Not Quite Matisse, But...

Today is Sunday, 5 September 2010.

Recall how, during the Second European Great War, BBC Radio would, at appointed hours, broadcast cryptic encoded messages to the Resistance in Occupied Europe?

“The red-shouldered hawk takes flight at dawn. REPEAT. The red-shouldered hawk takes flight at dawn.”

I was reminded of this today when I bought a book at the art museum: An Anthology of Graphic Fiction, Cartoons, and True Stories, edited by Ivan Brunetti. (New Haven & London: Yale University Press, 2006) (I was particularly relieved to note that the comma after “Cartoons” was not omitted, as is increasingly the case, but that’s another story.) Excellent.

On page 38 is a Peanuts cartoon from the late 1950s.

C. Brown: “I wish I had a FRIEND. I wish somebody would come up to me and say, “Charlie Brown, I’m your friend”. "

Lucy: “Uh, huh. Why don’t you wish for some WINGS?”

Sometimes, it seems as if life is like that: full of cryptic encoded references. Generally, life isn’t like that. When it seems that life is like that, it’s often a sign of severe mental illness.

Or art.