Antonio Gaudi

Slothrop: Wystan and Frank will say it for me:

" If it form the one landscape that we, the inconstant ones,
Are consistently homesick for, this is chiefly
Because it dissolves in water. Mark these rounded slopes
With their surface fragrance of thyme and, beneath,
A secret system of caves and conduits; hear the springs
That spurt out everywhere with a chuckle,
Each filling a private pool for its fish and carving
Its own little ravine whose cliffs entertain
The butterfly and the lizard"

"I've had it with this town
I never saw those shifting skies
I never saw the ground
Or the sunset rise
I want to live on an abstract plain

I'm building a frame
A place to put my ten-yard stare
Thinking of that paint
Painted in plein-air
I want to live on an abstract plain

I need a new adress
I want some new terrain
Is it North or South?
I want to live on an abstract plain

I could sit on the roof
On top of that abstract house
See my abstract view
An abstract mouse
I want to live on an abstract plain

I need a new address
Tell me I'm not insane

Is it up or down?
I want to live on an abstract plain"

Koko: How stunning is it that a man would devote his entire career to building giant domes that look like mud, domes intended for worship, and office work, and all the other banalities of regular life, like brushing your teeth or calling your bank after some guy at the gas station steals your identity from a discarded credit card receipt? I'll tell you. Pretty fucking stunning. I'd give ten years of my life to make a call to some 976 number from inside that prodigious, melting cathedral. Or if that's too sacrilegious, how about just to spit from the top of that big twirly thing with the kids running by? Now I want to call up my sixth grade teacher and tell him how happy I am that his name is Gaudi too. He's probably dead, though. He was old even then. In any case, well named, Mr. Gaudi, and I'm sorry I can't do long division anymore.