Almighty painter

Chapter 1018 Mr. Sloth's Podcast

Anna sat down on the edge of the bed, put her small cane aside, and picked up the magazine "The Fashionista" on the table to read.

Robert Kent has edited and edited the conversation from their meeting a few days ago, compiled it into an article, and published it. The two articles are placed together, and can be seen by glancing at the first two pages of the magazine.

"A rose is a rose, a rose is a rose—once again, written for Anna Elena."

"A painter who fears the cold wants to paint ice sculptures: An afternoon conversation with artist Gu Weijing."

Anna read the two reports one by one, using the bedside lamp as her reading light.

The lamp's bulb emitted a warm and gentle light. The cover of the report featured a photograph taken that day by the photographer. She was standing with her back to the camera, her hair falling down her cheeks to cover her ears, gazing at the distant horizon.

Anna gazed at "Miss Elena's back" and thought she was truly a person full of ambition and aspirations.

She is a person full of contradictions.

She is an art critic who hates art critics, and a biographical literature enthusiast who hates reading biographies.

Miss Elena prefers her own art reviews and dislikes those written by others.

Miss Elena loved biographical stories about others, but hated biographies about herself, or even ordinary reports. Other people's biographies were always fascinating—ambition, choices, anger, sorrow… Opening a book, they were no longer dry names or bones in a grave, but instantly became living souls.

Open the window at will, and people from centuries ago will be standing in the garden below, reaching out to greet you.

Once the words begin to concern her with things she is familiar with, the soul shaped by mystery will instantly collapse into dry words. She will know that what those words constitute is far from a living soul; at most, it is just one or two fragments of a soul.

What a person is most familiar with is themselves.

She will realize that the connection between all biographies and the people themselves, just as the connection between all art criticism and the artworks, is the relationship between a withered leaf and nature as a whole.

The two are never any different.

A biography is an artistic critique of a person.

Art criticism is like a biography of a painting. Everyone hopes to depict a story far grander than that through an external gaze, through a few brushstrokes, a few paintings, or a few letters.

They are using one or two dried leaves to restore the whole of nature.

That day, Miss Elena had intended to say to Robert in a joking tone that even if someone were lucky enough to collect all the leaves that had fallen from the tree, they still wouldn't be enough to make a real tree.

At most, at most.

That's just one or two moments in the vast number of moments between the changing seasons of spring, summer, autumn and winter.

Robert described it as a four-legged piece of furniture, a cut-up board, or a living tree, whatever.

it's the same.

Ultimately, it's all just an illusion based on "the expectations of others".

Miss Elena didn't dislike Robert's article, nor did she dislike her appearance in the photograph; it was exactly what she wanted to see.

Rather than being tired of hearing words like "pretty" and "beautiful" and seeing flat, model-like photos, she wants everyone to know clearly.

In the end, they could only gaze at her retreating figure from afar.

She was such an ambitious and driven person. Miss Elena turned the corner of the page to look at the next article, which had the same structure as the previous one, with artistic titles in cursive font on the left side of the page, accompanied by photographs of the people interviewed.

Compared to the surrounding environment.

Gu Weijing's house didn't look particularly impressive: a half-bronze statue, a gleaming tabletop, a photo wall covered with pictures, and a large wooden bookshelf.

The young painter seemed to become an integral part of the studio environment.

He became a work of art.

Perhaps—he wasn't even the most dazzling work of art. Even so, there was a certain aura about Gu Weijing…or rather, a power that made people believe this was a truly sincere dialogue.

Even if telling lies brings huge benefits.

He will still choose honesty.

Like that little trick in the ranch, Miss Elena always wore a strange smile when she listened to Gu Weijing boast about his viola playing. She was like a magician who had just performed a trick so skillful it had fooled the entire audience.

Believe.

Gu Weijing's smile in response to her carried a similar meaning.

Strangely enough, even so.

