One sun-dappled Sunday in Post-Impressionist Paris, the first Neo-Impressionist artist―working under a parasol made of points of light, among several shading an idle parade of blasé bourgeoisie, passing a Sabbath of pleasureless leisure on an island in a Seine made of points of light―invents Pointillism.
“Some say they see poetry in my paintings; I see only science.”
In a yellow wood, a pencil pusher, horning in to push pencils, comes to a fork in the road, where a Pulitzer poet is standing on the horns of a dilemma.
It’s taking a bigger bite out of this summer’s tourism than great white sharks at water parks. It is culling group packages down to singles tours. It is making this summer’s vacation a holiday for hermits.
“The hermit is he who needs a friend, and in the absence of a community has befriended himself.”
The Zen poet’s mind―still as an inkwell in an oil field; humble as a page of faint praise; silent as one hand clapping in a forest falling on deaf ears―is as sharp as Sam Samurai’s sword: like a steel stylus, shredding erudition into pulp fiction.
“Writing is a very focused form of meditation. Just as good as sitting in a lotus position.”
Suppose all the bird baths, ornamental ponds, swimming holes, creeks, swamps, lakes, oceans―all the water on the planet including what’s left of the glaciers, even the condensing vapor in the clouds―suppose it was all slurped up into a gob and spit into space: would that leave the planet dry?
“Among the planets orbiting the Sun, Earth is clearly the ‘water planet.'”
America’s students are taught a bit of Latin. Not to write prescriptions for pharmaceuticals, as might be expected. They learn that E pluribus unum is Latin for Out of many, one. So when they see the motto in the Great Seal of the United States on an after-tax dollar, they know what makes America great.
“Taxes should be proportioned to what may be annually spared by the individual.”
The whirling dervish going round on the inside track is thinking about breaking the record of revolutions per minute held by a mad holy roller on the outside track. He has another think coming.
“Every revolution was first a thought in one man’s mind.”
GODSLAUGH.ME 