--Harburg, Yip and Rose, Billy, "It's Only a Paper Moon", as performed by Nat King Cole, The King Cole Trio Vol 1, 1943.
Soot on LA highway signs. Billboard of you, a real estate agent. All endeavor slides toward inertia, extinction, forgetfulness. It’s very tropical. Vegetation invades the house unless constant inputs of joy apply. The scientist in you feels the great ape in you. The great ape feels death growing wide. What about work? I devote my present to my future existence. In what way, in what sense does one continue to resist. As a dessicated cell, a mole of elements, an ancient’s aura, a daguerreotype-like shadow on a sidewalk, persistent headache, paleolithic herbivore, potential energy, will. Some wake up and pray, say thanks for another day. Others curse their luck, stale breath, the very thought of the rosy dawn makes them ill. Lonely as leaf fall. Nature knows no pity or self-pity according to antiquity, the roof soot of the city. I admire fire, tools and ore. Agriculture. Cities, empire. Trading and taking (war). Numbers, counting, writing. Libraries, discoveries, zero. And the single-minded universe that’s only a paper moon without your love.
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