In my living room I have a drawing of foxes dressed as English gentleman hunters. They’re drinking wine, eating fowl, and having a good time (except one of them has pissed his pants). When I turn away, they become a part of Mandelbrot’s curves and repetitions, his complex numbers. And I always turn away (as one can’t stand in front of a drawing forever).
The cats are at a hanging plant with their little teeth and claws in a corner, pretending something in the realm of 1 through infinity among the primes. It’s easy to think of them as widgets or strings of code for a machine, Python code, or the millions of duck prints counted from above the earth, scanned, color-coded, and ascertained for pattern, message, or future scripts that might double as poetry or painting or suddenly become that old day you will someday re-observe in the dark of some sickness.
I can smell the approach of cooler days in the sway of those delicate window dressings; how the breeze turns them into a childhood spent under the bed. None of this need be understood. If you can see a child hiding under a bed (blinking, watching for a stranger’s shoes) and the gentle lift and fold of the sheers in a cool dry draft then you’re doing just fine, as it’s meant only as experience in words.
Imagine for ten seconds that God is real, if you’re not already a believer. Imagine that God created the capacity for meaning. Now imagine writing images that make no sense. Something like:
“Where did you grow up?”
“I grew up in my mother’s armpit.”
Or something like this: Imagine you’ve found two pine needles. You stake them upright in a random piece of fresh banana-shaped dog shit. Sure, put it on a white plate or in a hotdog bun (if winter, if fresh, it’ll steam nicely). I know you can paint worse things, and you have, and you will. Wait then for an observer to happen by. Imagine their reaction. You’ll be amazed in your Godhood.
