January 26, 2009
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Happy Birthday, Paul Newman:
Episode OneFor the Hole in the Wall Gang:
Shopkeeper: Good morning, sir. And what can I do for you then?
Prisoner: I’d like a map of this area.
Shopkeeper: Map? Colour or black and white?
Prisoner: Just a map.
Shopkeeper: Map…He pauses to remember where he keeps such a thing.
Shopkeeper: Ah. Black and white…
He produces a map from a cupboard.
Shopkeeper: There we are, sir. I think you’ll find that shows everything.
The map is labelled “map of your village.” The Prisoner opens it; it shows the village bordered by “the mountains”: there are no external geographical names.
Prisoner: I… I meant a larger map.
Shopkeeper: Only in colour, sir. Much more expensive.
Prisoner: That’s fine.The shopkeeper fetches him a colour map as inadequate as the last. It folds out as a larger sheet of paper, but still mentions only “the mountains,” “the sea,” and “the beach,” together with the title “your village.”
Prisoner: Er, that’s not what I meant. I meant a… a larger area.
Shopkeeper: No, we only have local maps, sir. There’s no demand for any others. You’re new here, aren’t you?– Comment at
The Word magazine,
January 16, 2009“In the pictures of the old masters, Max Picard wrote in The World of Silence, people seem as though they had just come out of the opening in a wall… “
– Annie Dillard in
For the Time Being“Shopkeeper:
Only in colour, sir.
Much more expensive.Prisoner:
That’s fine.”
