Through the Kindness of Ravens: The Evolution of Hoke’S Focus

By Ron Swan

A bestselling novelist, world-renowned photographer, artist, and inventor, Jakeb Hoke loves life and loves being in control. But one fateful evening, a simple climb up his basement stairs finds his world crashing into oblivion and leaves his life hanging by a thread.

The trouble is, Jakeb has a lot to live for. His newest invention, Hokes Focus, has the power to transform the manipulation of light, imagery, and even time in photography. Plans are already underway to unveil the discovery, one that has remained a closely-guarded secretan amazing feat considering how famous he isto all but Jakebs closest friends.

Now, crushed under the weight of his collapsed house, but still very much alive, Jakeb can smell and taste deathbut has not yet succumbed to it. Instead, his mind wanders to what was and what will be. In the context of space and time, such thoughts can carry more power, and bear witness to more darkness, than he could ever imagine.

Brilliant, dark, and daring in scope, Through the Kindness of Ravens delivers a fascinating, complex glimpse into the post-modern future where the survival of art and humanity cannot be promised, where the art of light becomes a catalyst for survival.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Aug 13, 2009
• ISBN: 9781440157493

Ron Swan

Ron Swan is the author of the suspense novel, Through the Kindness of Ravens, over five hundred poems and lyrics, and three children’s stories. He lives with his wife and two children in Peoria, Illinois, where he enjoys photography and creating artwork. For more about Ron and his writing, visit www.ronswan.com.

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Contents

Preface

Fame and Misfortune

Need a Little Space

The Death Wish

Before the Sixth Stair … Hoke’s Focus

So Close You Can Almost Taste It

King in the Jester’s Court

King in the Jester’s Court

With Hell Half a Day Away

Poem, Not Poema or Even Poésie

The House in the Hill

The House in the Hill

Jakeb’s Gazelle

Jakeb’s Gazelle

The Varying Perceptions of Rescue

Natural Novocaine

Another Time … Another Place … Another Genius

A Word is Worth a Thousandth of a Picture

An Effort in Appreciating Effort

An Effort in Appreciating Effort

Jakeb’s Number-One Fan

The Duplicate Original

Jesher’s Reflection in the Ripples of a Time Pool

There I Am … Am I There

The Intention of Unmentioned New Invention Exhumation

-tion Tied

Jesher’s Find

Jesher’s Find

rAveNswAn & the Luminaries of Its Constellation

rAveNswAn—Company Motto

Through the Prism with Blinders On

Bridging the Distance between Flash and Boom

Satell-Parasites and Epiphanies

Satell-Parasites and Epiphanies

Jesher Does the Math

The Bigger the Knot, the Fewer See It Undone From Bigger to Biggest, from Fewer to One

Baby Steps

So Close, You Can Almost Taste It … Again

Ethan Whipp—‘Caws’ he ain’t good’n-uff!

Just Cause (Caws)

The Birth of Evil, Sanity’s Battle Lost

The T Uncrossed

Mile-Marker Birds

Prescription for Crow’s Disease

Mr. Watson—come here—I want to see you.

