The unknown painting
by Jon Rappoport
March 13, 2016
(To read about Jon’s mega-collection, Exit From The Matrix, click here.)
The critics were befuddled. One critic jumped out of his window and crashed on the street below. Oh well.
The painting hung in a gallery on Madison Avenue. No one who worked at the gallery was there.
People came in. Lots of people. They looked at the painting and screamed and laughed and shrugged and scratched and fell down and ran away and stood transfixed and wept and one doyen of the arts pulled her upper bridge out of her mouth and dropped it on the floor and started talking to it…
Some people said nothing was on the canvas and some people said everything was on the canvas. Looking at it objectively…well, apparently, there was no way to look at it objectively. There was no way to say: this is exactly what’s on the canvas.
A local preacher said the painting was a crime.
A few CIA men showed up, of course. They stood in front of the painting for a minute and then they tore off their clothes and ran around the gallery gibbering, and said, in unison: “we are television.”
A professor then said, “Of course. The painting is television.”
A hooker who dropped by to get out of the rain stood in front of the painting and said, “Mathematics cannot be reduced to logic. Bertrand Russell was wrong.”
A retired astronaut walked in and said, “We never went to the moon. We went to Mars.”
A cameraman for a local TV station said, “I just fell into the painting. Somebody call 911. I’m on the sixteenth hole in the woods looking for my ball.”
Three physicists from Columbia stood there and agreed the painting was a miniature black hole in which the force of gravity was 10 to the 28th power greater than…utopia.
Cops came in, drew their weapons, and shot at the painting, and nothing happened. Apparently.
A student from a local high school said: “Bernie and Trump both agree that trade treaties are killing America. Don’t you people get it?”
A homeless man wandered in, stood in front of the painting, and said: “This is the power of a painter who made his own spontaneous unrolling process or whatever it is stronger than the physical world and in those moments the subjective became objective, which is impossible, but it happened, and this is the problem. The law is, it can’t happen, it’s not allowed to happen, but it did. We’re talking about an addiction to the objective, an addiction so deep that no one wants to cure it, you see? No one. People will die before they admit it could happen. People will kill before they admit it could happen. They’ll go to war and blow other people to pieces to keep it from happening. They’ll elect one idiot after another to public office to keep it from happening. They’ll jump off a cliff. Objectivity of things—that’s the ultimate protection racket and everybody is in on it. All the way. The physical world is what’s real and it has to be real and it has to be the only thing that’s real and we all have to be addicted to that, and if anybody comes along who can make his subjective thoughts and feelings as real as that and even more real…well, that’s impossible, but it just happened. That’s what the painting is. That’s why it’s invisible to us. But it still has an effect. Lots of effects. What you’re seeing with all these people coming in here and reacting is withdrawal symptoms from the addiction, the addiction to the objective, to what’s supposed to be real, to what has to be real, to what has to be the only thing that’s real. Withdrawal is a bitch. In this case, it’s titanic. Just suppose for a second that this painting is more real than the gallery and the street outside and the traffic and the buildings and the space. Yes, more real than even the space. What happens then? What happens if we can prevent ourselves from seeing it but we can’t prevent ourselves from feeling it? You can predict what the government will say. They’ll say there’s a danger that the entire universe could be sucked into the painting. This gallery will become the most heavily guarded spot on Earth. Maybe they’ll try to blow it up, but if they do the painting will remain. The invisible painting. No one will admit it, of course. Billions of people who are ‘realists’ will deny it. They’ll call any doubters insane. They’ll swear there’s nothing there on the wall. But put them in front of the painting and they’ll start screaming and sweating. Of course, I know what the painting is because I can see it. It’s right there. Can’t any of you see it? It’s an apple. Well, not exactly an apple. It’s a universe that looks like an apple from this distance. And in that universe-apple, what you project, if you’re an artist, becomes more real than real. In that universe, there is nothing else. There is only what artists create. That’s all. Do you know what that means? It means there isn’t one central reality. It’s a very interesting situation, because no one controls Reality. There isn’t any single Reality to control. You might want to think about that. It has something to do with equality, because anyone can be an artist. I understand what I’m saying is foreign to you. Very foreign. You don’t believe me. That’s all right. I don’t care whether you believe me. It doesn’t matter. From what I can see in the painting, that other universe is moving toward us. It’s getting closer. It seems we’re all going to move. We’re going to move from this universe to that one. And then we’ll have to figure out what to do. When I say ‘we’, I mean each one of us, independently, since there isn’t any ‘we’.”
The homeless man looked around him. The gallery was empty. All the people had fled.
He peered outside. The crowd had dispersed.
There were no guards or police, either.
He walked over to the wall and took down the painting.
He tucked it under his arm and walked out of the gallery.
After all, it was his. He had painted it.
He walked toward the park, where he made his home.
He wondered what was going to happen next.
Jon Rappoport
The author of three explosive collections, THE MATRIX REVEALED, EXIT FROM THE MATRIX, and POWER OUTSIDE THE MATRIX, Jon was a candidate for a US Congressional seat in the 29th District of California. He maintains a consulting practice for private clients, the purpose of which is the expansion of personal creative power. Nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, he has worked as an investigative reporter for 30 years, writing articles on politics, medicine, and health for CBS Healthwatch, LA Weekly, Spin Magazine, Stern, and other newspapers and magazines in the US and Europe. Jon has delivered lectures and seminars on global politics, health, logic, and creative power to audiences around the world. You can sign up for his free NoMoreFakeNews emails here or his free OutsideTheRealityMachine emails here.
Outside the Reality Machine 
I love it.
Hi
I often feel my vocabulary / language is limited to describe the change of perception that is taking place around the world. Just wanted to say thanks for finding the words to describe this situation in a way that is totally unique….. I have an understanding of what you have written in this piece. I don’t need to believe you or be given proof but I feel the truth of it.
Kind Regards
Selena
I love this, pretty well sums up everything
Wonderful! Brilliant! And, most importantly to me, a lyrical “open the door a crack” communication of some truths.
Entering the park, he felt familiar here. People passed without seeing him. Some looked at him, like they were looking at a wall.
A syringe cracked and the plastic body of it split under his boot.
Dreamers and skemers.
A mother and son passed him, and the boy looked backed on the passing, only for his mother to clutch his hand closer in a sign to move more quickly. He smiled at the boy, and the boy smiled back.
A skinny teen rushed past with shoulders up, and bumped him, and turned and swore…”Fakkk, maannn”
He shook it off and plodded on, along the path and he saw a tree, stopped and looked out front and up the asphalt path, and then back from behind and were he came. And then hurried and slipped into the wooded area.
He had come to this park for a very long time; when he was a young man he had walked with a beautiful young woman on his arm. She was despetately in love with him. Her long hair up in Gibson girl, a long blue silk dress with a bustle… she is dead now, long dead. Dust in the wind of the park.
He played as a child for years in this ancient playground. Spinning around and around on that heavy steel and iron merry-go-round, the paint layers, red and blue, flaking of a thousand years.
He was there the day the park opened, “How long ago was that…” he thought. His mind went further back to when the park was a wild place, raw natural and naked in front of the sun. With new green leaves, and every breath of air was breathed for the first time.
Unzipping its front and slipping inside his light dirty orange polyester tent. He sat down in the damp, on a little canvas artist stool and put the painting against a tattered cardboard box of hodge podge, and clinkity clack. And rested.
His mind drifted to a time, when a circus arrived in the park, no one had ever seen a circus before. They don’t come here anymore…circuses. Fortune tellers and pony rides. Real hot dogs in a bun with mustard and a pickle.
His eyes filled with the visions of it all; the gaslights, and the smoke, the flares and morning after smell of fireworks, a mist and the entertainers and animals and the; swirl and swirl drawing him ever in, deeper ever deeper.
“Are you alone young fella?”
“No I am never alone.”
“Would you like to see a magician?
