Ranting and Raving, parts 404 - 407

Richard Britell July 25, 2012

404.  “This is his life line”, she said, “You can see that it stops right here, and then it starts up again just a little further down, and goes off in a different direction? You see that?  Well, he is just in the middle here, between one life and another, and if he does get to live, he will have to find himself a new occupation. This is common with these old geezers when they get fired or retire, and what not.”

405. The warmth of the old woman’s hand seemed to rouse old Buboni out of his stupor and he sat up a little and started to mumble, “Why on earth did Michelangelo put tits on those sculptures of ‘Day’ and ‘Night’, that’s what I want to know,” he said.

406. “How is an art historian to explain those tits, I don’t know. Perhaps the shock  the Protestant reformation had on the Catholic church caused him to put the tits on those figures, but how is one to flesh out the idea and make it understandable?” Pleadingly he asked Aunt Jemima these questions, and as he waited for her answer she turned to the Duck and I and shook her head saying, “It’s going to hard.”

407. The rest of the night he drifted in and out of consciousness. His lucid moments were filled with very odd art historical comments which seemed to indicate that he was wandering in a hellish sort of landscape peopled with figures suffering the torments of Dante's Inferno. Perhaps his fever was what brought on these ravings of his, I don't know, you be the judge, here are some examples: