The Crying Boy Curse, or Kitsch Kills!

[semillama]

Heddi's horrible kitsch art photos in another post inspired me to bring this to the attention of the group.

The Crying Boy Curse



In a nutshell, some reporter tried to demonstrate a link between owning a kitsch painting of a crying boy (there are several versions) and house fires - basically implying that somehow the painting CAUSED the fires, while in most cases, the painting itself escaping unharmed while the rest of the house was a total loss. Read more at the link.

http://www.thestar.co.uk/bizarre/Truth-about-the-Crying-Boy.3841222.jp

[cosmik debris]

1. I'd have to burn down my house if it had that picture in it.

Maybe we could extend the curse to the infamous velvet Elvis.

[Heddi]

7. Velvis?

Here's the king of rock and the king of the lambs

[Warpy]

2. I love the part about how people who collect kitsch

are careless slobs who catch on fire a lot.

I wonder if there are any figures about how often people who own Thomas Kinkade "paintings" catch on fire.

Those things would probably burn, though, their only redeeming quality.

[moggie]

3. I'd love to see the Kinkade-owning houses burn

I bet they'd burn with a lovely heartwarming glow.

To be fair, proper research (and I'm not going to visit The Star to see whether that's what it cites: it's another ghastly tabloid rag from a RW stable) would probably need to take owner age into account. I'd guess this kind of kitsch is more likely to be owned by old people, and old people probably catch fire more than the young.

[Heddi]

4. A Tommy Kinkyaid burning would be a biohazard

He supposedly mixes his blood into the ink that OTHER PEOPLE USE TO PAINT HIS UGLY ASS PICTURES so that way you can tell a "real" from a "fake" by doing a DNA sample of the paint.

So burning his wretched excuse for "art" (remember...you can't spell FART without ART....) would be like burning a sharps container. All his blood and shit going up in smoke, getting inhaled by curious passers-by. Ew.

I GOT HEART PROBLEMS BECAUSE THOMAS KINKADES SHITTY BLOOD DNA GOT LODGED IN MY LUNG AND NOW I'VE GOT WINTER SCAPES AND GLOWING HEARTHS IN MY ALVEOLI

fucker

[realisticphish]

5. that's really wierd

it's like he thinks the paintings are his children. Adds a whole new level to the paintings

[Heddi]

6. If they are his children

then they have severe chromosomal abnormalities

[moggie]

9. I did not know that

So you could kill someone, scrape a little Kinkade pigment onto the murder weapon, and he would take the rap.

[Heddi]

10. best. way. to. stop. those. paintings. EVER

Dood, let's totally set up Thomas Kinkade as a super mass murderer. That would rock only because it would possibly rid the world of those hideous fruit-ass shit drawings.

I have come to the realization over the last few days that I really hate most things, and most people. Shitty Fingerhut-Catalog kitch not withstanding. Do you think a brass and glass coffee table a'la 1984 would go with my Danish Modern furniture and Ikea rug? I'm thinking it might. Heck, EVERYTHING goes with brass and glass, especially those white geese with the blue ribbons around their neck. Home Is Where The Heart Is :)

[moggie]

12. Of course you hate everyone

It goes with the medical profession. You couldn't pump people full of TOXINS every shift if you actually cared for them, right?

I've watched that ultra-realistic show "CSI", so I'm having second thoughts about the Kinkade frame-up. Those beautiful people* in their stylish lab always uncover the truth somehow. I don't want to risk jail avenging bad art, at least until after the Rothko exhibition at the Tate Modern in September.

Here's a thought. If Kinkade had major trauma and needed a transfusion, could you use his paintings? That'd be a way of not only preventing new ones, but destroying the existing ones. "I'm glad you're finally awake, Mr Kinkade. I have some good news, and some bad news..."

* I'll bet that turtlenuse lab person is HAWT like that Jorja Fox.

[Heddi]

13. The reality of CSI blows my mind

I wanna know--why are there so many "unsolved" crimes when we ALL know that you can take a sample of DNA and put it in the CD drive of the computer, and the computer goes beep-boop-beep-bop and within TWO SECONDS the picture of the person whose dna it was pops up on the screen, along with real-time GPS of their current location.

It's so really real that it's really scary how real it is.

[TZ]

14. Oh yeah, Moggie...all us scientists

Look just like Jorja Fox and Marg Helgenberger..and all the women were exotic dancers before getting their PhD's and we even keep our labs nice and dark like they do..cause you know..who really needs to see what they are doing/manipulating....:rofl:

(alot of us in the lab actually do watch CSI and we sat around one day at lunch laughing at the ummm inaccuracies of CSI...)

