Fun_People Archive
31 May
modern art & cows

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From: Peter Langston <psl>
Date: Fri, 31 May 96 14:13:02 -0700
To: Fun_People
Subject: modern art & cows

Forwarded-by: Lani Herrmann <lanih@info.sims.berkeley.edu>
Forwarded-by: jmichael@sas.upenn.edu

    While preparing for the quinticentenial celebrations for Gen. Custer's
last stand at Little Big-horn, the commitee turned to a very famous modern
artist in New York, and asked him to make a painting for the occasion.
    After many months, and several hundreds of thousands of dollars, came
the big opening.  The huge hall was packed with the media, politicians, and
everyone who is anyone.  Cameras clicked; microphones turned here and
there; reporters murmured and scribbled...
    Then came the moment to reveal the picture. With a grand gesture, the
artist whisked off the drape, and everybody, but EVERYBODY, fell silent.
The cameras stopped clicking, the pencils stopped in mid-scribble, and
everyone was in total shock.
    In the middle of the picture, with a halo over its head and wearing a
beatific smile, stood a huge cow.  Around it, depicted in excruciating
detail, were hundreds of couples of indians, all wildly copulating.
    Well, finally one newspapermen stands up and asks hesitantly: "excuse
me, but can you enlighten those of us who are ignorant in the ways of modern
art and explain the picture?"
    "Okay", says the artist. "I just put myself in Custer's boots--climbing
that hill, and beholding all the indians waiting for him there.  Then I
painted the first thing that came into his mind: 'Holy cow, look at all
those fucking indians!'"

© 1996 Peter Langston