From The Bosch Bookshelf

Bosch [bä SH; bô SH]Bosch, Hieronymus (c. 1450-1516) Dutchpainter. His highly detailed works aretypically crowded with half-human, half-animalcreatures and grotesque demons in settingssymbolic of sin and folly. M. O. D.

The human is both wholly human and whollyanimal and we are all entirely in our elementin nature and nature is all that is and we areof it and it is in us and of us as well. Denialof this has been our greatest folly. Q. E. Deoa

1. The Angles of Hieronymus Bosch

The child Hieronymus Bosch, drawing hispractice angles, polyandrogynous bodies withbird or bat or insect or Icarus wings, may wellhave noticed that they were intermediatecreatures not between gods (just and demonic)and man but among the women and men he sawdaily and all the insects and bats and birds ofthe air, fishes and mammals of the sea, thehopping, prowling, growling, gnawing,lumbering, trotting animals of the good andtreacherous earth. Not much is known about thelife of Hieronymus Bosch and yet there is nodoubt she took pleasure in the great variety ofangles: angles of repose, angles of depressionand elevation, angles of refraction andreflection; but, most of all in the angles ofthe sun's rays as they strike the earth tobring all manner of beautiful and grotesquecreatures into visual being.

2. The Ventriloquist's Dilemma

Bird song entered our words and left withmigratory echoes insufficiently dispersed. Weweren't designed to perceive most of whatsurrounds us or to fully understand the rest.Maybe it's true that differential equationsdrove the teenager off the road. The self-propagating slope remains unhindered in its x-yaxis. It's really difficult to find thelanguage to say these things rigorously. Soundwaves break on the shore and make one feelunwelcome. And too, there's that conspicuousabsence of real metaphors in nature. Sorry,meant to say, there's that conspicuous absenceof real nature in metaphors. Someone willalways claim night flew into a tree. Theplacement of words in a line.

3. The Long And Short Of It Thought Experiment

Feed long and short beaked pigeons the samefood, same food. Exercise long- and short-legged quadrupeds in the same, same manner.Expose long- and short-haired sheep to the sameclimate climate. Then and only then, directevery time-line toward the same set of nestinghorizons. Can we go on this way? One step takeslonger than anyone ever thought it would and isstill hovering in the air. Its shadow isgetting longer, the whole earth is growing hotand cold, hot and cold. Let any long and shortlifespan equal the same function of x dividedby zero. We can now observe that the results ofthese and other experiments are adding up to anold geometry of the tragic spectrum—the morethe terror, the less the pity. That's the longand short of it.

4. Jimbo's Inferno

The arrow of time continues to whiz out of viewwhile differences in wing beat rates among thesmaller species, smaller than humming birds,flycatchers, black-capped chickadees—insectsfor instance—can still be discerned withprecise observational methods, can still seemmiraculous before they sift into the whisperdry light. The human mind is no dry light butreceives an infusion from the will andaffections. With no more than this poorinstrument how can one resist the alluring pullof the elegiac. What a beautiful day to go outand discover more beautiful laws of nature.Consider Reciprocal Alterity, anagram of TerrorPity Ace Lilac, and vice versa.

5. Fierce Love Story

To start with a taxonomic impediment and yet goon. Looking always for news of another kind.Greatsaturated patches of color stall in theirrumble toward the horizon. Squeeze-tube dearthfull of biblical pornography. Sit back andwatch in awe as one sophisticated crittereviscerates another on the color...