The surrealists, and the modern movement in painting as a whole, seemed to offer a key to the strange postwar world with its threat of nuclear war. The dislocations and ambiguities, in cubism and abstract art as well as the surrealists, reminded me of my childhood in Shanghai.

O Paddy dear, an’ did ye hear the news that’s goin’ round?
The shamrock is by law forbid to grow on Irish ground!
No more St. Patrick’s Day we’ll keep, his color can’t be seen,
For there’s a cruel law agin the wearin’ o’ the Green!

For they’re hangin’ men an’ women there for wearin’ o’ the Green.

Gentlemen, you can’t fight in here. This is the War Room!

No taxation without representation.