up ramp, launched myself a mile up, and gotten my baked remains on all the major one hundred thousand feeds.
"You should pull over and rest," advised one of the Loop officials. "Get your neck and spine checked."
While it was probably a good idea to have a full work-up, I had a deadline and had no intention of stopping before I got to Ryder's office. But as I drove away my hands were vibrating slightly and my throat was dry. Worse, the movies of what might have happened were so bright and loud I found it impossible to concentrate. Just a few junctions later, I pulled into a rest stop. Beyond the station were two family restaurants. I had my choice of the saccharine pink and yellow Melancholy Mouse Burger or the saccharine yellow and pink Fluffy Fun Bunny. I chose the latter because it was closer. Before I went in, I stuffed my ears with grey cotton yarn to cut down on the clatter of bomb-blast happy melodies and shrill sing-alongs.
The place was enormous. A moving walkway whisked me half a mile away to the tables, where a jittery teen girl dressed in what looked like the offspring of a dandelion and a chimp stepped beside me and rattled off the specials.
"Just a regular burger," I told her, "and a normal drink."
She pouted at me. "Well, golly poo! Our superevil desert warlord, Mister Krunchy Smack Tart, will be so glad you're not treating yourself to one of his yummy chocolate and karabola face pies!"
"Good."
I found an empty table and chair and sat. Seconds later the girl returned.
"One mouth-tingling two-pound, Fluffy Bunny meat burger," said the same dandelion chimp girl. "And a frosty, frigid super-bladder Kitty Pink Kola." She plopped a pink plasticott box before me. Blindingly bright cartoon critters, slogans, and logos covered every inch. She leaned in and whispered. "I added six hand-carved Europa1 golden-toasted beef-flavored snap-fries for you to try for free! If you like them, let me know-I can get you half off a Fat Daddy Porker order." She giggled ferociously and was gone.
I used to feel it was critical that I get out of the studio more often, see and smell the world, taste its food, listen to its voice, music, and dreams, but in the last several years, whenever I ventured out, I usually ended up despairing the sheer ugliness of it all-the ever more intensive glare of the colors and the painful jangling of life's soundtrack. Most often I would retreat to my studio and head to my magazine humidifier for a copy of Pure H to cool my retina on the silky black-and-white photos and text.
It was times like that I was most reminded of my client, Michael Rivers. Of course he had been born in the epicenter of the world's noise and chromatic violence, and I had come from the opposite direction. For him the rejection of color was rebellion; for me it was more complicated. It was rejection of the brutality of city color, but it was also, in a way, an embrace of an abstracted version of the corn, of those days at the height of the pollen drop at the end of the summer, when the sun baked away color and left only light and shadow.
For years, I had been pure grey. I assiduously removed all colors from my work, even at the microscopic level. My yarns were finished in such a way never to refract a tiny rainbow. My weaves and knits were created so that moiré patterns would not create interference colors. To white fabrics I added oxygenated films to instantly ameliorate possible stains. To blacks, I endlessly checked that there were not hidden tints introduced in the twists of the yarns and the mathematical dance of twills.
After a decade of religious colorlessness, it was time for a change. Not just for myself but my clients. Fashion must change and even our anti-fashion had worn its jacket too long. After a week of sleepless nights, I chose another color: green-dark green-hunter and phthalocyanine green. And the achromatic dance I had been dancing came to an end. I was afraid of what my customers would think of that
"You should pull over and rest," advised one of the Loop officials. "Get your neck and spine checked."
While it was probably a good idea to have a full work-up, I had a deadline and had no intention of stopping before I got to Ryder's office. But as I drove away my hands were vibrating slightly and my throat was dry. Worse, the movies of what might have happened were so bright and loud I found it impossible to concentrate. Just a few junctions later, I pulled into a rest stop. Beyond the station were two family restaurants. I had my choice of the saccharine pink and yellow Melancholy Mouse Burger or the saccharine yellow and pink Fluffy Fun Bunny. I chose the latter because it was closer. Before I went in, I stuffed my ears with grey cotton yarn to cut down on the clatter of bomb-blast happy melodies and shrill sing-alongs.
The place was enormous. A moving walkway whisked me half a mile away to the tables, where a jittery teen girl dressed in what looked like the offspring of a dandelion and a chimp stepped beside me and rattled off the specials.
"Just a regular burger," I told her, "and a normal drink."
She pouted at me. "Well, golly poo! Our superevil desert warlord, Mister Krunchy Smack Tart, will be so glad you're not treating yourself to one of his yummy chocolate and karabola face pies!"
"Good."
I found an empty table and chair and sat. Seconds later the girl returned.
"One mouth-tingling two-pound, Fluffy Bunny meat burger," said the same dandelion chimp girl. "And a frosty, frigid super-bladder Kitty Pink Kola." She plopped a pink plasticott box before me. Blindingly bright cartoon critters, slogans, and logos covered every inch. She leaned in and whispered. "I added six hand-carved Europa1 golden-toasted beef-flavored snap-fries for you to try for free! If you like them, let me know-I can get you half off a Fat Daddy Porker order." She giggled ferociously and was gone.
I used to feel it was critical that I get out of the studio more often, see and smell the world, taste its food, listen to its voice, music, and dreams, but in the last several years, whenever I ventured out, I usually ended up despairing the sheer ugliness of it all-the ever more intensive glare of the colors and the painful jangling of life's soundtrack. Most often I would retreat to my studio and head to my magazine humidifier for a copy of Pure H to cool my retina on the silky black-and-white photos and text.
It was times like that I was most reminded of my client, Michael Rivers. Of course he had been born in the epicenter of the world's noise and chromatic violence, and I had come from the opposite direction. For him the rejection of color was rebellion; for me it was more complicated. It was rejection of the brutality of city color, but it was also, in a way, an embrace of an abstracted version of the corn, of those days at the height of the pollen drop at the end of the summer, when the sun baked away color and left only light and shadow.
For years, I had been pure grey. I assiduously removed all colors from my work, even at the microscopic level. My yarns were finished in such a way never to refract a tiny rainbow. My weaves and knits were created so that moiré patterns would not create interference colors. To white fabrics I added oxygenated films to instantly ameliorate possible stains. To blacks, I endlessly checked that there were not hidden tints introduced in the twists of the yarns and the mathematical dance of twills.
After a decade of religious colorlessness, it was time for a change. Not just for myself but my clients. Fashion must change and even our anti-fashion had worn its jacket too long. After a week of sleepless nights, I chose another color: green-dark green-hunter and phthalocyanine green. And the achromatic dance I had been dancing came to an end. I was afraid of what my customers would think of that
Similar Books
