But that was a long time ago, a quarter of a century to be more or less precise. And it's not Harvey Littleton's tree anymore, either; he moved to North Carolina a long time ago.

I made a mistake when I decided not to photograph the tree I memorized; I now can't remember what it looks like.

I made a lot of mistakes when I was young; that's what young people do best. Ignoring my sordid personal affairs, the biggest mistake I made when I was young was to take myself too seriously. The usual mistake, I suppose.

I remember one summer day when I was bored, and thinking too much about Art. I decided that there was no reason to possess negatives that were not of aesthetic value, so I went through all the photographs I'd ever made and put all the "non-art" negatives in a large paper grocery bag. I think I nearly filled it.

I took the bag into the back yard and burned it. (Everyone burned the trash in their back yards back then.) As a result, I lost some of my most valuable photographs. If they weren't valuable in the aesthetic sense, at least I could have used the images of teenage debaucheries to blackmail my friends who are now captains of industry and/or running for office.

Damn damn damn damn damn damn damn!

I haven't read it. It's an awfully thick book. Like so many other consumers, I bought the book for its cover. Who did Dr. Frank N. Furter think he was fooling when he admonished Brad and Janet not to judge a book by its cover, anyway?

So there's Marcel staring nobly into space, but it's not just any Marcel. It's Man Ray's version of Marcel, ever so gently solarized. But here's the beautiful part: Marcel's not staring into space at all! He's looking at the bright, lime Green Apple sticker announcing that he's been discounted.

I can almost hear him chuckle. Almost.

I'm not sure what to make of the situation. The woman is painting text in yellow paint on a green canvas tent. It appears to be a military tent; it has a red cross in a white circle on it; it looks like some sort of field hospital.

But there are a couple of things wrong with this picture. In chador country, you don't see red crosses, you see red crescents. (I hear that the Arabs are still pissed off about the crusades, and I can't say as I blame them.)

The other thing not quite right is that the woman is painting the tent in a small sculpture park. I fear I may be witnessing some bad political art in the making, but I'm not sure. I'm not close enough to read the text.

I'm tempted to photograph the woman, but I resist that urge. If she's an Arab woman, then I wouldn't feel quite right invading her privacy, even though she is doing a public act in a public place. And if she's wearing the chador as a fashion statement, well, who wants a picture of an artist in a chador?

It turns out, though, that Performance Today is a misleading title. The show should have been called "Dead Old White Guys' Music Gets Played Yet Again Still More."

Tonight's program promises "new insights into Bach," but it does not deliver them.

Of course, the damn animal lovers are going to complain; they always do. I'm ready for them.

There are two reasons my plan wouldn't hurt the animals. First, we wouldn't really drop them. Instead, we'd simply take, say, a baby elephant up in a 747. We'd use one of the new 747s with the long-range fuel tanks so we could stay in the air for at least twelve hours.

Then we'd start the fundraising appeals.

Using television broadcasts coupled with massive international phone banks, we'd appeal for funding for, say, a new wildlife sanctuary. If we didn't raise $750,000 by a given deadline, it's Dumbo away! Operators are standing by!

Of course, some people might think that we wouldn't give the baby elephant the old heave-ho. Wrong-o!

We'd push the elephant out of the jet, but we'd have two more jets below--but off-camera--with a safety net stretched between them. The baby elephant would be safely caught, and kept in good shape to fundraise another day.

After we'd successfully demonstrated that we mean business, the millions would roll in. A bit later in the program we could dispense with the 747s altogether and do everything on computer in the studio.

Pushing endangered species out of jets is an idea that can't fail.

"And if the horse has two legs in the air, he died in battle. And if the horse is standing on one leg, take a picture of it, because a horse can't stand on one leg."

I guess if the horse has all four metal legs on the pedestal, then the dead guy died in retirement. I don't know what the statues are telling me about those dead white guys, because I don't care how they got that way. That's their business.

The painting shows a handsome, middle-aged woman; it seems obvious to me that the painter was in love with her. I checked the title: Mrs. Thomas Eakins. Mr. Thomas Eakins painted the picture of his wife in 1899. I got a glimpse of one or two people in love from exactly one century ago. Extraordinary!

I saw Mrs. Thomas Eakins again a bit later when I came across Samuel Murray's statue, Full-Length Figure of Mrs. Thomas Eakins. Mrs. Thomas Eakins was a very attractive woman. One of the myriad wonderful benefits of being an artist is that lovely women who might not light a cigarette for an ugly-to-nondescript accountant will partner up for all sorts of wild adventures with an ugly-to-nondescript artist.

But back to the subject at hand, Mrs. Thomas Eakins. A lot changes in a century, including naming conventions. I have a serious problem calling someone Mrs. (Husband's Name). My feeble reference resources didn't mention Ms. Eakins' existence, let alone her first name. What a pity that someone who was clearly an exceptional women is now known only as an artist's wife.

The photorealism school of painting reminds me of someone trying to calculate pi to a bazillion decimal places using a pencil and paper when a computer could do the same thing rather more quickly. I'm not going to worry about it too much; making art need not mean making sense.