The Ears and Years of Van Gogh - Part I

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It started at the dinner table. 

We were discussing Mozart and his compulsive gambling that ended up bankrupting him. My father said something along the lines of it often being unclear precisely what kind of obsessions such people used to have, and I laughed and said, “Unlike Van Gogh and his obsession with cutting off ears!” Immediately after I apologized unrepentantly for the terrible joke, but somehow we ended running with the concept of Van Gogh collecting ears. “Left ears!” my sister specified pointedly, and with a grin we agreed. 

Christopher was confused, so Dad explained gravely, “He was a time traveler and went to the future to cut off Van Gogh’s ear.” 

We all turned and blinked. Then someone laughed. “Why would Van Gogh have to travel to the future to cut off his own ear?”

“No, Mozart,” Dad disagreed, and I grinned in amused bemusement. 

“Why Mozart?”

“Weren’t you discussing his obsession with cutting off ears?”

A pause. Then laughter. “No, not Mozart! We moved on from him and were talking about Van Gogh cutting off his (and other people’s) ear!” However, as is our wont, the discussion deteriorated into humorous silliness concerning Van Gogh time traveling, and Dominic  expressed curiosity over what would happen if Van Gogh travelled to the past and cut off his past self’s ear – would the future version suddenly find himself missing that ear, or would nothing happen?

“Ah, but time travel is simply to alternate dimensions,” Dad waved it off, and Anastasia parried with a cocky grin, “So there are Van Goghs with more or fewer ears? Some with only one ear and some with three?”

“Three??” Mom exclaimed, and Anastasia explained that if Van Gogh went back (or forward) in time and cut off his alternative self’s ear, then one Van Gogh would have only one ear and the other would have three: two on his head, and one in his hand! In fact, she thought it such a brilliant concept that she declared laughingly that she’d write her bachelor thesis on the topic, titling it “The Ears and Years of Van Gogh”. (Most of us ignored that she would find it very hard to get a bachelor in Korean and Japanese Studies with such a topic.)

I laughed as well and said I’d quite like to title a blog post that way, and she enthusiastically encouraged me to write a blog entry with a silly tale of a time-traveling, ear-cutting Van Gogh. I agreed that it would be hilarious, though I was thinking more along the lines of a serious summary of the true man (which she pouted at slightly). So I thought, why not do both? In a manner of speaking. Today I’ll post this silliness, next I might post a part II consisting of a silly short story (entirely fictional, of course), and then a proper blog post on the real man and his work. Should be fun! (Though obviously, I’ll have to read up on the man before I can write anything silly involving him. Wouldn’t be right otherwise.)

...Thus ends The Ears and Years of Van Gogh, Part I!