In the Very Hour of Recognition

 January 16, 2026

Satie on the CD, a painting nearing completion on the easel. Puzzling over the first headache I’ve had in twenty years. P in the afternoon to talk about Blake’s gargantuan “Jerusalem.” That Blake contains the mightiest verse in English is almost never mentioned. 

One sits alone in silence, stupefied that what one hitherto could not have imagined– a Fascist dictatorship in the USA–has come to pass, and, like so many of its like in the past, voted in initially by those who thought that’s what they wanted. I am unable to credit why bad that is so clearly bad is not snuffed out in the very hour of recognition.