Danny, Kurt, Al

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Remember that scene in Close Encounters where Richard Dreyfus was compelled to make a mountain out of mashed potatoes? Something very similar happened to me not too long ago. Except instead of a potato mountain, I found myself forced to make a trifecta of images, each sized for a 1024 x 768 PC/Mac desktop. They featured Danny Kaye, Kurt Vonnegut, and Al Gore engaged with a glowing orb. And they were set in a bluish textured frame.
The experience left me shaken. I had so many questions. For example: Why is Danny Kaye wearing that outfit?
At first no answers came. And then I heard a voice as cool and reassuring as a Dairy Queen Flurry. It said:
“Now more than ever, Americans needs heroes. And if they can’t have heroes, they should at least have Danny Kaye, Kurt Vonnegut, and Al Gore desktop images set in a bluish textured frame and featuring a glowing orb. Post these images on cecilvortex.com. Tell people they can click to see the full-sized image, or right-click to save an image out and use them as desktops. Then wait for our next transmission.”
And so I did….
Danny Kaye
Kurt Vonnegut
Al Gore

9 thoughts on “Danny, Kurt, Al”

  1. When I read this I was hopeful that somehow you had them all about the same globe in one picture like three witches around a couldron. Oh well, I like the Kurt picture anyhow…

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  2. Oz:
    That’s an excellent mental picture. I hear it calling to me. Like a mountain of potatoes….
    -Cecil

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  4. I had exactly the same thought as Oz.
    They are three very different people who are on somewhat the same Karmic wavelength.
    Danny’d be gazing into the glowing orb with wide eyed wonder; Al is giving it a smiling but intense gaze, maybe wondering how it works and how we can fuel a car from it; Kurt is glancing at it, wondering if he can light a Pall Mall off of it.
    Saddle up Photoshop, Cecil.

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  6. That is an excellent question Kim. But the problem with making a Jeff Goldblum desktop image with him engaged with a glowing orb and set in a blueish/textured frame is that unlike Danny and Kurt and Al, Jeff Goldblum, he breaks my heart.
    For a career that started with the role of “Freak #1” in the original “DeathWish,” before soaring into classics like “Nashville,” and “Invasion of the Body Snatchers,” and then — come on now — his performance as BrundleFly in “The Fly,” arguably the all-media artistic highpoint of the ’80s, not to mention “Buckaroo” glory and underrated “Deep Cover” gold, after all that, and with all his height, and his lanky-ness, and his unique, almost Walken-esque phraseology, what, Jeff, what?
    Jeff Goldblum — he breaks my heart.
    -Cecil

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  7. Cec: lemme get this straight – Goldblum does and Gore doesn’t break your heart? By the way, I may have found a link – without Gore’s Internet, Goldblum wouldn’t have been able to bring down that Alien in Independence day (by feeding its computer a virus from an otherwise virus-free mac laptop…). Give Jeff an orb! Give Jeff an orb! (everybody now…)
    I like the way Danny Kaye’s tootsies are out of the frame. But I don’t know why. Get it? (got it… GOOD!)

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  8. Here’s the thing about Al Gore: (1) he bounced back from the badness and is now all up in Big Oil’s grill, with a hearty “I’d rather be me than George W.” laugh. And I just dig him for that. (2) He grew that beard sailing around the greek isles. That’s worth like 40 points right there. And (3) he’s made of star stuff.
    -Cecil

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  9. this is a fine, nay, superfine, description of al. thank you. as to the screensavers–all lovely, but danny is just so sweet.

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