When we paint the picture, we leave the blame out, focusing instead on Italianate facades and Victorian Gothic towers, decorous formal gardens and the carefully cultivated wild. Red-tailed hawks and migratory songbirds. An owl at night. Windows are dotted with celebrated authors plucking sharp humanity from the icy winter air, while in humid summers famous actors learn their lines in the shade of dogwood. And here are the impeccable extras, lounging in their best faces, snug in cocoons of guaranteed futures in which they’ll be the unquestioned centre. A thumb presses down the corner of a First Folio leaf. A curtain closes. Paint dries, then cracks, then falls like dirty snow, but we’ve long since looked away.
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Oz Hardwick
Picture Nick Victor
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