It was the shortest day of the year and somewhere along the way the bottom had dropped out.

Our neighbor ran a small extermination business from a remodeled garage behind his house. Some weekends we’d sneak in, fascinated by a wall display of such mounted horrors as a freakish two-headed moth with a 12-inch wingspan. Later I discovered that every exterminator had one of these as part of their standard franchise package, fabricated by XYZ Pest Museum in Silver City, NM.

His grand opus, a masterpiece of omission.

At closing time we patched our wounds, finished our drinks and headed into the summer night.

Auction Highlights: Aside from a significant amount of water damage, bullet holes and general wear, the painting is not of particular interest.

1) artworks you have ruined with personal associations:

The best thing about God was all the money.

People seldom remembered having already met him.

Wire’s rules of negative self-definition, 1977
1. no solos
2. no decoration
3. when the words run out, it stops
4. no chorusing out
5. no rocking out
6. keep to the point
7. no americanisms

Life stages
1) unfolding
2) refolding