At once revealed & obscured by the same corner of the wall. Is rare that we can see the whole face of Mr. Every- man, sans oiseaux, sans pommes, sans énigme. Looks like the forest is no longer common place — brings out another side to him. Especially when it encroaches upon his suburban living space.
Je suis un petit bourgeois avec un chapeau melon & les chaussures à bout d'aile mais je n'ai pas le moindre esprit d'aventure. Which is why I stand at the seawall looking out at the tangerine sea, a similar sky, & not even try to guess as to what might cause them to be that way. I am somewhat middle class with my bowler hat & my wing tip shoes but I do not have the slightest spirit of adventure inside me. Lequel est pourquoi je me tiens à la digue regardant la mandarine mer, un ciel similaire, et même pas essayez de deviner ce qui pourrait les amener à être ainsi.
Decomposition takes time — depends upon the size of the object. Retribution, too, not always immediate, but it is deliberate. Why else that phrase: revenge is a dish best served cold? Sufficient of the bird remaining to let it manipulate the surrounds. Getting its own back for its owners' neglect. Singing as it does so, Stairway to Heaven, that Led Zeppelinsong. Using it as a template / timekeeper, to progress the couple's decay. First the smile wiped off their faces, so ferociously their features have come away as well. Then smoothed down, as if turned on a lathe. The final indignation still to come. Head & neck removed, to be featured as newel caps, put in place at the top of the staircase as the song comes to an end.
Up here in the mountains it is an everyday thing to come across vestiges of earlier climbers &/or the oc- casional earlier painting. They may present as tracks in the earth or discarded equipment. Sometimes as ghosts or holograms. Stare at the latter for long enough & they sometimes become embarrassed, begin to speak. In a thin voice that still sparks echoes, this one says: "I was once the star of The Age of Enlightenment. Now the world has forgotten me. Am I not still beautiful?"
Legerdemain & sympathetic magic are not confined only to my paintings. Sometimes I moonlight as the sandman, tell stories that throw sand into the listeners' eyes to foster dreams that render the invisible visible. Georgette is happy just to watch me work; but on occasion, when I wish to explain more fully what is beneath, behind, the current painting, I sprinkle sand into her eyes to make her sleep. She smiles at my explanations; & at the pipe I leave beside her to remind her where we've been.
There is much to sing about here. The glass of water. The fish out of it but still swimming happily around. The pawn, token of a game she has just learnt but is much taken by. Which she has natural advant- ages in since she can float above it & read the play as easily as she can read the myst- eries of the sea floor.
Which side has been taken & pressed upon the other one? Maybe with another artist it might be easy to determine — clean lines, symmetry, a space echoing what has been taken away from it — but Magritte rarely adheres to the strict guidelines for anything, & decalcomania is no except- ion. The curtain behind, in front of; the horizons evenly aligned but not the beach; one shoulder sloping more. En plein air the man blocks out the sea. The curtains ex- pose it as if he wasn't there.
A drunk man's words are often the disturbing thoughts of a sober one.
The dialectical law of negation of the negation calls us to re-visit the historical context within which the Western myth of human rights is conceived.
Agendas enter the local context. Hollywood celebrities enter into prenuptial agreements. The ideal version of democracy is a fluid entity which we constantly construct, deconstruct, reconstruct.
A touch of the modern & it would not be at all acceptable.
Who is going to cook dinner tonight, wash plates, change the baby's nappies?
The orchestra under the cypress tree kicks into life. A few bars; & then the scene we're watching on the small screen is replicated on a larger canvas that still permits the original viewing platform to be included in the corner, picture- within-picture style, framed by the only thing that might be a goal were it not for the pawn on top. Or maybe it was the other way around & downsizing has occurred. No spectators to see the "world game" shrunk to three a-side. The château now a simple manor house. A lone pianola.
I have always found imaginary landscapes more real than the real. The paintings of Magritte & de Chirico, the novels of LeGuin & Delany & Ballard — I am comfortable in these even though I may occasionally find them disturbing. Perhaps it's because I live my life vicariously, or perhaps it's because I have never found, though I've lived in quite a few of them, a city that felt like home.