The Brother of Invention

Grandpa Makes a Wrong Turn

Grandpa Makes a Wrong Turn

Pesky Birds

Pesky Birds

Chant of the Scarecrow Maker

Motive, the Bottom of the Iceberg

Motive, the Bottom of the Iceberg

To Be the Archer and the Target

Ethan the Magician

Helping Two Birds with One Plan

I Scratch Your Back, I Scratch Mine

Sixty-Three Opportunities for One Success

Sixty-Three-Card Pick-Up

Best-Laid Plans … snalP diaL-tseB

The Cartographer’s Lament: Pricked by the Thorns of the Compass Rose

Ethan Draws the Wildcard

Grabbing Karma by the Reins

Part I: Luck of the Draw

Capturing the Voice of the rAveNs

Part II: Putting a Face to the Name

A Week-and-a-Half Handicap

Part III: The Home-time Advantage

A Taste of Fear

A Day Late and a Lover Short

Part IV: Jesher Gets the Bill

Forlorn for Lauren

Jesher Draws the Homicide King

Deal Me In

To Better Your Best-Laid Plans

To Better Your Best-Laid Plans

The Bittersweet Prize

Part V: The Cavity and the Gravity

A Few Lessons Learned, a New Page Is Turned

Turn Right

Through Hindsight’s Lens

Part VI: The Two-Way Street—Look Both Ways Before You Cross

Re-reliving the Past, and Getting It Right

Part VII: Branching Out a Little—Hindsight is Plenty/Plenty

Most of the Headlines Read …

Part VIII: Within the Scope

Right or Wrong—Let Fate Decide

Right or Wrong—Let Fate Decide

A Message from Hugin and Munin

Offer the Raven

Through the Kindness of rAveNs

Through the Kindness of rAveNs

Jakeb Finds His Way

Decision Mapping

This journal belongs to Jakeb Hoke

Through the Prism with Blinders On

Johnny-on-the-Spot

Hinderblock Tower

It’s Easier to Face the World

Masked Tolerance

Shade the Black from My Eyes

Welcome to the Land of Something for Nothing

Duties Assumed

The Blank Book

iNfiNiTy: The Symbolism Behind the Symbol

A Cold December’s Untended Embers

Dock Your Vessel and Blister Hide

Air-Looms

KISS

He’s Like a Timepiece

Remember Me

Tintinnabulation

Tenpin Alley

Meant To Be

… of Scrimshaw, Lost at Sea

Magnifi-Scent

The Fate and Fall of the Final Domino

Red to Red

Shallow Thanks along the Banks of a Deep Memory

Working the Rail

Molly Is Still Lost

The Fate of the Echo

Evidence of the Footfalls of Freedom

Specific Instances of Randonimity

Making a Stab Wound out of a Splinter

The Heartbeat of a Hammock

It’s Just a Second, Don’t Get Ticked

Superhero

Whatever the Hell Works

This One’s a Croc

Misplaced, then Forgotten

The Evolution of Hoke’s Focus

The Mystorical Marker

Earth’s Engine Running Hot

Sense Your Trust

Empty Tears for Empty Years

To Be the Maker and the Breaker

Questioning Questioning

Fair-weather Friends

A Forward Approach to Going Back

Tug of War … and I’m in the Middle

Confetti Whispers (60)

… To Whom We Dedicate the Moon

To Be Your Dream’s Dream

She’s a Corn-Puff

Held Captive by a Captive Audience

It’s In the Bag?

The Klutz in Me

Ignorance is B-this

Standing at the Crossroads of Grain, Bead, and Line

Read the Tags

A Room Where There Was No Room for One There

Bir♪s on a Wire

The Two-Face Value of a Jackson 20

A Family Tree Reunion

Justice Is Served

Time after Time

Eight Minutes

It’s Not a Prize but a Reminder

The Inside Story

Vertical Blinds

Make Everyone Drowned In Affect

The Game, the Jeep, and the Movie

Through the Window of Disappointment

Mind What Puts the Fear in You

Life Is Like an Oreo

Pole Position

Birden the Albatross

Taking Gravity for Granted

The Collapse of a Star

Tails, We Lose

Release Them Hounds

And Her Name Was Oriole

Two Love Bugs Flying into the Light

Helping Pick Up the Peaces

Sesquipedalian

Take a Progressive Stance

Like a Well-Balanced Breakfast

Otiem

The Devourer, the Raven, Took My Eyes

Medi-sane

Me and My Fedora

In the Dimension of the Chaotrix

Like the Sun

Jester

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Preface

The story Through the Kindness of Ravens does not focus on where one’s hero is as much as when. Somewhat like how, I have heard, Walt Disney had himself cryogenically frozen so science could save him when it found a cure in the future. I do not know if that story is true, but for the sake of example, it is similar from a victim-and-hero time-gap perspective.

This story also questions the ability, for someone in need of help, to recognize his or her savior when that savior comes. Not every hero rides a white horse, and not every dark horse brings forth an enemy. The ability, or inability, to decide whether to grab the proverbial hand that reaches out can determine one’s fate.

Through the Kindness of Ravens is not in your typical written format. For example, it contains preludes at the beginning of every chapter, and a few sub-chapters. I wrote them to provide an optional layer, adding depth for those that desire to delve further, dig deeper.

Though the preludes come in the various forms of lyrics, poems, or thoughts, they all relate to the corresponding area in the story I have placed them. This relationship, although sometimes abstract, allows the integrated preludes to add to the reading experience; at least that was my intent.

