Winter. It made things visible.

'Relax and enjoy the party, to the extent that it is possible to do so; it is not over yet.'

 

'But it is wrong to speak of "situations," implying sets of circumstances leading to some resolution, some escape of tension; there were no situations, simply the balloon hanging there -- muted heavy grays and browns for the most part, contrasting with the walnut and soft yellows. A deliberate lack of finish, enhanced by skillful installation, gave the surface a rough, forgotten quality; sliding weights on the inside, carefully adjusted, anchored the great, vari-shaped mass at a number of points. Now we have had a flood of original ideas in all media, works of singular beauty as well as significant milestones in the history of inflation, but at that moment, there was only this balloon, concrete particular, hanging there.'

'You live in a house when in quiet times it must feel like having a picnic on a volcano'

 

 

'I too have known that sudden quickening of the pulse when something looks a bit like something else.'

'About twenty minutes after I started sitting and waiting, Victor came out of his office building and headed down Western on foot. I waited until he got to the corner, and when he turned right on Sunset I got out of the Olds and hot-footed it after him, slowing to a casual walk when I reached Sunset. I crossed to the south side of Sunset and headed west. Victor was across the street from me, maybe fifty yards ahead. He had a furtive quality to his walk, but it was probably instinctive. He didn't look around. Halfway down the next block he turned into a bar called Reno's. I let him settle in, then I sidled in myself and slid into a booth near the front. The waitress scowled at me, one guy in a booth for four.'

'The violets in the mountains have broken the rocks.'

'I agreed that it was swell. We were all swell. He and I were especially swell, just a couple of swell guys sitting around lying to each other on a pleasant afternoon.'

'...I was filled, at the time, with a sense of invulnerability that came with having recently fallen in love, and I stepped forward to quell the incipient violence.
Naturally I was punched, knocked over and kicked in the face, but the broken bottles of perfume released such an incredible bouquet that I afterwards remembered the encounter with a degree of fondness.'

'may came home with a smooth round stone
as small as a world and as large as alone.'

'By the time I left to go down town for supper, I was at the high point just short of where intoxication begins to droop into clumsiness or melancholy; and the minute I was outdoors the streets, in the very beautiful late of afternoon weather, improved, that if it can be improved, with the feeling of being alone for a little while, and with the sharp, tender enjoyment of a city I am ordinarily tired in.'