"You certainly are pacing this morning, Henry," I told him. "You are Trova at Pace, Columbus."
Now, usually Marvin ignores me. We have been married a long time. And you guys know me. Often I make no sense. But today he came right into the room. "What?" he said.
"Trova at Pace, Columbus" was written on this stupid framed poster in my living room throughout my entire childhood.
I cannot believe I found this poster just now. Hello, entire childhood. Hello, miracle of Google. This is just like the poster from my childhood, except across the top it read "Trova." At the bottom was "at Pace, Columbus."
Hours I sat there in my living room, hours, thinking, "What in the Sam Hill does 'Trova at Pace, Columbus' mean?"
I don't think I even knew Columbus was a city, so I was really baffled. I guess Trova was an artist, and he appeared at some gallery called Pace, in Columbus. I have only recently figured this out. I wish I could go back in time and tell my eight-year-old self this, because it really detracted from my reading of Strawberry Girl or whatever.
We had this poster until the mid-80s, by the way. My mother kept it like it was good. You can see how I went the other way with my tastes. I went all '50s and over the top and pink and such.
My mother gets mad at me, but really all the art we had in our house was incredibly depressing to me. We had this collection of crisis-inducing clown stuff, most of which I am sorry to tell you I cannot find online. There was this one sort of sad vampire clown against a gray background who was clutching his throat, and in a terse phone call with my mother just now, she assures me he was not a vampire clown at all but some kind of saint.
Whatever.
There was also a terrible white fluffy clown against a red background that I cannot find on Google, because no one on earth bought this painting other than my masochistic family.
We similarly had a charcoal drawing of an almond-headed maudlin-looking trio of people hanging at the end of the hallway right near my bedroom, and my mother had to rip that one up because I was unable to enter my bedroom due to the terror I had at getting too near the drawing.
My mother says I had an overactive imagination.
But I was able to find the other charming artwork we had around the house. Feast your eyes, won't you?
Salvador Dali's The Last Supper. This was in my parents' bedroom. It's like they're having the last supper in the lobby of the Ramada.
I am not into the minimalism. News flash.
Oh. Oh somebody save me. I cannot even remember where we had this nightmarish thing, but had it we did. That baby with the twisted neck, old Napoleon hat and his leggings, there, everybody's eating disorder, and that MONKEY. This whole painting plummets me into a lifelong depression.
And you know what's funny? Art history was far and away my favorite subject in college. It just turns out my parents and I have POLAR OPPOSITE tastes. Give me some rococo and we are all set. A little art nouveau. Something pretty and flowery and curlicue-y. If I didn't look like my dad in drag you'd think I wasn't related to my parents at all, given our tastes in the art.
And by the way, when my father, you know, goes to that great art gallery in the sky, I am due to inherit all kinds of not-my-style art. Won't I have blog fodder then?
