2003-03-05 - 1:45 a.m.

Thanks... this is about a farmer who finds that he�s really an artist--he�s about thirty four or thirty five, and he looks out one day... and it�s a he... And there�s all these paintbrushes--�cause that�s the stereotype of an artist, somebody with paintbrushes and berets, but not berets and onions, �cause that�s French people, although you can have French artists who got a beret and an onion, so if you�re coming into land, and you wonder what�s in front of you, check out the signal, look at the computer, and see, and if you got the signal beret, onion, and paintbrush, it�s a French artist, okay, so don�t overtake, and give him landing space.

Anyway, we don�t know what nationality he is. He wakes up one morning and every single sheaf of corn in the field has turned into a paintbrush, and there�s this enormous zeppelin floating down on the breeze, kind of fleshy, world war one surplus beautiful old German zeppelin coming down on the breeze in a kind of woozy and unzeppelinesque fashion. It gets right down just above the corn and the gondola crashes down into the brushes and there�s this kind of pleasant slurping sound...as there would be... and this badger shoots into the air about twenty feet and a parachute comes out of the back of its neck and it gurgles. And where the stuff comes out of its mouth, everywhere it drops, a little history book grows, but tiny and the pages are so cramped together.

All these bright kids take them to school the next day, but they can�t open them properly. And they say he was involved in the Risotto, but he wasn�t. So the teacher has the bright pupils executed and says to the dumb pupils there you are, there�s a chance for you. They say yes teacher, and they pull the noose up, and the teacher is lynched as it hangs over its desk. And the dumb pupils all go out with chalk, and they put the chalk in their nostrils. They walk out to the field and they see this zeppelin swaying back and forth.

It starts to scratch its belly on the paintbrushes, just moving backwards and forwards gradually, and the artist says ah, obviously life�s going to be different now--I�m not a farmer anymore.

And he opens the cupboard and there�s his former self from half an hour ago, in the cupboard, saying well, how do you know anything�s different? And he says, if you�re my former self, how do you know it�s me you�re talking to? And the guy says don�t be stupid, you�re me. I�d recognize you anywhere, in front of a mirror. He says how do you know this isn�t a mirror--there�s normally a mirror on this cupboard.

Well that�s not a mirror �cause I opened the door.

Oh, did you?

He realizes in fact that he hasn�t opened the door and he is talking to the mirror so he thinks well, I�m obviously being a bit remiss, but he checks himself--does the old Marx Brothers routine of you know, this and that, waves to see if the duplicate figure oppose is doing the same thing, and it is, except that the person in the mirror is wearing a beret and carrying an onion with a paintbrush. So he realizes that it�s a French artist. And says hang on, but I�m not French. And he says but when you take up art, you abandon everything else.

And he sits on the piano and sings this song.

--Robyn Hitchcock, 1990