Someone asked: will you write about the monastery?
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(I do have questions.)
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#1
That great artifice is deeply significant in monasticism's accomplishment and determination. That here, precisely, is the hinge. For art is nothing if not intensely intersubjective, nothing if not unbelievable. And this incredulity--my incredulity--doesn't bother you a bit. Reality is real: what's more, it's the stuff art is made of, you say. So for me what sticks in the swing of the door are the many allegorical fixtures you become, within from without. For such art is safeguarded on all sides by tradition, authority, definitive meaning, the production of the question that always contains within it the objective answer. Why is the rosary worn on the left side? Why the sash, the leather belt? The scapular? The sandals persisting through Midwestern winters? Why do you shave your heads and wear your hoods? Your lives are symbols. And you would agree with me: at the center of the symbol is absence. You would say: the great absence that is love. I would say: the great absence that is death. Same difference, you would say, winking. But we understand symbols differently. All signs are unreliable on this end. I don't know at all how to get to where you stand on that end.
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