I was at my parents’ house where we grew up. And my dad was there, inside. I was on the back driveway and 2 of my friends who live far away showed up on the lawn confident and happy to see me.

“Hey guys what are you doing here?”

“You told us to come,” Danny said without missing a beat. “Left me a voice mail all about Thursday night. Thursday night was gonna be all this and that.”

My heart leapt with anxiety and affirmation. Affirmation, that my friends had come so far to see me, that if you invite people they actually join you. Anxiety because I’d have to come up with a rockin Thursday night. I didn’t have any recollection of calling them, and this was a total surprise. So instead of saying how reassuring it was they’d come and wanted to hang, I asked Danny if he could replay that voice mail for me because I didn’t remember it at all!

But who cares. This was a good dream and my friends were looking for fun and my company. I got on the phone with a drug dealer and started to hurry together a plan.

Meantime, inside with my father, he warned me to be careful with the dynamite I was building in the driveway. I’d been working on it when my friends surprised me. It consisted of 2 semi circle shaped wedges, filled with what looked like drywall, with grooves in them through which I was trying to fit an aluminum bridge which would connect the dynamite together. Not sure what the plan with that was. But something fun.

Then I was back on the driveway, hanging w my 2 friends again, and the neighbor kids all showed up to join us on the lawn. 12-17 year olds. They had lawn chairs and blankets. They were talking and messing with each other. I figured I wouldn’t notice them too much and they’d feel comfortable staying.

It was great to feel like this. Cool. Liked. Felt warm and pleasant inside. I’ve been excluded from groups my whole life. Took me a while to realize it. Even longer to figure out why. Though on the latter I think it’s unjustified. But that’s how people are. I’m just not the type people pursue to be around come weekends. I usually have to call around and ask what people are doing. And sometimes I’ll get an invite. So maybe this dream is a harbinger of new things to come. For me, for our country, for the way the world feels about us.

I was home and alone, restless. I’ve seen the 4 Rembrandt portraits a buncha times. But the 2 visiting from the Simon Norton Museum in Pasadena I haven’t seen in years. While looking for that gallery without directions I created a side tour through the classical European wing where Rembrandt, according to didactic logic, must be housed. This is what is thrilling and boring from the Chicago zeitgeist of today, April 22, 2019!

Edvard Munch’s The Girl by the Window. Such a beautiful side of the artist we’ve pigeonholed with The Scream. That one painted the same year as this comforting little gem. 1893.

Woman Bathing Her Feet in a Brook by Camille Pisarro 1894/95 is still the best of his large collection here. But the dab/point method in imitation of Van Gogh is boring.

But today, April 22, 2019, is a day when one artist will reign supreme. It started after many many galleries of droll uncaptivating fine art, when this one, it’s stupid blocky simplicity yanked me from across the room.

Who is that? Cézanne!

The Bay of Marseilles, Seen from L’Estaque, 1885.

So elemental! I want it in my living room above the fireplace. That’s a beautiful piece to give pleasure to visitors in my home.

It’s the only one amongst galleries and galleries with any draw. It comes off as simple. Pedantic. Floppy. Clumsy. Which is why it’s so refreshing. The prettiest fresh colors. Two other patrons were deep into conversation about this one just to its right.

The Bathers. 1899/1904

(Why the hell is there a slash in the years I don’t know. Last was a hyphen. Slash seems to say perhaps it was begun in 1899, put aside 4 years, then picked up again and finished in 1904.)

And then a damn tasty looking bowl a fruit.

Then this one. Not Cézanne but about Cézanne.

Woman in Front of a Still Life by Cézanne, 1890 Paul Gauguin

Gauguin’s Tahitian paintings are awkward today, possibly due to me stamping it by the appropriation/his-story debate in our society, but this one got me from across the room.

She looks like a zombie. The still life in the background of the painting Gauguin owned. He said he’d never part with it. Unless by direst necessity. He eventually did. For emergency medical bills in Tahiti. But this woman prefigures Picasso’s African-Indian mask phase. Great nod to Cézanne. A repainting of Cézanne’s still life which Gauguin loved, but marked w his style. The still life a backdrop for another still life, the woman. Like translation by a great artist of another artist’s poem. And so as Gauguin’s best painting of the day features a nod to Cézanne, so Cézanne takes the cake for today.

Light zingy lemon cake. With citrus cocktails on a summer Sunday afternoon in the shade. That kinda cake.

Here’s Cézanne’s woman, in a yellow chair, 1888-1890

Cézanne painted his wife, often in this chair, 30 times in this apartment where they lived with their son, located at 15, quail d’Anjou on the Ile-Saint-Louis.

Without me knowing either were his, in 2 different rooms, 2 separate times Cézanne yanked me from my brisk walk across the room to stop before them. Cézanne, my followers, is clearly the champion of the day.

Whereas Pisarro fails to excite.

Too diluted Van Gogh-esque. And even V.G. himself was regular and uninteresting today. Sure the Madame Roulin Rocking the Cradle (La Berceuse) 1889 caught my attention and made me smile.

Straight outta Cheshire cat from Alice in Wonderland. But today it’s merely hella novel. Not gripping. And people waiting in line to see the fantastic 1886 Self Portrait left me feeling quaint and dull.

And I similarly wanted nothing to do with Seurat’s A Sunday on La Grande Jatte 1884 or any of his. Once again, infinite “points” not capturing the day’s zeit nor geist.

This is though.