As Anna recalled those moments, she still believed that Gu Weijing's smile revealed a pure and genuine sincerity. Miss Elena, who hadn't quite understood the meaning of such a smile before, was now gradually coming to understand and being touched little by little.

After reading the two reports, the woman pondered for a while by the bedside.

She did not choose to wash up or rest.

Anna got out of bed, walked to her desk, took out her computer sound card and microphone, and after making all the necessary preparations, Miss Elena began recording herself, gazing out at the layered nightscape of Hamburg's suburbs.
-
The sun shines brightly on the outskirts of Hamburg outside the window.

A bright blue Porsche 718 sports car sped along an unrestricted highway with its top down. The old-fashioned Hong Kong martial arts music emanating from the stereo almost drowned out the tire noise caused by the airflow as it sped along.

"I vaguely remember—"

"dream."

"A wave of emotion arose in my heart."

A middle-aged man with a small belly and wearing large sunglasses was driving around, swaying back and forth to the melody coming from the BOSS speaker.

This sporty little sports car has virtually no sound quality to speak of.

Especially when the convertible top is down, even the most powerful sound system will only produce noise.

Yang Dekang didn't care.

It's all about the stylish look; once the car is on, sunglasses are on, and the truly domineering melody resonates in the man's broad heart.

"Old Gu's playlist is awesome!"

Yang Dekang stepped on the gas, the transmission downshifted two gears, and he changed lanes, overtaking a 1.4T Polo in front of him.

"Ha, they don't even dare to drive an ambulance, why would they go on the highway!"

Brother Yang waved his hand dismissively.

At this moment, Yang Dekang, who had returned from the Middle East and switched from cool desert driving mode to wild racing mode, listened to the playlist shared by Gu Tongxiang and hummed along, while thinking about some issues.

Professor Yang has already studied the interview with Ms. Elena and Gu Weijing in "The Fashion".

He keenly sensed something amiss.

Although Robert didn't include the section about the painter and agent's expectations for future collaboration, who is this Yang Dekang? When he was being called "Teacher Yang" in the art world, Robert was still playing in the mud. He keenly sensed that there wasn't much interaction between Gu Weijing and Miss Elena in their respective reports.

They didn't even mention each other very often in the article.

Fashion magazine juxtaposed their stories, and even used a photo from their time in Singapore on the cover. Even so, the sense of dissonance, which seemed to be an attempt to cover up the truth, remained.

The painter and his agent talked about their own things in the interview, and apart from a few questions that Robert deliberately steered the conversation towards, they hardly talked about each other at all.

what does this mean?
Yang Dekang not only had a much keener sense of smell than Robert, but he was also much better informed. He could even be considered a semi-insider in the matter.

Robert was pondering the same question. Yang Dekang was also thinking about it; in fact, one could say that Yang Dekang had been thinking about it constantly for the past six months. Aside from teaching his macaw to recite Keats's words, Old Yang had spent all his time researching this matter.

Will Miss Elena and Gu Weijing continue their collaboration?

That's the answer.

Yang Dekang is personally quite pessimistic.

When a painter and his agent no longer appear together at art events and hardly speak to each other, it's like a report in "The Vogue".

Even though they were forced to be together.

The so-called cooperation has long been dead in name only.

That's the answer.

Mr. Yang is quite optimistic. As the saying goes, we should look at problems from a changing perspective.

The Titanic crashed into the iceberg with a "crunch," which was undoubtedly a tragedy for Jack and Rose's relationship, but for the lobsters in the ship's seafood restaurant, it was nothing short of a miracle of life.

The fact that the two of them couldn't continue was undoubtedly a tragedy for Miss Elena and Gu Weijing regarding their collaboration.

For Teacher Yang

Who says it isn't a miracle of life?
Old Yang was practically ready to yell "You jump, I jump!" at the top of his lungs!

She was his ideal woman.

Old Yang accepted being NTR'd by Miss Elena right in front of him. It's not shameful to be killed by the Buddha's Palm, nor is it shameful to lose to Miss Elena. Who can beat her?

just now.

