality is pathetic. I could be wrong, but that is my take.
Who are the people on the left hand side? I can’t make them out. I thought the tall one might be Reagan, but that’s just a guess. And this could be parody. I don’t know any more. We seem to be beyond parody and living in batshit insanity as the norm.
I couldn’t tell either. I just looked at them with a magnifying glass. It didn’t help. Then I just stepped back and looked at it like you would an oil painting. They are people taking pictures of him. They must be the press.
Oh, Jesus that’s funny! The “enemy of the people” tormenting poor Trump as he expires on the cross. My God, this is a disgusting image.
I’m pretty sure the dictators are Putin, Kim Jong Un (looking pretty disgusted), Bolsonaro, and ??
Oh, this reminds me of George Floyd, too. Crucifixion suffocates people. Horrible death. Kind of like the Trump Plague. The victim can breath as long as they can raise themselves up some, but of course their arms get tired and they sink back down to the position of suffocation.
Here’s my criticism, it sucks.
?
Trump would probably ask one of his acolytes bid for it, like he got Michael Cohen pay for his Stormy tryst.
Oh. My. God. W. T. F. ????? I’m speechless. And I definitely agree with Mae. ???
And notice Melania as Mary Magdalene prostate at his feet , is that part of his kinky se requirement now?
Ursula I think you once said something similar to: Trump would hate Christ. After all, he was crucified and that makes him a loser.
I did say that. Trump likes saviors who weren’t crucified.
On a painting for sale
Is an old rugged cross,
An emblem of suffering and shame;
But this cross is unlike
Any other you’ve seen
Because Trump’s hanging there seeking fame!
So we’ll stare at this parody Cross
Can the artist ever live it down?
It exemplifies all that is dross,
Glorifying a sociopath clown.
(I mean, really, that’s the only response I can come up with that seems halfway appropriate. Sheesh, the Gods of Kitsch must have been well appeased by this one.)
That is beautiful. If there’s any follow up story to this bizarre painting, and I do another piece, I’m going to include this great piece of doggerel.
As art, it’s tacky. As kitsch, it’s priceless. Its overall “schlock value” is directly
proportional to its dead-seriousness (sic), which also fits the definition of camp.
If it were visual satire, in the manner of Daumier, Hogarth, Grant Wood, or (on
occasion) Winslow Homer, the elements of caricature would be more apparent,
as they are in classic political cartoons (Thomas Nast, Herblock, Oliphant, and
Disney’s WW II era propaganda films). Whereas, the tonal qualities here are
reverential rather than irreverent, while the facial features are representational,
as in a Norman Rockwell painting, not figurative, as in one of Andy Warhol’s
grotesquely distorted images of Marilyn Monroe, Mao Zedong, or Elvis Presley,
which looks like an exact copy of a photograph or a portrait but isn’t. Warhol
deceives the eye; whoever painted this is deceived or blinded by appearances.
The dictators are Trump’s disciples–not a trace of irony there, even in seeing
them as his apprentices, as opposed to his ideological masters. Nor is there
any hint that Pelosi is anything but the devil (or Judas armed with a Roman
spear, in lieu of a pitchfork), or the absurdity of making Melania the woman
taken in adultery, which is neither humorous nor sacrilegious, but a wasted
opportunity for the artist to ironize (if not lament) her self-debasing servility.
There is neither thought nor skill in arranging and presenting these tropes–
they might as well have been painted by the numbers, as in coloring books.
The mentality behind what is revealed on canvas is correspondingly jejeune.
Yet whoever buys this painting is sure to make a profit on their investment,
if not in the immediate future then (say) fifty years from now, when Trump
will be as distant from the present as we are from Nixon, and there is a run
on memorabilia, along with artifacts for museums and historical exhibitions.
That would please Trump, both as carnival barker and as our faux messiah.
If nobody ever went broke underestimating the taste of the American public,
then it is equally true that even those who render unto Caesar still worship
mammon, clothed in the garb of a savior yet ready to sell our souls at the
drop of a silver coin, and to call every raw deal a steal. Ars gratia furtum.
It was actually painted by one of the “priests” of the NEWLY FOUND White Supremacist/NAZI religion, TRUMPISM. People will be required to walk on their knees and flagellate themselves, as they bow before their god, when it is hung behind the altar of his, soon to be built, cathedral(Sorry, meant library.)