Tracks
The tinker ambles aimlessly through the aisles, carelessly knocking genres off the neatly organized shelves as he passes. He finally finds what he was searching for, an unused spot in a far back corner, and dumps his wares out of his sack onto the ramshackle folding table left there. The curator, noticing this encroachment, runs toward him screaming, "No! You can't just set up there. You need a permit! You need to be vetted!". The tinker, undeterred by the reprimand, continues to arrange his strange items, each a creation born of some slightly mad experiment. "No!", the curator repeats, "You can't sell those... whatever they are, here! We have standards. There's a process!" The tinker places a piece entitled You Don't Mean a Thing to Me on the tabletop, pointing it right at the curator. "Look, if you think you're trying to be some troubled avant-guard artist, you've missed the mark. This is just random, weird junk. It looks like something my great Aunt would make at craft time in a retirement community for the insane!", she yells. "Avant-garde", the tinker corrects. "That's what I said... avant-guard!", she yells. "You're spelling it wrong when you say it.", the tinker replies. The curator is right about one thing though. The pieces are incongruous, ranging from kitsch to horrifying. They don't seem to belong together. It's questionable whether they belong anywhere. As the tinker places another work among the menagerie, the curator admonishes, "That one is just plain disturbing. Is it supposed to be about a gingerbread man or a serial killer?!" "You're so Cute", he replies. The curator erupts, "Don't you patronize me, you weirdo!" "Would you like to add something to the collection? You can if you want", the tinker offers. The curator pauses for a moment unable to process this last statement. Is this guy so ungoverned that he would allow just anyone to participate in his madness? She has never been asked to create, always having been regarded as a gatekeeper. She allows herself to daydream about a possible piece she would entitle "Retirement Home for the Insane" but snaps out of it suddenly. "If you're not going to leave," she says, "then you can just sit there making your little weird meaningless baubles all by yourself. No one will even notice you back here. No one will care!" She turns abruptly and stamps off. "Yes", the tinker thinks, "She's finally starting to get it."