The KitchenAid Supurba is quite a contraption. It doesn’t appear to have any burners as such, just a smooth, glassy, ceramic surface where the electric coils or gas nozzles should be. It doesn’t have any knobs, either, not even one. Instead, the KitchenAid Supurba user must type in various options from a keypad and monitor the results on a tiny computer screen.

The ceramic cooking surface has an unusual feature: it can be damaged by water. Karen discovered this after she made her first KitchenAid Supurba dinner, then sat down to read the hefty instruction manual. That’s when she read that moisture can destroy the ceramic surface. Unless, that is, she immediately cleaned it with some sort of expensive, custom-formulated potion for cleaning the surface of a ceramic stove.

And that brings us to this morning. Karen and Jeff left early for work and invited me to make myself at home. I did, until I came face to face with the KitchenAid Supurba. I stood there looking at the baffling away of function keys, flashing computer readouts, and surprisingly fragile ceramic surface.

That’s when I realized I could no longer boil water.

Phyllis from Minnesota, not to be outdone, tells about the mosquito tent at the state fair. Visitors can pay seven dollars and twenty-five cents to spend five minutes inside a screen tent “filled with at least three thousand of Minnesota’s most bloodthirsty mosquitoes.”

Anthony’s not quite sure what to make of this story. On one hand, he’s not telling his tale about the New York abuse bar in order to brag. On the other hand, he knows the story has the unspoken subtext, “only in New York.” He also knows that Phyllis has topped his anecdote.

We’re not having any contests tonight, so we discuss the weather. Phyllis looks happy, Anthony doesn’t.

EMP is a shrine of contemporary music, particularly the genre of “rock and roll.” EMP visitors may see Jimi’s soiled underwear, a needle Eric used when he could still create, or a bit of dried vomitus from Led Zeppelin’s second tour of the United States.

Or, they may not see these things. I don’t know, because I never got past the free drinks at EMP’s “Liquid Lounge.” I must also admit that I was also reluctant to pay twenty dollars to “experience” the contemporary music that’s been an integral part of my life for three decades.

Frederic Chopin supplied the winning argument against patronizing EMP, when he wrote, “I don’t want anyone to admire my pants in a museum.” And, as anyone familiar with Mexican politics can attest, institutionalizing revolution doesn’t work.

Most of the people here are bureaucrats and/or administraitors. Who else would pay five hundred dollars to drink bad coffee and listen to tedious presentations? (Fortunately, no one’s questioned my forged pass that lets me drink bad coffee for free. And fortuitously, a few of the people are quite interesting. Worth plagiarizing, even.)

This conference features the curious notion of themed breakfasts. Each breakfast table has a topic for discussion posted on a little sign, so every conference participant can start the day with a group of like-minded folk. Or maybe not.

I looked for the “Don’t even think about saying anything serious until I’m fully caffeinated” table, but never found it. That may have been because I wasn’t entirely awake. I did, however, stumble across the “Strategic Planning for Digital Presence” table. There were no human beings there, so I guess they knew what they were doing.

On the way out, a woman approached me.

“I’m sorry I missed you on the way in,” she began in a cheery voice, “but there’s a suggested five-dollar donation for this show.”

“I’ll give five dollars to support your program if you’ll give me five dollars to support my work,” I replied.

She didn’t reach for the cash drawer. I kept my hands away from my wallet. It was an amicable standoff.

I suppose I could have told her that since I’m an artist, the world owes me a living. I was feeling lazy, though, so I didn’t bother. As I headed for the door, I overheard the five-dollar woman telling someone that she was the center’s curator.

Aha! That explains everything! I know the world owes me a living; arts administrators mistakenly assume the same thing. That can be a problem sometimes, but at least not today.

“But what do they do with that technique?” he asked rhetorically. “I can teach them technique all day and all night, but there’s not much else I can do except wait for some sort of inspiration to fall out of the sky and hit them on the head like a creative meatball.”

Hit on the head by the meatball of creativity! I think that happened to me years ago. How else can I explain why my head is a meatball?