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I think of the images above as a kind of message in a bottle that
someone released into the ocean of books at the New Orleans Public
Library in 1996 and that washed ashore when I found it in a book
of
Renaissance art in 2004. Most likely a young man,
who identifies himself
only by an encircled "K," wrote and illustrated the
letter in the library
during Mardi Gras. "Circle-K" addresses his letter to
a real or imagined
woman named Elysabeth, who will, he hopes, some day find and
read it.
His euphoric reaction to the colors and sounds
of Carnival’s revelry are
evident in the brilliantly coloured crayon drawing. He scratched the
drawing in crosshatches to reveal layers of colors that might have been
inspired by his observation of the "raw and exposed" layers of
paint on the
old houses of New Orleans, "scratched away by weather and storm and
time." A photocopy of Bellini's Sacred Allegory serves as stationery for the
second page of the letter. When he finished writing, he reinserted
the letter
into the book of Renaissance art.
Eight years after Circle-K set his missive adrift, I chanced upon
it while
flipping through the volume of Renaissance art. I
was impressed by the
youthful, poetic, and compelling language. Toward the end of the
letter is a
moment reminiscent of Whitman's "Crossing Brooklyn
Ferry" ("What is
it then between us? / What is the count of the scores or hundreds of
years
between us?"). In a similar vein, Circle-K asks, "So when do
you get this?
When is today for you? . . . Where am I right now as you sit here
reading?"). No doubt he intended to give the reader a frisson
on sensing
his telepathic presence as he anticipates Elysabeth's future
reading of his
letter and wonders where he'll be when she finally reads
it. Alas, she seems
not to have found the message, so it happened into the hands of
the next
person to stumble upon Bellini's Sacred Allegory.
Elysabeth, if you're out there, this is for you. And Circle-K, thanks
for the
frisson.
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