Excerpt
SANGUINE "The clock indicates the hour but what does enternity indicate?"WhitmanImagine, being told cubism isn't painting. ThatBeardsley didn't die at 26, unheralded as a boy geniusor Corot didn't come to Paris after all.Imagine, The Louvre without a rooftop, theintelligentsia sitting down to a ragged tablesurrounded by sawdust intellects, Proust not beingable to write his name.Now that's splendour -- that's in-depth "feeling".That's emotion to pull your socks or catch the bus ona brittle day.It's easy. Try to "feel" the event. It's 1896. People areperturbed (or so we are told) because the century'sgetting old. Time's rushing by. There's an alarm clockset to buzz at eternity's gate, Midnight 1900.In probing the malaise that hit Europe circa 1881,psychologists would have us believe the world grewdespondent. Despondent because a whole hundredyear cycle was about to elapse; despondent becauselife itself was running out. Those poor Edwardians!Poor lovers of the elegant, the late Victorians, belleepoquers. A penny for their thoughts whenconfronting a Picasso without the vantage ofhindsight.If Europe and its child bride, America, grew uneasy inthe declining years of the past century. How then ourera? (These same psychologists pinpoint people'sspirits rise in the opening years of a new century.)Now we're poised for the "really big one": thecataclysm. What a boon for the absurdists. Peachesand cream -- not just one century dangling but theculmination of ten.There's even a word for it. Millenium, I'll say it again.Better yet, a mere two millenia since Christ'sdeparture, we are poised again on the threshold. Half& half. Like a party twelve pack -- six of one, halfdozen of the other.Remember. when contemplating your ennui ormalaise (whichever word is currently mostfashionable), you can hardly figure for less. Eternity'sgiven to you, my peers, a singular opportunity. Andfrom what we know of the 20th century. it should be agrand slam homer. Already the clean-up batter isstaged for action. The bat looms over the plate.There's so much bad news it's enough to make anoptimist greedy. After all, with this much horror thereis caused only for danse macabre celebrations.1985. Only 15 years left before the digital watch rollsover. before the cannon with the flower pops out.Those forward looking voyeurs of hundred yearsback must have felt cheated when mentally reversingtheir lot with the denizens of the 20th century.In 1885, you could only gripe about the aging processof a single tenth of one component. In 1985, you've gotthat and the Millenia. Trendy things like atmosphericpressure, negative ions, adverse body rhythms and awelter of other pseudo impressive formula abound tohelp out in your witchhunt.Surprise. 1066 saw comets, omens. signs coded instars speeding across the sky -- a host of ditlurbing.natural phenomena to boot. The vigilant saw meteorsat Caesar's, death.The National Enquirer predicts Australia will breakinto the sea....