Ch. 4 Has Anybody Seen My Picasso, A Strange Coincidence

Okay, that's not bad, I thought as I looked at the first 3 chapters. I've got some interesting characters, I was able to write some good lines, (one of which my brother actually gets the credit for - "She wore a dress so tight I could hardly breathe." But "She wore lipstick like a Ritz cracker wears Cheez Whiz" was mine. Heck, I don't even know if Cheez Whiz existed in 1935, but who cares, it's fiction and anachronisms add charm), and I've found out some interesting art history. I liked the ending of the last chapter when Dick Allbright opened the door and "saw her asleep on the bed, her bare back and leg barely visible in the dim red light flashing through the window from the bar across the street." Every one who has read this far has got to be wondering what happens next. There's a mystery to that chapter ending. But now I've got to figure out what's next. I found this great phrase from Plutarch about coincidence: "It is no great wonder if in the long process of time, while fortune takes her course hither and thither, numerous coincidences should spontaneously occur." And I'm figuring on using this as part of this chapter. For example, what were the odds that Kandinsky would attend Arnold Shoenberg's concert in Munich on Jan. 2, 1911, and run into Pablo Picasso? In this instance, the odds were 100%. And that Kandinsky would marry Aphrodite Mandrake's older sister? And think about Kandinsky's abstract synaesthetic art and Schoenberg's atonal music. If you think of Schrodinger's cat walking on a piano keyboard you get an idea about Schoenberg's music. Schrodinger's cat, of course, is a thought experiment involving quantum mechanics and multiple states of simultaneous existence. Now think of that same cat walking simultaneously in two different directions on Schoenberg's piano keyboard and you get the idea. At least Kandinsky didn't throw paint at a canvas like Jackson Pollock did so many years later, or perhaps they were simultaneously and coincidentally creating synaesthetic art and action painting in the same way Schoenberg's two cats were walking on his piano keyboard creating his non-melodic anti-harmonic music. I don't know. I wasn't there. And like Kurt Vonnegut would write, so it goes. And think about the overarching irony of Russian Jewish modern abstract artists who, after being welcomed by the Russian Revolution, and whose art was praised and publicized so as to replace Czarist art, and then about Kandinsky, who actually headed the Revolutionary Government's arts program, and then who all fell out of favor when their art was deemed to no longer serve the revolution, and who then emigrated to Germany and France and other countries in the 1920s to escape the turmoil of post-revolutionary life and so as to have a better life. Talk about irony. To those who went to Germany. From the frying pan into the fire. From the Revolution to the Holocaust. Some kind of cosmic sick joke. Who says God doesn't have a sense of humor? Joseph Heller? I don't think so. Okay, so back to the end of Chapter 3 where Dick Albright "saw her asleep on the bed, her bare back and leg barely visible in the dim red light flashing through the window from the bar across the street." But first, more about anachronisms. Cheez Whiz wasn't really invented and marketed until 1953 I just found out when I looked it up. It was developed by Edwin Traisman who died at the age of 91 in Minona, Wisconsin. He is also credited with standardizing McDonald's french fries. He died of heart disease. Who'd have guessed that the guy who invented both Cheez Whiz and McDonald's french fries would die of heart disease? Talk about irony. So it would be an anachronism to wear lipstick like a Ritz Cracker wears Cheez Whiz in 1935. But who cares, I wonder. If a reader wants to indulge in some retrofuturistic imaginings of Albert Schoenberg on a Moog Synthesizer like Emerson, Lake, and Palmer, I say go ahead. Okay, so now I'm really going back to the end of Chapter 3 where Dick Allbright "saw her asleep on the bed, her bare back and leg barely visible in the dim red light flashing through the window from the bar across the street." "Damn light," I thought as I walked across the bedroom to see who was in my bed. As soon as I caught a glimpse of that tattoo of that dragon I knew who she was. That dragon tattoo, that mythological creature had filled my thoughts before. And the Ouija board. I had had business with that woman before. And I had no intention of being Saint George tonight. I sat on a wooden chair I had by the closet door where I would sit in the morning and put on my socks and shoes after I had put my pants on. Some days I wore khaki slacks; other days I wore dark wool; other days light wool or cotton. And when I sat there I would think about what socks I should wear and with what shoes. It shouldn't have been that hard since I only had two pairs of shoes - one black, one brown. I would sometimes wear black socks with the black shoes and sometimes brown socks with the brown ones. Some days, though, I would wear black socks with brown shoes and brown socks with black shoes. It's hard to believe I spent that much time thinking about it. I lit a cigarette and the flare of the match revealed her bare back even more than that fucking red light flashing through the window. I smoked the cigarette for a few minutes remembering the dragon tattoo and the Ouija board. I wondered what Sam Spade would do (although it's hard to take a guy serious who wears green and white checked pajamas). Or Mike Hammer. Now, there's a great name for a detective. Mike Hammer. I wondered what Ellery Queen would do, or Jim Rockford, or Magnum. Then I made up a Sam Spade joke: here's a noir fiction detective joke I just made up. What was Sam Spade's favorite breakfast? A. - Hammet and eggs, hard-boiled. Then I thought of mythological dragons like Agamemnon, I thought of Flavius Philostratus, I thought of the Zmey Gorynych, I thought of Grendel, I thought of Pakhangba, I thought of the traditional Slovenian folk tales on the Olm, in the Glory of the Duchy of Corniola. By then, my cigarette was about out and I really don't like smoking the short stubs so I smashed it out out in the small brass ashtray by the bed. It was about 4 inches across. The ashtray, not the bed. It was square with those little indents in the corners where you could put a cigarette and on the underside would be the stamped country of origin. My guess would be India. And it was filled with smashed cigarette butts. I should empty those, I thought. But now I was hungry, so I went into the kitchen to make a sandwich, maybe a ham and cheese, maybe peanut butter and jelly, have a glass of milk or a whiskey, and think about the distinctions between Latin and English's use of the Dative and Accusative cases, and read this week's "Terry and the Pirates." The Dragon Lady and the Ouija board would have to wait. And besides, tomorrow I'd be heading for Paris.