LOOP

For Anthony Johnson

In an M.C. Escher drawing, going back to square one means advancing. I’m in the scale pose, hands firmly grounded in the silken rug; torso elevated from the ground; head lost somewhere in the middle. I hear myself teaching: “if it’s not good enough what you do, try again.” Not many people know what M.C. stands for. Maurits Cornelis said: “so let us then try to climb the mountain, not by stepping on what is below us, but to pull us up at what is above us, for my part at the stars; amen.” Maurits Cornelis’s idea is seconded by that of Nick Drake, who in his collection of songs Time of No Reply sings these lines: “Why leave me hanging on a star / When you deem me so high / When you deem me so high / When you deem me so high.” The sound comes down the spiral of no reply in threes, coming out the other side as one eloquent set: “When you hear me so clear.” This is good enough for a first échantillon of scaling touches. Maurits Cornelis goes, “Eureka,” but in the loop the cry becomes an ecstatic “Halleluiah!”

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Listen to beautiful Nick Drake here: