Yes, I watched the Turner Prize on Channel Four last night. I was in Reading. I called Lauren in London as soon as the dreadful ordeal was over. She, too, watched it on television. “Are you sorry we did not go?” she chuckled. “Hell, no,” I sighed. “What do you think about the winner?” she continued in a humorous vein. “The whole thing feels so foreign, so strange…,” I mumbled feebly. I confessed to feeling devastated by the experience. “In fact,” I added, “now I must decide what I still want from the world of art.” Lauren turned serious: “What do you mean?” “I am too despondent to say anything coherent at the moment,” I mumbled again, “but I simply cannot go on pretending there is any connection between art as I conceive of it and art as it has come to be.” Then I pleaded that it was time for me to hit the sack. Only when we hung up I realized all this was reminiscent of my youthful disappointment with socialism as it had come to be. Yes, I am an inveterate dreamer.