[realisticphish]

15. scientists

also work in massive warehouses that are divided by countless floor to ceiling panes of glass

[Heddi]

16. artists lofts for smart people

I notice that most labs have really shitty lighting, and the one "scientist" with thick glasses, hair in a bun, and russian accent that suddenly goes from zero to va-va-voom with a quick release of the hair and removal of glasses.

That's me, you know. Only I take off my glasses and I look like a mole rat.

[TZ]

17. They also never wear those dorky eye protection

and only occasionally lab coats..But of course nobody looks sexy in PPE.....

[Heddi]

21. I am particuarly fond of the PAPR masks we wear in TB rooms

oh yeah, baby. Bow-chicka-wow-wow



Nothing finer than donning this handsome getup when the room is 10,000 degrees as it is, getting inside and realizing I FORGOT THE GLASS OF WATER! Gaaaaaah!

the hood gets all smelly because we use them between ourselves, it's all foggy inside....hate. those. things.

[varkam]

26. turtlensue was an exotic dancer.

Hawt.

:D

[madinmaryland]

31. Your post is worthless without pictures!

:D

[varkam]

32. Lol! Indeed it is.

Indeed it is.

[Warpy]

18. There's a Kinkade antidote out there

http://www.somethingawful.com/d/photoshop-phriday/paintings-light-part.php?page=3

The two bottom ones are particular favorites, although I admit I'm also kinda partial to the Klan meeting and the glue factory.

[Heddi]

28. I love something awful

and those paintings are pretty sweet.

[onager]

25. Now you can LIVE in a Kink-Aid painting!

One thing I've noticed about Kink-Aid "art"--there are almost never any people in it. Did anyone else notice that this is a trait shared with that famous Vienna postcard artiste, Adolf Hitler?

Now down to bidness. Let's hope a lot of these overpriced dumps were sold with sub-prime mortgages. I found one article that said Kinkade-Hausen finally sold out, but only after some house prices were cut by $100,000.

This is the SECOND Kink-Aid development, BTW, in Missouri. The first one was near Vallejo, California. VALLEJO! I've been to Vallejo. Nice enough little town, but the frigging Cotswolds it certainly ain't:

New Housing Community in Columbia, MO Features Thomas Kinkade Homes

MORGAN HILL, Calif. -- Thomas Kinkade-inspired homes will be featured in a new master-planned community in Columbia, MO, announced HST Group, LLC, the Northwest-based real estate development firm in charge of the project. About 100 luxury homes will feature architectural designs inspired by the artwork of Thomas Kinkade, the "Painter of Light(TM)" and world-renowned artist...

"The Thomas Kinkade brand stands for the values associated with home and hearth, peace, joy, faith, family and friends. Partnering with HST in the creation of homes inspired by the artwork of Thomas Kinkade delivers on what collectors tell us inspire them most about Thom's work -- that they wish they could step into the world created in the painting. The Thomas Kinkade Company is pleased to align itself with such a visionary home builder," said Dan Byrne, CEO of The Thomas Kinkade Company.

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0EIN/is_2006_August_14/ai_n16620728

:rofl:

I just wanna see that again: "...that they wish they could step into the world created in the painting." Bwa-ha-ha! But unlike the paintings, the actual houses will unfortunately contain actual human beings.

So our Kink-Aid fans will find themselves dealing with the Homeowner-Association Nazi who bans their gazebo, the neighborhood drunk who crashes her SUV through the white picket fence, and that amateur photographer next door who keeps offering to babysit the kids. For free!

A counterpoint from Salon.com:

...What you find in the rolling hills behind Vallejo is the exact opposite of the Kinkadeian ideal. Instead of quaint cottages, there's generic tract housing; instead of lush landscapes, concrete patios; instead of a cozy village, there's a bland collection of homes with nothing -- not a church, not a cafe, not even a town square -- to draw them together...

The libraries of the model homes included such volumes as "Soup: A Way of Life"; biographies of Maria Callas and the Dalai Lama; assorted coffee table books featuring impressionist painters (no modern art here, mister!); self-help books like "Real Life, Real Answers" and "The Retreat to Commitment"; Danielle Steel and John Grisham novels; and, probably since Northern California has a large Hispanic population, a tome called "Mexican-Americans: The Ambivalent Minority."