That said, I have received a variety of feedback as to when a reader would read the preludes. Responses ranged from reading them in the flow of the story, after the chapter, after a given day’s reading, or even after reading the whole story. There is no wrong way. Regardless of when read, the consensus revealed that the preludes would enhance a reader’s overall experience, and so I ran with it.

Lastly, my primary inspiration for writing the book was that I truly felt I had a story worth sharing. I imagine that is how all authors feel. While writing it, I was amazed to find that my perception was that I was the first person to get to read the story. I sincerely hope I have done the story justice, and that anyone who reads it will enjoy it as much as I have.

Ronald A. Swan

Fame and Misfortune

Need a Little Space

In justice

The difference

Between any or none

Is merely a space

For without the space

You have injustice

Where it becomes you

Trapped within

The small space

The space between

The rock blocking freedom

And a hard place

At the edge of your new reality

And you are found wanting

Wanting nothing more

Than to just trade spaces

Jakeb Hoke

This is no joke

Someone shut the light off

At the end of your tunnel

Someone sent you spiraling

Down an abysmal funnel

Someone stole the space

Leaving you in a space with injustice

You are going to need a miracle

Nothing short of an act of genius

For in genius

Lies a space

Use it to balance the scale

Place it on freedom’s edge

Or hammer it down

Drive it in like a wedge

Breaking up injustice

Putting the free space

Back in justice

That would be just

‘O’ so shy of ingenious

In fact, a miracle

And Jakeb, you need nothing less

The Death Wish

The optimist knows the glass is half full;

The realist, not to drop it.

Jakeb Hoke had always thoroughly embraced life, and life had always reciprocated by hugging back, thus fostering a long and mutually fruitful relationship. Why would a man so much in love with life want nothing more than to die?

In Jakeb’s case, he had fallen victim to one of life’s little ironies and what might well be the prelude to his death. At a time in his life when he felt in complete control, he was swiftly and righteously reminded that he was wrong, dead wrong.

Jakeb now found himself in a position where he had absolutely no control.

One second he was Jakeb Hoke, a.k.a. the Light Maestro, world-famous photographer, artist, and inventor, at the height of a lifetime of achievement, yet with even more tricks up his sleeve. He had recently added writer to his repertoire, having now published two best sellers, and he was to unveil his latest invention the next week at the opening ceremony of a photo gallery featuring his work. The invention, just a novelty, he added to the ceremony as a bonus attraction.

Therefore, in one second, he was wallowing in egotistical glory like a pig in the land of mud holes, and deservedly so, he believed. After all, he held pole position in the driver’s seat of the car of success, and he was in complete control on the track to his destiny.

It was in this same second of mental wallowing that he was simply walking up his basement stairs to go to bed.

Nothing, however, turns better on a dime than time, and his took a hairpin for the worse. In the next second, he found his living dream rudely interrupted by faint engine noises accompanied by strange screams that, from where he was located, sounded like a murder of crows chattering in a nearby tree. It was in this same second that Jakeb found himself tried and found guilty—guilty of believing he could even dream of having such control. Then, only a another second later, Jakeb found himself sentenced and incarcerated, as if to both prove him wrong and serve as his punishment.

Following suit, seconds after sentencing, his world came crashing down on him, both figuratively and literally. For it was then that his actual house came crashing down on him. The world he had built around himself, most specifically between the sixth and twelfth stairs in the stairwell he had been climbing, had now become his jail cell.

It all happened so fast that Jakeb did not know what hit him. Although it actually took longer, by what was in his perception the fifth second, he found that he could not move, could not see, could not even scream; and he so badly needed to scream. His body was enveloped in excruciating pain.

Unable to control his thoughts, Jakeb was not even aware if they were conscious ones. He thought of how badly he wished he were a gazelle right now. Images of the animal were streaming through his mind … what was left of it, anyway. The images might have stemmed from a special he’d seen on one of the nature channels last week … or was it last year? The gazelle is so swift, so elegant, so fast that it seemingly effortlessly leaves the pursuing lion in a trail of Serengeti dust; but that is not why he wanted to be one now. That is not Jakeb’s gazelle. Jakeb longed for nothing more than to be the gazelle lethally clamped in the jaws of the hungry lion, for that is the gazelle paralyzed instantly by its traumatic capture: its eyes, like portals to a black abyss, a moment later glazed over. Though fangs pierce through its hide and flesh, it has seen the light; the gazelle dies painlessly, mercifully. He would give everything he had to be that gazelle right now, or at least bum a dose of its natural novocaine.

