Thursday, November 24, 2011

Sad Thanksgiving

The saddest symbol of the American Thanksgiving this year is the painting on the cover of the November 21 edition of The New Yorker. 

This is not the typical Norman Rockwell painting of a happy multi-generational family gathered around the festive board; instead, it is a tableau as bleak and lonely as any by Edward Hopper.

The scene is a slightly below average cafe, with a table set for a solitary diner: chunky water glass, one limp flower in a glass bottle between salt and pepper shakers, a square of butter on two slices of processed white bread, and a plate holding one drumstick, a pool of gluey gravy in a mound of instant mashed potatoes, and the obligatory sides of carrots and peas. The lone diner is not seen.

The painting is by Wayne Thiebaud. Its title, appropriately, is "Turkey Dinner."
    

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