(The Bible is conspicuously absent, which is noteworthy considering Kinkade's religious fervor; apparently, the developers didn't want to scare off any potential Hindus or Zoroastrians.)


http://archive.salon.com/mwt/style/2002/03/18/kinkade_village/index.html

[Heddi]

27. I'm not sure

that I want to live in a world where you see it like you smeared vasoline on your eyeglasses to give it the winsome, looking-back-like-they-do-on-TV-shows type of way. Does that make sense?

I prefer my images to be crisp! clear! smoggy! a homeless guy below my building is peeing on a tree. THAT is real life. Some cherub-induced art vomit is not real life. I mean, what kind of trees have fruit that are pink, blue, yellow....?? bah.

[Heddi]

8. Speaking of crappy things catching on fire

I always thought that if I was gonna die (and I'm not so sure that I will), i'd like to go out by spontaneous human combustion. I think that would be a neat way to go. Just the burnt leg and hand stupmps on the Sears Roebuck Easy Chair.....

[Occulus]

29. Has anyone ever figured out how those happen?

Seriously. It just seems too damn creepy to be real.

[TZ]

11. You know I prefer my cursed items to at least be classy...

Give me the Hope Diamond any day..
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hope_Diamond
I've seen it several times..beautiful...

[Orrex]

19. That kid was framed!

Leave Crying Boy Alone!!!!1!

[Heddi]

20. OMG! WTF! LOL

ROFL!!!111!!one111!!

[onager]

22. Kitsch destroyed the Roman Empire!

Click the link to see a classic in the Guilty Dog genre, dating back to the 2d Century CE. The dog sits, RCA-doggie-style, beside a vase he just knocked over. We know it's a tame dog because it wears a collar.

Note that this is not a painting--it's a mosaic, which took a helluva lotta work and money to put into somebody's floor.

This was excavated in 1993, during construction of the new Alexandria Library here in Alexandria, Egypt. The same excavation site yielded the Sen. Larry Craig Memorial Mosaic--two naked wrestlers in Wide Stances, one black and one white.

http://www.bibalex.org/English/artsmuseums/antiquitiesmuseum/collection/BAsite.htm

[realisticphish]

23. i have to admit

that is freaking cool.

i love the little slices of reality that come at us through archaeology. I mean, we think of the ancient cultures as these alien things, when in reality, a lot of things are exactly the same today

[onager]

24. I agree, the "everyday" stuff is amazing.

The Graeco-Roman Museum here in Alexandria is just crammed with interesting stuff people used in daily life. One popular ancient souveneir was a lamp that was actually a scale model of the famous Alexandria lighthouse, the Pharos. Since very little information survived about the Pharos, those lamps were useful in showing what it looked like.

One whole room of the museum is nothing but coins. Another room has loads of those spooky little Tanagra figurines. Those damn things are so well-detailed you almost expect them to talk.

The GRM also has my favorite mosaic, lifted from the floor of a dining room in a Roman family's villa. It's a very detailed and ugly-ass head of the Medusa. The tour guides joke that the family used it to get rid of boring dinner guests.

The mosaic floor in the "Villa of the Birds" is also quite a sight. Amazing that the mosaics survived with the colors intact, since the villa burned down and the roof crashed in on the floor. The villa is part of the Kom el-Dikka complex, which also includes a small Roman-era amphitheater and public baths. "Kom el-Dikka" means "hill of rubble," which is exactly what the site was until 1960, when archeologists started digging. They found a whole Roman neighborhood under there!

Kom el-Dikka is right around the corner from the Nebi Daniel Mosque, long rumored to contain the corpse of Alexander The Great in a hidden underground crypt. (The rumor has been completely debunked. Which has not stopped it, of course.)

http://guardians.net/sca/roman_mosaics.htm

BTW, that Guilty Doggie mosaic is in the small museum of the Alexandria Library, which is easy to miss. It's in a sub-basement and you have to buy an extra ticket. A lot of tourists just buy a ticket to wander around in the library and forget the two other extra-cost attractions: the museum and the collection of ancient manuscripts. Both are worth seeing if you come here.

End of Virtual Tour, sorry for getting carried away (again)...but you can see why I sometimes feel like a non-woo version of Indiana Jones living here...

[realisticphish]

30. i spent three years

working in a rare books library, and i'm currently in grad school for library science. I would actually love to see the manuscripts.

I'll add egypt to the list of places i'll go when jesus comes down and gives me a check for free money and kittens for life ;)