RSSWhat A Pair!
28 Jul 2007 2 Comments
Did you ever notice that most everything we like or need usually is a set; and is discussed, acquired, or possessed in pairs? You don’t go to the shoe store and buy two shoes do you? No, you buy a pair of shoes; in the same way you might buy a few pairs of socks. Arms, legs, eyes, balls, and boobs all come in pairs.
Some of our favorite expressions point toward our predilection for matched sets. Two pair in five- card stud poker is a great hand, Batman and Robin are heroic, salt and pepper are condiments we must have on the table, even meatballs and spaghetti always seem to go together.
In filmdom, buddy films are always a hot ticket. In the great movie from 1973, The Sting, winner of seven Oscars, Paul Newman and Robert Redford portray a conman, Henry Gondorff, and a drifter, Johnny Hooker, who join forces to pull a ‘Big Con’ and take down Mob Boss Doyle Lonnegan played by Robert Shaw.
While waiting to board a train, and get a ‘hook’ into their mark, Gondorff and Hooker watch Lonnegan come into the railroad station, accompanied by two of his goons. Lonnegan looks every bit the feared mob boss that he is.
As Hooker watches him pass by he remarks to Gondorff: He’s not so tough
Gondorff’s reply: Neither are we!
And with that simple statement, we, the audience immediately bonded with the characters.
Redford and Newman had previously teamed up four years earlier as Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid, a classic film scripted by Robert Goldman and directed by George Roy Hill. This was a wonderful film to watch as the life and times of this daring duo flickered across the screen.
Ultimately, after a lengthy pursuit by a determined posse, Butch and The Kid find themselves trapped and cornered on a high steep cliff. They are faced with choosing between a hopeless shoot-out, or a sure-death leap, literally as well as figuratively — they are between a rock and a hard place:
Butch: DAMMIT! Well, the way I figure it, we can either fight or give. If we give, we go to jail.
Sundance: I been there already.
Butch: But if we fight, they can stay right where they are and starve us out or go for position — shoot us; might even get a rockslide started and get us that way. What else could they do?
Sundance: They could surrender to us, but I wouldn’t count on that.
Crisp, sharp, and unexpectedly funny — that’s why we like buddy films.
We find pairs everywhere. Thelma & Louise was another movie about a pair. The islands Trinidad and Tobago are often referenced together, and in law, the recent act known as Sarbanes/Oxley must be included in any discussion of pairs. In art, the subjects are often pairs and sometimes not in the way you expect. Have a look.
Carl Brenders’ art is wonderful for examples of pairs. Sudden Encounter shows what you might find deep in the forest, some fearsome moose with a pair of frightening antlers. Or this painting of an ominous moment when you meet a pair of wolves, Cheek To Cheek.
The painting (above) by Richard D. Thomas called Slicker Weather shows us a pair of guys at work wearing matching foul weather gear. This second painting (below) by Thomas is called Goin’ For It. It shows that a pair of horseman are needed to corral that little calf. Just marvelous work!
By The Fountain (above) is a pair of girls and some feathered friends by Zhong-Yang Huang. The art by Huang is delightful. The next one below is called Autumn Leaves.
We’ve two more by Huang. Above is Sisters. And below is Stepping Stones. All of these feature a pair of women and each are most impressive works.
We will close with ‘three pair’, a total of six works from one artist — Shang Ding. Check out the magnificent Yu Tan By The Pond with her matched baskets (above) and in the following series.
In the painting above, Evening Talk, a pair of women are doing their thing, comparing notes or the latest village news, and you won’t need a friend to agree with you that this is indeed, a gorgeous work of art. Below is Children Walking with Grandma. Notice the two tykes as well as the two baskets.
The closing artwork below is called Woman Sits on Porch. The pairs are not very obvious and I’m including this painting in the column because it is too good to leave out. There are at least three sets that we can easily see. Can you find them? The answer is at the bottom of the page.
Shang Ding’s art is gorgeous, superb, as well as interesting. He grabs a slice of life and memorializes with his skilled brush strokes. I wonder if his conceptual use ‘pairs’ in each of the works is intentional.
Speaking of gorgeous, and pairs, what about some superbly built idols, nearly naked or otherwise? You know that you’ve come to Also on Video for an opportunity to see some desirable pairs.
And so, you won’t have to read much more of this article because I am bringing it to a close. We hope you will just visit our website as often as you like. You won’t need a pair of tickets to enter our site. Once you are here you can look around without any care or worry about being conned, killed, or cheated. Click this link to our index page, and soon, you’ll be saying out loud, “My God, what a pair!”
This column was originally published on the first Sunday of August of 2003 in Also On Video. We have updated and expanded this article for publication in JustMeMike’s New Also on Video on July 29th, 2007.
Did you find each of the pairs? The Three Pairs in plain sight are the wooden columns supporting the roof, her sandals, and last but not least – the pair of pearl earrings!
Jan 23, 2008 @ 16:55:09
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Jan 28, 2008 @ 21:06:19
I appreciate your comments. Thanks for reading my column and articles.
JMM