lately i've been feeling color

mortality is almost always a touchy subject. sarah connor's robot asks a paraplegic whether he wishes he were dead. of course not, he answers. a legless life is better than none. there is plenty that remains to make him happy. this week was a good week for writers and artists, poets and musicians. readings, openings, conversations and more. not so great if you find such things boring and the people who pursue them wannabes. at the end of days who will be remembered? the last person you saw, heard, smelled, spoke to? perhaps. most likely not you. take a walk through an antiquarian bookstore and see how many authors you remember, how many titles, how many artists whose work appears in 300 years of american art. few remain and there is little likelihood any of us will last more than 100 years except in the collective memory of the collective past -- 'the millions who came before us' -- so why try? we go on because we must. we become the mortar between the bricks that are the future and the past. touchy or not, mortality and morbidity coalesce; art colors the walls along the walkways, like ferns along a woodland trail. no one wants to live in a colorless world, so we tend gardens. time to kiss and make up, and take out the trash.