Page 64 - Effable Encounters

Lost and Found

hearing, that a few pundits with axes to grind will condemn Lost and
Found out of hand and the public won’t pay it serious attention.”
“I appreciate your candor, Demi. ‘Book Tour’ exists to fill a gap
between the trade hardcover thriller or romance novel and the
esoteric university press publications best described as elaborated
doctoral theses. You are to be congratulated for expressing some
fairly difficult concepts in a very accessible style.”
“And my poor liver / Chopped may yet quiver / On the block
where you live.”
“Uh, I’m not sure our viewers caught the significance of that
remark, Ransom.”
“Let me try, Percy: I’ve gotten quite good at interpreting his
language.”
“Ha-ha! I’ll bet you have! Please do.”
“Okay. He is referring to the inherent conflict of interest between
the stated goal of your presentation, putatively a governmentally-
sanctioned public service, and its major support by several large
corporations in control of most of the imprints in the United States.”
“Hmm. Let’s move on quickly, as our time is limited, to exactly
what is the central theme of Lost and Found. Can you give it to us
succinctly, Demi?”
“Certainly, Percy. As a poet, Ransom has spent a good deal of time
on introspection as well as keen observation of the world around
him. He will soon be eighty, so you can imagine the wealth of
imagery he has accumulated over that lifetime. In looking at that span
of creative activity, he was struck by its resemblance to a bell curve in
certain respects. His natural curiosity led him to examine both
himself and others in that light, and the results are what we’ve
compiled in Lost and Found. It is typical of Ransom’s optimistic spirit
that his findings did not become a source of despair and an excuse
for retreat from his chosen field of endeavor.”
“Time is not before one’s eyes / Dung beetles backward push their
prize.”
“There you have it, Percy: he can say more in one couplet than I
can in a paragraph. But to continue. The poet—or any artist
dependent on inspiration—begins mental life in a state of
incoherence, the brain’s inherited template rapidly customizing a
mind capable of returning new images and linguistic constructions to

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