synopsis and reflection
july 2001

qnut left home in search of the experiences that would broaden him during his formative years. he hitchhiked to the big city, alone and anticipating good things. he soon found work through a temporary employment agency, which in turn sent him on to a steady assignment. qnut also found an apartment that cost him one half of his monthly salary. qnut gladly paid it, as he found life in the big city exciting and different.

his days were filled with vapid chores. his work assignment consisted mainly of ordering, filing, and cataloging pictures of food products delivered daily by professional food photographers' assistants. qnut ordered, filed, and catalog thousands of pictures of roast beef, frozen peas, and french fries covered in gravy. the work destroyed his appetite and he began to lose his baby fat. qnut liked the people that he worked with. their jobs seemed much more exciting and full of life than his, even if the people who did those jobs did not.

his nights were filled with wonder and exploration as he walked beneath the high pressure sodium lamps that lined the streets of the big city. he met a man that played the banjo and begged for change with his songs. his name was rod, and rod had moved to the big city at precisely qnut's age, though he was now quite advanced in his years. qnut and rod spent several evenings a week together, and one time rod taught qnut how to make his own banjo from cheap parts acquired at junk sales or in warehouse trash bins. qnut learned a few songs and began practicing his technique.

qnut used his new-found skills to great effect when he met louise. she was an artist who was financially successful. she painted the stories of her sexual escapades with men and sold them in art galleries. qnut and louise met at just such a gallery, and she told qnut that she admired his charm and his rustic manner. qnut could not afford to take her out to dinner, which is what his mother had said was the best way to win the love of a woman. instead, qnut brought louise to the park and played love songs on his banjo for her. being unfamiliar with the musical art of the banjo, louise listened patiently and used big words when she spoke about the songs qnut played. she invited qnut to her apartment in what he knew to be the hip section of town where they engaged in sexual practices. soon after their first sexual encounter, louise began to shun qnut. he called her from pay phones and went to see her at galleries but she was never around. qnut began to feel disheartened.

one day, qnut was walking in a part of the big city where he had not yet been. he saw louise's name written on a window of an art gallery and went inside. among the paintings that he recognized as hers was a painting called "the merry-andrew." it featured a seated man who looked an awful lot like qnut playing the banjo. qnut's heart raced with excitement. louise had painted him in one of her expensive and popular pictures! it didn't matter to qnut that she had painted his teeth crooked or that his hair looked patchy in some places on the painting. louise's paintings never looked like real life. they were very artistic. louise had also painted his clothes to look ragged and torn, and, even though they weren't that way in real life, qnut decided that he really didn't know that much about art anyway, and that if louise wanted to paint him, she could paint him any way she wanted. he felt a kind of happiness that he had never felt before.

qnut ran back to his apartment and wrote a song on the banjo. he named the song "louise." it was the most beautiful song that he had ever heard.