Tying the Knot

Abstract

The pains of a hard labor bring the final chapter, Chapter 21, to the twins born to be measured on the scales of industry and idleness. Philosophically domesticated all the way into the bedroom, the wit comes to heel one last time with the painter’s brush. The first telling of the Red Sea anecdote is told and the final explanation given for why a single painter in London was named the painter of a blood sport, wherein an entire wall was covered over by the waters of the Red Sea. Why had the sea to be red? Had the sea to be red? The chapter completes the genealogy of liberty as worked through a micrology of wit. The wit, entirely domesticated, binds the Red Sea to the Red Thread given a skewed Red Square placed high up in a ceiling corner. The settlement of a marriage contract becomes the resettlement of art’s contract with modern times.