Cliché , or classic? Cats, goats, artists, photographers, authors: how do we avoid clichés...and should we?

in #family5 years ago (edited)

"That cow painting is a cliché ."


The antique rocker was also rejected

We spent the weekend visiting our offspring

and shopping for used furniture and wall art. She insisted we must accompany to her a "destination" ice cream parlor.

Coneflower Creamery is so popular,

the line always/notoriously stretches one city block long in the Blackstone district with customers waiting in the hot sun or in the cold or rain for homemade, small-batch ice cream, sourced from local dairy farms. For the dairy intolerant, there is vegan "ice cream," or sorbet, in assorted flavors.

Confeflower's local-cow photo

reminds me of the painting (mass produced, but still, painted with brush strokes on a canvas) that we foolishly and presumptuously bought our daughter for her new home so far from home (okay, it's half a day's drive, an eight-hour round trip, but far enough to keep offspring and parents from seeing too much of each other.) Here it is at our house, awaiting her approval:

A pile of rejects...or, "save for later," to be fair

"Too big,"

she said, and too modern, too bold, for her understated and elegant style. Her sister hold nothing back: "That cow painting is a cliché ." My own mother said, "I wouldn't want it on my wall."

A cliché ? By that logic, any portrait of a pretty girl is a cliche. We've seen gazillions in museums. Any still-life of flowers is a cliché . Maybe she'd say no, those are classics, but the cow is a cliché .

Is a cat a cliché ?

Are goats less of a cliché than cats?

Our son, by the way, phoned home last week from Brooklyn, as in New York, as in he was in the heart of the city.

"Walking home from breakfast," he said,

"I saw some goats and thought of you."

LOL!

Only @goat-girlz and I would understand that to be a compliment. The goat herd was grazing on weeds, and a sign listed their purpose in doing so.

source: The Guardian

Now that was no cliché,

that compliment, that tribute to the son who saw goats and thought of his dear old mum.
It was better than any sentiment any Hallmark card writer could have penned.
For me. Plain Jane. Lover of clichés.

That protrait (cow cliché!)

looks like George, the steer of my husband's childhood.

Yes, they ultimately ended up eating George, and they loved him just as much in all his states (i.e. living or dead), as my brother-in-law would put it.

Whatever.

Back to Ice Cream!



source: coneflowercreamery

At this tiny little shop, the flavors are surreal.

If you like those jellybeans with bizarre flavors, you might want to try sweetcorn (the real deal, not some artifical flavor) infused into your ice cream.

Or not.

I am an Plain Jane Vanilla fan. Add any topping you like, but MIXING it, infusing it, is just... gross. Maple bacon sounds okay but I'll take my vanilla beans straight up. Or I would if not for the milk and egg allergy. These coconut-milk ice creams are terrible. For all the sugar and no nutrients, why bother?

Originality can be over-rated!

There's a reason things become classics. They are so good, there is no room for improvement!

Classics! Speaking of classics....

Y'all know I'm a huge fan of Carol Danvers, right? And Steemit blogger

@readingdanvers

Our daughter did not know this.

I know. I know. Like my mother, my sisters and offspring do not like to read my stuff. Nobody who really knows me could fail to know what a fan I am of @readingdanvers. Anyway, by the end of Week #2 of her new job, our daughter won accolades from co-workers and patients, she earned a "Shout-Out" and a prize of her choice. Of all the gadgets and gimmicks she could have claimed as her own, she thought of her dear old mum instead.

Carol. Danvers. Fighter for justice.

All that stuff. And she insists on giving this Carol Danvers action figure to me. Me! It's HER PRIZE!

Classic,

for sure, is this gal's look. Elegant. Fresh. Clean. Original.
--Underfed? No. She has her dad's incredible metabolism. Also, she inadvertently does that 12- to 18-hour fasting thing. Daily. And with food allergies...well, that wasn't the subject I meant to address in this post.

photo by me; should have edited, filtered, fixed it

The Guilt

overwhelms me, my daughter insisting on giving me HER prize. But I accepted it. Because she and her brother know how much I hate clichés. Oops. Did I really just say that? As a writer, anyway, and as a free spirit, as a contrarian, and an all around curmudgeon, I hate greeting cards with canned sentiments: "Thinking of you," "You're in my thoughts and prayers," yada yada, and I know, I know, this is fundamentally flawed. Words are tools. We use them to show people we care. I get it. Really, I do. I'm just indoctrinated with German Stoicism and not capable of taking praise or platittudes except in very small doses.

Our middle child

has supplied us with grandchildren. Number #3 is due next year. There is no greater love. No greater blessing, no gift that can compare with time spent with grandkids.

She has other gifts too, of course, and there was this drawing she drew for Mother's Day,

me and the firstborn grandchild. It's there with a photography-class project (her little sister in the color photo) and two of their father's "sketches" -- pencil drawings. He doesn't consider it "real art." I framed it anyway.

Off to dream of vanilla ice cream, made from scratch by my husband, with real vanilla, cream, and eggs.

Life is good!

and that, I know, is a cliché, and I don't care.
Even without ice cream (the real deal), Life is Good.

Never buy me a plaque that says that, though. The offspring know this!

Someone does want the chair,

it seems. Bobi the Bad likes to sit there facing the window, keeping watch over his vast domain. I missed that photo opp, of course, and got him hiding his face instead. @owasco knows that drill!



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Classic, or cliché ...?

Sometimes I cannot tell the difference.

