Here is what happened: I just listened to the story on NPR about Plato, which mentions Pythagoras, which makes me think “Art = Math”, which makes me think Velazquez, then Las Meninas, then I remembered mentioning that in a short story I wrote while rafting through the Grand Canyon in 2008.<\/p>\n
Here is that story:<\/p>\n
The First of Many<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n (<\/em>Changed from the previous title:\u00a0How Unspeakable Acts of Wickedness Shape my World View.)<\/em><\/p>\n Jan denied me an M&M again today. \u00a0As her boat came along side mine I said:<\/p>\n “Hey, Jan! \u00a0Throw me an M&M!”<\/p>\n She shook her head. \u00a0“Only for my boat,” she said, and drifted past.<\/p>\n Of course, it is important to keep such moments of pain and unrequited pleasure in perspective, but I am slow in doing so. \u00a0I reluctantly hear the voice of my father float back from down stream, from a past, not a future, and it reprises the irritating truth:<\/p>\n “In twenty years, who’s going to care?”<\/p>\n But in a river of walls that has seen its share of twenties, truth begs revision. \u00a0How deep yet subtle our solipsism sets its roots and shapes our thinking. \u00a0From now on I’ll say:<\/p>\n “In a billion years, who’s going to care?”<\/p>\n From now on I will begin discussions on precious art with the preamble that ten billion years from now our sun will explode\u2013so Meredith says\u2013and the finger of Thomas will melt away in the wound of Caravaggio’s Christ and the angelic face in Velazquez’s Meninas<\/em> will incinerate. \u00a0From now on I will tempt others with the unpopular: \u00a0When measuring the probabilities of miracles, the most probable is the one you are living.<\/em><\/p>\n <\/em>If nothing else, these ruminations are a satisfying distraction. \u00a0A good way to keep my head up, to keep looking down stream, to the future, not the past.<\/p>\n Ahead I see Jan’s boat. \u00a0Maybe tomorrow she’ll give me an M&M.<\/p>\n TJA <\/em>PS \u00a0Later in the afternoon I read Jan my story. \u00a0That night she gave me a beer.<\/p>\n Note to self: \u00a0write more stories about Jan.<\/em><\/p>\n Here is what happened: I just listened to the story on NPR about Plato, which mentions Pythagoras, which makes me think “Art = Math”, which makes me think Velazquez, then Las Meninas, then I remembered mentioning that in a short story I wrote while rafting through the Grand Canyon in 2008. Here is that story: […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32,59],"tags":[36,35,33,34,6],"class_list":["post-208","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-art-math","category-essays-and-enquiries","tag-caravaggio","tag-grand-canyon","tag-plato","tag-pythagoras","tag-velazquez"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.americanartistinrome.com\/plog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/208","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.americanartistinrome.com\/plog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.americanartistinrome.com\/plog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.americanartistinrome.com\/plog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.americanartistinrome.com\/plog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=208"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.americanartistinrome.com\/plog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/208\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":427,"href":"https:\/\/www.americanartistinrome.com\/plog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/208\/revisions\/427"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.americanartistinrome.com\/plog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=208"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.americanartistinrome.com\/plog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=208"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.americanartistinrome.com\/plog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=208"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nOn the Colorado River, Grand Canyon
\nAugust 17th, 2008<\/em><\/p>\n
\n<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"