Kurt Andersen provides the latest version of this old lament: "In an age when characters on a CBS prime-time series can say 'asshole,' annoyance is probably as close to outrage as anything artists can incite in people who aren't members of the Christian Coalition. It's become almost impossible épater les bourgeois."

A good artist is still shocking, it's just harder to do these days because people are more numb and dumb than ever. And besides, annoying someone isn't a bad consolation prize.

If the Speed Art Museum is for the chemically creative, I should tell Gregory Green. He may have new work to show along the lines of 10,000 Doses (first state), his memorable lysergic acid diethylamide piece.

I saw a documentary on Henri Cartier-Bresson, and the old codger looks anything but decrepit. In fact, the aging imp seemed quite sprightly and animated. He came across as more human than French, the opposite of the way I've found him in print.

My favorite part of the show was the ending, when the interviewer asked him what he thought of being called the greatest photographer of the century. He looked bothered for a moment, then smiled and whispered in the interviewer's ear "shit" just loud enough to be heard. He then turned to the camera, grinned, and said in a loud voice "Bullshit!" He beamed, shook hands with the interviewer and the sound person and the camera person then floated away. Liberty, equality, fraternity!

With any luck at all, it should be a while before Henri Cartier-Bresson has his decisive moment in the obituary pages.

To make a tedious story brief, I was told to prove the whiskey was free from anthrax, so I drank half the bottle in front of the customs police. A lieutenant told me he thought I was acting strange, but I assured him I was under the familiar influence of alcohol, not anthrax.

The good lieutenant said "I'll be the judge of that"" and helped himself to the rest of the bottle. A half hour later we were both laughing, telling ridiculous stories about how much we loved Great [sic] Britain, and sharing a thin drunken camaraderie.

And now I have a headache: it must be the anthrax.

At Kelly's trial, the Royal College of Surgeon's surgical resource manager Brian Eaton admitted that there'd been "resource" problems in the past, like the time a woman inadvertently saw a consignment of fleshy thigh bones being burned next door. The woman, who was quite upset, was given a box of chocolates as compensation.

I think that's a good precedent for the punishment Kelly should receive: he should buy chocolates for everyone who's upset. Yum yum!

Although chocolates could let him off the legal hook, he's still got a problem. Where's the craft in cloning dead people's bits in metal?

Ouch!

Ask any diver, ask any surgeon: a candiru assault almost always hurts more the next morning than a shark attack.

That sounds reasonable to me; that's less than twice the distance a friend recently traveled to see a solar eclipse. And hearing what god's been up to recently sounds a lot more interesting than seeing the sky go dark for a bit.

God kept the cards close to the chest, and Teacher Chen, to his credit, decided his predictions were "nonsense ... I would rather you don't believe anything I say. Regrettably, it appears that everything I have preached to you over the past four years has turned out to be shit. I give up."

That's not true, of course; the alternative is to prevent cats and dogs from ever making unwanted cats and dogs. My job was to create an advertising campaign promoting spaying and neutering. My best idea was to use the slogan "Park It In Neutral!" Since that was rejected, don't blame critter overpopulation on me.

What should be done with all the unwanted dead animals? I want to market a product called Puppy in a Can. It's the perfect pet for people in small apartments, kids with allergies, et cetera. I've even come up with some ad copy: "Fine carpets aren't a problem with Puppy in a Can!"

The idea's so brilliant that it might even be better for promoting spaying and neutering programs than "Park It In Neutral!"

The examples I saw were pretty straightforward translations of black and white photographs to color paintings, an approach consistent with Picabia's aesthetics: "If the work of another translates my dream, his work is mine."

Picabia was sixty when World War II started; if I'm that old when World War III starts I might also spend my days making cheesy nudes. That's what I'd tell Francis to his face had he not died forty-five years ago. Picabia's one dead person about whom I'm reticent to write, for it was he who said "My ass contemplates those who talk behind my back."

Fool's joke. I'm trying to, write more. Or less as I normally do, but some. One has instal-led corrupted punctuation and capitalization engines in my com. Puter this, as usual, is point.

Less.

I know this is just about the worst possible review I could receive; I wrote it.

William of Occam (or is it Ockham?), was a fourteenth century English monk and one of the first minimalists. He's also noted for saying "It is vain to do with more what can be done with less." But then a monk would say that, wouldn't he?

So why the sudden interest in Ockham's (or is it Occam's?) Razor?

1. God uses Jodie Foster's lips to speak.

2. Occam's (or is it Ockham's?) Razor is a successful meme.

3. We're all repeating what everyone else is saying.

4. Ockham's (or is it Occam's?) Razor is a useful weapon for slitting Emotion's throat.

I liked this quote, and it was only after I copied it that I realized the sloppy translation meant it could be interpreted two ways. When I first saw it, I read "I am making myself a fetish" in the same way I'd read "I am baking myself a cake." It was only later that I realized that it could also be read as "I am making a fetish of myself." After making too much sterile art, I like my first interpretation but I wouldn't go so far as to emulate the second. (Yet.)

I wonder if perhaps the translation was entirely accurate; perhaps Mataré intended it to be read both ways. I don't have either the original German or much interest in clarifying the ambiguity, so today's investigation ends here.

This is cheating; I'm actually writing this last Saturday night, not today. I know this is tempting fate, but since it's only for a couple of days I trust fate's got something better to do than to strike me down for a minor act of insolence.