Saint Patrick

Happy St. Patrick's Day everybody! If you don't have any green on, prepare for pinching this Thursday! All Irish national pride aside, I want to appreciate this holiday on behalf of every shade of green. From my first tube of Sap Green Oil paint in freshman year in high school to the Anna Sui nail polish I thought I'd never have an excuse to actually wear, I've loved green.

(Yes, thats a Bop-It in the background. Jealous much?)

If you paint any room in your house this magnificent color, you will inevitably become naturally more creative while in its presence. Green houses, green rooms, green screens... I can't imagine modern life without you. I know I should respectfully pay homage to Saint Patrick himself, the entire nations of both North and South Ireland, and artists who use mainly potatoes, but I cannot resist a few nods toward a color that deserves recognition as well...

These first two images are of the current Lynda Benglis exhibit at The New Museum, the latter being a detail. These amorphous blobs of hardened latex floated out from the wall, like something out of Poltergeist... or Family Double Dare. The darkened room was curtained off, with the occasional blast of fluorescent ceiling lights to recharge the glow-in-the-dark goodness, (one thinks back to the star and planet stickers we all had stuck to our bedroom walls in the nineties). While Julia and I stood watching these static neon waterfalls, the lights were on and a young couple walked across the room, barely noticing the piece. Then without warning, its gets dark, the black lights flash on, and the newly recharged amoeba startle the crap out of these people! Not only that, but the free posters they had rolled up and had been carrying, they immediately used as pseudo-lightsabers. Priceless.

This is Slimer, from Ghostbusters. A familiar green blob, which the more I think about, is almost the perfect love child of the George Condo paintings and Lynda Benglis latex pieces at The New Museum. Kind of creepy.

Trying to end this post on a good note, before all of us have too much green beer than we know what to do with, here is a blast from the past, the classic, the timeless, Nickelodeon slime.

Man, that stuff was so awesome.

Drink responsibly!