Ellie Austin 0536816 # 6 Dear Lawrence Weschler,

Your essay, Vermeer in Bosnia, I have found to be fascinating. Recently, while at the Frick
Collection, I had taken yet another look at Vermeer and found myself viewing the paintings in the light of Vermeer in Bosnia. The Europe of Vermeer’s youth was as scarred, scary and violent as Bosnia during the Balkan war. There is a strikingly unexpected connection between the high art and the horrors of war crimes. I can certainly relate to the ideas and experiences of Vermeer in Bosnia. In the 1990s, I had worked in various war zones, including Bosnia, first as a media stringer, later as a security contractor.
When I realized that the toxic environment was becoming addictive, a distraction and a substitute for something else, a normal way of life, perhaps, and after getting into a serious legal trouble in Saudi
Arabia, I had quit working the hot spots for good, as I then thought. On September 11, 2001, a warm sunny day, when I was at all looking for trouble, all the troubles had found me at the World Trade Center, of all places. My last brush with a dangerous adventure had come at on the New Year Eve of 2003, outside the restaurant Nabil in Karrada, an upscale restaurant in
Iraq. I was watching the perimeter as a security contractor, when the restaurant bas car-bombed with high explosives, destroying two square blocks of buildings and killing or injuring everyone within the two blocks. I felt that I was running out of luck, and the next trip could as well be my last. I had decided not to tempt the fate anymore and never visited another hot spot ever since. Besides, who would want to get hit by a blast wave again?

Several times I had visited Afghanistan. The battle scenes, woven into rugs, had fascinated me.
At the first glance, they look like