glazing the eyes of Narcissus

Travesties, Tom Stoppard's fantasy about James Joyce, Vladimir Lenin, and Tristan Tzara in Zürich, contains a lapidary passage to the effect of "To be an artist at all is like living in Switzerland in the midst of a world war. To be an artist in Zürich in 1916 requires a degree of self-absorption that would glaze the eyes of a Narcissus."

As the world economy totters towards apocalypse, as several countries crumble into mere anarchy loosed upon the world, as various friends approach life-changing crises and as I myself have the potential of approaching one, I am, of course, self-absorbed and clueless.

Eminently worthy of being ignored by anyone who would rather not read about me:

( self-involvement )