One should never know too precisely whom one has married *

Being the artist’s husband is not the only hat I wear. During the course of a day such as today I am in fact many people. One thing I hadn’t expected to be today however was the recipient of two separate phone calls from two different people, both of whom I know very well, and both of whom I introduced to the other several years ago. I discovered later that they were phoning to inform me that they were about to get married. To each other. On Friday. (Amazing.) I remember when I first introduced them. I can even remember warning the man with a smile to do no wrong. I don’t remember thinking in the course of the introduction of what I should have thought, which is that every such moment is loaded, every such event can lead to something profound, and that no matter what I say to either of them, we are in the deep and rolling laps of the gods. Now, of course, I wonder with another smile: What have I done? Actually, matchmaking is far too grand a title for what I have done, but I have acted as a kind of joy-enabler. Yep. Joy-enabler. That’s the word. I wonder if they knew when they first set eyes on each other that further down the road they would be marrying in arguably the most famous registry office in the capital, where everyone from Judy Garland to Patrick Veira has been tied. And what exactly happens, I still wonder, when two people meet like that and two previous futures become one? Is it – can we make that leap? - like seeing great art? (I remember my first glimpse of Michelangelo's’s Pieta at St Peter’s: that was like falling in love.) Or is it like brushing away a fly, only to discover it was a bee, and that the bee has in fact stung you? (No, I’ll stick to the art analogy.) Kiefer does it for me. Clemente. Rothko. Beuys. It’s funny: it’s always the spiritual ones. Anyway, as I was saying, there were these other hats to wear in the course of the day. I was checking to see if there was news on a wonderful book project I’d really like to do. I was in touch with someone else about the war-zone: some facts I needed confirmed. I was firing off messages on items relating to earlier conversations about film. I was pondering calling the (literary) agent. But each time I went off on one of these largely work-related tangents, I kept coming back to this startling image of my two friends getting hitched. OK, it’s not completely out of the blue. But it is still remarkable. I was telling the artist about it. I was trying to explain how good it was they were getting married. Deep down, I was trying to explain the importance of marriage. I forgot for a moment about us. How funny is that?
*Friedrich Nietzsche

The Artist As A Muscovy Duck

A car passed on the very last stretch of road between here and a kind of wilderness. Trees crisscrossed above my head and nature oozed like sap from the sides of the hill. I was with the Artist's Parents' dog. Hang on a moment, I thought. What's that movement ahead? Whatever it was, it was parked in the middle of the road like the roadkill that got away. Just then, the car stopped and out stepped a man. He walked towards it. I didn't know if I should start walking backwards or not. It was, in fact, a Muscovy duck, though it looked more like a bald-headed eagle with a wig. In seconds, it took to the air, missing my head by only a few feet. The owner chased after it, mocking it, taunting it, angry with it - understandably frustrated - but most of all ridiculing it. 'It's a bloody pet,' he said. 'I got three of them. It's a Muscovy duck. Yuck. Mad it is. Mad as a brush.' Then he said something incorrect: 'From Russia it is.' (I since learned that Muscovys - note the ease of vernacular - were non-migratory Native Americans and had already been domesticated by various Native American cultures before Columbus arrived. Only after 1550 did the Muscovy Company, also known as the Muscovite Company, begin shipping them to Europe.) Anyway, I saw it again later. Yes, a second time. It was just standing there, alone, unclaimed, among the leaves of a tall bush. 'Do you like ducks then?' it said. As you can imagine, I was genuinely taken aback. It's not every day a duck will speak to you like that. I must say, it looked annoyed, though not with me. It looked angered with its ridiculing owner, who by now had disappeared. 'It's just that you'd like what Daffy Duck said if you like ducks,' it said. I looked at it again, shook my head, in continued disbelief. 'Go on then,' I said: 'What did Daffy Duck say then?' The Muscovy duck stood straight and without a flicker of mockery said: 'Ridicule is the burden of genius.'