Nearly one hundred years ago, T. S. Eliot wrote: “April is the cruelest month breeding / Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing / Memory and desire, stirring / Dull roots with spring rain.”
Anyone who has lived through brutal winters in Northern Illinois has little problem in agreeing with him. April, with its dull roots and lilacs, hides a secret: before spring rains come to visit and sunlight breathes life back into the dead land, there will be at least one more snowstorm.
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Politicians and civic leaders tell us that the worth of a city can be measured by its size, or by the number of its museums, banks, concert halls and stadiums, or by the height of its buildings, or by the net wealth of its inhabitants. The list goes on. All such measures are insufficient, say the wise ones. Instead, an equally important one is this: how many parks does a city have?
Wise, I’m not, but I agree with the question, especially in relation to Spaces.
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Memorable images are often mysterious. This photograph is hardly memorable, but it manages to pose some questions: Did this man with the brush paint the landscape? If the answer is “yes,” he seems oddly indifferent (or perhaps sad?) about his accomplishment. On the other hand, if the answer is “no,” then why is he posing with brush and palette?
The answer is, no, he did not paint it. The artist who did was an obscure Spanish painter named Pastor, and the man’s expression reveals an inner conflict: He has been asked to do something he does not want to do: his closest friend, Paco Julian Portoles, has asked him to destroy Pastor’s painting.
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