red-handed

Oona and I took in the Basquiat exhibit at the AGO this weekend. We even managed to maintain normal, art-going behaviour for a few minutes, before all the this-is-boring 's and why-are-we-doing-what-you-want-to-do? 's set in. To be honest, it was a bit boring. Or at least underwhelming. I kept looking at the dates, reminding myself why this stuff would have been so hot with the New York art market.   And I do get it –– the time and the place and the historical significance. And all that. Plus the kid had a good story.    Still, for me, his iconography is better than his painting. "They look like skeletons playing basketball," Oona said of Basquiat's paintings, but his eye for symbolism, for the bewitching graphic element, is bang on. And in that way he's the first graphic artist superstar.    Anyway –– Oona got some chocolate milk and cantaloupe out of it, in the end, so we made out okay. Other Oona/Toronto stuff here (password is s

So I've been on a bit of a Parker kick –– two books in four days, Flashfire and The Sour Lemon Score . I have Butcher's Moon on my bedside table. That will leave twenty one left to go. I came at these from the graphic novels –– The Hunter, The Outfit, The Score and Slayground –– which are worth it for the artwork alone. But with the novels you get the full blood pudding. Parker is an anti-hero but for me he's more anti-hope. Things will never get better but better things can always be stolen, at least for awhile. And while there is no magic in the world, there is plenty of misdirection. The rest: professional thief, ruthless operator, sociopath with a deep read on human weakness, heartless pragmatist who nonetheless follows a code, a kind of ethic, which includes wreaking havoc on other criminals who cross him, and never trusting a power beyond his own. To draw him in black ink is almost perfect. I've also drawn some Japanese ghosts lately. Postscript: