Same Ship, Different Day

This is a New Yorker cartoon that had a special relevance for me (and Andi), so thought I'd share it and the story behind it. I frequently end up in Toledo for shoots and other events, and generally the best deal for a place to stay is the Red Roof Inn. Not perfect, but usually clean, sometimes comfortable, and stay 10 nights get 1 night free. Woohoo.

Have probably stayed in 15 different rooms there, and every room has the exact same "artwork" of a boat on the shore of a small lake. Every room. I'm sure whoever created it put their time and talent into it, and were quite proud to have it reproduced thousands of times. But I can't help but wonder why the Red Roof people didn't mix things up a little... is it just this one location that has this painting, or all the ones in Ohio, or every one of them? Last time I was up, we tried a different place, the Knight's Inn. They had a different painting in the room there... a still life of some flowers. But in case we couldn't get enough of a good thing, they had TWO of the same print hanging in the room, no more than 10 feet apart. Not a diptych, but the exact same print. Something mildly disturbing about that for some reason.

I remember seeing something a while back about some artists that travel around to hotels and motels, and once they're in their room, they detach the framed prints from the wall and then do elaborate artwork on the wall in the area covered by the frame, then carefully re-attach the frame. So, if you are clued in and have the tools, you can check under your room's painting and possibly see some original art underneath. But more likely, the only people who will see it are whoever redecorates the room next time, probably moments before the wall is to be papered, painted or demolished. Talk about a limited audience.

Probably should drop a nude in here, just to continue the tradition... this is the model formerly known as Eilispidh, but who now goes by Raelyn Mouse. A whole new category of model name confusion emerges...