One lonely Claremont night, many years
ago, Luca and I puzzled out over beers
and Dylan bootlegs the mysteries of his
life and the paradoxes of his past. For
hours, we made no headway, but then
Luca, either sufficiently drunk or
sufficiently assured of my
trustworthiness, pointed to the ground
beneath my feet. I thought it was just
a carpet -- of the Persian sort. The
kind of mephitic fuzzy allergenic thing
that had been ubiquitous in the rooms
of my childhood. But Luca entreatied me
to look closer. At first sight, nothing
seemed to resemble Luca's life less
than the design of that carpet, laid
out in symmetrical motifs whose
patterns are repeated along straight
and circular lines, interwoven with
brilliantly colored goblin-mouths in a
repetition that can be followed
throughout the whole woof. But after I
paused and examined it carefully, I
became convinced that each place in the
carpet corresponded to a station in
Luca's life and all those things known
to Luca were contained within the
design, arranged according to their
true relationship, which escaped eyes
that had been distracted by the
immediacy of foregrounded things. All
of Luca's vicissitudes, all of his
anguish, his joys and his epiphanies
were contained therein. Luca compared
the carpet's immobile order with his
own image of his life. He could find,
he said, along each of the carpets
innumerable threads, concealed among
its emergent arabesques, the answer,
the story of his life, the twists of
his fate.
ago, Luca and I puzzled out over beers
and Dylan bootlegs the mysteries of his
life and the paradoxes of his past. For
hours, we made no headway, but then
Luca, either sufficiently drunk or
sufficiently assured of my
trustworthiness, pointed to the ground
beneath my feet. I thought it was just
a carpet -- of the Persian sort. The
kind of mephitic fuzzy allergenic thing
that had been ubiquitous in the rooms
of my childhood. But Luca entreatied me
to look closer. At first sight, nothing
seemed to resemble Luca's life less
than the design of that carpet, laid
out in symmetrical motifs whose
patterns are repeated along straight
and circular lines, interwoven with
brilliantly colored goblin-mouths in a
repetition that can be followed
throughout the whole woof. But after I
paused and examined it carefully, I
became convinced that each place in the
carpet corresponded to a station in
Luca's life and all those things known
to Luca were contained within the
design, arranged according to their
true relationship, which escaped eyes
that had been distracted by the
immediacy of foregrounded things. All
of Luca's vicissitudes, all of his
anguish, his joys and his epiphanies
were contained therein. Luca compared
the carpet's immobile order with his
own image of his life. He could find,
he said, along each of the carpets
innumerable threads, concealed among
its emergent arabesques, the answer,
the story of his life, the twists of
his fate.
He's an excellent cook! Don't let him tell you
otherwise. Otherwise-teller!
physical strength. Luca is a powerful
person.