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Opening Arguments

I could just scream

Ascream "The Scream" is one of the world's most recognized paintings, though not in a way its creator probably would have appreciated. "What was once a serious expression of existential dread is now a self-mocking symbol of the stress of modern life. 'Stuck in traffic?' asks an ad for a Scream keychain. 'Your keychain understands exactly how you feel.' " But Edvard Munch had a tortured childhood and, after bercoming a painter, deliberately took up a life of corruption, "living a Bohemian rhapsody of absinthe, opium, syphilis, tortured love affairs, hunger, poverty, and painting." He described the inspiration for the painting, in part: "I stood there trembling with anxiety—and I sensed an infinite scream passing through nature." Naturally this existential agony was destined to be on T-shirts and coffee mugs. Makes you want to scream, I bet.

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