However, Jakeb was not that gazelle. How he was still alive was an absolute miracle—why, absolute cruelty. He remained there, every nerve in his body reminding him that he was very much alive yet surely dying; god, how he hoped so. His eyes remained unglazed and radiating utter agony—nothing painless, and most definitely nothing merciful. He was cruelly left only to smell and taste death, but he was cheated from feeling its peace.

In the very brief ebb of pain’s throb, he wondered how long he had been there. Jakeb had lost all concept of time. It did not matter anyway: each second that passed felt like an eternity in hell’s pain. He begged to know, to what did he owe this damnation? Was a false sense of control so bad a crime? Did anyone deserve for this to happen? Worse yet, did anyone deserve to have survived it?

Before the Sixth Stair … Hoke’s Focus

So Close You Can Almost Taste It

To identify which sense

Of the commonly accepted five

Provides the optimist defense

Keeps the dreaming man’s dreams alive

I look to sight, but see no answer

I listen to debate, but find silence speaks louder

I reach in desperation, but feel no relief

I sniff for clues, but wince at the void’s stench

Then, I place imagination on my palate

All it took was just one taste

It is taste, for therein lies the endless desire to

See what has not been seen

Hear what has not been heard

Feel what has not been felt

Smell what has not been smelled

It takes just one, and imagination is its appetizer

Bon appétit!

Jakeb Hoke has unofficially dubbed his latest invention Hoke’s Focus. It is very similar to a camera, except instead of just capturing an image on film, it traps it in its light form, releasing it to film at an undetermined time in the future. This creation is all form, not function—an artistic novelty. It is just another way for the man known as the Light Maestro to display his mastery in the manipulation of light and imagery. Hoke’s Focus uses a series of prism-like lenses and mirrors to refract and guide a captured image into a precisely controlled loop.

The special lenses may look similar to prisms but are virtually opposite in function. Instead of bending the light and separating its spectrum of colors, their purpose is to direct light through a controlled loop. Jakeb’s goal is to keep the light’s image intact by not allowing it to diffuse or alter. The complete live image remains trapped there, bouncing through the loop in its light form, until someone releases it, finally capturing it on film.

The novelty in it is simply that the image, in essence, is still alive while trapped. A captured image represents a snapshot of a specific time. Since Hoke’s Focus traps that image in its light form, Jakeb feels that he has not only captured a live image, but also a live moment in time. This gives him the same rush a hunter feels after having successfully outsmarted and trapped his elusive prey.

Furthermore, being the control freak that he is, Jakeb enjoys the fact that he determines when to release his captured prey. Hoke’s Focus digitally stamps the image with the time and date of capture, and then it stamps the image again at the time of its release. The time-range element of entrapment, consisting of both the From and the To, is thus captured on film with the image when it is freed.

To Jakeb, however, it is all about the capture. The resulting print merely represents the prey’s stuffed head above the mantel, a shadow of its former self.

As best as possible, Jakeb has kept Hoke’s Focus a secret. He has been quite successful, considering how famous he is. The invention is in its final prototype stage, and you can count on one hand how many people know anything about it.

At first, he kept it a secret because he was afraid he would fail to accomplish what he set out to do. He is the only person that would even think that possible. Everyone that knows him figures he can do anything he sets his mind to. Luckily, his fear of failure has never prevented him from perpetually trying to succeed.

Like anything else, even reasons change. Anymore, he has just kept quiet about it because he had a secret, because others knew he had it, and because it simply was not time to reveal it yet. He has a time and place picked out to announce his latest invention, and until then, any knowledge of its details is on a need-to-know basis only.

There are only three people to whom he has confided his latest adventure, and to varying degrees.

First, Jakeb shared his latest endeavor with his fiancée, Claire Sheffield. He has been completely open with what he has told her, partly and obviously because of their relationship. That may be the obvious reason, but it is not the primary one. The primary reason is that he, knowing Claire all too well, knows everything he tells her is leakproof, to the point of envy by freezer bags. It goes without saying that he could trust her, but for something like this, the security went beyond trust. It had more to do with personal interest, or in this case, a lack thereof. Claire and he share many interests, but his inventive fancies did not make the list.

