SLPAD - “Low-Lands” - 1

[Michael Bailey]

So the garbage collection on the north shore of Long Island back in the day
apparently started really early, Rocco Squarcione getting off of work
around 9 am.

There was an artist named Francesco Squarcione:

http://www.italianrenaissanceresources.com/units/unit-3/essays/academies/

In the late fifteenth century, a few institutions that emphasized learning
and knowledge over technical skill began to appear. *Francesco Squarcione*
<http://www.italianrenaissanceresources.com/glossary/squarcione-francesco/>
established
a “studio” in Padua around 1440, perhaps the first to operate outside the
guild and workshop system. It seems, however, that Squarcione coerced, even
adopted, his most talented pupils (including *Andrea Mantegna*
<http://www.italianrenaissanceresources.com/glossary/mantegna-andrea/>) for
financial gain. His later reputation as a teacher may rest more on their
success than on his innovative way of training artists.

If we allow the name to summon an early interpretation - Low-Lands as the
recruitment of Flange into Rocco’s studio of garbage - we could form a
divergent reading centered around Rocco, garbage as “found art”, wonder if
Rocco & Dennis listening to Vivaldi’s music reinforces that theme (though
Vivaldi came a couple-three centuries later), & try to place the latter-day
Squarcione’s “studio” in opposition to the “guild and workshop system”
represented by Flange’s increasingly iffy employment with the law firm of
Wasp & Winsome.

This does seem premature at this juncture, not quite a false start, but an
impression to be altered (corrected? fleshed out? abandoned?) with the aid
of closer reading.