One for the Monet....

A call from far off Niftyborough New Hampshire "Ever been to the Museum of Russian Icons?" "Ahhh no I'm a non practicing catholic not a non practicing eastern orthodox..." "A shame because there is an exhibit of Soviet Era Propaganda Posters at said Museum in Clinton Ma!" "Woman please! Fire up your Curtis P-40 Warhawk and meet me there!!" (For once Rebecca Cathcart-Monet, Air Marquesa of the Granite State let me play the aggressor...whence but undergraduates we'd taken student tours of the Olde Soviet Union and had some insight into the topic at hand). *** As always Ms Cathcart Monet executed one of her perfect three point landings on Clinton's town common...swung down resplendent in a light silk summer weight organdy flight suit and flying helmet. "Tres chic!" I offered. "feckless charmer" she chided. *** Inside the iconic poster art from out the ruins of the USSR was on display: "Good Ghod...like a totalitarians they have this obsession with visually activated ideological content...four word slogans...punchy images, primary colors.." mused the aviatrix. "Well the bolsheviks started out with a largely illiterate society one that venerated painted icons, so their propaganda reflected that context." spake I. "Look at this Cosmonaut poster...the pose is quasi religious, the soyuz rocket in the background forms a defacto church spire this is an Icon By Any Other Name" jabbed Rebecca. "Well the Bolsheviks made a mistake common to intellectual ideologues, they couldn't destroy religion they simply supplanted it, it yet still kept revealed religion's drawbacks & limitations" I opined. We viewed numerous posters highlighting the "vital work" the border patrols a none too subtle celebration of the USSR's status as a closed society...and the nasty ubiquitous busts depicting Lenin's fixed scowl and Stalin's bestial smirk. "And yet...look at all this artwork depicting a equitable just Socialist Utopia...and on the same wall Mealy Mouthed PSA's denouncing drunkeness, delinquency and absenteeism...that alone tells you what the CPSU truly feared" mused the Aeronautess. "Oh Agreed...PSAs are windows to the National Soul" I rejoined. "These guys remind me so much of the Futurists...except they truly worshipped machines, steel mills, hydroelectric dams, ICBMs, jet planes, unlike the futurists who had a totemist relationship with technology...the CPSU literally celebrated the coming Homo Societicus as a kind of grinning cyborg"...concluded Ms Cathcart-Monet. "Ah yes a grinning soviet cyborg with vacuum tubes and a gasoline engine..." japed me. That one made us giggle. *** A picnic on the common, we toast our little adventure with tiny glasses of Codice a sweet fortifying Spanish wine...and with a good tail wind, Ms. Cathcart-Monet took off with a cheery wave and beat her way north. *** I Bowed and departed and made my way home via back roads seldom traveled...it suited the day.

The Cathcart-Monet Conundrum....

For once, I called it or rather she called me as I sped south on Amtrak to NYC. "Where are you" trilled the Audacious Aviatrix from Niftyboro NH. "I'm off to the Guggenheim to see the Italian Futurism exhibit!" said I brightly. "ITALIAN FUTURISM...I mean they worshipped airplanes in a crude atavistic fashion isn't that a natural fit with my own mania for classic airframes?? Whydyncha call me Jerky???" barked the peerless pilotess. Abashed I mumbled ""I thought you had a meeting of the "National Classic Airframe Association" (AKA "The NCAA perpetually untainted by Scandal"). "Canceled on poor landing conditions...Look for me on Sheep Meadown Tomorrow Morning at 9:30am EDT!!" As always to the inevitable I bowed. *** Promptly at the time declaimed, Ms Cathcart-Monet appeared over Central Park NYC, in a classic C-30 autogyro which she landed nigh daintily on the Sheep Meadow. Trained amazons from the New York Chapter of "Women's AutoGyro Co-Operative" (Ms. Cathcart-Monet is a past President of said organization)stood the watch as we toddled off to the Guggenheim. *** "Ah Futurism" sighed Rebecca. "Art is all about violence, speed & injustice" said I, paraphrasing Futurism's founder Tomasso Marinetti. "Yeah a lot of bombast there, but it was 1914 after all!" agreed the Aviatrix. "The futurists loved technology, speed and had a certain belligerence....isn't it funny that when the Italians finally generated an indigenous avant garde artistic movement so of course it is essentially militaristic, imperialistic and jingoist? More than a little misogyny thrown into the mix as well" remarked I. "Ah but Marinetti's wife was an accomplished artistic herself within the Futurist movement" countered Rebecca. "Which merely illustrates the sheer hopelessness of a misogyny as a doctrine" I jabbed. "You know they had a cookbook? A Futurist Cookbook...It was full of praise for speed, energy and violence in the kitchen...it was bitterly anti-pasta cuz this lot clearly worshipped shock value" noted the Valkyrie of the North. "Well...every jot and tittle seemed to merit a manifesto to mark the occasion..." mused myself. "I love how they put on crude multimedia extravaganzas...using NO actors, tried to bring the Futurist Style to Advertising, built concrete kiosks to market bookstores...very advanced" observed Rebecca. "And yet they were obsessed with painting and sculpture, two of the oldest art forms in the world, you'd think they'd a gotten in on the ground floor of early cinema...but no there are few Futurist Films per se" said I as well meandered up the Guggenheim's spiral imbibing Futurist paintings of battleships and increasingly their core obsession aircraft. "Futurism worshipped technology in a primitive totemistic fashion..." reflected the Peerless Pilotess. "They worshipped it, they didn't really interact with it so much..." I muttered. "Mussolini loved Marinetti" muttered Rebecca...very much the Granite State Antifascist. "Of course Marinetti and his followers glorified war and violence, speed death and destruction...there was an avant garde tailored made for the emerging Fascist Aesthetic" rumbled I in a jaunty academic tone. "These guys were insanely ambitious they wanted to read Futurist Newspapers, wear Futurist Clothes, Live in Futurist Houses and write Futurist Poetry when they weren't painting clouds of biplanes" mused the Aerial Aesthete. "Ah that Futurist Poetry...much akin to William S. Burroughs & Byron Gysion's infamous cut-ups of the beatnik era" opined I. "Good Ghod you are a walking Footnote!" smirked the Heroine. To that I made no reply...She Had Me Cold. *** Luncheon in a modest cafe...a small glass of Tokay,and then New Hampshires Peerless Propwash Princess....rose majestically into the air and with a cheery salute flew off to the New England Mists. I waved a trifle forlorn...momentarily alone in a vast Metropolis...itself a Futurist Monument.