Sunflowers – Vincent Van Gogh

IS IT EVER TOO LATE TO GET THE WORD OUT?

Think of poverty stricken Van Gogh – a posthumous billionaire. Is that the sound of an artist turning in his grave?

BOOKS OF FUTURE PAST

So here’s the scene: it’s the year 2116. Mr. Jones (anonymous book hound) stumbles across a copy of an old mildewed book. An obscure book by an unknown writer. Let’s call ‘her’ an ‘INDIE’ He begins to read. Thinks. Hmmn… this is pretty good. He checks the front cover and researches the name of the author and by some miracle a website survives. Ten other books hover there in suspended animation like time-travelers in cryogenic sleep. Aha! The literal discovery of a NEW WORLD… I mean NEW WORD.

Silence. The sound of crickets wafting from the ‘jungle’ so easily close over each new book like the vines choking the ruins of an ancient temple.

But that’s what the intrepid Mr. Jones discovers. A civilization of one. Me. An author who, inspired by the collective consciousness of the Lascaux artists, writes stories on the walls of my writing cave. And in the darkness, my stories may remain intact after a hundred years. Time snails on. No-one lasts forever but a digital book just might be immortal. Until that is, the meteor wipes out painted caves and art galleries and libraries.

One of Leonardo’s ‘cameras’

Occasionally there is a lone survivor of a lost civilization. A missing link named Lucy. Or a lone human artifact. A Roman brooch that once-pinned-closed a cloak on a wanderer trudging across a green landscape. Or the archaeological fragments of a human planet like Leonardo. A lost da Vinci notebook. A recorded mind forever-mindful.

BETTER LATE THAN NEVER?

Dear Vincent. Your work was not in vain. You made it big. Your sunflowers are still a bestseller.

Sincerely, a friend.  

Vincent painting sunflowers – Paul Gaugin