Prologue (I scribbled this stanza in Art’s copy of his book years ago)

Rationalists, wearing square hats,
Think, in square rooms,
Looking at the floor.
Looking at the ceiling.
They confine themselves
To right-angled triangles.
If they tried rhomboids,
Cones, waving lines. ellipses—
As, for examples, the ellipses of the half-moon—
Rationalists would wear sombreros.*
-Wallace Stevens from “Six Significant Landscapes” (VI)

*[architects should wear sombreros]