Prankish Angels (Prose Poem) Poem by Denis Mair

{recalling misperceptions that carried messages beyond the quotidian*}
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Once while rounding a curve on a state highway in Nevada, I saw a garishly illuminated building set back from the road. A long curved driveway through sagebrush allowed for a dramatic approach. Because there was space for lots cars to pull up, I thought it might be a gas station. Because of the cheesy grandeur, I thought it could be a casino. Then I realized it was a brothel. Because of the ambiguous signals the building was sending I felt I was beholding something like a hothouse orchid of the human realm, proferring allurement through puzzlement.

Another telling misperception happened at L.A. Art Expo 1989. I spent the better part of two days with my buddy Zhao Baiwei, gazing at offerings in hundreds of booths and exchanging impressions about it all. Of course I learned a lot from Zhao, because his impressions were informed by an art school education. But he was seeing American art in its own ecosystem for the first time, so I was able to fill in some cultural references. At the end of the second day, we stepped out into warm October twilight. I did not expect how strongly such sustained art viewing could affect my visual sense. As I looked down South Figueroa Avenue, I saw a number of storefront signs. I knew what they were, but I was unable to see them as ordinary objects. In fact, it took an effort to read them as the names of stores, because my visual sense was processing them mainly as aesthetic objects. I was seeing the letters more as closely spaced forms than as information-bearing units. My impressions of the signs, which I shared with Zhao, seemed like an extension of our running commentaries on the art inside the Hall.

Indeed, such visual glitches sometimes bear uncanny messages, as if a prankster were dwelling among the better angels of our nature, throwing us leprechaun coins. By means of puckish provocations, such angels offer us little lessons that we can never fully figure out. I like to revisit such moments of misperception and consider them treasures of memory.
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* Note: Another anecdote about vision playing tricks just popped into my mind, but I don't want to burden the reader with too long a post, so I'll write it up someday as 'Prankish Angels 2.'