Often, when I am bored, I will start excavating my jacket pockets. Whilst the main pockets might throw up the odd sherbet lemon or discarded tuppenny piece, it is that top outer breast pocket that always seems to provide the most fertile hunting ground. The very fact that it is practically useless for all serious purposes, makes it an ideal repository for life's detritus : and if there is one thing I love, it is life's detritus. I particularly look forward to finding old bar bills from past holidays so that I can temporarily relieve my boredom by conjuring up memories of not just what pleasurable concoction I consumed, but, with luck, where I consumed it.
But it is the odd, tatty, pieces of paper that provide the greatest challenge. As you gaze at the torn corner of a glossy magazine page with some inky numbers scrawled on it, you can try to fathom out what they mean. Was it a telephone number perhaps? Or maybe a mileage calculation. Or could it be the final scientific formula that unites Newtonian physics with quantum mechanics? The dullest of diner parties flash by in a microsecond as you surreptitiously attempt to interpret the paper Rosetta Stone you have been carrying around in your suit jacket for the past two years.
My attention being challenged the other evening, I dipped in my pocket and pulled out a torn piece of paper containing a drawing and a few words : which I have scanned and reproduced above. I have no idea from where it originated and by whose hand it was created. Nor have I any idea of its meaning, As such it is an "objet trouve" of pocket art. I share it with you because there seems few things more important to do on a dull and damp Monday morning in February. And I also share it with you in case there is somebody out there who recognises it and who can interpret its inner meaning.
Personally, I think it is a splendid piece of art and I am seriously considering printing it on fine art paper and framing it. But, there again, that might just be a rumour.
To begin with, I read your first line as 'Often, when I am bored, I will start excavating my jacket potatoes!' Not surprising then that line 2 made little sense!
ReplyDeleteHaving found and donned my reading glasses...
What interesting detritus you find in your pockets! I would be fortunate to find anything more than a crumpled up supermarket receipt!
Hay agrees with you that it needs framing as a very expressive piece of art.
ReplyDeleteFrom my perspective, it needs to be either small (6" x 6") or huge (6' x 6' at least).
It seems to have once BEEN a rumour, however sense it is x-ed out, it is now truth!
ReplyDelete'....detritus.' What a very British word! -J
Hmmmmm... It looks like a cave drawing describing aliens visiting Earth in search of pizza. If they came during the era of cave drawings they were a tad early for pizza!
ReplyDeleteIn any event it would make a great Led Zeppelin album cover. I suggest contacting Messers Page and Plant to discuss a reunion tour featuring your pocket art.
Wow, I like it. Maybe ET left it in your pocket. I think it's especially fun to pull out a forgotten, crumbled 20 dollar bill.
ReplyDeleteit is your other personality, leaving you little reminders that he is there...and not to tell anyone...lol
ReplyDeleteJust showed it to Hay's sister, who is an art therapist. She loves it.
ReplyDeleteAlan, scribble Picasso in the bottom right corner and you're worries are over. I thought youy might enjoy this if you haven't yet seen it.
ReplyDelete"The English are feeling the pinch in relation to recent terrorist threats and have therefore raised their security level from "Miffed" to "Peeved." Soon, though, security levels may be raised yet again to "Irritated" or even "A Bit Cross." The English have not been "A Bit Cross" since the blitz in 1940 when tea supplies nearly ran out.
Terrorists have been re-categorized from "Tiresome" to "A Bloody Nuisance." The last time the British issued a "Bloody Nuisance" warning level was in 1588, when threatened by the Spanish Armada.
The Scots have raised their threat level from "Pissed Off" to "Let's get the Bastards." They don't have any other levels. This is the reason they have been used on the front line of the British army for the last 300 years.
I can't help thinking, it looks like an album cover, or trendy t-shirt print.
ReplyDeleteI'm new here, but may I chime in? It's clearly an alien disguised as Mary Poppins, fleeing with a pram, three young uns inside, bumbershoot hooked to the side.
ReplyDeleteBut I'm from across the pond, so I may have a twisted perspective.
Me Thinks It's like a very groovy "ink-blot test"i.e. it will have a different meaning to each person who looks at it.
ReplyDeleteMyself? I think it's a band's logo.I believe I saw them play live once in 1974 at Clarence's Club In Halifax.I was very drunk when I saw them.......
After learning a new word meaning and rereading the post I knew the comments would be my salvation. H had me howling with laughter!! When I was done I went back and mused some more at the find. I was fascinated by the inconsistent lower and upper case of the letters and the fact that the S in is looks like 6. The sunshine symbol next to "heads" in a ? Wheels on the base of a chair facing sideways with a foot on each ? ETC.. Who ever scribbled it had some mixed drinks that led to an alien brain function and you managed to amuse me. Thanks. No boredom here.
ReplyDeleteMy last period high school class things it is marvelous. They were impressed that you were carrying it around in your pocket and it didn't get too wrinkled.
ReplyDeleteSomebody's pregnant, carrying triplets, and a giant tortilla chip comes into it somewhere... Might be a bad dream... wish my pockets were as interesting. Down the back of the sofa is usually a more fertile hunting ground.
ReplyDeleteCletis : This is wonderful, I'll treasure it.
ReplyDeleteTeresa : I have a feeling that bit about the three young ones might be nearer the mark that you think (see later comment)
Larry B : The reason it didn't get screwed up is that it was quite a tiny fragment : I have enlaraged it considerably and put it in a neat frame.
Jenny : Good gracious, you might just have hit on something. A friend of ours is pregnant and it has been confirmed that she is expecting triplets. We were at her house for dinner a few months ago. But as far as I am aware, at the time she wasn't aware that she was expecting triplets.
ReplyDeleteMy "interpretation" is a cross between jennyfreckles & Roy. It appears to be a woman pregnant with triplets who, centuar like, has been half transformed to a baby buggy (pram) with a slice of pizza on the front. But that's just a rumor.
ReplyDeleteYes, it's definitely a woman pregnant with triplets, riding a bicycle and eating pizza.
ReplyDeleteOkay, after reading all the previous comments, my own interpretation has been forged by a combination of Roy's, Brian's, and Jennyfreckles'.
ReplyDeleteYou're obviously (and unknowingly) suffering from multiple personality disorder (or whatever they're calling that this week). One of your "alters" is female, and believes she is pregnant with triplets. Due to her pregnancy, she is craving exercise (to keep her girlish figure) and pizza. Feed "her" pizza and you probably won't get any messages from her again... until she goes into labor. And good luck with that, sir!
Alan - I'd break it gently to your pregnant friend that she's having aliens.
ReplyDeleteLooks like a rock or cave drawing or pictograph of an alien or something like that.
ReplyDeleteTo reply to your comment on my blog about Charley Chaplin I left a comment reproduced below...
Yes, Alan, it is amazing. If you stop and think a minute, railroad tracks do not tell us which way the train went but spots that seem random enough can make a person or thing we all recognize.
Haha it's a gem! Reminds me of a friend who found a message in his phone that he'd put there himself "Craophine Boatchel" he has absoluely no idea what it means or when he wrote it! Yeh frame it. Not a bad piece if I say so myself.
ReplyDeleteIf the rumour was about triplets, it's not a rumour any more!
ReplyDelete