One of my sisters wants a ukulele, but that's a story for another time.
I went to bed nice and early (about 4am) so I was bright and shiny this morning, and keen to watch my freshly downloaded copy of To Have and Have Not, screen debut of la Bacall and yet more confirmation (if you needed it) that Humphrey Bogart was and is the coolest kid to hit the screen. Ever. Starting with the fact that he could pull off a name like Humphrey and continuing with recognition of the fact that he pulled the hottest babe in tinseltown, Betty 'Slim' Perske.
So. What with Bogey and Bacall and all the Chandler I've been reading, now I'm a bit noired up. And I got that painting into my head, you know the one, Nighthawks, by Edward Hopper.
Most famously paid tribute to by Gottfried Helnwein, when he replaced the gin-soaked lushes and dodgy loners with moody, tragic stars of popular culture, thusly,
Jimmy, Bogey, Norma Jean and The Pelvis. How we love them still. So anyway, I had no idea, until I googled it, just how many came after Helnwein. There are some straight up copies, or homages, I imagine they prefer, like this one,
But why bother with them when there are so many ridiculously fantastic and fantastically ridiculous versions of the painting now housed in the Chicago Institute of Art.
Take this one:
I'll be honest. I straight up don't get it. But it does something for me. And I don't know if it came before or after this one:
But I could guess.
There are others that I really can't figure out, like this one,
and a festive Phillies,
What really gets me is just how many Star Wars-themed Nighthawks there are. Uh, why?
I'd better own up at this point. I've never seen a Star Wars movie. I know it's in space and there are wars, and some surprisingly complicated family relationships, but that's enough for me. So it's safe to say anything Star Wars related is pretty much a mystery to me. But this?
And this?
And, yeah, it's not Star Wars, but I bet whoever did it has the complete set of DVDs and a couple of figurines still in the original packaging.
Okay. Whatever. May the force be with you. Strange to me this is.
What I did like was the Tintin Nighthawks. Lovably weird.
And a bunch of kids who re-enacted the painting for a competition. My school never had that.
By the way, fear not, there is another bunny-themed Nighthawks. You just knew it, didn't you? It's called Nightrabbits.
And it's fucking creepy.
Unlike the Simpsons version, where the part of the lady lush is taken with consummate ease by Edna Krabappel, and we get a perfect view of Homey's bum cleavage.
That really only leaves my personal favourite, the Lego Nighthawks. Praise the lord, someone did it. And if you're willing to look, I'm fairly certain whoever it is has Legoed other Hoppers, too, if you're into that sort of thing. I probably love this all the more because of the brilliant Lego adaptations of Eddie Izzard routines that you can see on YouTube (darling, if you haven't, you really must).
Which only leaves, sigh, this mystery wrapped in an enigma smeared with a waste of time:
