Summer's Coming
- Summer's Coming
- oil creme on paper
- diameter 25 inches
- 2003
"The X-Files" was one the best television series ever made. One of my favorite, recurring characters was 'Cancer Man' or 'Cigarette Smoking Man' (CSM) played by actor William B. Davis.
The episode titled "Musings of a Cigarette Smoking Man" (1996;#4X07) was devoted to the story of Cancer Man. He is made more human by showing the 'cause-and-effect' occurrences of his life. Revealing background information gives us insight into the cold, dark character and we learn that his true passion is to be a creative writer, not a killer.
In a pivotal, emotional scene he learns that one of his stories has finally been accepted to be published. Overcome with humility and excitement, we watch as he symbolically kills two parts of his killer life: he types a letter of resignation, ending his assassination career, i.e. his career of death, and he crumbles in his hand a pack of cigarettes, ending his killer addiction.
Tragically though, as sudden as we partake in his happiness, we emotionally plummet with him as he goes to a magazine stand and finds his published story has been altered. Disillusioned, he purchases a pack of cigarettes, walks into an alley, and sits alone on a bench. There, he delivers his soliloquy, 'Life is Like a Box of Chocolates'.
We realize that living is torture for the real, creative, Cancer Man. He lives every day in death, with the death of his dreams, so why not give death and accept the role of a cold, career assassin. Immediate death from a perfectly launched bullet is much less painful, perhaps, than living a life of painful isolation, rejection and misunderstanding, day after day, because your passion is unrealized.
Like most the writing throughout the "X-Files" series, Cancer Man's soliloquy of 'Life is Like a Box of Chocolates' is brilliant: brilliantly and perfectly dry, cynical, sarcastic, ironic, satirical, etc. It inspired my self-portrait painting titled, 'Summer's Coming', created in the winter of 2003. I rarely incorporate text in my drawings but I was overwhelmed and driven to make a drawing about the scene. It complemented, perfectly, the disposition of the figure that was already in my mind.
Cancer Man's soliloquy 'Life is Like a Box of Chocolates':
Life it's like a box of chocolates. Cheap, thoughtless, perfunctory gift that nobody ever asks for. Unreturnable because all you get back is another box of chocolates. So you're stuck with this undefinable whipped, mint crap that you mindlessly wolf down until there's nothing else left to eat. Sure once in a while it's a peanut butter cup English Toffee but they're gone too fast and the taste is fleeting. So you end up with nothing but broken bits filled with hardened jelly and teeth shattering nuts. If you're desperate enough to eat those all you've got left is a is an empty box filled with useless brown paper wrappers.