No, it’s a happy ending.

“You mean desiccated, no?” I asked.

“I meant what I said,” Bernie replied. “When we were lovers decades ago, she had the face of a goddess.”

“That’s time for you,” I said.

In a rare moment of diplomacy, I didn’t add that neither of us looked like teenagers anymore, either.

“No, I meant at a gallery,” Enrico said. “Tickets are twenty-five dollars.”

“That’s ridiculous,” I replied. “For fifty dollars we could buy a retail copy of his 77 Million Paintings program that generates the work and have enough left over for half a case of wine.”

Enrico and I agreed to disagree.

It’s not that I don’t like Brian Peter George St. John le Baptiste de la Salle Eno’s work; I do. I saw him give a good talk a few years ago. For free, even. But that’s a different kettle of kittens than paying to watch a computer program run unattended. Of course, no one will be paying to watch Eno’s work, they’ll be paying to be in the same room as a celebrity.

I hope Enrico has a nice time. Assuming that I can find a bootleg copy on the Internet, I plan on seeing Eno’s work in my studio, without being surrounded by his sycophants. After all, intellectual groupies are still groupies.

Still, the undertaking proved to be more difficult than I imagined. Well into the project, I decided I liked the look of products wrapped in cellophane. As a result, I decided not to use other images such as Homestyle Macaroni & Cheese (Fat: 10 grams, Salt: 730 milligrams). The concoction—featuring a frozen puddle of cheese-like substance—was based on a “chef inspired recipe,” as if that tenuous connection to real food might make it palatable. (It did not.)

I decided to stop after only seven images of cellophane-sealed products because I couldn’t eat any more processed food. I originally planned on making many more than seven images, but found the alleged food too wretched, even for me.

“Only amateurs do that,” I explained. “My art suffers for me.”

I was lying, of course; my arteries are still aching after eating Seven Frozen Meals Rich in Fat and Salt.

“Then how should I address the pentagram-shaped marine thingie,” I asked, “as the unholy spawn of Satan and Poseidon?”

“Actually,” Byron sniffed, “the proper name these days is a sea star.”

“That’s fascinating,” I replied.

“That’s fascinating,” seemed like a better reply for a precocious child than, “It’s a damned starfish, deal with it.”

I’m good with children, or so I’ve been told.