She always listens and is supportive, but only from a distance. For one thing, lacking a technically creative background, she has no clue what he does in that realm. If he tells her something technical, it flies directly over her head like the Blue Angels. The funny thing is that he enjoys the air show, and their relationship has blossomed none the worse for wear. They have plenty of other interests in common, and besides, he is selfish about complete ownership of his creative interests. Jakeb only needs someone who will listen, a sounding board; he is not necessarily looking for feedback. They are a perfect fit.

Claire likes the looks of Jakeb’s latest invention. In a strange way, some may consider this fact as progress. It is more likely, though, to be because he has shown her all the mirrors and colorfully reflective things inside it.

She is, by no means, as ditsy or shallow a person as she feels around Jakeb. In fact, she is quite the opposite. She has come to recognize that feeling as being a by-product of viewing the world through his very different eyes.

When trying to see things from his perspective, it is as if she is at a 3-D movie without the special glasses. Ironically, she used to feel that Jakeb lacked the red-and-blue specs, but after getting to know him, she now believes that he may be the only person in the theater of life that owns a pair.

It helps that almost every one of Jakeb’s friends feels the very same way around him; there is a measure of comfort just in knowing she is not alone.

It also helps that Jakeb truly respects her as a person and that he is well aware that he brings to the table a unique outlook on just about everything. She has grown to understand that he has always demonstrated patience as he waits for her to catch up with him, and has never directly or intentionally made her feel inferior; and for that, she has come to respect him even more.

Jakeb has also told his closest friend and agent, Caleb Anders. He only shared with Caleb, however, that he was up to something new and big; but much to Caleb’s displeasure, he gave very few and generic details.

There were only two reasons he even shared as much as he had with Caleb. Primarily, Caleb, as his agent, needed to coordinate the debut of the new toy with an upcoming photo exhibit highlighting Jakeb’s most recent gallery of photos.

The photo exhibit will take place at the nationally famous Ashton-Russor Museum, more commonly known as the ARM. The museum is conveniently located just south of Jakeb’s home, in Manchester, Vermont. Manchesterites prefer to refer to it as the ARM because its tourist presence has been a strong arm helping to economically lift the area. Beyond the money the museum generates from tourism, while the tourists are there, they have to eat, buy gas, and sometimes spend the night. It is the domino effect of money generated, and the people of Manchester have become very much aware of its potential.

The museum has long been famous for its various collections of exhibits stemming from an era when the country was still an infant. Recently, the ARM has been pushed to open a contemporary wing. Azlo Rand, the museum’s curator, the museum’s steering committee, and Manchester’s city council share the other arm in this wrestling match between status quo and progress.

As a testament to their commitment, they have agreed to test the waters by freeing up space for this photo exhibit. To accomplish this, they temporarily moved one of their traditional pioneer artifact exhibits to storage. This proved to be an arduous process. Many of the pieces are fragile with age, thus not only making them hard to move, but difficult to store safely.

The steering committee realized that for any transition to be a success, they had to come out of the gates running. Naturally, they thought of Jakeb; how convenient it was having one of the nation’s top contemporary artists residing just north of them. Manchester was located about seventy-five miles south of Jakeb’s home in Edgecombe—only sixty miles as the crow flies.

Edgecombe, known for its marble and granite hills, was the handpicked location where Jakeb designed and built his now-famous home, the House in the Hill.

In just over a week, Jakeb would make the scenic trek down to the ARM. For this event, he and a collection of his artwork were serving as the main attractions at a benefit dinner. The museum was holding the dinner to raise money for the new contemporary wing. Part of the agreement Caleb had negotiated put Jakeb’s current photo exhibit as one of the first occupying its own galleria in the future wing. Always thinking ahead, Caleb also had optioned into the agreement the ability to showcase future works.

To show his commitment, Jakeb felt that if he advertised and included the introduction of a new invention, it might entice and attract more people to attend. He considered it an added bonus for those that paid the elevated charity admission; again, this was the primary reason why Jakeb had to let his agent into the tiny circle of its knowledge.

As for the second reason he’d thrown Caleb a teaser, well, hell, it is just no fun keeping total secrets. You have to tell at least someone something about it. He shared tidbits with Caleb because he knew (as they have been friends longer than they have been business partners) that it would just eat away at him.

Caleb was very much accustomed to Jakeb always coming up with new things, but he never knew what would come next: a photographic theme … a book … an invention? With Jakeb, it could be anything, and because of this, he has no idea what to expect from this latest announcement. Jakeb only provided him what was necessary to carry out his duties, and the suspense is killing him. As only a true friend can, Jakeb takes advantage of this whenever he gets an opportunity, constantly expressing his excitement, but only vaguely explaining why.

