Sang and I went to a cajun restaurant called La Louisiana last night after a softball doubleheader, and there was a party of five waiting in line ahead of us. One of the guys, tall, middle-aged, with a thick, dark beard, was in a tizzy.
"What is the name of that artist? How can I not remember? He's so famous, everyone knows him. Oh god, come on, help me out here John. He does the stuff with boxes? Whitney Museum? Oh god this is so embarrassing. Come on, guys." The other people in his group, a man and three women, looked at him like he was crazy and shrugged their shoulders. The way he spoke--effete, pompous--annoyed me. However, art is not an area I am an expert in, so I bit my tongue.
Sang went off to the bathroom. No one came to take our names or to seat us. We stood in that cramped entryway while this man continued to harangue us. I thought back to a lonely dinner I had while in South America, in the Argentine city of Puerto Madryn. I knew no one, and I had run out of books to read, so to entertain myself, I reread the same issue of The New Yorker (I think it was this year's anniversary issue) which I had already read twice during my two weeks in South America. One of the best articles just happened to be a profile of the works of...
"Joseph Cornell," I said.
He looked at me as if disappointed. "Yeah, that's right."
He shut up after that, and after a long period of silence we got seated. I wish I had kept that issue of The New Yorker.