Kurzbeschreibung:

_In perspective, theoretically the vanishing
point is at infinity, and therefore unattainable.
But reality is different; vanishment occurs a lot
sooner than theory suggests ..._

Illustrated by Martinez

That? Oh, thats a perspective machine. Well, not exactly, but thats
what I call it. No, I dont know how it works. Too complicated for me.
Carter could make it go, but after he made it he never used it. Too bad;
he thought hed make a lot of money with it there for awhile, while he
was working it out. Almost had me convinced, but I told him, "Get it to
working first, Carter, and then show me what you can do with it better
than I can do without it. Im doing pretty well as is ... pictures
selling good, even if I do make em all by guesswork, as you call it."
Thats what I told him.

Ysee, Carter was one a them artists that think they can work everything
out by formulas and stuff. Me, I just paint things as I see em. Never
worry about perspective and all that kinda mechanical aids. Never even
went to Art School. But I do all right. Carter, now, was a different
sorta artist. Well, he wasnt really an artist--more of a draftsman.

I first got him in to help me with a series of real estate paintings Id
got an order for. Big aerial views of land developments, and drawings of
buildings, roads and causeways, that kinda stuff. Was a little too much
for me to handle alone, cause I never studied that kinda things, ya
know. I thought hed do the mechanical drawings, which shoulda been
simple for anybody trained that way, and Id throw in the colors,
figures and trees and so on. He did fine. Job came out good; client was
real happy. We made a pretty good amount on the job, enough to keep us
for a coupla months without working afterwards. I took it easy, fishing
and so on, but Carter stayed here in the studio working on his own
stuff. I let him keep an eye on things for me around the place, and just
dropped in now and then to check up.

The guy was nuts on the subject of perspective. I thought he knew all
there was to know about it already, but he claimed _nobody_ knew
anything about it, really. Said hed been studying it for years, and the
more he learned about it the more there was to learn. He used to cover
big sheets of paper with complicated diagrams trying to prove something
or other to himself. Id come into the studio and find him with thumb
tacks and strings and stuff all over the place. Hed get big long rulers
and draw lines to various points all over the room, and end up with a
little drawing of a cube about an inch square that anybody coulda made
in a half a minute without all the apparatus. Seemed pretty silly to me.