I've been thinking about how the psychological experience of my being in Paris parallels, in many ways, Oblio and Arrow's trip to the Pointless Forest. For those of you who are not my mother, father, or brother - so that you don't continue reading and assume that I'm on acid - note that I am referring to the plot of a 1970s musical/fable by Norwegian-American singer and songwriter Harry Nilsson. Our family used to listen to the album version of The Point! on car rides, often when returning home from a long day of sailing on the Chesapeake Bay. My impressionable child mind marinated in the strange, Zen-like message of the fable and Nilsson's characteristically whimsical-morose song lyrics. It's been floating around my subconscious ever since.
I arrived pretty shook up, had been goofin' with the bees. What am I doing in Paris? As the Rock Man says, I'm seeing what I want to see, hearing what I want to hear. Like Arrow, I sometimes feel as though I have disappeared into a hole of no return, and am looking for someone to throw me down a lifeline. Fortunately, I've recently been saved by my own merry cohort of fat sisters. And as for conclusions, I'm slowly approaching something like Oblio's revelation concerning the pointed nature of pointlessness...
If you want to better understand what I'm talking about, listen to Nilsson's narration of the story or watch the animated movie - narrated by Ringo Star (both are available on YouTube - search for "Harry Nilsson narrates The Point" or "The Point (1971)").
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