So I’m working on a painting, in between my packing up, a solitary task that I get to do for the next week.
James leaves for GDC tomorrow–he almost cancelled, but his company made the reservations back in January, and it’s not like he won’t be back in plenty of time for closing and whatnot. He’s mostly recovered from his foot thing, it was bad for a bit and then got better very quickly, he was fine for awhile, and then, a day or two ago, it started getting sore again. Each outbreak has followed a wild party. Because of this, his working theory is now “gout, brought on by parties with excessive consumption of Yingling beer.” Apparently he has found anecdotal evidence of other people getting Yingling-related gout. I am skeptical, but it’s his foot, and since it means he’s sworn off beer in quantity, which is probably healthy, it’s all good. Hopefully he is not on his way to another outbreak that will strike at GDC. I think they do some walking at that.
Anyway, I got sidetracked. My point is, I’m working on this painting, and I found myself adding the Obligatory Egg to it. It wasn’t in the rough sketch, but it wanted to be in the painting.
People are always asking about the egg. Usually they say “What’s with the egg?” and I don’t say anything because really, what IS with the egg? What do you say to that? “It’s an egg. I put it there. The space wanted an egg. That’s where the egg goes.” These are true answers, but not, I suspect, emotionally satisfying to the viewer.
Today, as I was gazing at the newly arrived egg, I realized with mild disgust that what I SHOULD have been saying all this time is “What egg?” Like a small, yolk-filled Necronomicon, it could simply pass without comment, quietly menacing in its inexplicability (and the artist’s refusal to admit there was an egg), until the more twitchy members of my audience* began to lock their doors and check under the beds for that lurker in the refrigerator, that menace from under the chicken, Egg-Sothoth, come again.
Damn. I wonder if it’s too late to start.
*It’s the internet. There’s got to be at least ONE.
