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The Native Tourist
reformed/biblical observations on Christianity and culture

Thursday, April 01, 2004
What Could Have Been
Today I was going to blog a mock news story about a tearful press conference held by Thomas Kinkade. How he was sadly turning his back on being the Painter of Light(tm). That he deeply regretted how he ruined the aesthetic taste of millions of his Christian brothers and sisters, and led them to foolishly pursue empty sentimentality and banality in the name of "fine art". That he in turn has decided to become a photo-realist and paint a series of works based on old baptist churches built in the 50s in Texas. That he came love the irony of wood paneling and formica and polyester and that he wanted to capture this in finely executed paintings. Real paintings - no more prints, mouse pads, glassware or screen savers. The satirical piece would have ended with "Jerry Falwell could not be reached for comment."

Then I imagined getting a nasty letter from his lawyers. Then there would be the lawsuit. The publicity would be fun for a while, but I would lose, owe Kinkade and his multimillion dollar international corporation several million dollars. We would lose our house, our minivan, all my books, our vast record collection including all our Bruce Cockburn records.

It was too much to bear.

So I will have to leave it to your imagination.