but far out was how he saw himself. he once said that you can imagine a painting, perhaps by Brueghel the Elder, the people and the action were in the foreground, full of colour, eating, stealing, copulating, laughing, courting each other, excreting, stabbing each other, selling things, climbing trees. then in the distance, at the far end of a vast plain, there he would be, a speck on the horizon, always receding and always there, and always a necessary and mysterious component of the picture, always there and never to be taken away, essential to the picture - a speck in the distance, which if you were to blow up the detail would simply be a vague figure, plodding on the other way.

but that's not the main point, i said. remember amelie? the crippled old man? the girl in the painting? surrounded by too many people. too many colours. too many actions. so what he said is not true. the fore/middle ground is not always full of action. our minds compress an overdose of details into vagueness.

emptiness persist. so where was she looking? who was she looking at?