The Walker 1877-1878 Auguste Rodin

So strident. Bold and conquering. Like Ayn Rand’s what’s-his-name, John Galt, defying the striding world. Doesn’t even look like he’s walking! Feet so firmly planted. Fuck walking. This statue is strutting my great big mind.

Monet.

Snooze. Well. I won’t go that far. Every painting in here may it exist with as many others forever. But this one has some snare.

Houses of Parliament, London, 1904

It’s foggy and lost, like us, but with no emboldened flashing statements, unlike us.

We humans are always like and unlike each other for all times. But I think what’s catching today is what’s unpopular and forgotten. Ignored.

Ok. While backtracking can’t deny Van Gogh some time for Peasant Woman Digging in Front of Her Cottage.

But Pisarro is not the same. Not pleasurable today like Vincent still deigns to be.

But wait! What’s this?

Degas!

Degas Degas Degas!

Green Dancers! ~1878!

Degas!

Degas Degas Degas!

Young Spartan Girls Challenging Boys ~1860

Oh my Edgar Degas how exciting you are this April 22, 2019!

Yellow Dancers in the Wings 1874/76

Degas Degas Degas!

And still on the way to Rembrandt…a pit stop with Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes and his 1806 El Maragato vs Friar Pedro de Zaldivia

The attempt

The Friar feint

Uh-oh! The struggle for the gun!

Oh snap Friar’s gonna pistol whip and shoot his ass

See how Friar clowned the mothafucka!?

Ok..Rembrandt.

The Young Woman in an Open Half Door and Old Man with a Gold Chain I’ve seen many times and you can too. They’re quite something. But the 2 from Norton Simon visiting from Pasadena are my reason d’etre today.

Wdyt? 1655-1660

Thats the cutest face on a boy I’ve ever seen! Just made me bust into a happy all out grin. I just stood there in front of the painting grinning this big smiling grin, until I started worrying that the other patrons would think I was planning an attack on the painting so I moved away.

Just try it. Go stand before that painting and see if you can resist a huge smile. The painting evokes it. The boy does.

And here. The master of mind matter and luminosity himself.

Self Portrait, 1631

No doubt. Da bomb masterpieces!

But this April 22, 2019 the spirit goes to

#1) Paul Cézanne (1839-1906)

#2) Degas (1834-1917)

The post-impressionists take the day!

Come out and tell me if you agree.

And let’s see how I feel in May, when we’ll cruise to the Driehaus Museum for the Yinka Shonibare CBE exhibit….stay tuned, America, and thanks for listening.

Al Shannigan

Guest Writer/Gruff Sensationalist/Self Contradictionist for jedediahsmudge.com.

• My girlfriend said she was embarrassed to be seen with me. And that all her friends were going to think she was dating a recluse.

• My mom got 3 phone calls from an aunt, a cousin and a friend asking if I’d died, 16 texts from family and friends asking if I’d suffered a mental health or life crisis, and 1 call from her brother asking if I’d been disappeared by the NSA.

• 4 friends texted me about dropping from “the book,” which led to great exchanges about life and online identity.

• I became an enigma, appearing in photos with family and friends, but as the only one who couldn’t be tagged. Hence, couldn’t be researched or online stalked. People would ask, “who is that guy in your photo?! He’s not on Facebook?” Some wondered if I were a ghost.

• I walked around in the Spring sunshine, taking in the moment.

• At hour 327, my mom posted, “Hello concerned family and Facebook friends. I want you all to know that Jedediah is just fine. He’s in good spirits and healthy as well. He decided he didn’t want a Facebook account anymore. He said ‘the app is intrusive, kitschy, and the design reducing everyone’s identity to a single boring monolith. I’m choosing not to be a digital cookie cut-out on Facebook anymore.’ Jedediah’s father would have supported this I’m sure. And as long as he is happy and safe I do as well. If you want to know how he’s doing you can stop by this Sunday. We’re having brunch.”

• 2 friends unfriended me in real life, claiming I was “paranoid” and cutting myself off from normal society. One said, “If you don’t trust Facebook, I don’t trust you.”

• My girlfriend dumped me. But we got back together after arguing a lot. She has confessed that in many ways she hates the app too. But feels enormous pressure to be on it.

• I’d been aggravated by FB for years, but what pushed me to my decision were 2 things:

1) https://thebaffler.com/salvos/404-page-not-found-wagner

2) 65% of my “friend suggestions” were for pages to Eastern European escort girls. Another 25% were for people from my past who I wanted nothing to do with ever again.

Now. On hour 438. I’m feeling pretty good. In control. Not coerced or smushed into an identity and set of social relations I never wanted. I’m eating a bowl of cereal. Surfing the web. Not seeing what my friends are posting on FB.

And America. I’m doing just fine.

I don’t ever write.  I loathe it, hate it, terrified of it. But last night I had the strangest dream–the most fascinating, strangest dream, and now I think I’ve found my calling–I think I’ve been called to write.

I was sleeping of course, and waking on and off, but this same dream kept returning each time I fell asleep, like a TV program I kept coming back into the room for. In this dream I am writing, and writing very well–the words and the themes of my story are pouring forth without hesitation, and they are fantastic–gold winning stuff! My voice is there on the page! But the strangest part of all–the part which has lingered inside me all day, and forced me to create this–in the dream I can see the words of my thoughts in my fingers! The words I am thinking are appearing not vaguely in the scary shadows of my mind–where I’ve always been so unconfident as to how to find them–but they are appearing fully written, in a kind of dark grey ink, in the tips of my fingers, and like coffee beans from a dispenser they are dispensing their way so smoothly onto the page through the pen in my hand.