Yesterday we see Tucson detectives shuffling Isabel Celis’s parents in and out of their home, which is in the 5600 block of E. 12th. The media portrayed the event as if it was breaking news, but actually it was just some routine investigative work. Sergio was seen first ducking into his own home around midday.
Detectives had about an hour with him, then it was Becky’s turn under the hot lamp for forty-five minutes. Their son, whose name hasn’t been mentioned, was questioned also. We hear there were attempts at a simulation of the event of April 21st.
Since detectives drilled them in isolation, we sense they are attempting to verify the various components of accounts regarding the supposed kidnapping of their daughter Isa. This is simply routine, making sure their stories jive from what they said just after the event. Detectives may have some physical evidence also, that will need to be piece-mealed into their version of a traumatic morning. If anything is out of place, suspicions will be quickly be cast in the direction of the parents.
I don’t sense that anything major went down yesterday, but the media made it seem as if the case was about to crack wide open. What’s new? In other news, I saw where Edvard Munch’s The Scream fetched $120 Million and I immediately connected real news to Isabel Celis’s baffling case. That is, I realized that her case makes me want to scream, thereby validating the universality of Munch’s art, which seems to be the answer to every existential tear and tussle we find ourselves in.
Well, the painting is worth every dime of a $ 120 million, because it captures exactly what we are feeling as we pull out our hair wondering how and why Isabel vanished from her adobe home, which looks more like a Spanish fortress from the Conquistador Era when we see footage of it on TV. Neighbors are living in fear of the event, such as Alicia Stardevant, who has been channeling some nightmares, in the wake of having experienced the kidnapping first hand.
Another validation of The Scream as art that captures what we may be feeling in our daily lives. I hate to say it, but unfortunately it’s a great deal of FEAR, PATHOS and IRRATIONALITY. Just as you imagine our ubiquitous toon from Munch’s perceptive imagination. Am I grasping for straws? Am I as guilty as the media at large, making a mountain out of a mole hill? Well, maybe, but at least I’m doing it with a bit of panache! Oddest painting ever! Oddest missing persons case ever!
Bookends to the same experience. One is in art, the other is in crime, we see. Hearsay of a Celis cousin who may be a potential suspect. I haven’t heard yet who he is, or what possible connection he may have. Then how can I report it as news? Return to The Scream. Skills in reporting have to do with the trickery of perception. An ability to act as if you have something, when you really have nothing. That’s the art of reporting, not its craft. Cops getting 100s of tips daily that are mere sawdust, is similar.
Chances are good the Isabel Celis case will never be solved. But no one in their right mind is going to say this. Cases turn cold all the time. But this kills the news. Play the clips once again of the family conference. Repeat old news as if it is new news. People won’t remember! And let me see that painting one more time, so I can determine if that phantom on the bridge is me? And who’s that couple on the rickety bridge?
