Lance Olsen: Calendar of Regrets

Look at me, he said. I'm a heathen. Anyone?

Naomi palmed her high oily forehead. Recently she had started wearing wigs because she said she was tired of taking care of her own hair. Tonight's was a ginger Jennifer Beals that shifted unnervingly side to side as she rubbed.

I shouldn't, she said, but, oh, well, fuck it.

Please, Dan said, leaning forward. Thanks, Bob.

Did you hear, by the way, Naomi asked as she passed a match beneath her Dunhill tip, that Keith just opened his own boutique?

God save us, said Robert.

The Pop Shop, I think it's called. I pass it on my way to the Foundation every morning. It sells Keith buttons, Keith watches, Keith t-shirts, Keith ties, Keith bandanas, Keith bubblegum — and, should there be any question about it, Robert, Keith baseball caps. The idea, evidently, is for Keith to make Keith accessible to the masses.

Naomi crossed her eyes goofily and took a drag.

You can't help adoring a populist with a good sales sense, Robert said. Please tell me you're kidding about the bubblegum.

They may have been Tootsie-Pop-like objects, but comestibles were definitely involved. Same color, I'm afraid, as those shlongs you speak of so fondly, Jerome.

I speak of all shlongs fondly. Each is a parade waiting to happen. Present company excepted, he added, winking at Robert.

My dick's a veritable cavalcade of pomp, Jerome, thank you very much. But you have to give it to that guy. He certainly does know how to turn himself into the aesthetic counterpart of a Big Mac. Good for him. Bravo. What an admirable accomplishment.

Where is it? Estelle asked.

What? asked Robert. Haring's conscience?

The shop , Robert. The shop .

Lafayette Street, Naomi said. Two-hundred block.

We should pay a visit, Estelle suggested to Naomi. What are you doing for lunch next Tuesday? Ethan's bar mitzvah is at the end of the month. I could taxi down after the editorial meeting and pick you up. It'd be fun.

For his bar mitzvah we're getting our poor nephew a piece of Keith Haring crap? Robert asked. I would have expected so much more from us.

Not to worry, darling. We're getting him many other kinds of crap as well.

Ethan should be prosecuted for turning thirteen, you know, Jerome said. Does he have any idea how old that makes the rest of us?

Enjoy your firm asses and baby fat while you can, my pretties, Naomi said.

The maid returned with liqueurs and coffee. Silence distended through the dining room as she served. She smiled at her hands while she worked. Everyone took stock of the tulip glasses and mocha-colored cups being set down before them.

Oh, come now, Jerome said at last. What in the world's so terrible about that ?

About what? Naomi asked, watching the maid round the corner back into the kitchen.

Keith Haring opening his own boutique. I mean, really . He's simply a business-savvy artist. The opposite would be… what? Hank Fürstenhoff?

Robert eyed him, gauging.

Okay, I give up, he said. What the hell is a Hank Fürstenhoff?

My point exactly, dear boy. What the hell is a Hank Fürstenhoff? No one knows. That's because he was an artiste who refused to compromise his work for commerce. The result being he died a drug-addled pauper in Hoboken. Quelle horreur. Mind you, he was utterly inspired. Dazzling, even. He redefined the very concept of painting in our age. Critics often used the word “postmodern” when speaking of him. Predictably. Yet he left the planet unknown. Or would have, if I hadn't just made him up.

Haring's work is… Look. It's simply too goddamn easy to like. That's the problem. In the same way, say, Vonnegut's last fifty or sixty novels have been simply too goddamn easy to like. They're about as complex, emotionally and intellectually resonant, and revealing of the human condition as a tube of Prell.

What's so horrid about being a playful and pretty shampoo? Shouldn't everything be tried? I can imagine worse. Our current commander and chief, for instance, and his troupe of dancing Muppets referred to as the Supreme Court. Bring on Galapagos and Deadeye Dick , I say.

Do you know what Haring does best, Jerome? Ask me. Ask me what his real contribution to the world of art is.

Jerome closed his eyes and grinned as if trying to make Robert dematerialize.

Okay, Robert said. I'll tell you. Haring is excellent precisely at imitating himself. Once upon a time he stumbled upon the single thing he could do relatively well: create colorful pieces of eye-candy that allow people to feel mildly, fleetingly edgy and urbane. What a fucking genius. Right up there with the inventors of the pet rock.

Granted, Jerome replied, it's moving to see a man pretending to believe in something these days. Still, you continue to miss the point entirely. One never likes such things. He raised his chubby arms and stroked the air with his index and middle fingers. One “likes” them. Every American adores The Jetsons and Jeff Koons. Sort of . That's the key — that sort of , in a there-may-or-may-not-be-a-Wizard-behind-the-curtains way.

Robert snorted.

You're saying this hideousness is a uniquely American affliction?

What other culture could possibly be arrogant, vulgar, and facile enough to produce such art and then “enjoy” it?

You can't possibly be suggesting someone like Haring is in the same league as a real artist.

Perish the thought. I just can't conceive of living in a world where there's only one or the other. What a place that would be. A never-ending ballgame at Yankee Stadium with cheap beer and William Rehnquist singing the national anthem.

Jerome performed a hyperbolic stage shudder. Everyone laughed and to his relief Dan could feel the conversation preparing to move on. Softly dizzy on the wine, he settled back with his cigarette to wait out the others. It was already past ten. He would give them a few more minutes and then excuse himself. He was looking forward to the chilly night air on the stroll home.

Dan's attention coasted leisurely from the shelves lining the living room — paperbacks, hardcovers, records, paperweights, jade statues, and bulky manuscripts were piled haphazardly in formations more geologic than bibliographic — toward Paradise of the Blind , the odd book he planned dipping into before falling asleep tonight. A correspondent friend stationed in Calcutta had sent it to him as an early birthday present. Ten years ago, a strapped American novelist landed an assignment writing a travel piece about Rangoon. Soon after his arrival, his scheme began hazing into something else altogether. He jotted notes on a pad he carried with him, tore them out, and wrapped them around Polaroid snapshots he took along the way, tucked the packets into envelopes, and sent them to a woman who wasn't quite his girlfriend back in the States. A few weeks later he vanished. The woman eventually edited the result and found a publisher.

Dan had never been to Burma. The idea of the writer's disappearance and relationship with his semi-girlfriend intrigued him. If he continued to like what he read, he planned to float the idea of doing a story on it at Thursday's editorial meeting.

It occurred to him in the middle of that thought that Estelle had just asked him a question. Everybody had turned his or her attention toward him with obvious anticipation. He met their expressions with a hangdog smile and tried to reenter the evening. Sorry, he said. Jetlag.

You're in luck, said Estelle. That's exactly what we want to hear about. How in the world did it go over there?

We begin editing tomorrow. We plan to run a segment Wednesday. Wednesday or Thursday. We've got a lot of footage to sort through.