Archipelago

How can impersonal details be so intimate? Armendinger can play all sorts of games, but there’s a serious look on his face as he plays them. He alludes, illudes, but never eludes. There is always something there. Something smart, sometimes tender. His strange sincerity lets his wit and learning handle profane things and never lose touch with feeling the musical integrity of his language works. He is curiously mature emotionally, sounds authoritative, so sometimes as I read his lines—each rife with fresh images or startlements—suddenly I feel that I’m eight years old, and on the brink of tears. How’s he do it? Exploring ‘the limits of surrealism’ I suppose.