Read Online Babylon and Other Stories by Alix Ohlin - Free Book Online
Authors: Alix Ohlin
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certainly think it's very glib, very facile. I just think it's possibly a littlebit too self-conscious, you know, the self-flagellating American artist?” This was what he said of Izabel's sketches, standing with one hand holding the other elbow, motioning with his thin, hairy fingers.
“Excuse me please, what ees self-flatulating?”
“Flagellating,” said Wade.
“Oh,”
Izabel said, smiling apologetically.
“Excusez-moi.”
In class discussion, Wade's remarks were articulate and penetrating and difficult for her to follow. Sometimes the professor, a short, rotund man with a plummy, not-quite-British accent like Cary Grant's, would abandon the pretense of speaking to the whole class and converse with Wade for a few minutes, both men serious and collegial, holding certain things to be understood between them. The classroom was dark, windowless, and hot, and Izabel frequently fell asleep during their discussions. Nevertheless she liked the dense, enclosed air and felt she continued to learn even when asleep, through osmosis, the art slides imprinting themselves on her brain, translucent and colored, like stained glass.
Wade drove around the ivy-walled campus in an old Toyota that had been crumpled in some accident and was missing all the windows on the left side. The whole left side of the car, in fact, was wrapped up in plastic and taped together. It looked like somebody's refrigerated leftovers. He asked Izabel to a movie and drove there talking the entire time, his thin fingers jerking and pointing. The art world was like the Roman Empire near the end, he told her, in that it had stopped responding to the world and responded only to itself, speaking its own decadent language. When he asked her if the situation was different in France, Izabel shrugged.
“I get it. I get it,” said Wade, grinning, and tapping his fingersagainst the steering wheel. “The true artist cannot be moved by these considerations. Okay, I see, the artist creates outside of the institutions that sponsor him—or her, as the case may be. Well, okay, fair enough. I mean, I understand there's a certain legitimacy to that point of view, but personally I think it's sort of naïve in this day and age. I mean after the eighties you can't really think the art world exists outside of a context of politics and commerce, can you? I don't think anybody can, not even you.”
“Not even me?” Izabel couldn't tell if he was being sarcastic. Feeling out of her depth, she turned to look out through the cloudy plastic. “Don't people in America fix their cars?”
After the movie they drank coffee while Wade continued to talk. He held passionate views on many subjects, and Izabel was amazed by the sheer number of things he found to say. As he spoke he leaned very far over at the table and pressed his hand against his forehead, as if trying to contain all the furious activity inside his brain. After a while she became convinced that this was, in fact, what he was doing. Whenever he asked for her opinion, which wasn't often, she shrugged. The shrug, she decided, was her best weapon. She couldn't really follow all that he was saying, not because it was necessarily so difficult, but mostly because it was so rapid and exhausting. Her mind wandered. She looked at Wade's hand pressed up against his head and started thinking about one of the Barbie dolls she'd had as a child. Ballerina Barbie came with a crown sticking out of her blond hair like a tumorous silver growth. It looked all right when she was dancing, but when she was just hanging out it seemed ridiculous. Izabel had once tried to remove the crown with a pocket knife, but it wouldn't come off and eventually the doll was hospitalized in a shoebox. She never recovered. She had a hard life comparedto regular Barbie and Ken, whom Iz kept together in another shoebox and who engaged constantly in passionate, violent lovemaking. They did nothing else, had no other hobbies or jobs.
Oh, Ken. Oh,
“Excuse me please, what ees self-flatulating?”
“Flagellating,” said Wade.
“Oh,”
Izabel said, smiling apologetically.
“Excusez-moi.”
In class discussion, Wade's remarks were articulate and penetrating and difficult for her to follow. Sometimes the professor, a short, rotund man with a plummy, not-quite-British accent like Cary Grant's, would abandon the pretense of speaking to the whole class and converse with Wade for a few minutes, both men serious and collegial, holding certain things to be understood between them. The classroom was dark, windowless, and hot, and Izabel frequently fell asleep during their discussions. Nevertheless she liked the dense, enclosed air and felt she continued to learn even when asleep, through osmosis, the art slides imprinting themselves on her brain, translucent and colored, like stained glass.
Wade drove around the ivy-walled campus in an old Toyota that had been crumpled in some accident and was missing all the windows on the left side. The whole left side of the car, in fact, was wrapped up in plastic and taped together. It looked like somebody's refrigerated leftovers. He asked Izabel to a movie and drove there talking the entire time, his thin fingers jerking and pointing. The art world was like the Roman Empire near the end, he told her, in that it had stopped responding to the world and responded only to itself, speaking its own decadent language. When he asked her if the situation was different in France, Izabel shrugged.
“I get it. I get it,” said Wade, grinning, and tapping his fingersagainst the steering wheel. “The true artist cannot be moved by these considerations. Okay, I see, the artist creates outside of the institutions that sponsor him—or her, as the case may be. Well, okay, fair enough. I mean, I understand there's a certain legitimacy to that point of view, but personally I think it's sort of naïve in this day and age. I mean after the eighties you can't really think the art world exists outside of a context of politics and commerce, can you? I don't think anybody can, not even you.”
“Not even me?” Izabel couldn't tell if he was being sarcastic. Feeling out of her depth, she turned to look out through the cloudy plastic. “Don't people in America fix their cars?”
After the movie they drank coffee while Wade continued to talk. He held passionate views on many subjects, and Izabel was amazed by the sheer number of things he found to say. As he spoke he leaned very far over at the table and pressed his hand against his forehead, as if trying to contain all the furious activity inside his brain. After a while she became convinced that this was, in fact, what he was doing. Whenever he asked for her opinion, which wasn't often, she shrugged. The shrug, she decided, was her best weapon. She couldn't really follow all that he was saying, not because it was necessarily so difficult, but mostly because it was so rapid and exhausting. Her mind wandered. She looked at Wade's hand pressed up against his head and started thinking about one of the Barbie dolls she'd had as a child. Ballerina Barbie came with a crown sticking out of her blond hair like a tumorous silver growth. It looked all right when she was dancing, but when she was just hanging out it seemed ridiculous. Izabel had once tried to remove the crown with a pocket knife, but it wouldn't come off and eventually the doll was hospitalized in a shoebox. She never recovered. She had a hard life comparedto regular Barbie and Ken, whom Iz kept together in another shoebox and who engaged constantly in passionate, violent lovemaking. They did nothing else, had no other hobbies or jobs.
Oh, Ken. Oh,
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