New Orts #59

March 2 MMXXV

As the desert offers no tangible riches, as there is nothing to see or hear in the desert, one is compelled to acknowledge, since the inner life, far from falling asleep, is fortified, that man is first animated by invisible solicitations.
— Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (1900-44)

I am pleased enough with surfaces — in fact they alone seem to me to be of much importance. Such things for example as the grasp of a child’s hand in your own, the flavor of an apple, the embrace of friend or lover, the silk of a girl’s thigh, the sunlight on rock and leaves, the feel of music, the bark of a tree, the abrasion of granite and sand, the plunge of clear water into a pool, the face of the wind — what else is there? What else do we need?
— Edward Abbey (1927-89), in Desert Solitaire

(Both quotes came to me via The Marginalian, a *far* more ambitious weekly newsletter than New Orts. Well worth a look!)