Yeah. And the wall, e.g. The Cantos, is still there. CP

Tim Romano wrote:

> Pound wrote that one shouldn't trust opinions about writing which had been
> offered by someone who hadn't himself written anything of note.  He said it
> would be better to read Henry James's prefaces than any number of books
> about novels by non-novelists. As advice goes, that seems reasonable to me,
> though, as always, there are exceptions.
>
> There was a documentary on TV several years ago about the huge building
> stones of Machu Picchu which,  although no mortar was used to join them,
> fit together so perfectly that you cannot pass a knife blade between them.
> They're irregular in size and shape. Some have more than two-dozen
> corners.  An American academic had theorized (in the late 20th century)
> that such wondrous workmanship was the result of advanced science among the
> Incas. He claimed they were technologically so advanced that they would
> have been able to fabricate huge polished dishes made of gold -- about as
> big as those large satellite dishes that folks living in the boondocks put
> in their yards to get TV --  and the dishes could focus a beam of sunlight
> onto the stone and thereby cut it into the desired shape.  A stonemason on
> site mumbled something about the academic being a $&$#^ idiot; the focused
> beam was barely strong enough to cut through a popsicle stick. He reached
> down and picked up a small rock from the ground.  There were many such
> rocks strewn all over the ground.The rock was about the size of his shoe.
> He said, Just look at the strike marks on the big stones; they used rocks
> like the one I'm holding in my hand to shape them.
>
> Tim Romano