August 22, 2012


J did a superb job at our first class meeting last night, prepared and eloquent and inviting participation. She does mark, though the point at which openness becomes a kind of chaos. We defined “creative biography” until there was no line between it and “big fat lie.” To me there’s a thick and dark line; perhaps to them there’s really not, or perhaps they’re better than I in getting into the spirit of the moment and being less attached to their true convictions. Come to think of it, I was in college the way I am now, narrowing my eyes at the professor when he began to get it “wrong.” Do we live in an age when there are no errors? The political sphere seems to think so, where everything uttered has equal validity, no matter how far it strays from the realm of the verifiable. I imagine some unwitting, well-meaning junior high art teacher taking her class through a museum in, say, 1955, saying, in what she thought was a burst of inspiration, “Why, the painting means whatever you think it means!” Thus flicking the first domino in the long collapse.

My front terrace is a cascade of white (wild clematis) and pinkish-purple (morning glory), edged by the aggressions of the angels’ trumpets. I think it’s wonderful. I hope from passers-by toleration.