Birthday Blues + Surrealist Views

Björk + Magritte + Me

While it’s not my birthday—the cake and candles are for Björk and René Magritte—it might as well be. That’s how upside-down and all-around I think this world truly is.

Frankly, I’m exhausted from all the cussing, discussing, and fussing. Trying to make sense of the senseless—all the hate, hurt, and willfully ignorant—has left me with nothing but a headache and much heartache.

Today, I’m choosing to follow Björk’s lead and “Shhhh, shhhh” on all that shit.

“You blow a fuse
Zing, boom
The devil cuts loose
Zing, boom
So what's the use
Wow, bam”

“It’s Oh So Quiet” by Björk
Written by Bert Reisfeld + Hans Lang

Instead, I’m retreating to the world of art and music, where I’m free to interpret beauty and meaning however I want. Without having to defend my beliefs, opinions, tastes, or worldviews.

THE TREACHERY OF IMAGES BY RENÉ MAGRITTE

For me, the works of Belgian surrealist painter René Magritte and Icelandic alt-pop icon Björk exist in a space between reality and dreams.

Born decades apart, both artists share a worldview: What you see is not what you get.

Reality, they seem to insist, is a carefully constructed, curated facade.

“This shhhh is bananas…B-A-N-A-N-A-S.”
Gwen Stefani

Magritte unmasked the world’s illusions with his paintbrush, creating seemingly light-hearted juxtapositions: a man in a bowler hat with his face obscured by an apple, a pipe that isn’t a pipe, a cloudy sky framed in a neat little box. Behind the images is the mess-age: The reality we cling to is, at best, a mirage.

Björk, with her kaleidoscopic music and surreal music videos, follows a similar path. Her art dismantles the artificiality of many human constructs and remixes them into works that are both beautiful and haunting. Her universe is ethereal and surreal, an aural dreamscape where beauty and unease collide.

Personally, I’m grappling with a reality that feels a little too real right now. My nerves are as frayed as an old cassette tape left out in the sun, and some folks are plucking my last good nerve like it’s a harp string.

In honor of Björk and Magritte’s birthday, I’m pressing pause on my realist tendencies.

Instead of confronting the hot messes, dumpster fires, and train wrecks head-on, I’ll do my best to see it all through a surrealist’s lens.

Maybe it’s not a dumpster fire but an abstract performance art piece. Perhaps the train wrecks are metaphors for rebirth rather than destruction. And all the messes could just be canvases painted to look like chaos when, in fact, they’re something entirely different.

That’s the absurdity and beauty of surrealism: it lets us step outside the rigid confines of “what is” to imagine “what could be.” It’s not about denying reality but twisting it into shapes that are easier—or at least more interesting—to live with.

To those who've been stressing me out lately: I see you as a character in a Magritte painting, your head swapped out for a giant orange. Seems apropos, doesn’t it?

Either way, I’m reclaiming my peace—and my space—through art, creativity, and productivity. Oh, and some so-surly realism. It’s the first chapter in Surrealism For Dummies. Or did I just make that “shhhh” up?

Thanks for reading!
Clint

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NEWS + VIEWS

• America’s News Influencers (Pew Research Study = 11-18-24)

• Trump’s Impossible Task: Delivering for the Working Class and Billionaires (Bloomberg = 11-18-24)

• 'Pity The Billionaire' A Book talk with Thomas Frank (The Aspen Institute = 2012)

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ON THIS DAY = NOVEMBER 21

BIRTHDAYS

• 1694 = Voltaire = French writer and philosopher

• 1898 = René Magritte = Belgian painter

• 1908 = Leo Politi = Italian-American author and illustrator

• 1919 = Paul Bogart = American director and producer

• 1937 = Marlo Thomas = American actor and activist

• 1944 = Harold Ramis = American actor and filmmaker

• 1945 = Goldie Hawn = American actor and writer

• 1952 = Lorna Luft = American actor and singer

• 1956 = Cherry Jones = American actor

• 1965 = Björk = Icelandic singer-songwriter

• 1966 = Troy Aikman = American football player and sportscaster

• 1967 = Amanda Lepore = American model and singer

• 1971 = Michael Strahan = American football player and tv host

• 1985 = Carly Rae Jepsen = Canadian singer-songwriter

CELEBRATIONS

• Great American Smokeout

• Movember (November 1-30)

• World Television Day

EVENTS

• 1620 = Plymouth Colony settlers sign the Mayflower Compact.

• 1783 = In Paris, Jean-François Pilâtre de Rozier and François Laurent d'Arlandes make the first untethered hot air balloon flight.

• 1877 = Thomas Edison announces his invention of the phonograph, a machine that can record and play sound.

• 1900 = Claude Monet's paintings shown at Gallery Durand-Ruel in Paris.

• 1905 = Albert Einstein's paper that leads to the mass–energy equivalence formula, E = mc², is published in the journal Annalen der Physik.

• 1959 = DJ Alan Freed, who popularized the term "rock and roll," is fired from WABC radio over allegations he had participated in the payola scandal.

• 2004 = The Paris Club agrees to write off 80% (up to $100 billion) of Iraq's external debt.

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CLASSIC ART + QUOTE OF THE DAY

“The present reeks of mediocrity and the atom bomb.”
Rene Magritte

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