Another day on earth;
pray for mercy and hope for the best.

Photograph: a photograph of itself.
Drawing: a record of its own making.

I think about the beach cottage we always rented the first week or two of August. The photograph I took each day, hoping to preserve it all. The older couple we saw every year, who we never saw again. The roadside farm where we bought eggs, vegetables and topnecks. I wonder if the same books are on the shelves. I wonder if it has crumbled into the sea.

I did my best, which is nothing, which is what you’ve come to expect.

The promise of the future has receded into the distant past.

In LA the bottom finally dropped out—a numbing sequence of brilliant days, synaptic movies printed on his retinas, but underneath, blackness. He’d read somewhere that the self was an illusion. This was good news.

Your search—iceberg + ronson lighter + beefheart—did not match any documents.

Over the years, when I asked about other people’s work, he inevitably answered not so good. On a few rare occasions he said not so bad. I never dared ask about mine. I knew the answer.

The notes and sketches were without exception more interesting than the final product.

If you make the mistake of asking him something, his eyes glaze over and his mouth twitches into the private smile of a predator who’s just found his victim. Well, he says, that’s an interesting question. In the endless pause that follows, you think, oh shit, we’re in for it now.