The climes, here and there, whenever things
got rough, and one could burrow into a nice-
ly loomed blanket, or build a fortress, back
of the mulch pile behind the garden, where
the dog may come and go, and ask what's up.
Now we understand, the problem with put-
ting away childish things is architectural,
which is to say, budgetary. But who cannot
recall well enough, the 18th Century's re-
sorts of fancy, without asking what became
of them? Tristram Shandy. Tom Jones. Some
lexicographic flight to the Hebrides, or a
rake in his progress. Friday's release of
liberty feels more and more these days like
Graham Greene's dilemma upon the advice of
his solicitor, to evade a libel suit from
Shirley Temple, launching himself upon the
lawless roads of anticlerical Mexico - the
alternative to losing one battle, by gain-
ing unexpected triumph in another. On such
a day, now and then tiresomely framed by
a rogue sociopath, enabled by gruesomely
concerted monks of media, to immerse us
ever deeper into the marginalia of failed
states, who will begrudge a fellow his day
of release to a benign casino, a landfall
32 floors above the reign of paper towels?
Or are we to hear instead, that the author
of all our news, is not the author of all
our news? That would surely be pure evil.
Thomas Rowlandson
A view on the coast
of Sussex
1785
Metropolitan Museum
of New York
Graham Greene
The Lawless Roads
1939
The Power and
the Glory
1940
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