Toucan is over 3000 miles from the equator, which is to say that Toucan isn’t located anywhere near where Toucans live.
And Toucans don’t live in Montana because, well: winter. Which is to say they might be onto something (considering the ferocious end of ours). But this Toucan does live in Montana and on the other side of our winter ended, we’re thinking about spring (such as it is), summer, the future. As Tolstoy put it: “Spring is the time of plans and projects.”
We have some things happening, some things coming up, but, alas, this is just a tease. The whole of it is coming next time, next week, in the fully realized, at times overwritten, almost always discursive, Toucan newsletter.
There will be a little something about architecture and philanthropy as it relates to art and the future and our reason for being a Toucan in Montana. Something about the Billings of it all. The philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer will make an appearance, which is to say, there will be pessimism. Maybe Nietzsche will show up for a little balance. The beauty of it all. And then something about a cool thing we’re doing with the Art Department at MSU-Billings. And a new series of art shows we’re doing this summer, The Toucan Summer Shows, we’re calling it—creative, clever, I know. And, finally, a little something about Allison’s (line, color) and my own (light, reflection) creative work, if only because: why not?
We will be closed this Saturday (4.19), not to recognize anything specific, necessarily, with respect to the holiday at hand (other than maybe those Cadbury Crème Eggs), but certainly to acknowledge something universal, metaphorical, to do with this time of seasonal change: rebirth and renewal. It looks like it’s going to be 60 degrees on Saturday, sunny, a good day to get out of your head and into the outdoors (which I’m not sure you’re actually going into anything when you go outdoors, you’re going out by definition…going in to out actually seems more quantum physics than English language…speaking of getting out of my head).
Hemingway had something to say in A Moveable Feast, so I’ll hand it over to him: “When spring came, even the false spring, there were no problems except where to be happiest. The only thing that could spoil a day was people and if you could keep from making engagements, each day had no limits. People were always the limiters of happiness except for the very few that were as good as spring itself.”
If you’re receiving this Newsletter, you are the very few. Thanks for that. Stay tuned for the next Newsletter, and have a peaceful, emotionally-prosperous weekend.