Hate Mail

Season Three of The Year of Magical Painting has been a momentous one. That said, I'm pleased to announce that another milestone has been achieved.

As follow up to my 20/20 piece I have received some hate mail. To wit ...

I saw the 20/20 piece, $28,000 for a painting, then trying to pitch it on 20/20. Who's the greedy one now? Maybe it's time for a self portrait!

Chico Potvin
Biddeford, Maine

Who is this Chico Potvin guy? Ordinarily I redact the name of whoever's email I might miscellaneously share on TYOMP. But yo, I'm wondering? If that's even a question. What gives this guy the right to sit in judgment of me? What gives this guy the right to determine whether my pricing structure represents actual greed or merely sensibly behavior within a set of market dynamics? My daughter Elizabeth, who, as I type, is in the other room, said, upon reading Mr. Potvin's screed, "Thank God you've got me for emotional support."

Thank God indeed. Although, truth be told, I'm not bothered at all. If this is the worst thing that happens to me today I'll be fine. Truth be told, it just gives me something about which to make a fuss. So I'm going to keep talking about it until you are sick of the subject of hate mail.

Oh shit, I'm having a vision!
A what?
A vision! One of those quasi-mystical psychodynamic moments when you know what you are experiencing can't possibly be real but it feels that way nonetheless.
Like an hallucination?
It's a lot like an hallucination except the term "hallucination" makes me seem like a whacko wheras the term "vision" makes me seem like a mystic. Like somebody in touch with the music of the spheres. Stuff like that.
Interesting distinction. What is it?
Okay...okay. Let me get it straight. I'm in Madison Square Garden. The Rangers are playing the Islanders. I've just read my hate mail aloud over the public address system. And everybody's chanting the same thing over and over again.
What are they chanting?
They're chanting "Potvin sucks!"
Wow. Cool vision.
Really. You don't know the half.
Do you usually precede your Hs with "an" rather than "a"?
I do, most of the time, yes. It's a conditional thing. You?
I'm of two schools.
Aren't we all. I stopped trusting the English language back when, apparently completely out of the blue, everybody stopped pronouncing "harass" with the emphasis on the last sylable and started putting it on the first. HAR-ass.
I hear you. Makes me think of "niche."
Exactly. Everybody used to pronounce it nitch and then suddenly, maybe twenty years ago, everybody adopted the French pronuncination.
Right. As if, in the middle of an English sentence involving the name of the capital of France, I choose to pronounce it Paree.
Exactly.
These are all questions.
Perhaps we'll receive some hate mail.
If we get just one, will it be an hate mail?
That's a question too.