Last month, Shelly and I and her partner and his wife went to Disney. We stayed a couple of days at a Disney “economy hotel,” the All Star Music Hotel (translation: a Motel 6 with a theme and a different brand name on the sign), a music-themed place whose various buildings were all dedicated to different kinds of pop music. The buildings ad gigantic sculptures in front of eac one–a huge guitar for the Rock and Roll building, a burning cross in front of the Country Music building–you get the idea.
Each room had artwork on the wall.
I’ve been meaning to post about the artwork for some time, but only now have I been able to muster the courage and the strength to do so. For this is no ordinary bland, corporate motel artwork, oh my no.
I photographed the artwork on our wall, which was apparently the same as the artwork in every room throughout the motel–a thought that to this day keeps me up at night.
The theme of the artwork is deceptively simple: children, three of them to be precise, one playing a banjo for the entertainment of the other two. Such a simple description, however, utterly fails to communicate the true ghastly horror of this artwork.
Good art has the power to move. This art has the power to crush the viewer’s very soul.
The artwork is untitled. I speculate that this is because “Hideously Deformed Children of the Post-Apocalypse” is too large to fit on a corner of the painting; Shelly’s sweetie suggested that perhaps the true title of this art is “You Should Have Paid More and Stayed in a Different Hotel.”
Since misery loves company, I have placed a photograph of this artwork beneath this cut, thus ensuring the eternal damnation of my soul.