a pivot, a cycle

hiatus mode, Art Basel

There is a line in Denis Johnson’s last play, Des Moines, which is running at the Polonsky Shakespeare Center now, that goes something like: When you’re haunted by your own death, the death that occurred before you were even alive, that’s when you know you’ve been bested by this realm.But it’s better writing than that, and said with feeling by Michael Shannon as a priest, who gets a nervous laugh from the audience because it could be that it wasn’t meant to be funny. It’s a perfect holiday performance to attend with the family, with Hari’s character reminding us that it’s Christmas all the time.

My two-day experience of Art Basel Miami Beach 2022 differs from Kaitlin’s only slightly, and only because I wasn’t meant to be there, at those dinners and parties, but then again, who is, other than the ones buying the art? I got to be in the ocean a few times, which was worth the flight cost, but the next time I’m in a giant nightclub ribbed with colorful light and staffed with gold-bikini’d girls delivering bottles spitting sparklers, I want the guests there to be all in, not mostly men wearing uncomfortable shoes (or complaining loudly that they had to change into sneakers because their Louboutins—LOUBOUTINS—were killing them) and women holding purses in the crooks of their arms.