Last year, everyone gave us calendars for Christmas. My mother-in-law, my sister, my father, and my friend all gifted very nice paper calendars for us to mark the cruelly relentless passage of time. Additionally, since we never get calendars for Christmas, we had already bought a calendar in early December to start tracking the January appointments and events that had already begun to accumulate.
So, with calendars to spare, we’ve been hanging them up everywhere. I decided to hang one in my cubicle, and I chose the Salvador Dali calendar from my mother-in-law. The Dali calender seemed to strike the right professional note of being creative almost to the point of madness. Also, I wanted to see if my office had any eccentric art buffs who would point out the irony of a calendar featuring the work of a man who rejected time as being an irrelevant constraint, as evidenced by his infamous theme of melting clocks (showcased in the month of January, incidentally.)
But just in time for President’s Day, February features Dali’s work of Abraham Lincoln. Actually, it only looks like Lincoln from 10 feet away:
Up close, it becomes a picture of Dali’s wife Gala contemplating Mediterranean Sea, completely bare-assed.
It’s elegant, it’s artistic, but it’s a nude butt. Since we are an education software company, and since I’ve worked there less than 3 months, I showed it to my boss and asked her if I should cover her up with a Post-It. She laughed and jokingly suggested a grape leaf.
The Abraham Lincoln picture has attracted some attention. My co-workers are amazed at how a portrait of Abraham Lincoln morphs into a completely new painting when you get up close, although I always cringe as they inspect the painting up close and realize they are staring a women’s naked buttocks. I brace myself for surprise, indignation, perhaps outrage and a sexual harassment suit. But invariably, people simply wonder what statement Dali is trying to make about Abraham Lincoln. “That Lincoln was actually a very beautiful woman,” I explain.
