Convergences: Poets & Geologists & Driving & Mermaids.

John McPhee tells you not to hitch a ride with geologists. Martin Amis tell you who not to hitch a ride with poets. Montaigne says, Who needs a car when you have a tail?

McPhee's Annals of the Former World:

Geologists on the whole are inconsistent drivers. When a roadcut presents itself, they tend to lurch and weave. To them, a roadcut is a portal, a fragment of a regional story, a proscenium arch that leads their imaginations into the earth and through the surrounding terrane. (...)

"If I'm going to drive safely, I can't do geology."

Amis's The Information:

Poets can't, don't, shouldn't drive. (British poets can't or don't drive. American poets drive, but shouldn't.)

Horace, by way of Montaigne:

Poets can create monsters at will; say a fair maid with the tail of a fish, that is, a mermaid.