Music From A Farther Room

Old paint on canvas, as it ages, sometimes becomes transparent. When that happens it is possible, in some pictures, to see the original lines: a tree will show through a woman's dress, a child makes way for a dog, a large boat is no longer on an open sea. That is called pentimento because the painter repented, changed his mind. Perhaps it would be as well to say that the old conception, replaced by a later choice, is a way of seeing, and then seeing again.

This is what I mean about the people in this book. The paint has aged now and I wanted to see what was there for me once, what is there for me now.

Lillian Hellman - Pentimento

All that's to come, and all that could have been...

The Stupid

I have had nothing to say the last couple of months, largely because I wasn’t sure I had anything left to say. I personally have had quite a nice summer, but the last few weeks I’ve noticed an alarming increase in what I have come to think of as The Stupid, and what I think I’d like to know is if any of you have too.

The Stupid, as I dubbed it earlier this year, is the general overall condition of humans these days: the inability to listen, to answer questions, simple or otherwise, the seeming inability or desire to make even the simplest decisions for themselves, the ever increasing use of devices in every public situation, the absolutely appalling lack of manners or consideration for others, and what seems to me to be a cloud of vacant, vacuous expression in the eyes and faces of so many people I see every day.

Is it like this where you live/ are?  I’ve long wanted to travel to other places to see things, but frankly now I’d also like to go to see if this is indeed a worldwide condition or not. Kids, if there is a God, is this the final plague - a fog of idiocy so massive, the world will succumb in one more generation or less?

I fear for my children, for those of you out there who may be immune to this ever rapidly increasing brain melt.

Let me know, if you will.