Eppur Si Muove

(As Galileo left the session of the Inquisition at which he had been forced to deny his own discovery that the earth orbited the sun, and had to "admit" that the earth was static, he murmured, "eppur si muove" ("but it moves"). It's hard to live in Lilliput, I find. I have to cross my fingers, play their game. Their billing, filling, drilling daily grind sits ill with me. They all trot out the same tired cliches. Passing a painting, never fail to comment on the squareness of the frame. Unprofitable, weary, flat and stale. You can't earn prizes here. These fools prize earning. No sweets to eat. It's one long dreary tale of condemnation, disapproval, spurning. The Sunday supplements determine taste, all tearing down, forbidding, banning, burning. They're sealed in heavy metal, concrete-cased austerity. They put the "die" in "diet". What will survive of them is nuclear waste. Denounce, detract, dismiss it and deny it. Don't look for clover - look for cloven hooves. Excoriate it, flay it, vilify it. They'd love to let life lurch along in grooves, the gauche, perverse, unruly human mind trapped tidily in aspic. But it moves.