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From “Robert Genn Twice-Weekly Letter”  http://painterskeys.com/

My idle mind

May 18, 2010

The other day I got into a Brain Measuring Machine and was asked to do nothing in particular. “You’re older,” said the technician, “so you may have trouble turning off. Younger people seem to be able to switch around at will. They tend to be not quite as rigid as seniors. So don’t worry. Just try to relax.” This suggestion gave me a bad attitude about the University. I thought about withdrawing my financial support.

After a few minutes of doing nothing in particular, with nothing to read, not even a brain chart on the wall, even an old phrenological one, I found myself mellowing out. I indulged my regular visions of loosening up and working fresher and more like Nicolai Fechin. Then a few nude oils of Anders Zorn tiptoed through and I wondered if my handler was party to them on her monitor.

My attachments began to itch. I’d been warned that to scratch might prejudice my readouts, so I kept my hands away from my noggin. I became extremely uneasy. It was like some years ago when, as part of an encounter group, I was asked to stare at myself in a mirror, without blinking, for half an hour. On that occasion I watched myself grow horns and become James Cagney. But now I began to see myself as a particularly vacuous and empty-headed know-nothing. Who was I to claim to be an artist?

Out of the corner of my eye I could see my inquisitor, now distinctly Tomas de Torquemada, bent over and taking notes in red ink with a large feather quill.

Finally, like a Model A Ford going down a hill in second gear, I heard the computer digesting and putting out its various reports. “Well,” she said, unplugging me and pulling on a long graph like an EEG printout, “Very active, surprisingly active really. You processed a lot of emotional info through your amygdala and your caudate nucleus comes off as pretty busy too.” She paused to study the multiple lines that I took to be my medial prefrontal cortex. “A little idling there, but all over the place, like you do something very busy and finicky like quantum physics. Are you from the Physics Department?” I knew she was fishing. I don’t think she was supposed to know what I did for a living. “What do you do?” she asked, as I was putting on my shoes. “I’m a painter,” I said. “House?” she asked. “Picture,” I said. “Okay,” she said, “but what do you actually do?”

Thanks, Robert~!