January 8, 2009

"What the hell is water?"

In yesterday's post, Memo recommends to read a speech by the late David Foster Wallace. I copy-paste the first paragraph:

There are these two young fish swimming along, and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and says, "Morning, boys, how's the water?" And the two young fish swim on for a bit, and then eventually one of them looks over at the other and goes, "What the hell is water?"

DFW explains: "The immediate point of the fish story is that the most obvious, ubiquitous, important realities are often the ones that are the hardest to see and talk about".

But because I went to the exhibition of María Izquierdo two days ago, and I was checking the awesome Robin Rice Gallery last night, my associations were very different: the Naturaleza muerta con huachinangos, by María Izquierdo, and the work of Bill Phelps (a relative of Michael Phelps?).

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