[...] I remember asking what his paintings were like and him evading by saying that he was, ha ha, taking a leaf out of David Lynch’s book and refusing to explain his work to other people. I said I wasn’t asking for an explanation, just information. Like: Are they oil or acrylic? Large or small? Abstract or figurative? Bad or good? At the last he laughed and said, They’re OK. This I appreciated, a lot, because he didn’t say it in a falsely modest way, or in a powerfully bemused way, the way a celebrated artist who knows you haven’t heard of him and thinks that’s precious might say his paintings are OK; he said it as if it were sadly true. Why would I want to fall in love with an admittedly OK painter? Well, I spent a lot of time with unadmittedly OK writers, and around them self-awareness seemed like the only personality trait that could not be learned, no matter how much it could be mimicked.