"I'm an artist."

"Do you work in the arts industry, then?" she inquired.

"Absolutely not!" I replied.

"So you don't really work as an artist, then?" she asked.

"I think we need an analogy here," I said. "It's statistically probable that you enjoy sex. I'd guess that it's even more probable that you find the idea of working in the sex industry repugnant. Someone who loves art has about the same relationship with the arts industry as someone who loves sex has with the sex industry."

"As a corollary, would it be fair to add that that's the same arrangement someone who loves science has with the science industry?" she queried.

"I really don't know enough about science to answer that question," I lied.

I never saw her again after that.

I'm a slut; I'll talk to almost anyone about almost anything for one hundred dollars an hour.

I told the students what fields and approaches to avoid. I gave examples of monetary strategies that appeared enticing, but really weren't worth bothering with because of all the cutthroat competition. I also told them what areas to pursue in spite of popular opinion that the options I recommended were unfruitful at best.

It was a strange experience giving advice to a couple dozen hatchlings. They all appeared both frightened and fascinated by world beyond academe. They listened to every word I said, trying to catch any secrets I revealed.

They need not have bothered.

I told them nothing but lies. I encouraged them to explore dead end paths; I scared them away from the green pastures. I'm sure some of the students will feel cheated when they discover I'm a liar. The smartest ones, though, will eventually appreciate what I actually taught them. An older person's devious cunning and subterfuge are generally no match for youthful enthusiasm and hard work.

I was surprised when Cindy told me that Erik has always tried to develop a reputation as someone who may be expected to deliver flattering funeral speeches. I was even more surprised when Cindy told me he did so for personal gain.

"It works like this," Cindy explained. "Once people know Erik might author their eulogy, they all try to be extraordinarily nice to him. They buy him dinners and presents, introduce him to all their generous and influential friends, that kind of stuff. Everyone falls over themselves to impress him as a lovely human being. One famously stingy old man even mentioned Erik in his will. That's how he got the Rolex."

The world of commerce never ceases to amaze me.

Yow!

I wonder why Barbour bothered to write his book? If he's correct, everyone who will ever know that time doesn't exist is already aware of the fact. By the same token, in Barbour's other static "time capsules," those that don't believe him never will.

The End of Time appears to be one of those books that only someone with a grasp of contemporary physics might be expected to understand. More to the point, the idea is so new, unproven, and controversial that it probably won't achieve wide acceptance before I'm dead.

It's one of those arguments I don't worry about too much. If Barbour's right, then I'm already dead--at the same time that I have yet to be conceived or born in other time capsules--so it really doesn't matter. It's like Arthur James Balfour said, "Nothing matters much, and in the end nothing matters at all." (Of course, he probably never considered that there may not be an end.)

They sent me photographs of their wrinkly, little creation. I don't understand that, either. All those larval, post-fetal creatures look the same to me.

I think I should stop thinking about such things. I fear there's quite a lot a non-breeder such as myself will never understand.

Whatever. Good luck, hatched, little embryo! Mit schlag!

Something was missing, though. The juggler didn't have a hat or box on the pavement; there was no obvious way to give her any money.

The thirty or so people watching her clapped when she finally pulled the five orbiting hammers our of the air.

The juggler held up her hands, then waited for everyone stop clapping. Then she spoke.

"I am not here to amuse you. You are here to amuse me. I have no need for your cheap wigs."

It was quite a performance.

The report cited Bangladesh, the ninth most populous country in the world, as an example. Even though the birth rate there has been halved in the last quarter century, the country's population continues to grow. Somewhere in Bangladesh, a woman is having a baby every fifteen seconds.

Someone needs to have a talk with her.

Here's how it works. When, say, Jonie gives him a beer, he doesn't merely write, "Jonie gave me a beer." Instead, he'll spend an hour writing about Jonie's appearance, her history, her mood, the party they were at, the taste of the beer, the history of the brewery, et cetera.

Thus a thirty-second exchange expands to fill an hour of his life. That's a gain of fifty-nine and a half minutes!

But wait! Didn't he miss out on a lot of new experiences while he was writing about just one of them? That's a loss of fifty-nine and a half minutes!

I have no idea whether or not Alfred Whitstread has stumbled onto a Good Thing.

David Hockney is quite unhappy about the whole exchange.

"The whole point of the faxes I made in 1989 is that they were given away," said the far-from-starving artist. "They cannot be sold--how would I be paid?"

Poor David Hockney. I fear no one ever told him the artist's life is not one of sloth and leisure, even though it is.

Not poor David Hockney!