This week’s art is a small acrylic study that is here basically because it cracks me up.

It’s another of my attempts to emulate the technique of Edward Hopper, but it’s also a bit of an in-joke. You see, last July Mel and I made a quick trip to Chicago to see a couple of plays, and for part of our trip we stayed at the Canopy by Hilton in Chicago’s famed Loop district. We had a beautiful suite with multiple rooms and a really nice living room area as soon as we walked in.

Our room was situated in an odd corner of the building (a completely refurbished former railroad HQ) and our suite spanned the entire width of this part of the building. As a result, our bedroom had a large window that overlooked West Jackson Boulevard. Being in the middle of a city, it did not have an expansive view, but it was interesting enough to warrant a painting of its own, which you will see in a few weeks.

But the living room window, being pointed in the opposite direction, had a totally different view. This window offered a view of what can best be described as “a mysterious void.” I thought it was an alleyway of some sort, but looking at it via satellite images shows that it’s merely a blank space in between where three buildings don’t quite meet. I guess it would be considered a courtyard of sorts, but it’s not one that gets much in the way of sunlight, and from our room, you couldn’t even see the ground. I’m assuming that it must be accessible from the ground floor of at least one of the three buildings, but I know that, after walking around the block, there is no way to get there from the outer streets.

Still, it made for an amusing view, and was a good place to practice my Hoppering while my fingers were working. It’s acrylic on thick illustration board.

To see it bigger try clicking HERE.

Over in radioland, Monday at 2 PM on The AIR, we bring you a classic episode of Psychedelic Shack, and then at 3 PM a classic edition of Herman Linte’s weekly showcase of the Progressive Rock of the past half-century, Prognosis.  You can listen to The AIR at the website, or on the embedded radio player elsewhere on this page.

Psychedelic Shack can be heard every Monday at 2 PM, with replays Tuesday at 9 AM, Wednesday at 10 PM, Friday at 1 PM,  and Saturday at 9 AM. You can hear Prognosis on The AIR Monday at 3 PM, with replays Tuesday at 7 AM, Wednesday at 8 PM, Thursday at Noon, and Saturday at 10 AM. You can hear two classic episodes of the show Sunday at 2 PM.

At 8 PM you can hear Neil’s Heavy Concept Album on last week’s episode of The Comedy Vault.

Tonight at 9 PM the Monday Marathon presents ten hours of purly random audio joy, taken from our vast collection of cool stuff.

Another radio note: Tuesday’s Radio Free Charleston will be an encore of the show we debuted last Thursday. Your PopCulteer is taking the week off from making radio so he can work on a magazine article. We do plan to return to newness with a new edition of Mel Larch’s MIRRORBALL on Friday.  Until then, we are going to showcase the seventh episode of each of our music specialty programs this week, except for RFC. The plan is to return with new episodes of everything, including our shows from the UK, next week.