Gas
99 Gas. Painting by Edward Hopper from 1940, depicting a man standing near gas pumps, in the lonely isolation typical of Hopper. The man might be straightening the area, checking supplies of motor oil. Or maybe he’s filling himself up with gas—a transfusion of energy he needs, because he looks bent and tired. Inspired by his long-term struggles to maintain a reliable means of transportation (see Fast car), I think of Joel when I look at this painting. He didn’t work at a gas station or live on a lonesome road, but alone in a dark apartment, sitting on his foldout bed with a book before him or standing at a window that looked onto a plot of roses shrouded in San Francisco mist. Older, tired, attending. Or standing at an erased blackboard in one of the classrooms he temporarily occupied. He’s trying to keep the internal fires burning against the wall of darkness pressing in. He is attending to the small tasks of the living, until he just runs out of gas. ...
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