I came back ...

... in part because of this:

[Note on graph:  "Today" really means January 9th]

I was amazed that two and a half weeks after the site had been closed, a hundred people a day kept wandering by, checking things out.  Some, I'm assuming, lit candles and wrote messages on little bits of paper and scrunched them into the nooks and crannies of the physical space that The Year of Magical Painting once occupied.  There was likely singing, and this moved me to a degree.

Selfishly, I was also delighted when the WTF traffic jumped up on what looks like December 22nd.  Let them eat cake, I remember thinking.  But the moment that thought passed through my mind another followed in its place.  These are my people, I remember thinking.  They need more than cake.  They need corned beef hash.  And wood fired pizza.  And Bud Light.  And all the other things one needs for a full, rich life.  They need to hear the Greek Chorus in full throat.  They need the occasional glimpse into the dark soul of the artist.  They need to taste the the bitter, coppery sensation of failure ... and smell the azure blue of the soaring hawk.

They need The Year of Magical Painting, I thought.

And so I relented.

Can you smell blue?
Yeah.  Smells like chicken.