Michelangelo's Magna Doodle Discovered

Magna Doodle drawing determined to have been done by Michelangelo himself may be worth between $12 million and a kajillion dollars, according to students at Art Lowenstein's School of Art Appraisal in Hoboken, NJ. The doodle was unearthed among assorted art-related toys from the Renaissance period in what used to be a child's rumpus room, according to officials at the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum in New York. The unsigned doodle is of a half-man, half-bear — some call it a Manimal — standing on a three-dimensional see-through box, beneath a sky filled with different-sized eyes and concentric triangles, according to officials. The Manimal has a river of snakes flowing somehow magically out of his armpit, and the single word "Gwyneth" is scrawled mysteriously near the border between several squiggles. Experts place the time of the doodling in the mid-1500s, making it one of the oldest Magna Doodlings on record.

The Magna Doodle was plucked from a chest of toys in the museum's coatroom, formerly a child's rumpus room when the museum was home to a family of Austrian squatters in the late 1800's. Such a discovery is considered to be "a fucking mind-blower," Cooper-Hewitt Director Paul Thompson said in a telephone interview. "I didn't even know they made those things back then."

The Magna Doodle was found in a chest of toys that also included a Magnetic Wonder Whiskers toy that may have belonged to Michelangelo, and an unidentified drawing toy that involved using a solid plastic pencil to draw on a sheet of static cling film that was erased when you peeled the sheet away from the backing, Thompson said.

The museum, part of the Washington-based Smithsonian Institution, purchased the Magna Doodle within a group of five magnetic art toys in 1842, for $1. The purchase was ridiculed by some at the time, but honored as it fulfilled the wishes of then-Director Hyram McWinter, who often said "If it's artsy, I want it." By often we mean like every five minutes, it drove people crazy.

Museum scholars guessed the work might have been done by a 16th century magnetic artist Benny del Bacon, who often fobbed off his doodles on the art community of that day as "pre-surrealist deconstructionalism." Somehow it got into the wrong box and was almost sold at a museum garage sale, only to be saved by a demanding child who lived in the Cooper-Hewitt at the time.

"It's the old cliche: Renaissance master doodles a masterpiece on a child's magnetic toy, museum buys it on accident and almost sells it for nothing before snotty little Austrian kid steals it off the nickel table and hides it in his toy chest for 100 years," Thompson said.

It was first identified as a Michelangelo in April by Sir Clifford Buford, director of the National Galleries of Scotland or something, during an unauthorized surprise inspection of the Cooper-Hewitt. Buford, an Italian Renaissance scholar and air hockey freak, was rummaging around the coatroom of the design museum looking for a nice umbrella when he came across a toy chest simply labeled "Piss Off." One particular toy inside the chest caught his eye. 'My Crap, this is a Michelangelo!"' he exclaimed, not anticipating being quoted later.

While the experts agree on the artist, there is no agreement on how the doodle fits into the larger body of Michelangelo's work.

The Manimal's genitalia is only inferred, but the doodle clearly shows where they should go, said Sarah Lawrence, the museum's expert on the Italian Renaissance magnet-based arts. However, a cat doodled in the background features an alarmingly oversized penis, raising questions about Michelangelo's state of mind at the time of the doodling.

"You recognize a Michelangelo as you recognize a friend," Buford said by courier fox from Florence. "If you're familiar with a friend, and you're walking down the street, you wave to them. They may wave back, or they may duck into a shop to avoid being seen with you on the street. I rather think Michelangelo's doodle waved back. Either that, or these things here are ass cheeks; probably this Gwyneth person's. Though I'd always heard he was gay."

The Magna Doodle will go on display at the Cooper-Hewitt museum in about a year, next to a wild scratch-paper doodle Picasso did while on the phone with his mother, Thompson said.

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OH MY GOD SNOW

I have to admit, when you fell off the top of that double-decker bus the other day, I couldn't help but laugh. Laugh and point. Then I laughed so hard I had to sit down. As a matter of fact, I haven't laughed that hard since mom shot dad in the head with that crossbow when we were kids.

Remember that? I'll never forget the look on dad's face, before he slouched forward, face-first, into his soup at the dinner table. Remember how the ass-end of the crossbow bolt that was sticking out of dad's head stabbed into a dinner roll, and then that roll was stuck to dad's head when his body flopped out of the chair and onto the floor? Holy shit! I peed myself, I really did. I'll never forget that. Dad was such a card.

