Bob Schwartz

Art: Chris Roberts-Antieau

Gathering-Stars

The post below is from 2015, after one of our visits to New Orleans. (Note to Americans and other world citizens: Visit New Orleans, and the rest of Louisiana, including Acadia and Vermillion Parish.)

I keep saying that among others, artists will save us. They really will.


There’s a lot of art in the world. A lot in New Orleans. A lot on Royal Street in New Orleans. But nothing in the world, in New Orleans, or on Royal Street, like the art of Chris Roberts-Antieau.

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Having just discovered her work, I would say much more. But instead I’ll just say that she works in fabric. That she does what artists should do: delight you, inspire you, deliver the combination of joy and thoughtfulness that can be mistaken for mere craft or whimsy but is nothing less than art.

The-Funeral-Of-James-Brown

Only a few examples are shown here. Just visit the website of the Antieau Gallery. Visit the gallery on Royal Street in New Orleans, or in Santa Fe, or in Carmel-by-the-Sea. See her work at various museums.

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Happy World Penguin Day: Captain Marvel Jr. and the Crystal City of the Peculiar Penguins (1943)

Today is World Penguin Day.

I could talk about how special penguins are to the world and to me, or talk about the existential threats they face, or show pictures of impossibly cute penguin chicks. You can find that everywhere.

Instead, this is something you may not find anywhere.

An issue of Master Comics from 1943 features the story “Captain Marvel Jr. and the Crystal City of the Peculiar Penguins”.

I have included a few pages, which may be hard to read. Instead of my description, I will let the penguins explain.


CAPTAIN MARVEL JR.:
But how do you keep your city so warm?

PENGUIN:
Through our sun-crystal! It captures and magnifies the sun’s light and heat — a strange gas keeps the crystal aloft! Those thieves you fought had come down to steal our crystals from us! They had heard rumors of our invention from a lost explorer whom we saved years ago!

For centuries we have kept our civilization secret because we felt the world wasn’t ready to receive us! We feared your war-like ways and your unscrupulous merchant-bandits! We pretended to be ignorant and permitted your explorers to capture us for your zoos just to keep our secret!


The efforts of the bandits to steal the crystals is thwarted and they are defeated. Once they are captured, the penguins build an enclosure for them.


CAPTAIN MARVEL JR.:
Frankly, I don’t know what to do with these crooks! If I take them back to jail, your secret will be out! Yet I can’t** let them go free!

PENGUIN:
Leave that to us, Captain Marvel Jr. … we know what to do!”

You see? We’ve always wanted to start a zoo…and these animals will be our first specimens!


Happy World Penguin Day!