I was actually dumbfounded by how some artists talked to each other. For example, it was a normal night at a bar, nothing very momentous, when in walked a painter. The other painters at the bar had a bit of an attitude about it. One said to him, "You know, I'm tired of that feeling of hot air coming out from behind your work." And I thought, "Well, that's interesting." I didn't know you could even think something like that, let alone say it right to someone's face.

To know how to structure the joke perfectly so that the narrative information is given in the right tempo, in just the right dose - it sometimes takes quite a lot of work. It seems easy when you hear the joke.

No one's quite figured out how to make the images come to the viewer. I guess if they put it on a conveyor belt, you could stand in one place like at sushi restaurants. That could be a next generation of museums. Someone should try that. I think ideally you want to have a contemplative space for the viewer. And shuffling around like a chain gang does work against that.

Art is something someone made. It's a product of human endeavor. As such, it's not that different from having a conversation with someone. The painter is telling us something. Just, how do they - what's their syntax? What's their inflection?

What great comedians, great comic writers, great comic actors do is that they just read the headlines with the right eyebrow position and it's funny.

I have to say, that's pretty typical for artists, kind of embarrassingly typical for artists that everything is all about selection.

People tend to remember and mentally classify work according to how it looks, sometimes oblivious to the underlying intent.