William Montgomery’s Industrial Picnic (1986)

William Montgomery’s Industrial Picnic (1986)

Industrial Picnic is William Montgomery’s satirical vision of how we are desensitized by pollution and learn to do with what we have. Wonderful satire. Featured Image: William B. Montgomery. Industrial Picnic. Hand-colored etching.
H.E. Bates’s A Month by the Lake (1987)

H.E. Bates’s A Month by the Lake (1987)

Though billed as a comedy of errors, for all that happens in Bates’s “A Month by the Lake,” the lake might as well be Lake Coma. There is, however, a Bates a lovely picnic in the summer of 1937, enhancing the slow-paced relationship of the...
Faith Ringgold’s Church Picnic  (1988)

Faith Ringgold’s Church Picnic (1988)

Ringgold’s Church Picnic Story Quilt (1988)  is a painted quilt that portrays the Freedom Baptist Church Sunday School picnic. Picnic cloths are spread out on the grass, and families sit in separate groups eating the foods they have totted along. The children playing...
Laurie Colwin’s Picnics (1988 & 1993)

Laurie Colwin’s Picnics (1988 & 1993)

Family Happiness is Laurie Colwin’s comic tale about an Eastside Manhattan Jewish housewife, finds who finds happiness at home and on a picnic in bed with her lover. On the way to her first affair, Polly Demarest stops for a smoked salmon sandwich. Alone and...
Randal Kleiser’s Big Top Pee-Wee  (1988)

Randal Kleiser’s Big Top Pee-Wee (1988)

Among the silly escapades in Big Top Pee-wee is Pee-Wee’s klutzy relationship with his financé Winnie Johnson. Every day, Pee-wee and Winnie meet for a lunchtime picnic, for which she makes egg salad sandwiches that Pee-wee hates.   Pee-wee endures this because...
E.L. Doctorow’s  Billy Bathgate (1989)

E.L. Doctorow’s Billy Bathgate (1989)

A picnic in the woods is a novelty for Billy Bathgate, a fifteen-year-old New York City boy who has never walked on anything but pavement. So, when Drew Preston, a worldly woman of twenty-one, says,” Let’s go for a picnic….” Billy is flummoxed. He...
Jeff Wall’s Vampires’ Picnic (1991)

Jeff Wall’s Vampires’ Picnic (1991)

At first glance, it’s a group posing for a photograph, but scrutiny reveals a group of vampires actively pursuing what they do best. Then you realize that Jeff Wall’s photograph Vampires’ Picnic (1991) is political satire, an allusion to Karl...
Brian Morse’s Picnic on the Moon (1990)

Brian Morse’s Picnic on the Moon (1990)

Morse’s Picnic on the Moon is a young people’s book with a serious message for world peace. It’s Morse’s notion that while Earthlings picnic on the Moon, they overlook its hidden inhabitants who live in peace surrounded by lunar tranquility....
Stephen Speilberg’s Jurassic Park: The Lost World (1990)

Stephen Speilberg’s Jurassic Park: The Lost World (1990)

Isla Sorna is a dangerous place to picnic. Traveling by Range Rover over Costa Rica’s bumpy roads to a deserted beach, the Bowman family for adventure and picnicking on the beach. When they get there, they are alone. Ellen Bowman is afraid of snakes. Young Cathy...