M
Meerkat
Guest
I have a new phrase I use to explain absurdity. It is this: "Well, he just has a lobster on his head."
The context: I was an art history major. I'd grown up crazy sheltered and had never heard of any kind of art other than Impressionist art, so I had the idea that art was always objective. Everything went fine for me until I took Twentieth-Century Art. That one was so hard for me because I simply could not get my poor head around the notion that art could be subjective. There I sat as we looked at Surrealist art piece after Surrealist art piece; mentally, I was working so hard to figure out what it all meant.
Finally, as we looked at what had to have been a Dali painting, I gave up. That particular painting showed a man with a lobster on his head. (I can't now track the painting down.) Feeling utterly mentally deficient, I spoke up.
"But Dr Stewart," I said, "what does it *mean*?"
Dr Stewart, who sat on the edge of the dais twirling his glasses in his best art history professor way, looked directly at me and said, "Nothing. It doesn't mean ANYTHING."
It may be laughably obvious to most people, but to me, it was an epiphany. I am actually an eminently logical and scientific person and always try to find the logic to everything. And suddenly I realised that at times, someone might have a lobster on his head, because why not?
So now, when something is just absurd and lacks logic, I shrug and say, "Well, he's just got a lobster on his head."
I encourage this phrase to catch on.
The context: I was an art history major. I'd grown up crazy sheltered and had never heard of any kind of art other than Impressionist art, so I had the idea that art was always objective. Everything went fine for me until I took Twentieth-Century Art. That one was so hard for me because I simply could not get my poor head around the notion that art could be subjective. There I sat as we looked at Surrealist art piece after Surrealist art piece; mentally, I was working so hard to figure out what it all meant.
Finally, as we looked at what had to have been a Dali painting, I gave up. That particular painting showed a man with a lobster on his head. (I can't now track the painting down.) Feeling utterly mentally deficient, I spoke up.
"But Dr Stewart," I said, "what does it *mean*?"
Dr Stewart, who sat on the edge of the dais twirling his glasses in his best art history professor way, looked directly at me and said, "Nothing. It doesn't mean ANYTHING."
It may be laughably obvious to most people, but to me, it was an epiphany. I am actually an eminently logical and scientific person and always try to find the logic to everything. And suddenly I realised that at times, someone might have a lobster on his head, because why not?
So now, when something is just absurd and lacks logic, I shrug and say, "Well, he's just got a lobster on his head."
I encourage this phrase to catch on.