|
« ROCKET SCIENTIST ALERT. |
Main
| Brilliance. »
August 31, 2003
My coffee table has found JESUS.
...Or rather, found itself forcibly shellaced to Jesus over a three-day period this weekend. Matt took a few pictures before the last coat of varnish was applied.
Clicky-clicky for the unreasonably large version of this image.
I sometimes get handed religious tracts by street preachers and their glassy-eyed acolytes. I really, really doubt that anyone's ever been converted by these things, but they're not without value. Most of 'em have more than their share of hilarity, all of it unintentional. And unintentional humor is always the best kind.
There's something about the desperately earnest, froth-flecked ravings of maudlin, wobbily-drawn doodles that gets to me every time. I can just imagine the authors of the flyers laboring over their little cartoon everymen. Most of the drawings are horrible, sure, but you can't deny the sincerity. The creepy, overbearing sincerity.
I tried to get an decent variety of maniacs in the mix. The base is made up of pages from Michael, a psychotic Catholic propoganda rag from Quebec. It's the kinda paper that gets delivered to people's houses without them actually asking for it, and goes on a little too long about how Jesus Christ's first act upon his return to Earth will be the abolition of credit card debt. Take THAT, "International Bankers!"
GOD IS AN ALE-E-UM. Also: Clones.
Also puttin' in their appearances: Jews for Jesus, who regularly haunt downtown Chicago. The Jehovah's Witnesses, in English and Spanish. Those media darlings of the hour, the Raelians. Various and sundry Protestant and "Bible-Based" goofballs. A booklet from Chicago's very own clone farm, Moody Bible Institute, describing what your first seven days in Hell will be like. (Shakin' in my Chuck Taylors, fellas.) And my absolute favorite Christian denomination, UNMEDICATED SCHIZOPHRENIA.
No comment necessary...
This little gem was found in the Boston subway, and it's the centerpiece of the collection. If I remember Revelation correctly, what we're seeing here is The Whore of Babylon, complete with the "wine of fornication" (or possibly her booze, "the blood of saints"), captioned as "The Modern Union Between Church and State(?!?!?!)," flanked by plural-headed monstrosities labled as "Papal Rome," "The United States of America," and that ol' whipping boy of the ages, "Paganism." There was an email address scrawled onto the page, and a little Google detective work traced it to one Miss Shelley Senner, still quite active in a few windowlicker Yahoo groups (and apparently, married or once-married to a violin-maker). Search her name for extracurricular fun. Sadly, she doesn't seem to have a webpage.
Please, Lord... pay my taxes... and wash my van.
Also worth immortalizing: This flyer I got in the mail, advertising cheesy crucifix charms guaranteed to heap fortune upon the wearer. The text reads like the sermons from 1980s evangelical cable stations, casting honest-to-God miracles in the form of absurdly large inheritances, windfalls, and shiny new cars. Because apparently, once you get past all that "Bible" and "faith" crap, Jesus and Pat Sajak have a lot in common.
That's enough for now. Tomorrow: Back to drawing.
Posted by Spike at August 31, 2003 06:36 PM
| 
