I do. I love you for who you are.

I want you to love me for who I think I am.

“My uncle retired a few years ago,” she said, “and he says he’s never been happier.”

“What does he do?” I asked.

“His background is in chemical engineering,” she replied, “and now he’s spending a lot of time turning beer and whiskey into urine.”

Lina’s example was not without a certain appeal, but I still prefer Cameron’s position.

But enough is too much. In eight-hundred and sixty days from now, 22 April 2012, I’m going to write about something else. If I’m still alive, that is. And if I’m gone by then, I hope someone will quote me as saying none is so blind as he who’s dead. Even though I never said that.

I was working on a book when I came across Francis Picabia’s quote, “My arse contemplates those who talk behind my back.”

A few minutes later I was looking through the photos in my camera and saw a photograph of a painting at the Musee Mechanique. The painting was clearly an amateurish—but competent—imitation of René Magritte. The art was attached to the wall with screws through the image, so at least it wasn’t pretentious. The painting featured the words on a man’s back, “What do your friends call you behind your back?”

Picabia and Magritte were roughly the same age. I wonder if they met before today?

I like happy coincidences.

In 1977, Sultan and Mike Mandel published a brilliant book, Evidence. If you’ve seen it, you’ve seen it. And if you haven’t, then perhaps you should.

Decades later, Sultan photographed pornographic film sets. I think that may have been his last major body of work, and it was an amazing achievement. He brought his camera into one of the most titillating visual environments on the planet and came away with some of the most banal, tedious, and uninteresting photographs imaginable. Pure art.

What discipline! What focus! What an eye! Brilliance!

Sultan’s dead, but remains an inspiration.