Another Tour

A painter friend who teaches art at the University called the museum and specified me as docent. Keri is a wonderful painter, I have an oil nude she did in college that hangs over my dining table. Place of honor, actually, because I'm looking right at it when I come in the door, and again, when I'm leaving and turn around to see if I've forgotten anything. She's a sweetheart, pregnant, and must be a good teacher because her students were animated. Most of them, she warned me, had never been in an art museum before. So I gave them the 'isn't-this-interesting' tour, and told them that they had to come back, to be able to really look at things. They applauded me. Imagine that, I just wanted to get back to my office, and then go to lunch, and they fucking applauded. They'd never had art presented to them that way. Probably never had art presented to them. I am good, when I hit my form, I can be lucid and sometimes funny. Joel called me what? A Dry Humorist, which I suppose I am. A dry Humanist is closer to the truth. A Humanist, originally, just meant some someone who was literate, which meant they could read Greek and Latin. Ancient Greek and Classical Latin were both 'fixed' languages, meaning they were completely set and weren't subject to change. Any modern language, currently in use, is subject to change. One of the biggest problems with printing from moveable type, was that the language had to be codified. At first, 1450 to 1500, books were printed in Latin, the language of the church, and the alphabet, the grammar, were established. Cicero is probably the benchmark. Poggio loved Cicero. I do too, it's clean and clear writing. But Italian was a spoken language and subject to change. English was even worse, Claxton, in England, had to decide what the language even was. They spoke French in London, and a guttural German everywhere else, Middle English is a dumping ground. I should probably retire, I have nothing to add, and I'm tired. If I didn't go into town I'd save hundreds of dollars a month. I could live on almost nothing. Read all the time and eat beans on toast. I'm moving in that direction. Human interaction is becoming a strain. Insects tell me more about the natural world, the way they announce their prescience, than any play by {insert here any modern play) might possible do. I'd rather be alone.