I read in a biography of Beckett a while back that he detested Marc Chagall's painting. I wondered why. I started disliking Chagall sympathetically, by power of suggestion. That religiosity? Last week I bought some new tires in Clayton, Missouri near where I live. An expensive suburb of St. Louis. (I live in less upscale University City.) Walking around while they were putting them on my care I passed by a gallery with prints of Chagall and Miró prominently displayed. I disliked the fact that I could recognize the painters so quickly, that their styles were so identifiably theirs. It is unreasonable to expect a painter not to repeat him or herself. When Miró painted a new picture, it was inevitably "a Miró." But did it ever occur to him to try to paint a picture that was not a Miró? How many letter "t"s can Tàpies paint? How many ochre crosses?

***

Another slip of paper found in a book. In José Angel Valente's "La piedra y el centro," a book of dense essays on mysticism and poetry, a 2" by 3" note from a student to whom I had lent the book, attached with a paper clip:

"Thanks for the
use of book. It
was interesting, but
I'm not sure if I
understood it. Probably
not - Have a nice summer,

Brion"