A Wonderful Summary of Willy Blake

"Artist" Maria Alquilar created a work for the Livermore, CA, public library in which she misspelled the names of some of the great lights in human history: Einstein, for example, and Michaelangelo. She refuses to fix the mistakes, after initially agreeing to for a fee of $6,000, and blames city officials for not noticing at the opening. Of course, by that time it would have been too late. She also points out to her sympathetic audience (that's you and I) that she spent much of her own time and money on the piece. I don't know how much of her own money she spent on it, but I do know she was paid $40,000 for it.



Here's the most comprehensive article, but this is the article containing her refusal to make any repairs, in which she says, "The people that are into humanities, and are into Blake's concept of enlightenment, they are not looking at the words." William Blake is relevant because the principal inscription on the piece is Blake's "when the doors of perception are cleansed all things will appear as they are, infinite." Y'all know what I think of Blake. So thanks to Alquilar for such a pithy summary of Blake's ideas: don't look at the words...just feel it, baby. That does sound familiar.



I wish to call to your mind a scene from So I Married An Axe Murderer, in which the very Scottish father is going on about the world-controlling Pentavirate. The Pentavirate is comprised of the Getty family, the Rothschilds, the Queen, the Vatican, as well as Colonel Sanders before he died. Mike Meyers responds to this lunacy is the most proper and dignified way possible: he says, "Cuckoo!"



One thing is certain: the town Livermore won't be getting any money back. In fact, their offer to pay $6,000 plus travel for her to fix the mistakes shows that they wouldn't even think of asking. Lacking in what our Maria might call "cojones" if she weren't totally against machismo. I don't know that she is, actually. I just know that she paints in a fertility goddess sort of style. Ew.



UPDATE: In my opinion the So I Married... father's Scottishness has nothing to do with his loonieness. Nothing.

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