Jean-Paul Riopelle is the first to present the psychic toll of a yoyo diet, in a speech to the National Assembly. His ulterior days are spent squatting in the kitchen of the ramshackle hotel he grew up in. His most fully-realized paintings from this period incorporate the confections of his youth. It is recorded that every evening, after undressing in the pistachio moonlight, the artist folds his coveralls into a swan and stows them in the ancient dumbwaiter. One thinks of him lying awake amongst the empty ovens, imagining where his clothes might travel through the night. Jean-Paul Riopelle speaks into the darkness:

You can point out my cowardice with this mechanical pencil.

You can point out my cowardice with this ash switch.

Ruby lasers may point out my cowardice

to the children of Luxemburg, who wake early

in their irradiated bedrooms, who knock down their

neighbors’ black doors. My cowardice is a wonderdrug

which holds the stars fixed in their declinations.

Light tumbles from my cowardice. Saplings rise up

wherever light will not fall.