You know I have this crush on Mary Ruefle, remember? (I actually believe her remarkable book of lectures; Madness, Rack and Honey, to be amongst the most extraordinarily thought-provoking books ever published). As luck would have it, my generous friend Ann knows my obsession, and today she very kindly supplied me with a link to Michel Klein’s fine essay: ”The Pleasures of Magical Thinking – On Mary Ruefle”. It’s a very informative text and might also be enjoyed by those of you who have yet to get to know Ruefle.

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They were aesthetes, which means


I was forced to eat a hard peach, 


commissioned to paint a twelve-foot abstraction


based on watching host cells collaborate


in bacterial infection, and at night


chewed the soles of their mukluks


till they were soft again.


If I ventured outside the igloo
and saw a celebrity, 


I felt so inferior


I wanted to die. 


To conceal my envy


I was given dark glasses. 

                       

(mary ruefle: Among the Musk Ox People)

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