2308. I understand that the above examination of the
exact words used in the conversations between our friend and the resort
patrons may seen a bit didactic, but it points to the crux of the
transformation going on in Coromo. All the words like “pictures,
paintings, oils, works,” refer to the things he did that were hanging on
the wall. But the word, “work,” referred to Coromo himself, his
identity as a person. It was this word, all by itself, that elevated
Coromo to a level of equality with the resort guests.
2309. He was obviously not their equal in the economic
sense, but he was aware that he was equal to them in some intellectual
way. At this stage of his evolution it had not dawned on him that having
one’s work made him superior to them and an object of envy in their
eyes.
2310. The resort guests, although they had money and
connections, were educated and informed, almost to a man lacked any
meaningful work. And I feel the need to be specific about this. Being a
corporate lawyer does not qualify, being a doctor or even an important
surgeon is of no account. Only creative work matters in this peculiar
age. Why this is so I have no idea, but artists find themselves at the
top of the social pyramid in the twenty-first century for some
inexplicable reason.
2311. This being so, all art endeavor is first of all a social phenomena, and only secondly an occupation or an avocation. In the end the actual objects of art themselves are not really of any consequence to anyone, but are only important as a grease of social interaction. Art exhibits are first and foremost social events. Coromo was finding this out by accident, and although it had no effect on his paintings, it transformed his personality.
2304. The travel section produced in Coromo a myriad of
responses but the overwhelming one was the idea of boundless
expenditure. When reading the advertisements it was his habit to avoid
even looking at the price of things if any happened to be printed. His
day dream of spending his two thousand dollars on travel was so
unrealistic in this realm that it hardly entered his mind.
2305. But, keep in mind that Coromo was surrounded every
day by people for whom such expenditures were a normal part of everyday
life. This would have been of no consequence for him except for the
problem of his paintings and his interactions with the resort patrons as
a consequence. These casual conversations about his “work” altered not
only their view of him, but his view of himself as well.
2306. In the above paragraph I used the words “his work”
in reference to Coromo’s paintings. This casual remark is more important
that it seems. At first Coromo called all of the things he did, “my
pictures.” Later, changing his language unawares, he began to speak of
his “paintings.” For a while he started to refer to the things he did as
“my oils,” but sensing a subtly rejection of the word in his clients,
he finally settled on referring to everything as “my work.”
2307. Coromo did not originate the term, “My work.” He arrived at it because the clients, referring to all of his paintings in the dining room would constantly say things like, “I love your work.” This was a very precise language they used. The clients would never say for example, “your works.”
2300. Like an eight year old, who interjects a comment
into his parents abstruse conversation and the parents suddenly observe
that their child has some sort of neophyte understand of their world, so
Coromo at times took the liberty to interject his own comments into the
guests conversations, making observations about the German bond market,
or the decisions of the Conservative Party in Great Britain.
2301. Obviously he could not follow up such observations
with any further analysis or comment, it was just like a person who
knows no Italian saying, “Bongiorno,” knowing only that it is a greeting
of some sort, but having no idea that buon means good, and giorno means
morning. Such a person might say “Boungorno,” to a group of Italians in
the middle of the night, and be puzzled by their confusion.
2302. On the other hand there was the travel section.
Unlike the news sections, the travel section
was as clear as day, and easy to understand in every respect. Gone were
the qualifiers in the texts, and if a location was describes as
“quaint,” or “Rustic,” the writer never attempted to modify the
observation with contradictory insinuations such as “rat infested.” If a
location was recommended as the best for late season skying, no somber
second voice interjected any contradiction.
2303. The positive laudatory, gushing superlatives doled out about this or that location were only exceeded by the splendid advertisements that explained to the reader in no uncertain terms that there were locations of a divine nature, overflowing with every amenity out there in the world somewhere.
2296. All of the articles seemed to have a structure of
being composed of an excessive number of qualifying words, leading
inevitably to contradictions and unanswered questions. Regardless of how
confusing these articles were, he noticed right away that the guests of
the resort, especially the Americans, were quite interested in these
articles.
2297. The topics dealt with in the pages of the Sunday
Times made up the majority of the content of the guests conversations,
especially at dinner Sunday evening, and at breakfast on Monday morning.
