Suitable Precautions by Laura Boudreau Page A

particular.
    â€œActually,” our guide says, “it’s what passed for art in the eighties.” I have a new appreciation for gallery employees the world over.
    â€œChrist, what’s the point?” the man says. He is obviously missing the apocalyptic connection between the burger and his own mortality, between art and death.
    â€œThe point of art is the end of art. Art wants to put itself out of business, out of its own misery!” I shout.

    â€œShh,” you say.
    â€œI think I’ll have a cheeseburger too,” I whisper back.
    We consider another piece. It is a giant plaque. It was generously donated, a little plaque next to it tells us, by someone with a name so aristocratic I can barely make out the letters. Something like, Pierpointmorgansonrockefellersworthberg. The giant plaque, which the little plaque tells me is called “Art” and measures eighteen feet by thirty-six feet, says: Ego, by Me.
    â€œPut that in your pipe and smoke it!” I say, not without some malice.
    â€œCeci n’est pas une pipe,” you say. You light a cigarette for dramatic effect and we are kicked out of the gallery, without enough time to pick up our umbrellas, should we have brought them.
    I am at a loss, confounded by the subjectivity of metaphor.
    I renew my suggestion for cheeseburgers.

2. Dead Things in the Air and Elsewhere
    â€œI don’t understand the need for this,” you say as you are searched by a fat man with some sort of beeping baton. “This is an indignity. Do you know who I am?”
    The fat man does not respond, obviously embarrassed by the fact that he does not know, or possibly the man is a deaf-mute. Possibly this is why his employers have given him a beeping baton.
    â€œCommunication technologies are the hallmark of the modern age. You may quote me on that,” I tell the fat, possible deaf-mute as I am asked to remove my shoes.

    â€œFor the last time, please remove your shoes, sir,” a woman in a uniform says. She evidently is not a deaf-mute, just culturally undereducated. There is no excuse for this, and I blame the public school system, the clergy, the government in power, the previous generation, and the general lack of appreciation for the arts.
    â€œThis is a travesty of justice,” I say.
    â€œNo, sir,” she says, “this is JFK security.”
    I am so glad to be leaving New York, where all the escaped mental patients think they have a sense of humour.
    â€œDestination, sir?” the woman with my shoes asks.
    â€œDestination?” I say. “Up, most definitely. Up into the cloudless climes and starry skies, or somewhere in the general vicinity, at least.”
    â€œBusiness or pleasure?” she asks.
    â€œPleasure, always pleasure. I never conduct any business.” This statement is somewhat truer than I would like. It is degrading to soar among the heavens on one’s way to the glittering galas of Europe when one is lodged in economy seating next to a plaid shirt, overstuffed with skin, connected to a potato chip-smelling mouth that insists on telling all within smelling distance about the tire business in New Jersey. But our magazine is working very hard to increase its readership, and these things take time.
    I explain this to the woman who has my shoes, and all she says is, “Have a nice flight.” I start to suspect that everyone in New York is not crazy, but rather that everyone in New York is a robot. This is the new millennium and I am shocked by nothing, least of all by mechanical people. Mechanical people are not new, I suspect. Rather, I’m inclined to believe that the mechanizations have just made their way to the surface.
Now we can see what was always there, clanking underneath.
    You are waiting at our gate, looking through a dirty window at the jet in which we will be flying. “In some cultures, to travel in the air is to go against the gods,” you say.
    â€œReally,