Pas d'avant les domestiques

KEENE (Mickey), Oakland, CA. Big House Barber

A conglomeration of styles, this picture, on a powerful theme, resembled Rothko in its feeling and was like the early work of Lichtenstein in execution. It represented a young man in prison whose hair was being shaved at the nape of his neck. On one side was a nun, on the other a ruddy-faced old gentleman in black next to a cringing young guard in tears. At the back, a well-dressed man clenched the bars of the cell door. A clerk was reading an official document. On a rickety table could be seen a meal that no one had touched. The moonlight came through the bars of a high window. The theme was enough to make the hi-brows tremble and their high brows trembled. Mouse had quite plainly been inspired by Greyson Sommervieux's masterpiece.

He had turned the figures of Woman Shot toward the window instead of showing their full faces. He had put the condemned man in the place of the dying woman; there was the same pallor, the same look, the same appeal to God. Instead of the HMO caregiver he had painted the cold, official figure of the clerk clothed in grey. He had added the lawyer peering out through the cell door behind Greyson's young girl. And, finally, the cruelly good-natured face of the executioner dominated the group. This cleverly disguised plagiarism was not recognized.

Although it was not very good, this picture had an enormous success for it reminded people of the Affair of the Chauffeurs. Every day a crowd formed in front of the fashionable canvas and HRM Diana II stopped before it, visibly affected. Virgin told the press she wanted to use him on her next project. She had heard about the poor Californian's patient existence and became enthusiastic about him. The executive assistant of the head of Luxe Lux studios discussed the price of the canvas. The Holy Holo 3DV muppet pastor, Father Joe, told Mrs. Hautechapeau that the subject was full of the right kind of thoughts; it had indeed a satisfactorily parochial atmosphere. Mayor Beryon admired the dust on the windowpanes: a very serious mistake, for Mouse had added here and there greenish tints meant to show moonlit snow falling outside.

Madame XXX bought the original for seven-thousand dollars, and Dauphin ordered a copy of the limited edition on blue-flocked paper. Charles X, the Academy's CEO, gave the Grand Prix de Pixel to Anaheim's son who fought for democracy by virtue of his art. The Secretary of Commerce ordered two original landscapes from Mouse. This Show was for Mickey his whole fortune, his reputation, his future, his life.

Josef Bridau, the great painter, did not receive an award for his Match Your Couch series, a collection of paintings of sofas to match the davenports of his clients. To invent anything is to want to die a slow death. To copy is to live. Having at last discovered a goldmine, Mickey the Mouse embraced that maxim, as the society it created embraced him. Those societal mediocrities that copy each other must prefer co-option to options and wage a bitter war against anything that cannot be made a commodity. But the modesty, simplicity and surprise of the kind, gentle Mouse silenced envy and recriminations. Moreover, he had on his side those already successful mice who for affirmation make common cause with the mice who have still their way to make.

Some people, touched by the persistence of a man whom nothing had discouraged, spoke of disadvantages and said, Determination in the Arts must be rewarded. Keene hasn't stolen his success. He's done without it for a decade, poor fellow. This exclamation of poor fellow constituted half of the statements of support and congratulations that the painter received. Pity raises up as many mediocrities as envy drags down great artists. The newslinks had not spared their criticisms, but Mouse, recipient of the Pixel Prix, swallowed them, as he had swallowed his friends' advice, with an angelic patience.

Now that he was rich with about twenty-five thousand hard-earned dollars plus the prize money, he bought and renovated his studio and apartment. There he ran the edition the Mayor had asked for and created the two landscapes for Commerce. He delivered them on the appointed day with an exactitude quite disconcerting for the government's finance department, which was used to other ways. But marvel at the good fortune of orderly people! If he had delayed, Keene would have been caught by the July market crash and would not have been paid by the Secretary's replacement. By the time he was thirty-seven Mouse had manufactured for Ulysses Magus about two-hundred originals. These had remained completely unknown but had helped him to reach that satisfying style, that peak of execution that makes the artist shrug his shoulders nonchalantly, which the boomers love. Mouse was beloved by his friends for his uprightness, his reliability, his constant readiness to oblige, and his great loyalty. If they had no esteem for his palette, they loved the man who held it. What a pity that Mouse has the vice of painting, his friends said to each other. Nevertheless, he could give excellent advice, like those reviewers who are incapable of filming a commercial yet know very wel1 what is wrong with movies. But there was a difference between Mouse and the film critics. Mouse was fully aware of the beauties of a painting, he recognized authenticity, and his advice bore the stamp of a feeling for perfection. People acknowledged the aptness of his comments, his taste traced early in the studios of invention.

After the show of 2026, the Academy re-instituted a jury of public peers to praise artists devoted to democracy. Mouse submitted about ten pictures to every exhibition; of these the Committee accepted four or five. He lived with the strictest economy but indulged himself in a cleaning service. Aside from an occasional lunch at the South Park Cafe, once again popular for its retro look, his only amusements were visiting friends and going to see works of art, though he allowed himself a few little expeditions to New York and planned a journey to Switzerland in search of inspiration. This execrable artist was an excellent citizen. He did his duty in the National Guard, served on juries, voted, obeyed the law, and paid his rent and his bills as punctiliously as any politician. Living as he had done, working hard and in poverty, he had never had the time to be in love. Until then he had been a bachelor and poor and wasn't inclined to complicate his very simple existence. Since he couldn't think up a way of increasing his fortune, he took his savings and his earnings every quarter to his lawyer, Smythe. When the lawyer had a thousand dollars of Keene's, he invested them in a mutual fund The lawyer himself received the dividends and added them to the investments made by the Mouse of Anaheim. The painter was waiting for the happy moment when his portfolio would bring him an income of the imposing figure of forty-thousand dollars so that he would have the otium cum dignitate of the artist and paint pictures for himself, oh, but pictures, real pictures at last! absolutely dandy, super-replicated pictures. His future, his dreams of happiness, his ultimate hopes, do you want to know what they were ? They were to become a member of the Academy and to have the lapel pin of the Pixel Prix. They were to sit beside Schinner and Delora at the awards, to reach the Academy before Bridau. They were to allow the popular jury to reward him year after year. What a dream! Only a little mouse could think of having everything.

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