University of Louisville - Thoroughbred Yearbook (Louisville, KY)

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Her camera recorded this strange angle. When her pictures were returned three days later she gazed at the giant buttercups set against a background of tiny maple trees. Of course the pictures weren't fine and sharp; the film was of poor quality—very cheap film from Belgium. But the pictures are still here in this scrapbook. It was easy to expand this idea from then on, For some children it comes easily, for the rest it comes with a little effort, but it does come after all. il | ps the horse AN ) em As ¥. es su i garden sticks for afence But it does no good to dwell on all this, she found. Being sensitive is probab- ly just a very subtle symptom of having been warped by society. Which doesn’t mean it’s evil necessarily. But taken to an extreme it can be harmful to the sensitive person in his relations with other people. Self-consciousness is expanded to such an extent that every word, every action is analyzed and ster- ilized until the individual risks becoming a vegetable for fear of saying or doing something that would insult or hurt another. In this way he becomes in- sensitive, ruins himself and feels guilty about it. 31

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Hey little leaf lyin’ on the ground, Now you’re turnin’ slightly brown. Why don’t you hop back up on the tree, Turn the color green that you ought to be. The Holy Modal Rounders WATERLOG a curiosity by Gwen McVickar Ridge 30

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32 “Oh that’s awful.” “Yes it is, | see it happening everyday.” She stood awkwardly balanced on one foot. She couldn’t think of anything in the world to say. She wanted to laugh but it seemed out of place. She won- dered what kind of vegetable she would like to be. (“Call any vegetable and the chances are good that the vegetable will respond to you.” Frank Zappa, “Absolutely Free’’) She saw the robin laying on the ground all puffed up and panting and she thought it was dying. But when it saw her observing its pain, the bird hopped off into the skirts of the spioryea. She was relieved not to see it dying but she resented its letting her see it in the first place. Well, some people may not have had any feelings about it at all, she observed thoughtfully. “So you see that brings us back to the question of good and bad. In nature there is no good or bad. A hurricane is not bad, a gentle breeze is not good. A hurricane is and a gentle breeze is and that is that.” “And is that it, is that everything, sir?’”’ “Basically, yes.” “Come quickly, oh please come. She’s crying and | don’t know what to do. Her tears are so sad and you can see the aching is so deep; too deep for tears to purge. What can we do. What news can we give her about the world, about true goodness without selfish motives, that will stop this suf- fering.” “They destroy the good places and ideas simple men have, they sell death and murder like bread and butter, they cause fine spirits to go insane. These good souls may succumb gently or they might fight but they eventually go and everyone else stays sane and burns away slowly in the mud strug- gling too but not against evil. I’m not making any sense or doing any good. I’m not helping her.” “Hi there! I’m the Sidewalk Reporter from WIZZ. Would you like to be in- terviewed today—get to have all your friends see you on T.V. tonight?”’ YOK. “Well here’s the question today. Do you think there's lite on another planet? Life similar to humans on earth?”’ “| hope to hell there is.”’ “Really? Aren’t you afraid of an invasion from outer space or something?” “I’m more afraid of the merchants of death here on earth. Once | cried when some Welshmen died in a mine accident. A few years later some miners died in Kentucky but | didn’t cry. | was crying bitterly about the fantastic bus- iness of selling armaments and how some dirty ( bleep- ) are selling all our souls for billions of dollars. You see, I’ve expanded my horizons. When the world has turned back into cosmic dust, | hope some creatures somewhere will be able to shake their heads and say, ‘Poor dumb idiots.’ Maybe they'll learn a lesson from us. That's not a whole lot of consolation but it’s better than winking out without a trace.”