Preset Barrera

If you are like me, an idea hits you while you're, say, reading the paper.  Or listening to some music.  And you pick up your phone or iPad and send yourself an email.  So you don't forget.  Because let me tell you, friends, some of the shit I come up with is easily forgotten.  So one takes precautions.

To wit, the subject line from an email this morning:

Like Perseus before him, preset Barrera holds the head of Steven a Cohen

I refer, of course, to Preet Bharara, US Attorney for the Southern District of New York and, like my boy Eliot before him, the scourge of Wall Street.  And okay, the Barrera spelling was on me.  I knew it was wrong.  I knew there was an H in there somewhere.   But figured I could look up the correct spelling when a moment came that mattered.

But imagine having a first name that always auto-corrects to preset.  That would be annoying.

Nonetheless, I've had a bit of a breakthrough this morning, while drinking the coffee and reading the paper.  It's related to the whole sculpting with aerosol insulation foam business.  Which, as initially envisioned will, I've now decided, not work.  Fail horribly might be another apt description.  The new vision, however, should work like gangbusters.

The new vision, friends, includes the use of metal screen (like on a screen door in the old days, when the screen was metal and not plastic) as both the armature and a visible sculptural element.  In other words, crank the thing out in rough terms using screening, then fill the hollow screen forms with the aerosol foam.  In certain places the foam will squeeze through the screen and take the prominent role; in other places the screen will do it's own thing.  In a perfect world, the screen is silver or copper colored and the foam is black.

Me?  I could not be more fired up.  The urge to rush down to the hardware store and buy some is almost overpowering.

Oh -- and just so we're clear, the title of the sculpture is now "Like Perseus Before Him, Preet Bharara Holds the Head of Steven A. Cohen."

Because these Wall Street guys are largely Philistines.  Which is a good thing, not a bad thing.  That's how you get rich.  But you've got to give them a hook they can grab hold of.

Do you think that's a fair characterization of your client base?

No, not really.

Because the secondary definition of Philistine is "A person who is hostile or indifferent to culture and the arts, or who has no understanding of them."

You're right.  If they were indifferent, they wouldn't be buying my work.

No they wouldn't.

So I apologize.

Fair enough.

I apologize for both the name-calling and the intellectual arrogance that the name-calling suggests.

Nicely said.

I wish I was rich like they are.

Bingo.

It's really just the jealousy talking.

It probably is.  But it's good you can see it.

One more thing to be Thankful For on this most somber of Christian holidays.

Yes it is.