Geof's Huth careful, dispassionate description of a car crash. it was not immediately clear how serious the accident was as I read, or if anyone was injured (no, happily). that is, it wasn't a dramatic telling. to write thus calls for a certain sternness. dispassionate is not the same as passionless, or at least, the implication is not lack of passion, but that passion does not interfere with the description of events. which is perhaps just the opposite of what Rilke would favour, not to place him in opposition. Rilke in fact advocates an openness to what is around one, and a clarity of understanding, which doesn't seem foreign to Geof's own directive. Geof's art certainly isn't dispassionate. his description of the car crash reminded me of William Tecumseh Sherman's account of a fire on a river boat. in his memoir's Sherman writes of a boiler mishap (I think) on a riverboat he and his family were on. it was in fact an emergency, but his account is cool and collected. which makes sense, as he had to make millions of reports, often of terrible events, in the course of his military career. so there, I've likened Geof Huth to William Sherman. I'm thinking Rilke's description of similar events would be true and clear, but on a, let us say, weirder plane.