| My artist friend was such a visual freak that he couldn’t watch a movie without literally becoming a part of what happened on that screen. Days after each such experience, he would still talk of it as if he had found a new reality.
“Are you nuts?” I used to ask him. “Don’t you realize that the ideas of what you saw were the fantasies of a frustrated writer behind an outdated typewriter? And that those scenes are played by dysfunctional Hollywood actors who go to their shrinks all day long?”
There was nothing I could have done: ten days later, my friend would still mentally be dwelling within that movie.
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One day, as we were both painting in his studio, some friends invited me for lunch. When I came back, my friend asked: “What did they serve you?”
“I had beef tongue with a rich caper sauce. It was fabulous.”
“Bah – how can you eat beef tongue? Don’t you think at every bite where that tongue actually came from? Don’t you find that disgusting?
I could see his point of view. “And what did you have for lunch?” I asked incidentally.
“Oh, I ate my egg sandwich and had a cup of coffee.”
“Baaahhh! — How can you eat eggs? Have you ever thought about where eggs are coming from?”
That really shocked my friend. It had never crossed his mind. For the next two hours he didn’t say a word and we painted again, each in his own corner.
Then, suddenly, he comes over to me. “You know, I really thought about this all the time. But eggs don’t actually come from where you think they do.”
I didn’t say a word, and that irritated him even more. |