Surrealism lives!

Well, of course it does (live.) Long coopted by the advertising industry, it doesn't shock as it did in the 1920s Paris. It sells tampons, toilet tissue, and insurance, among all the consumables we purchase and use.

But this is about the last original surrealist still among the living, Enrico Donati, who is 98 years old, still working and still exhibiting. He associated with Andre Breton, Marcel Duchamp and all the greats of the movement. His seminal work was the Fist (1946) bronze sculpture. Yes, those are two eyeballs staring at you. (There are many reproductions of his work on the Intenret.)

Here's what Mr Donati has to say about young artists today:

"They have no imagination. People think they're geniuses. They stand in their studios and look like little Napoleons. They think 'I'm a genius'. I don't think I'm a genius at all."

In the meantime, in the city of San Francisco, the taxicab driver who holds the city taxi medalion (permit) No. 666, asked the city taxi commision that the number be retired and that he be issued a new medallion. The driver said that the number (the sign of Lucifer himself) brought him nothing but bad luck even though the taxi had been blessed by a qualified friar. The commission voted 5-1 to keep No. 666 on the streets, citing concerns that the case might open a can of worms with other drivers asking that their numbers be retired. After all, San Francisco is a multi-ethnic city and various ethnicities consider many other numbers as unlucky. Incidentally, 666 is the address of SS Peter and Paul's Church on Filbert Street in San Francisco.

Meanwhile, in Hollywood, a well known actor, married (as of this writing) to a well known Hollywood actress has been hired along with his spouse to act in a bio-pic portraying a stormy marriage of some real life characters. Both the actor and the actress, incidentally, have been over the years frequent visitors to the gossip celebrity pages describing their antics and scandals. Here is what the famous actor said recently about the filming:

"All my actor friends warned us, saying, 'Those abusive husband-and-wife scenes are gonna be difficult. It almost scared me into quitting. With those scenes, we'd end up exhausted. But driving home, we'd just look at each other and say, 'We are so normal."'