*We interrupt this broadcast with an important announcement:
Art opening tonight in Roanoke. 6:30 pm. Quite posh. Quite artistic. Spiffing. Cities on a Hill is reimagined in the visual form, along with other fine selections of local authors or….something…”
Hey, it’s right around the year anniversary of my book’s publication. How cool. One of my pals said she made an art piece about it. I can’t wait to see it. This is a nifty idea, taking a book, and making an art piece based on it. That would be fun to do with big famous books, too.
Imagine a humorous take…
War of the Worlds as modern art, a little Roomba spray painted silver, next to a bottle of hand sanitizer.
On The Road would be an installation. Picture a darkened room. After sitting for a short while, patrons would be alternately blinded with a strobe light, enveloped in a fog, deafened with a live recording of Charlie Parker’s bebop on an off night, and hit over the head with a hammer as they left. People would find themselves crying bittersweet tears, and not know why. Mad.
Les Misérables fashioned as a delicious loaf of bread.
Anna Karenina as a little train set. Spoiler.
On Frogs
There’s a practical limit to how much one can like frogs. Dissecting one shows more detail, but removes the intangible element of frogginess.
It’s nice we can never travel to the stars. We’re forced to marvel from afar.
Too much study can be counterproductive. I’m heading to Roanoke this afternoon to hang with a great crew at a retirement home. We’ve commandeered the bus, and are heading to the tiny local arboretum. It’s one thing to talk about spring with powerpoint. It’s another to go touch it.
Still, how do we get in wonder mode without slicing up the mystery? I tend to marvel in the following ways:
Appreciation of the effort. (Watching my house build is this.)
Appreciation of the beauty. (Stargazing.)
Appreciation of the complexity. (Biology, mechanics.)
Appreciation of the significance. (Hearing someone’s story.)
Going Owen Wilson on it. Wow.
Oh yes, we’ll discuss binomial nomenclature and the spring warbler migration.
But….I’m sure we’ll find many things that are bigger than my interpretation. Many things to marvel at. Many things that inspire the phrase of the day….
Wow.