Some days I glance at the front page and see the name Rump in three or four places.

So I flip back to the lifestyle section

and maybe read a wine review,

fresh and vivacious with chewy tannins

and bursts of flowers and fruits.

The deranged man with cognitive problems is a passing phenomenon, but bursts of flowers

and fruits have been with us forever. And even in the winter, here in Manhattan, one can find

shops to walk into and feel flowers bursting around you

and markets where you inhale the freshness of mounds of apples and pears and oranges.

The old king who goes mad is a character out of Shakespeare.

He has no place in America.

You walk out of a performance of King Lear

and buy a bouquet of tulips and a bag of apples

and you're back to reality.

When Van Gogh admitted himself to the asylum for the insane at San Remy de Provence,

he spent the last years of his life painting the gardens and woods, the trees and flowers,

paintings that were the finest of his life. He could have been destructive,

set fires, broken windows, prayed on the weak and helpless, but he did not. He found solace

in painting. This is the difference between an artist and a creep. I am not insane, insensitive,

yes, perhaps, maybe slightly autistic, lacking in social skills due to my sanctified upbringing

that taught me to shun unbelievers, but I found ways to work around this

and to engage with people, starting with my discovery of the limerick. Other kids were writing

...