sometimes I think we are like the great and powerful oz, impressive and smoke so long as the machine stays behind curtains and then when pulled aside a little bobbling and embarrassed, but did you see that machine? which produces smoke and mirrors and a booming certain voice but is quite a machine really. there's even a whole city, a beautiful and shiny city, built around the illusion of the ponderous and mystical head.

and when they come, gingham and tail and rust and all, a small crew of searching misfits, we are aphasic with humility and we give them what we can which maybe should have been the whole of it from the beginning and tell them not much more than what they already knew and that is to close your eyes and trust your manolos and anyway, we're never precisely where we think we are, even if we're awake, or almost waking.