Talking about Wile E Coyote and the Road Runner. There is much artifice to be had there. The artifice of speed and of violence. Comedy which finds a universal expression in the punch that is thrown that slows as it comes and appears about to stop. So it is not a real punch. The finisher is coming from elsewhere. But no! It is real and suddenly speeds up again to arrive and deliver the knockout blow. That is the artifice of honesty. 

So, too, there is an artifice to honesty in romance. The guy who says he wants one of everything when you enquire what he would like with his tea. Oh, lemon, cream, sugar and a biscuit! Everything is not enough. We smile and are tricked for all that. 

And it's real in it's rawness, so it becomes beautiful.

Time to read Borrás on the sense of beauty.

Thanks, Mia!

I like the idea that revelation and beauty are things of movement and that artifice is interesting as a way to direct or control how movement happens. Similar ideas arise when learning how to sing.

People who have studied certain kinds of movement appear to us to have a very different quality of beauty, I would say. For instance dancers, even those who studied dance many years ago. Or athletes as you suggest.

And indeed the quality and modulations of the voice have a similar effect. It's interesting to think of the voice as a moderator of beauty and its revelation. In a certain way it really is.

For example I saw a program not long ago on the transition to sound in film. The program mentioned how this destroyed many of the famous Hollywood actors of the day who simply could not move to speak in an attractive way. A notable exception was Garbo. Her famous "first line" in "Anna Christie," where for a long time she does not speak and then asks in a beautiful husky voice for a whisky, is the stuff of legends.

So the voice too is a kind of measure of movement as you describe. It is equally amenable to artifice and training. Many of the songs we admire could not be sung without rigorous training. At the same time what we recognize is its immediate ability to transmit emotion. To resonate, to enchant.

Martin: Lemon and milk: I can't help but think "surely you're joking, Mr F." Yes, artifice takes many forms, but I didn't mean those of violence and trickery -- rather an entirely different register.

P -- funny you should write this. It's the voice exactly...
Of course this post comes from somewhere; I met someone. I don't want to say more, being a private person. I don't know what will happen and I don't want to speculate. But it was extraordinary; a sort of gift.  We were introduced, we began talking, I noticed certain things about him: the way one does. It was pleasant but not important, yet. And then there was a pause: I let it rest and then said something; his voice changed almost imperceptibly. A current previously unimagined. And something opened.

How curious it is, this living among other people. We walk about in our roles, we encounter each other as men and women. But in the fluidity of this -- one's gender, one's self, one's person -- is a mysterious balancing act. Here lies "all the mastery of elements, which clocks and weatherglasses cannot alter." Time in the hand is not control of time, nor shattered fragments of an instrument a proof against the wind.

Which brings us to Emily.