And mom! Remember the look on the judge's face when mom gave him the finger during the trial? I've been held in contempt of court a couple of times, but that's the only time I've been arrested for laughing too loud. My stomach hurt for two days after that.

It reminds me of the first time I took you to a dance club, back when we were teenagers. You had your eye on that cute girl over at the bar and I talked you into going over to talk to her, remember that? I remember it like it was yesterday. You were so eager to meet her that you didn't watch where you were walking and somehow managed to step into the back of some girl's sandal who was walking in front of you. God knows you went down fast after that, but the best part was when you opened your mouth to scream on the way down and accidentally bit the girl you wanted to talk to on the arm. I couldn't believe my eyes! I was laughing so hard I cried. Boy, did you cock that up! I didn't even think it was possible to make a first impression like that. I swear I would have come to help you sooner but I fell down laughing while her boyfriend was kicking you in the head.

We've had some good times, you and me. We've shared a lot of laughs. Others haven't always understood our sense of humor, like the time when auntie Sue farted while she was choking on that marshmallow. I thought uncle Bill was going to smother you with a pillow when you started to hyperventilate from laughing so hard. But I understood. I would have been laughing harder myself except it was the last marshmallow and that meant no s'mores for me.

It figures that we'd get placed with a foster family that had no sense of humor at all. Life was totally wasted on those people. But hey, if they couldn't see the humor in the family dog being eaten by a lion at the zoo, then fuck 'em. Their loss. I swear, with all of their carrying on about who threw the dog over the fence I almost missed it when the lion coughed up his collar. Priceless.

I'll miss you buddy. You always knew how to make me laugh. Just like dad. I'll remember that every time I see some joker get run over by a bus, or think of those tire tracks we had carved into your headstone. Whenever I hear your laugh echoing down from heaven, I'll know somebody dropped a harp on their foot. And I'll be pissed that I missed it.

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"If I had a dollar for every time I got a blow-job, I'd probably have the best job in the world."

Everybody remember to get out and vote on Tuesday. If you don't vote, you can't complain. At least not to the president himself. If fact, if you do vote, they still won't let you complain to him. They just escort you out and taser you in the alley out back. And don't try telling them you pay the president's taxes, that shit don't work more than once or twice.

I vote early. Really early. I fill out my absentee ballot as soon as I receive it in the mail. I'm a native of Mescalo, Puerto Rico, which is a Puerto Rican territory of the U.S. territory. But we still get a vote, so there, Dominican Republic. Since I don't live in Mescalo anymore, except on Thursdays, I make sure to get my vote sent off early. I check the ballot, but I know there's a lot of trouble with reading the ballot, so I write the name of the candidate I want to win several times, on the inside and outside of the envelope. No way I'm voting for Buchanan again, even by accident.

The worst part about voting by absentee ballot is, you don't get one of those stickers. How the hell are people supposed to know you're a good citizen and you voted and you can make them feel like shit for not voting if you mail in your ballot? I deserve to be patronizing, too. So I made my own sticker, from the Chiquita banana sticker I snagged, but it was too small and hard to read. So I had it tattooed on my back. It's not perfect either, since I have to walk around with my shirt off, and the local cops keep telling me they warned me about doing that. Plus, it's only right once every few years.

Another thing I like about tattoos is, they're conversation starters. Instead of getting the name of a girl tattooed on you, which no one ever believes, I just put a strange word somewhere. I tattooed the word "dog" on my forehead one time, 'cause I have this really funny story about a dog biting my fellas while I was trying to test him for rabies once. No one ever asked me about the story, so I had the tattoo removed in a really expensive surgery. I'm thinking maybe next time I might try "dog bites balls" or something, that might make them curious enough to ask.

So what I'm saying is, it's important to vote. Our grandfathers and grandmothers fought and died on battlefields all over this country just so white men could have the right to vote. And then they gave in and let everyone else have it. Never forget their sacrifice, 'cause they're all dead now and can't ever come back, unless they're ghosts. Exercise your right to vote. It doesn't matter who you vote for as long as you vote—they don't even count those things anyway. The same dicks get into office no matter what. But vote, like I said, or the rest of us will make you feel bad.

Heh, heh. That reminds me about this dog story—ask me about it, I'll tell you next time.

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