Stranger in a Strange Land

come see my Little Mermaid."
                Ben took him precisely at his word; if Jubal was surprised, he made no comment. "Now this one," he said, "is the only one Mike didn't give to me. But there is no need to tell Mike why I got it . . . aside from the selfevident fact that it's one of the most delightful compositions ever conceived and proudly executed by the eye and hand of man."
                "She's that, all right. This one I don't have to have explained-it's just plain pretty!"
                "Yes. And that is excuse in itself, just as with kittens and butterflies. But there is more to it than that . . . and she reminded me of Mike. She's not quite a mermaid-see?-and she's not quite human. She sits on land, where she has chosen to stay . . . and she stares eternally out to sea, homesick and forever lonely for what she left behind. You know the story?"
                "Hans Christian Andersen."
                "Yes. She sits by the harbor of KØbenhavn-Copenhagen was his home town-and she's everybody who ever made a difficult choice. She doesn't regret her choice, but she must pay for it; every choice must be paid for. The cost to her is not only endless homesickness. She can never be quite human; when she uses her dearly bought feet, every step is on sharp knives. Ben, I think that Mike must always walk on knives-but there is no need to tell him I said so. I don't think he knows this story or, at least, I don't think he knows that I connect him with it."
                "I won't tell him." Ben looked at the replica. "I'd rather just look at her and not think about the knives."
                "She's a little darling, isn't she? How would you like to coax her into bed? She would probably be lively, like a seal, and about as slippery."
                "Cripes! You're an evil old man, Jubal."
                "And getting eviler and eviler by the year. Uh ... we won't look at any others; three pieces of sculpture in an hour is more than enough- usually I don't let myself look at more than one in a day."
                "Suits. I feel as if I had had three quick drinks on an empty stomach. Jubal, why isn't there stuff like this around where a person can see it?"
                "Because the world has gone nutty and contemporary art always paints the spirit of its times. Rodin did his major work in the tail end of the nineteenth century and Hans Christian Andersen antedated him by only a few years. Rodin died early in the twentieth century, about the time the world started flipping its lid . . . and art along with it.
                "Rodin's successors noted the amazing things he had done with light and shadow and mass and composition-whether you see it or not-and they copied that much. Oh, how they copied it! And extended it. What they failed to see was that every major work of the master told a story and laid bare the human heart. Instead, they got involved with 'design' and became contemptuous of any painting or sculpture that told a story- sneering, they dubbed such work 'literary'-a dirty word. They went all out for abstractions, not deigning to paint or carve anything that resembled the human world."
                Jubal shrugged. "Abstract design is all right-for wall paper or linoleum. But an is the process of evoking pity and terror, which is not abstract at all but very human. What the self-styled modern artists are doing is a sort of unemotional pseudo-intellectual masturbation . . . whereas creative art is more like intercourse, in which the artist must seduce- render emotional-his audience, each time. These laddies who won't deign to do that-and perhaps can't-of course lost the public. If they hadn't lobbied for endless subsidies, they would have starved or been forced to go to work long ago. Because the ordinary bloke will not voluntarily pay for 'art' that leaves him unmoved-if he does pay for it, the money has to be conned out of him, by taxes or such."
                "You know, Jubal, I've always wondered why I didn't give a hoot for paintings or statues-but I thought it was something missing in me, like color blindness."
                "Mmm, one does have to learn to look at art, just as you must know French to read a story printed in French. But in general it's up to the artist to use language that can be understood, not hide it in some privite code like Pepys and his