A MOST PECULIAR DREAM...

... last night. And a rather confusing one, which I do not remember well. I do know that it involved two pieces I had written for an art magazine--for which I no longer write--about some Dutch masterpieces--about which I do not normally write. One, I think, was an exhibition review. The other, an article around the social and political implications of a genre painting of some kind. I had written these two pieces on commission, and one of them--the review--seemed to have been accepted.

It was the second one, the article, that seemed to be causing problems. I heard from the magazine that the publisher--it was Milton Esterow, of ARTnews magazine, for whom I wrote for many years--had decided that he could not use it because of some perceived conflict of interest. The managing editor--Stephen Madoff, I remember him from the old days--was sent out from New York to Los Angeles to investigate and showed up at my "office," which turned out to be a rather luxurious corner space in an office complex in a high-rise building in the west part of town. It was furnished more like a living room than an office, very comfortably appointed. I was kind of embarrassed, since it was clear to me that it was not really my office, nor would I ever choose to have one like this.

Stephen's visit, however, did turn up the reason for this "conflict of interest." My office, it seemed, was in the sports section of the magazine I was writing for--not the art section. Stephen went around opening file drawers to check that this was indeed the case, and confronted me with this scandalous situation. I tried to explain that this was not really my office, that it was far too well placed and too luxurious for anything I might occupy and that, anyway, I had shared it until only recently with some other writer, who had left. I could not be held responsible for having this office, I argued, and it was only a temporary arrangement.

I wonder if this all has to do with the difference between the writer I was--the art critic, article writer, sometime journalist--and the writer I have become? It is a long time since I left all those responsibilities behind me...