Dublin, summer 2001 — It's a beautiful day out, meanwhile. I'm going to head out to the River Liffey. I got this book that I found in the hostel. It sat in the 8-bed room since I got there. The other day, cleaning the hostel — which I've been doing to bridge the gap — I grabbed the book.

It's called The Creative Explosion. It has to do with the rather sudden appearance of sophisticated art in the caves of Altamira, Lascaux, etc.

It's really a fascinating book. Funny because it was left along with a tome called Coming Into Being which is among the most fatuous academic blobs of retch you could find. That's my opinion. My friend [from the hostel] Marilyne found it fascinating. She's French. The book uses the word "construct" as a noun, "deconstruct" as a verb... I even spotted an "ontological" in there.

— From an email that I sent to a friend, Sunday, 5 August, 2001