"For us, perhaps, [Dr. Nathan explained] World War III is now little more than a sinister pop art display, but for your husband it has become an expression of the failure of his psyche to accept the fact of its own consciousness, and of his revolt against the present continuum of time and space. Dr. Austen may disagree, but it seems to me that his intention is to start World War III, though not, of course, in the usual sense of the term. The blitzkriegs will be fought out on the spinal battlefields, in terms of the postures we assume, of our traumas mimetized in the angle of a wall or balcony."

"This reluctance to accept the fact of his own consciousness," Dr. Nathan wrote, "may reflect certain positional difficulties in the immediate context of time and space. The right-angle spiral of a stairwell may remind him of similar biases within the chemistry of the biological kingdom. This can be carried to remarkable lengths -- for example, the jutting balconies of the Hilton Hotel have become identified with the lost gill slits of the dying film actress, Elizabeth Taylor."

[2 Feb 97]

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