It was not all conversation however. Some of the guests were obsessed
with the crossword puzzle, and Coromo noticed that the puzzle, all by
itself, represented an entire area of involvement practically equal to
the sports section in its ability to hold the guests in its thrall.
2298. And so the reading of the Times became a peculiar
pastime of our friend Coromo. During his time off and his breaks from
work he would read through entire articles never having the slightest
notion of what they were about. To understand this behavior you might
picture a person attempting to learn a foreign language by reading books
and never understanding even the pronunciation of the strange words,
but confident that in time some insight would emerge.
2299. Added to this reading of the Times was the practice of overhearing the conversation of the guests when they sometimes engaged in discussions of the articles he had tried to read. The combination of these two activities bore an odd sort of fruit and it happened that he would have rare moments of insight into what the news articles were about.
2292. The object, The Sunday Times that is, always struck
him as a strange and mysterious object. Coromo could read and speak
English fairly well because of his experience of working at the resort,
but French was his native tongue. When he looked at the Times he felt
that it would take him many weeks to get through one complete copy.
2293. The headlines however made no sense to him
what-so-ever. He would read a set of six or seven words that seemed to
combine politics, economics, and sociology all in one phrase and only
come away with the conviction that it was about something happening in
Australia. Later he would read the first paragraph of the same article
and realize that it was probably about something that happened in
Australia fifty years ago.
2294. The next day, just out of curiosity, he would read
the second paragraph and think that perhaps something had happened in
Australia fifty years ago, and had been talked about in a certain way
back then, and now lo-and-behold, people were realizing that what they
thought back then was entirely wrong.
2295. Upon reading further, he would ascertain that this new attitude about what happened in Australia was not held by everyone now, but only by a select few individuals, and their view was being vigorously contested by others who still espoused the previous notions. And yet, through all of it, Coromo could not ascertain what exactly had happened fifty years ago in Australia, and why people were still arguing about it.
2288. Needless to say, there were numerous cars Coromo
wanted to buy, but his credit card would not have paid for the rental of
one of them for even two months. But like a teenager he returned to
these glossy advertisement frequently. Unlike the clothing
advertisements he could not imagine any path that could lead from where
he was to the driver seat of one of those cars. The clothing, on the
other had could all be purchased in a matter of moments, and delivered
in a few weeks.
2289. Nevertheless, Coromo purchased nothing, and his
credit card balance remained at zero, and then came the inheritance of
his Grandmothers fortune, and her injunction to “See the world” and
suddenly the equilibrium of Coromo’s world was entirely disrupted.
2290. It was the Sunday New York Times that did it, It
was the Times travel section that tore a hole in the balanced forces
holding Coromo’s life in place. Long before his conversation with his
Grandmother he found himself drawn to the travel section of the Times.
2291. This is how it came about. He could have gone his entire life without reading anything in the New York Times except the headlines of the front page when he noticed it on his way into the visitors reading room. On Sunday there were several copies of the Times and until the late afternoon all the parts were in use. But late in the day it was Coromo’s job to assemble all the sections back in their proper order and put them back on the periodical shelf. It was this small task which acted as an incubation.
2284.
The world he lived in consisting of his small village and the resort
did not offer much of a stimulus to his imagination as a place to expend
his imaginary two thousand dollars, and the internet he looked at in
the lounge of the resort was not a factor either. It was the newspapers
and magazines in the resort lounge that were the source of what now
became a kind of shopper’s obsession for him.
2285.
In the resort lounge were about a dozen magazines of the sort which are
99% advertisements for cars, expensive clothing, women’s shoes, and
marvelous kitchen appliances set in kitchens the size of football fields
in which it would be possible to prepare meals for the fans of a
football game. Many of these magazines had advertisement with dogeared
pages, marked for reference.
2286.
These dogeared pages had been put there by Coromo. He was interested in
a certain pair of shoes that cost $125, and a shirt on sale for only
$40 listed in a catalogue from a company called Land’s End. The Land’s
End catalogue was two years old, so he was not sure if the shirt would
be still on sale after all this time.
2287. An old J. Crew catalogue also interested him, and I have to say that if you looked at the thirty or forty pages he had marked there, you would have gotten the impression that Coromo had good and very expensive taste in clothing. As a matter of fact, it you could have dressed Coromo up in the various articles of clothing he liked and took a few pictures of him, he might have been a candidate for a job as a model.