“Yes I would please.”
“Ok then, follow me my young friend. And be dazzled and amazed at the Universes, greatest, living, magician. Now…being as it is Tuesday, you are lucky…also as it is the first Tuesday in the month makes it even more lucky. “Luckier! What a lucky, lucky boy!”
For you see, the great magician only frequents here, the first Tuesday of the month of March. Or is that the second Tuesday? Anyway…he is here today for your satisfaction and won’t be back for another year…or two… and who know were the circus will be then?…right?..follow now, quickly, keep up young fella.”
They arrived at a small booth no bigger than a large, two large cardboard boxes, with a little peak on top. The front door open of the booth like a flap. And the boy entered, under the outstretched arm of the Barker. “Voila!” he said.
The old man stood in the dark, still for moment. In what felt like a massive room. He could’nt tell from sight. Adjusting his eyes. Adjusting his weight for his lack of sight. Centering himself for the possibility of the unexpected. His eyes adjusted to the lack of light. The strong smell of wet saw dust and road apples.
He liked horses. He like horses a lot.
Ahead of him in the darkness, he heard a voice. It beckoned him and he followed, slow shuffle in the dim towards the sound. “Step right up, come closer.”
“And what would you like to see?
I am the Universes greatest magician, and there nothing I cannot conjure up. Well it is not really conjure…it’s, magic. This gig is sort me practicing my chords. Ask of me something extremely difficult, even impossible.”
The old man answered, “You’re the magician, show me something I have not seen before.”
“Ok.” said the voice. “How about an elephant balancing on the stem of an apple”
“No…I have seen that..I can do that my self.”
“Alrighty then. How about a whale in gold-fish bowl?…hm. How about that, would you like to see that, young fella.?”
The old man looked into the magicians eyes, as he moved closer to him, as he had done so many times before. Those blue circles sparkling with excitement for what he was expressing. The enthusiasm of his, presentation.
The old man blinked and he turned and looked at the painting against the box. He leaned over and picked it up. He studied it for a moment, he had seen it so many times. It was a very old painting. He could’nt remember when he made it.
His eyes moved over the surface, carefully scrutinized it’s ever detail. And then he stopped and saw something, something vague. A shift in the color, not anything noticeable on a first glance, he had not noticed it in earlier lookings.
“What is that?” he thought.
“Why haven’t I noticed that before? And then, he walked right into to the painting.
The path lay before him, a sunrise to his left, meadow flowers of yellow and white and insects flit and buzz by, all along his way. Moisture and a dew on the blades. Up ahead, a slight incline of a meadow rises. In front of it a fenceline of grey wooden rails. And at the top of the meadow stood a little thatched white-washed house, with a dog out front wagging it tail, eager, staring in his direction…prancing. Ready.
And he moved on and looked to left and heard the sun sizzling as it rose slow in the morning air.
He came to a fence line and an old gate, that swung both ways. Rusty on a spring. He passed through and then saw the dog bolt out towards him like a whippet out of its gate. And race and race ever faster towards him. A smile broke on his face. He was happy… and he bent down and caught the happy dog in full stride. It wasn’t heavy. The dog excitement caused it to slip out of his arms and landed on all four with a yelp, and it bounced forward and the two strode on toward another door, on the front of that house…
Absolutely love this.
Was trying to take a nap after this, and all that wanted to do was write. Write, write, write, think, then write some more.
Love it when the imagination of individuals helps others by spawning endless fires thus changing reality via this conduit.
ditto, ditto, ditto.
It is amazing how you choose the street person.
As a youth, from Jersey, me & my friends often went to rock concerts at MSG (NYC).
We took a bus across the GWB to the Port Authority & walked to The Garden, usually 2 hrs in advance.
“Street people” would populate the benches outside. Me & buds would summarily sit amongst them & take in the “developing scenes” & “feel the incoming excitement” as concert start approached.
I must tell you…the street folk were MOST wise & perceptive.
I just LOVED talking to them & they we.
Thanks!