A Lie Hides The Truth. A Story

Imagination Has To Do With One's Awareness Of The Reality Of Other People As Well As Of One's Own Reality. Imagination Is A Bridge Between The Provincialism Of The Self And The Great World.

Labels Not Only Free Us From The Obligation To Think Creatively; They Numb Our Sensibilities, Our Power To Feel. During The Vietnam War, The Phrase Body Count Entered Our Vocabulary. It Is An Ambiguous Phrase, Inorganic, Even Faintly Sporty. It Distanced Us From The Painful Reality Of Corpses, Of Dead, Mutilated People.

When I Had A Few Francs, I Spent Them At A Café On The Place De Longchamps, A Block Or So From My Pension, Where I Could Order A Glass Of Beaujolais And A Plate Of String Beans In Vinaigrette For The Equivalent Of Fifteen Cents.

My Life Was Incoherent To Me. I Felt It Quivering, Spitting Out Broken Teeth.

We Are, In This Country, More Open To New Ideas. But We Are Also, It Seems To Me, More Inclined To Hail The New As Absolute Truth - Until The Next New Comes Along.