Part 15: Accounts of the Life of Edmund Callipeaux

Contributor:
Slagolas – Rock and Roll Superstar! Lead guitar and vocals for the Emo/Moog band Burning Chastity, lives in Brooklyn, NY.





9 April 2009, Midnight

The below photograph, Edmund Callipeaux as Stein Eriksen, has hung in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, in Midtown Manhattan, for many years. I first saw it when my parents brought me to the museum back in 1985. As a youth, I found the image to be striking, inspiring, and brave. It encapsulates a bravado that is rarely found in contemporary works of art.



As the years have ticked by, and I myself have grown to be the man that I am, I have considered the image of Edmund, as he channels the spirit Stein Eriksen, as the threshold of achievement to which I may aspire. Returning to the Met time and again, I have repeatedly sought out Gallery 162 that houses Edmund’s portrait - and I value each viewing as it has taught me a great deal about myself. For me, it has been an image that simultaneously evokes a sense of awe, fear, confusion, wonder, bliss, and admiration.

However, since about 1996 (or for the past ten years at least) there has been something about Edmund’s photograph that has puzzled me a bit. And by that, I mean to say that I’ve had this odd feeling that I have seen those trademark ski goggles before. The sensation of déjà vu has been like a splinter in the palm of my hand…the kind of sliver you cannot see…but you know that something is in there! And it’s a bother that's distracting and somewhat painful.

Then, the other day, I realized why I’ve been walking around for the past ten+ years thinking that I’ve seen those glasses before! I own a pair of those glasses!!!

I was cleaning out some old boxes and stuff from a little used closet in my apartment, and what should I find but a pair of Stein Eriksen Ski Goggles! I even have the original box and everything! I knew that I had seen those glasses before!!!

Damn.

Well, at least that mystery is solved. – S