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Widening the Apertures The newspapers insist on making us aware of what might otherwise go unnoticed. That the orangutans have fingers so enormous they won’t fit into the outlets. And so there is little danger of electrocution. Our need for such happy accidents is like the peculiar shore bird we call a spoonbill. Always feeling about in the sand. Searching for invertebrates and those misplaced spectacles that play such an important role in the stage dramas of a certain era. You know the ones: with category two hurricanes coming in off the Atlantic like passenger trains. And the passengers in the real trains so sound asleep, the conductor thinks seriously of continuing forever. Or at least pulling into the mountains where his cousins are waiting. And the radio is making its insinuations. I am reminded of the dummy perched atop the ventriloquist’s knee. It discovers dark truths about whoever happens to be sitting in the audience. Prefects. Emirs. Old ladies with perfectly good fortunes. They begin to shudder just as soon as the curtain comes up. Ah, the sweep of it! The enormity of art. The refreshments at the end.
Charles Freeland | Mudlark No. 35 |