The other reality

In the mailbox this morning:

Only art penetrates the seeming realities of this world. There is another reality, the genuine one, which we lose sight of. This other reality is always sending us hints, which without art, we can’t receive. – Saul Bellow, 1976 Nobel Prize acceptance speech.

There are so many things that art can’t do. It can’t bring the dead back to life... All the same, it does have some extraordinary functions...It does have a capacity to create intimacy; it does have a way of healing wounds, and better yet of making it apparent that not all wounds need healing and not all scars are ugly. – Olivia Laing, The Lonely City: Adventures in the Art of Being Alone. Picador; 1st edition (March 1, 2016) .