My first thought upon looking at the picture: "That's such a Sun Ra picture." That, right there, pretty much defines Art for Mr. Ra. If it had a pyramid at dusk in the background, it would be perfect. The painting is realistic, it's dramatic, it's obviously the product of a significant amount of work, the artist was a very good painter, and it has an exotic theme. Bingo, five for five.
But don't think that I'm belittling the piece, or Sun's taste in art. No, it's a beautiful piece, and if someone presented me with the original, I'd certainly hang it on a wall in my house. Time to visit the Joslyn Art Museum in...Omaha, Nebraska? Jeez, there's a cultural infection that hasn't taken hold.
So, do I consider the picture art? Indeed I do. I rather like the ubercandles, although I wonder what the artist intended by painting different candle holders. Perhaps the Pasha has fallen on hard times, and/or this was the best that could be gathered at short notice? That would support the "decline of the Ottoman Empire" theory about the painting's meaning. Yes, I read the explanatory note before writing this. I'm sorry to break this to you all, but it's a dead tiger. Hence the incense burner, or what I'm assuming is an incense burner. It's either that or a Turkish R2D2.
Notice how the majority of the other Cant authors prefer to think of it as sleeping. Yes, it's a beautiful and noble creature, and it's much more...well, pleasant, I suppose, to think of it as merely resting, and not slipping towards decay. If it's a resting tiger, then the painting is peaceful, soothing. A dead tiger, of course, changes everything. There is still a peaceful atmosphere, but it's not comforting. The Pasha's companion is no longer there, and he is alone, very much alone, with his grief. If water was not still pouring from the fountain, the scene could almost be described as desolate.
But I am not an art critic, and not one to indulge in melancholy musings in a public forum. So a change of direction:
In his column, Pakeha begins a particularly ranty sentence: "Assholes like Pollock and Picasso found a vein..." Which dislodged a long-forgotten lyric of a song that states, very bluntly, "Pablo Picasso was never called an asshole."
Now I needed to know more about that song. A song that I heard once, probably a decade ago. You know, without the Internet, I would forget about the song by the next morning and never remember that I wanted to hear it. I found the lyrics right away, but it took a while longer to find a decent snippet of the song. It's only a minute or so of it, but that's better than nothing. Plus, you can also find a piece of Tarzan Boy there. A piece of the song, that is. Perverts.
Back to the Picasso song, it's a cover of the original done by a band called Burning Sensations, and, boy, you get some interesting results from a web search for that phrase. Lots of people asking medical questions, but also including X-Men fan fiction. No, I didn't read it. The medical questions were amusing enough. Let me just make a non-authoritative, but obviously necessary statement: If you have a condition that you can honestly describe as including burning sensations, then no, it's not normal, and yes, it's bad. God's teeth, people, that much should be pretty obvious.