Caleb wishes his genius friend would just grow up.

The third and final person who knows anything about Hoke’s Focus is the man at the patent office, Henry Fink. Jakeb does not count him, though; for one thing, there is the Schultzy, a.k.a. the I know nothing clause, more commonly known as the confidentiality agreement. Jakeb also has one with Caleb, but as he is also his best friend, it is not the same. Also, with Fink, Jakeb had no choice. He wanted to get the invention’s patent ball rolling to at least the pending stage before he announced its creation. In fact, it was having reached that stage that prompted his communication to Caleb to schedule the announcement.

King in the Jester’s Court

King in the Jester’s Court

A dull frustration sets in

Why not me instead of him

My genius overshadowed by that of a fool’s

I’m a King in a Jester’s court

Where it’s the Jester that rules

I’m a sailor on a ship

Where the captain’s a fool

Not on a ship of fools, but on a fool’s ship

Smooth sailing to insanity, the world’s shortest trip

But he’s the genius

A true creative genius

And while my ego stands trial

I’m in convenient denial

As the King in the Jester’s court

I hide my jealousy behind a plastic smile

As the King in the Jester’s court

I’m only kidding myself; it’s been me all the while

I am the Jester in the King’s court

Finding it difficult to accept in style

Jakeb had just left his favorite local music store, Tyroni’s Sights and Sounds, with an Angus Fischer and the Rogues concert DVD in hand, when his cell phone rang. He made the typical recovery from his also-typical fumbling of what he called the damn tiny piece-of-shit technological marvel of a phone in trying to answer it. He hated technology as much as he loved it, and oh, how he loved it.

Jakeb recognized the number immediately, for unlike anyone else calling him, Caleb called under three different capacities: friend, agent, or friend and agent. Jakeb’s only question was which hat he was wearing this time.

He answered appropriately, by his standards, by saying, "S’up, super-Caleb-fragelisticexpialodocious?"

"You know I hate that, Jerkeb!" whined Caleb, not at all resembling Jakeb’s cartoon caricature of him, Mr. Tightly Wound ‘n’ Slightly Round.

I know, Jakeb replied matter-of-factly, relishing the equivalent of an ice cream headache that he had just given his quick-tempered friend. Jakeb was not usually too tough on his best friend, but he felt in rare form today.

With just a pinch of sarcasm and a snip of jealousy, Caleb continued, Well, Mr. Creativity of a Genius, Maturity of a Seven-Year-Old, I just tied up the final details of the agreement and event scheduling for your announcement of … pluhhhhhh!

Although Jakeb could not see him, he could vividly picture Caleb performing the ralphing gesture at the latter part of his verbal outburst. Pluhhh? Pluhhhhh? he asked, pretending not to know what Caleb was referring to. He thought, fuel to the fire baby, fuel to the fire.

You know damn well what I mean!

That’s Mr. Pluhhh to you! Jakeb thought to himself, Nothing like some good ol’ wholesome banter and mind games between friends.

All right, be an ass! Caleb was three fourths kidding, but he couldn’t deny there was a part of him dying and, he felt, deserving to know what Jakeb was up to. Referring to Jakeb’s new invention as Pluhhh! was his sorry-ass attempt at downplaying his interest, and he knew it. Jakeb had never created anything worthy of Pluhhh! and never would; otherwise it would not be eating away at him as it was.

In a slightly defeated tone, Caleb proceeded to give Jakeb the rundown. You’ll have a microphone at your disposal, a column-shaped podium for you to undrape your latest and greatest, and the infrared digital photo transfer equipment you requested.

Hang on a sec, Jakeb interrupted while he got ready in his car for hands-free cell phone use. Okay, sorry, had to prep for the hands-free talk-n-drive.

Caleb continued as if uninterrupted. It’s scheduled to take place at seven, in the commons outside the entrance to the main gallery. I have even negotiated getting the wall cleared behind where you will be standing. They are actually going to take down your favorite picture—

Three butts and a pint of stout! Jakeb interrupted.

"That’s buttes, you ass—buttes with an E. And it’s not a pint of stout, it’s aaaaa … aaaaa … well it’s sure as hell not stout! For Christ’s sake, Jakeb, you’re an artist too. You could at least show some respect for