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Your children are clearly too young to truly appreciate a good cow painting. That, or they have been spared the scourge of hipster-dom which would render the cow acceptable, but only with a huge dollop of irony all over it. I would absolutely love to hang it on my wall, personally!

I love that your son thought of you when he saw the goats, and that you thought of me! That's what my goats do all day: eat the stuff nobody wants around.

There is such a thing as a bad cliche, but sometimes things attain that status for a reason, and we can sit back and accept them without guilt or shame. And absolutely keep the rocking chair! Especially if it's haunted.

A cow with a dollop of irony all over it - #loveit!
Facebook does attract different responses to the same photo. Author Mark Ayling with the "haunted" rocker, and novelist Charles Barouch with this:

Because on Facebook, I captioned the photo "Might have to sell the cow and the rocker"
"Jack gets himself into a humongous heap of trouble when he trades his cow for magic beans that wind up growing a huge beanstalk" - https://learnwithhomer.com/.../story/jack-and-the-beanstalk/

Who is Charles Barouch?

I've reviewed two of his books here:
Teleport Me: "Adjacent Fields" by Charles Barouch

Apr 14, 2019 ... Charles Barouch hurls the reader headlong into the fire of ethereal physics with his novel “Adjacent Fields,” and if…

Who is Mark Anthony Ayling?

You are indeed blessed, with all your children thinking of you so fondly, even in oddities (perhaps especially in oddities).
I like the cow portrait! It's swell! And it makes me want to take a pix of my sheep and chicken painting, which I bought for my youngest when I found her standing transfixed before it at a yard sale.

4hg5zjv8bd.jpg

That ice cream shop looks so good! Their website is excellent. I would have chocolate ice cream (let's see if they can do that right first) with cherry sauce.
Great chair. Did you get to keep that? Cute serene cat too.

Your little daughter found that fantastic painting at a yard sale?? I love it!! I need to go to more sales!! I stopped going because I always buy something. Like that antique rocking chair. Which I just might keep whether or not anyone else likes it. Sci-Fi author Mark Ayling saw it on my FB wall and commented,

Aw no. That rocker looks haunted, like it might rock with nobody on it. Keep it.

#GottaLoveMark!
Mark Anthony Ayling spends whatever spare time he can salvage writing stories (often late at night), rearranging his record collection, going to watch live music, attending rugby league games, and watching films. Northern Futures is his first collection of short stories.

That's "swell" - now there's a phrase

I haven't heard since my aunt died, last century. Her hand-rolled cigarettes were always stained with her bright red lipstick. She'd lean up against the wall (making sure everyone else had a chair when our family of seven descended), and if we had known about the drinking game (and had access to liquor), we'd all have been drunk from the number of times she'd say "Gee, that's swell," blinking the way she blinked, unable to smile much due to some sort of facial paralysis or maybe a stroke. She was my mom's stepsister.

"Gee, that's swell" -- you have brought back

an avalenche of memories. Thanks as always for reading and commenting!

I love your freewrite comments. often deeply personal. I'm happy to have served as your prompt.

@carolkean I agree the best gifts and cards are the hand made ones. And vanilla ice cream is the best. I never thought I could love anyone more than my kids, then came grandkids. Life is good.

You sound so much like me.... I rejoice at that!

Love the cow painting . . . reminds me of a red Angus bull on the other side of the street from us, about half a mile north, who befriended Lolo when he was a puppy.

His whole small herd, he and his ladies, would follow us the length of their fence as we passed, and back again, and await us at the gate, so he could take Lolo's whole face in one massive lick.

I avoid cliches in my writing . . . except when I don't. Which isn't often, but occasionally, nothing else can adequately capture the irony.

Or else I'm just lazy.

Love the drawings, and the Carol Danvers doll, which I wasn't aware of either. My own sister Carol was an avid DC fan.

Lovely gifts all around.
;-)

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Your own sister Carol was an avid DC fan--what a surprise!--not. :) I'm so sorry I never got to meet her. #LOVE the story of an angus bull with his harem, er, herd of ladies, and the face-licking he'd give Lolo!!
You're not a lazy writer. You're one of the very best writers I've ever met! Your voice is distinct and unique. If you sneak in an occasional cliche, you do it seamlessly. Now, to get you to write more... please tell me you're closer to finishing your novel, publishing your books!

Yes, if nothing else I need to get back to writing every day, for real. I've felt crappy of late, but that's no excuse.

Thanks for your kind words.

And I'm sorry you never met Carol as well. I have no doubt we'd have all had a blast together. ;-)

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The cow in the canvas looks rocking with a good life, lol and ice cream is a BIG YES.

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I have to agree with you about the cliche'. I also find them annoying but can't relate to how a cow can be a cliche'?

I can't even allow myself to think about sweet corn ice cream. :-(

Never tried or heard of coconut milk ice cream but will take your advice and stay away.

Well, I have seen what seems to be cliche of a coyote, and wagon wheels, and moose...but I can't help wonder, now, what the tipping point is, where the line is drawn between classic and cliche. Velvet Elvis! Cardboard prints of "Pity Puppy" and "Pity Kitty" - and the movie "Big Eyes," about the woman whose husband put his name on HER artwork. Is shag carpet a cliche? At some point, somehow, it can be.
Thank you for reading and commenting!

I have always thought the word cliche was used for words but I can see how it can describe picture now. Broadening my vocabulary with steemit. Thanks.

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