by Robert Kunzig
The house in France Ilive in was built in the 16th century, and though I doubt any of the windowpanes are original, some of them are quite old. People go all wavy as they pass my office. This tickles me: Those vertical distortions in the panes remind me that glass--brittle, breakable glass--is really a fluid. The windows of medieval cathedrals are thicker at the bottom, I've heard, because the glass has pooled there; and even the little streams in my own panes seem to evoke the transience of existence: Time is a river; glass is a river--you get the idea.