Miss Elena has run away; according to seniority, it's time to talk about Teacher Yang.

With Anna out of the picture, Yang Dekang considered himself incredibly strong.

Unrivaled in dominance!

After the song ended, Yang Dekang pressed two buttons on the steering wheel, and the playlist on his iPhone automatically switched from Gu Tongxiang's playlist to the next frequently listened-to song.

"Welcome to the fashion class for middle-aged men—"

jump over.

"—This is Parrot Home, sharing daily updates with you, raising—"

jump over.

……

Yang Dekang casually pressed several buttons on the steering wheel until he switched to an audio program.

"—Welcome to 'Mr. Sloth's Art Salon'—"

A deep, middle-aged man's voice came from the speakers. Yang Dekang's finger paused for a moment on "Next Track," but he ultimately didn't press it.

Mr. Sloth.

A few years ago, he was merely the host of a new arts program on Apple Podcasts. Now, he has a much more important role: the agent of that mysterious "Detective Cat."

It is said that he met Detective Cat while recording a podcast and miraculously reached a cooperation agreement.

If we were to say that the collaboration between Ms. Elena and Gu Weijing is the most high-profile and discussed artistic duo in recent years, then...

So Mr. Sloth and Detective Cat are the most mysterious pair.

So far.

No one knows who they are yet.

There are quite a few creators in the arts and culture circle who take a mysterious approach. Normally, mystery means that all audiences and readers are shrouded in a veil, and it shouldn't be considered too much of a secret for a few insiders.

This pair is an exception.

They always communicate via email for work, and someone else always represents them at any occasions that require their presence.

Not only is Detective Cat himself mysterious, but his agent is equally enigmatic. It's almost become an urban legend; discussing who Detective Cat really is is like the debate in 18th-century literary circles about who Shakespeare was—a very popular topic within the industry.

There are all sorts of rumors.

Some say Shakespeare was actually a pseudonym used by the Queen of England when publishing her plays. Others say that Shakespeare never existed and was a pseudonym used by a group of playwrights.

Some say that Detective Cat doesn't actually exist, but rather that an entire group of illustrators secretly use the identity of "Detective Cat" to publish their work. From the very beginning, it's been a staged commercial publicity stunt.

Yang Dekang didn't care whether these things were true or false.

What does it matter?

Whether it's true or not, there's only one thing: the success of Detective Cat is now beyond question.

If this is a well-orchestrated commercial hype, then it is an extremely successful one, with one topic after another. Even Mr. Sloth's podcast has gained over a million followers last month.

They are probably not comparable to top podcast hosts like John Rogan, who can influence the US presidential election.

But in the art world.

He must be a very famous person!

Yang Dekang was very envious.

Old Yang glanced at the instrument panel screen. This was an extra episode that Mr. Sloth had added in the early hours of the day before yesterday. There were no guest speakers in the introduction, and Mr. Sloth was the only host.

The program is called—

"In this late night, let's talk about Van Gogh once again."

Yang Dekang withdrew his gaze and slightly reduced the accelerator, slowing the car down a bit. The middle-aged man drove while listening to the podcast host's voice.

The program is titled "Revisiting Van Gogh".

Instead of mentioning Van Gogh at the beginning, the host chose to start with the works of Detective Cat.

Yang Dekang scratched his chin.

As everyone knows, Mr. Sloth is Detective Cat's agent, and countless fans who follow the show are hoping that Mr. Sloth can invite Detective Cat back for another episode to talk about her creative career.

Regrettably.

Mr. Sloth doesn't seem to have that intention.

The podcast still maintains its original classical cultural salon atmosphere. Over the past two or three years, Mr. Sloth has invited many guests to visit and discuss a lot of art history topics.

The only exception is Detective Cat, who never appeared again after that Impressionist-themed episode.

She was mentioned directly at the beginning.

This is the first time on Mr. Sloth's show.

(End of this chapter)