Monday, May 19, 2008

Hot Monkey Love.


A few weeks ago, I went up to Asheville. This used to be a colorful little college town, with happy stoners, crunchy new age mountain types, a little old money lured by the Grove Park Inn and tourists visiting the Biltmore or peeping the leaves.

This is where Zelda Fitzgerald burned to death in the Highland Mental Hospital and the city Thomas Wolfe called home, as in that place you can't go.


But in the past few years, Asheville has seen rising real estate prices, an influx of Republican-style money and the iffy influence of trustfundsters trolling for a little coed affection.


So how, you might ask, does hot monkey love, other than a cheap ploy to boost my Google hits, come into this? It's about the sock monkies, my friend.

One of the art galleries in Asheville had several on display among the more traditional forms of sculptures and watercolors and none of the monkies were quite as, uh, artistic as some of the examples you see here.

I don't mean to be a snob about this, but sock monkies are not art. Not in their natural state, they're not. If they were, my grandmother was a damn sock monkey Picasso.

No. We should not go down this road. Ou culture demands that we take a stand. Thomas Kincade is illuminated crap, Garrison Keillor can't sing and sock monkies are not art.

One must have standards.

10 comments:

pattinase (abbott) said...

And I'm glad to see the line drawn at sock monkeys. What about Barbie dolls?

Anonymous said...

"OU culture demands that we take a stand"

Is it our culture demanding this? Or is it simply one frustrated writer feeling threatened that some sock monkeys were getting more attention then his latest manuscript?

Don't get me wrong I used to point at things and say whether they were or were not art, but then I turned 16 and got over myself.

Beneath the Carolina Moon said...

I recently came across this quote, but lost who the credit belongs to.

"I was once sitting at a table in a bar when a young woman came up to the bar window, lifted her shirt and pressed her breasts against the window. When she left, there were perfect imprints of her breasts on the dusty glass. I didn't think of it as art at the time. If only I had known."

Last year I took this pic:
http://bp0.blogger.com/_p_St2mCZC1A/RtzFi973CPI/AAAAAAAAAIE/QMY6rrIAScQ/s1600-h/memory.jpg

Combine the two and you have folk art? Impromptu art? Trailer park art? I don't know but, at least the quote is art. Words can be the artist's brush, or maybe paint. You get my tilt, I'm sure. Maybe your grandmother was a Rembrant, afterall.

David Terrenoire said...

"Don't get me wrong I used to point at things and say whether they were or were not art, but then I turned 16 and got over myself."

Wow, I had no idea Thomas Kincade read this blog! Hi, Tom!

Anonymous said...

Anatomically correct sock monkeys!!!

So, so wrong...

I feel like my childhood has been violated.

Anonymous said...

"Don't get me wrong I used to point at things and say whether they were or were not art, but then I turned 16 and got over myself."

Wow, I had no idea Thomas Kincade read this blog! Hi, Tom!


Yes it is I, Thomas Kincade. And I've found your own work to be right up there with mine and have decided to pay you large sums of money for it. Cash or check?

David Terrenoire said...

I like my money delivered in trucks.

Stuart MacBride said...

Is it wrong to find the first sock monkey kinda sexy?

You know... just asking...

Anonymous said...

"I like my money delivered in trucks."

The trucks will be on their way soon. That is as soon as you the "writer" learn to spell.

oh by the by, toy design is on a creative level much higher then art! This is why i call it FArt because it's fun art!

Anonymous said...

'Anonymous' is being antagonistic, detracting from their original, valid criticism. Railing against sock monkeys in a gallery reads as envious, narrow and petulant.

Trifling valuation is the hallmark of a resentful critics, not a confident, capable artist.