Precept: Circle Line Theory of Art
by John Bart Nelson
By Gregory Mcdonald, relevant to his novel "Merely Players."

     All right, so Man and Nature are two different things,and Truth and Art are different, too.

     We all know what nature is: Nature is the circle the world makes itself, and
the circle the moon makes in the sky, and the circle man makes from the
ground, erect, and to the ground again, and the circle of the seasons, and the circle of the little fish eaten by bigger fish and the big fish into plankton to be eaten by little fish. Nature is one big circle and the thin perimeter is really little circles only sometimes it looks like a straight line to a man because the circle is so big and he can only observe for such a short time.

     We all know what truth is: Truth is the straight line a carpenter makes when he is buidling something, the straight line up and down in the corner of a building, and the straight line a machine makes when its wheels are set, from youth to old age, from ancient time to the future, logos. Truth is all a part of the same straight line only sometimes it looks like circles to man and sometimes it looks like there are two or more straight lines but that is because the straight line is so wide and man is so narrow and can see only 360 degrees around him in a circle whether he walks in a straight line or not. Truth is man's conceit, his idea, his accumulation of all facts and experiences relating to existence and his essence, both as an individual and as a specie, his apparently uniquely needful definition of himself aspiring infinitely in a straight line through contest confounded by closed ended circles. It is man's need, his perspective, his time in history and time in life that determines his truth, despite whatever degree there is or exogenous truth.

     And we all know what art is: Art is the straight line and the circle together somehow, as when a pebble drops straight down into a pond off a bridge and there is a sound and circles form around where the straight falling pebble hits the surface of the water, or whatever, and he submerges in nature, or when he adheres to his own straight line and a circle together somehow, confounding each other. It is the observation that is the art. There is no art in the pebbles disrupting the surface of the pond. It means nothing; it means nothing before man; it will mean nothing after man. Only man needs to see the irony of a straight line's being caught up in a circle, or a circle being pressed down into a straight line, observe and report these ironies to each other, artfully, not in confirmation of his conceit or of nature, but simply in observing, remembering that there is the possibility of nothing and the possibility of something, and that he, in his lifetime and in his place in history, is the arbiter of choice and hope.

     It is hopeful to report that there is truth, for without it, there is no need for nature. And there is nature, for without it, there is no aspiring to truth. And there is irony, for without it, there is no truth and no nature.

     And there is art.

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