Matt MacFarland

The Lost Artworks
 (the Banana Man edition)

Banana Net, 2006
5'x5'
chicken wire, paper mache, latex, acrylic paint

Banana Man Bust, 2007
9"x13"x8"
foam, glue, silly putty, newsprint, matte medium, epoxy
Eyewitness Accounts, 2007
9"x12"
framed text on paper

contact: MattieMac.com
mattiemac@earthlink.net

Eyewitness Accounts

A. Robins:  There is a reason for everything that I do. I don't just pull out the broom. No. First, I slip on a banana peel. I get very mad. Then I pull out the broom and sweep it up, so. There must be some sense in clowning. It must be crazy, but there must be some sense in it, just the same.

Enchanted Forest Project:  It was only natural that Pasadena would have its share of ghosts also. At the top of Lake Street in Altadena lies a comfortable little piece of property known to the locals as "The Enchanted Forest." The property is also known as the Cobb estate or the Marx Brothers estate. Perhaps you remember Groucho, Marko, Harpo, Gummo, Zeppo and Chico, stars of the silver comedy screen throughout the 30’s. The property borders Angeles National Forest to the north and makes for a nice place for a spring hike during the daytime. But at night and at certain times of the year, it’s another story altogether...

Humphrey Davy:  On December 26th I was enclosed in an air-tight breathing-box in the presence of Dr. Kinglake. Twenty quarts of nitrous oxide were thrown into the box. Immediately after the introduction of the nitrous oxide the smell and taste of it were very evident. In four minutes I began to feel a slight glow in the cheeks and a generally diffused warmth over the chest, though the temperature of the box was not quite 50 degrees. "My sensations were now pleasant; I had a generally diffused warmth without the slightest moisture of the skin, a sense of exhilaration similar to that produced by a small dose of wine, and a disposition to muscular motion and to merriment.  The pleasurable feelings continued to increase, the pulse became fuller and slower. Twenty quarts more of air were admitted. I had now a great disposition to laugh, luminous points seemed frequently to pass before my eyes, my hearing was certainly more acute, and I felt a pleasant lightness and power of exertion in my muscles. In a short time my breathing was rather oppressed, and on account of the great desire for action rest was painful.

Terry Hoch:  Please help me. I swear I saw a phenomenon on Captain Kangaroo! His name was 'The Banana Man", and he would pull watermelons, more watermelons, this and that, and a little bit of everything would seem to come from his coat. Then, finally, he would start pulling bunches upon bunches of bananas from his coat. He did not speak, but only would say "wow" in soprano. I sat there mesmerized by this strange man. I have done research on this gentleman, and I have been unsuccessful. Who was he?

Abraham Lincoln:  With the fearful strain that is on me night and day, if I did not laugh I should die.

Rhett Bryson:  The most amazing of the communications I received were from the daughter, son and grandson of Sam Levine. His daughter was the first to write to me. She simply said: “Dear Mr. Bryson- My father Sam Levine, whose agent was Max Roth, performed as A. Robins the Banana Man.“ I was floored. This information calls into serious question the suggestion in The Vaudeville Times that Max Roth performed for many years as The Banana Man.

Howard Hickson:  In 1952, Warden Art Bernard noticed that the prison’s cemetery was in sad disrepair. Many graves didn’t even have headstones. Bernard noticed an inmate making small sculptures from discarded rocks and gave him the job of making fifty headstones. Weeks later the warden checked on the sculptor’s progress. Most of the fifty headstones were completed. Bernard smiled when he realized there had been a breakdown in communications. Each sculpture was, indeed, a headstone. A square base topped with a smiling head.  The inmate had done busts of famous people like George Washington and Abraham Lincoln. Running out of photographs of the presidents he began turning out generic faces. He explained to the warden that he would have done a better job if he had used pictures of those buried there.

Art Buchwald:  Hi, I’m Art Buchwald and I just died.

Defamer.com:  Inevitably, one of the unfortunate side effects of having a video of your racist meltdown (and subsequent, cringe-inducing apology to the "Afro-American" community) played in front of virtually everyone with either a television or an internet connection is that some troublemaker will comb through the deepest recesses of your IMDb profile and eventually turn up something that's going to look a lot less amusing in light of recent events and slap it up on YouTube. We can't say we've ever seen Whoops Apocalypse, but we're sure there was a compelling dramatic reason why Michael Richards had to portray a jive-talking blind man while wearing blackface that makes C. Thomas Howell's self-tanner overdose look convincing.

Trav S.D.:  Ninth and last (in the Vaudeville lineup) came the “haircut act,” or chaser.  Usually something so appalling it would have the audience heading for the door, with all you would see being the back of their heads.  Marcus Loew, dubbed the “King of Small Time,” claimed to have the best chaser in the business; a bad sculptor who made inaccurate busts of famous people onstage.