#431 Green Night

The crossbones have melted
in the moonlight, now look
like sad dumbbells, as does

the crew of the ship beneath
the flagging standard. It's all
very jolly being rogered, but

more than a bit embarrassing
when you're in port, & some-
one has left the curtains open.

#430 "Exciting Perfumes by MEM"

I still think advertising is
imbecile work, useful
for the artist as an activity
to help in putting food on
the table or pay the rent. That
attitude somewhat softened
since the war, getting back
into painting, but now with
only limited options for dis-
play. Pessoa once said to me:
the unnatural & the strange have
a perfume of their own. I've mixed
& matched. The unnatural &
strange have always been with
me. Now I've added someone
else's chic perfume; & so, in
magazines & tous les grands
magasins, posters & full-page
liftouts have returned my
name, my output, back into
the discerning public's eye.

#429 Great Journeys

A naked woman plunges
headless into the edges
of the forest, bringing the
already built blocks of a
small city along with her.

This is how civilizations
are sometimes founded —
almost as easily as one of
those videos games, but
with much more panache.

#428 Wreckage of The Shadow

The bird without feathers is
a mountain in the Pyrenees.

An angular snow shoe for
walking through the dust
of diamonds holds feathers
that do not hold a bird.

Another mountain holds a
cave. (In another painting
we are inside it, waiting
for the bird to look away.)

Wooden parrakeets morph
into prototype string instru-
ments. Bricolage becomes
a bits & pieces bird whose

disproportionate tailfeathers
take on the conductor's rôle.

The sea hovers above the sky.

#427 La Sortie de l'École

You go to a friend's house. Their call center’s average call handle times are way past your bedtime. You want to eat pasta. Why are humans so drawn to these foods? Do they help pay the utility bills? Fraudsters call Santa Clara residents asking for help tracking a fraudster. They offer six steps to get your money back by identi- fying emerging patterns. Again it makes you want to eat pasta. You go back to your friend's house & wait in the call center queue. They get round to you eventually, tell you to immediately quit school.

In the double context of a sharp decline in the vocations and of an interrogation as to their identity connected with the aggiornamento of the Congregation, the sisters of Ribeauvillé in their majority left teaching, not by force as in Congo-Brazzaville, but through retirement. Though some of them, in the scope of the institution, chose to undertake new activities and to live within pluralist communities. — Luc Perrin