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.Because Vermeer did not die until he was forty-three, that leaves him five full years in which to live without art.Almost deliberately, it takes him six months to complete the finished “Allegory.” The wizened priest, angered at the delay, refuses to pay the artist more than half the agreed commission.The artist closes up his studio and never paints again.* * * *During the final five years of his life, the artist finds that his love for his wife has grown stronger.He takes a new and powerful interest in his surviving children and even memorizes, for the first time, their complete names.Often now the entire family takes long walks through the closely guarded paths of the open city parks.At these times, alone with his wife while the children play, the artist reveals many of the concerns that have lately come to dominate his mind.He has spent many hours in the careful study of Vermeer’s work; he has discovered little of value but now believes that this failure may be of significance in itself.He explains to Bonnie: “The greatness of an artist lies not in his mind, which may be a very ordinary one indeed, but rather in his finger tips or, to be less concrete, in his soul.Most people, if asked, will say that a great artist must also be a great man, but such is rarely, if ever, the case.When great artists fail to express great thoughts, we either blame ourselves or the limitations of the language, but a great artist must invariably express great thoughts—as they should, through their work.Take, for example, the seventeenth-century Dutch painter, Jan Vermeer.His paintings express the thought that our perception of reality really consists of nothing beyond the observable effects of sunlight.Is this a great thought, a truly profound one? I do not think so—not as I have expressed it—not in words.But the paintings Vermeer created in order to express this thought—now they are great works indeed.” Bonnie seems puzzled by this outburst.Shaking her head tentatively, she says, “But I thought you were Vermeer.You told me that once.” The artist says, “No, I was mistaken.” “But you had an operation.” “True, but it was a failure.” “Then,” says Bonnie, “you are not a great artist yourself.” He pauses upon the path and speaks slowly: “No, I think I am.I am a great artist, yes, but I am not Vermeer.There can be only one Vermeer and he has been dead more than three hundred years.I am someone else—me.I speak to my own age, having seen and endured these times.” “But aren’t your paintings all the same?” asked Bonnie.“The same as this other man’s—Vermeer’s?” “They are the same,” says the artist, “but I am different.” In this, the artist is convinced that he has at last discovered Vermeer.* * * *Wars of the future may be fought with strange weapons, especially if humanity comes into conflict with an alien race.Bombs, lasers, energy-swords.what are the dangers of these compared with a weapon that can cast spaceships into other universes where Teddy bears speak multiple languages, snakes have been bred as warriors, and tiny creatures arrange themselves to form hologram images?Greg Bear, who’s rapidly establishing twin careers as writer and artist in science fiction, tells a fast-moving, funny, frightening, and ultimately moving story of people and creatures thrown together in a strange universe.* * * *SCATTERSHOTGreg BearThe teddy bear spoke excellent mandarin.It was about fifty centimeters tall, plump, with close-set eyes above a nose unusually long for the generally pug breed.It paced around me, muttering to itself.I rolled over and felt barbs down my back and sides.My arms were reluctant to move.There was something about my will to get up and the way my muscles reacted that was out-of-kilter; the nerves weren’t conveying properly.So it was, I thought, with my eyes and the small black-and-white beast they claimed to see: a derangement of phosphene patterns, cross-tied with childhood memories and snatches of linguistics courses ten years past.It began speaking Russian.I ignored it and focused on other things
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