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originally published Dec. 29, 2019

Hey, there,

So I want to start out my talking about art by talking about a book (which is largely about art): Kurt Vonnegut’s Bluebeard. It’s not quite top-shelf Vonnegut, but it’s pretty good and certainly doesn’t deserve its obscurity. And as far as my life goes, Bluebeard was a big turning point in letting the idea of capital-a Art establish a beachhead in my brain.

Bluebeard is ostensibly the autobiography of Rabo Karabekian, a fictional Armenian-American Abstract Expressionist painter who became a national joke when the “futuristic” materials he used to create his paintings causes them all to fall apart. There’s a lot going on in Bluebeard, with time spent on the Armenian genocide and some admirable-in-intent-but-kind-of-falling-short-in-action feminist points being made, but the stuff that always stuck with me the most was “Karabekian” just addressing the reader and talking about painting and paintings (and since Vonnegut painted on the side, I don’t think it’s too outré to just read these sections as Vonnegut telling you what he thinks about painting).