Attack of the Pastel
Darnell was really painting luminously — it was on the verge of Thomas Kinkade extremes — but then the pastellists attacked. They threw spaghetti, they sang songs about sad regattas; in short, they did everything within their power to reduce Darnell’s luminosity.
That’s when I was called in. Some call me a luminosity specialist. Others call me a centipede. I laugh at all of those people, not because of what they call me, but merely because I laugh at everyone. I am an equal opportunity laugher, never willing to pass up a good laughing opportunity.
The first step was to check out the pastel army’s Facebook page. This was less informative than I expected. I think I was thinking of Myspace, and after building up my resistance to garish colors and crappy music, my senses were completely underwhelmed by the decency of their Facebook account. Celebrating the holiday, I proceeded to rub leftover turkey all over my monitor in order to spice up the Internet. Unfortunately, the turkey was cooked five days ago and had long since spoiled.
So I swiftly bid aloha — as in goodbye, not hello — to the Internet and headed to Wal-Mart to stock up on all the necessary supplies. I called up Darnell to see how he was fending off the pastel attack on his own, but he never answered. Was he simply busy inventing new verbs and therefore unable to answer the phone, or was it too late? Had the pastelites gotten to him already? Were his paintings desaturated and less luminous than even the dimmest of crazy sparrows?
I would never know the answer to that. While I was at Wal-Mart I discovered a crate of carafes that were absolutely amazing. They were made out of glass, and if you stared into their surface you could imagine that a happy family of quantum foxes were celebrating and dancing around in there. I became so entranced by the fox family that I never found out what happened to Darnell.
I do know that I never saw another one of his paintings, and yet Thomas Kinkade’s paintings continued to be churned out, unaltered by even the smallest pastel influences. I can only chalk that up to the weird texture that chalk leaves on your fingers after you use it. What else could it be?
And therefore I bring you to the motto of this story: Happy Thanksgiving. I assure you that the sentiment comes from deep within my heart, and I present it to you bloodied and still reeking of whatever the inside of your heart smells like. I’m sure it’s probably not too pleasant. Best to not smell my motto before you sit down to eat or anything like that. I might have the smelliest motto for miles in all directions. I should work on that.