This morning I watched a robin convert a pothole into a bird bath, which is
the kind of fearless ingenuity I covet. I ask myself why Rothko listened to
his doctor when advised not to paint color blocks higher than a yard
because of his heart ailment. Did acrylic on paper suddenly convey more
intimate spiritual planes? I don’t know enough about art or spiritual planes
to say, although one time, at the Dalí museum in Figueres, I stood on my head
in front of the wall-size rendering of Gala and made the roots branching
down from her bare chest spring skyward. There is a lockstep to daily life
that can be subverted: the huzzah! of reconfiguring the pattern, of houndstooth
disrupted by gingham to create an intermediate state. On 34B, the sign for the bar
that is also a trailer reads Cans & Clams or Cans & or & Clams, depending on
availability, and I love that, the not knowing, the big marquee, the shifting
language, the discovery made possible every drive.
