The Task Is Not So

Painters, Especially American Painters Since The Second World War, Have Been Much More Troubled, Beset By Formal Perplexity, Than American Writers. Theyve Been A Laboratory For Everybody.

I Don't Believe That We Are What We Do Although Many Thinkers Argue Otherwise. I Believe That What We Do Is, Very Often, A Poor Approximation Of What We Are -- An Imperfect Manifestation Of A Much Better Totality. Even The Best Of Us Sometimes Bite Off, As It Were, Less Than We Can Chew.

I Keep Wondering If, Say, There Is Intelligent Life On Other Planets, The Scientists Argue That Something Like Two Percent Of The Other Planets Have The Conditions, The Physical Conditions, To Support Life In The Way It Happened Here, Did Christ Visit Each And Every Planet, Go Through The Same Routine, The Agony In The Garden, The Crucifixion, And So On.

The Center Will Not Hold If It Has Been Spot-welded By An Operator Whose Deepest Concern Is Not With The Weld But With His Lottery Ticket.

Faint Equivalents Can Sometimes Be Found ... . Or It Can Be Rendered Obliquely-an Adolescent's Mental Image Of His Or Her Parents Making Love, Which Must Be Something On The Order Of Crocodiles Mating.