Clive: Why you? How did you acquire that plum job?
Roger: Well, I haven’t yet. But I will. I’m showing them my work tomorrow.
Clive: Roger, it is my understanding in-house artists are responsible for that kind of thing.
Roger: Clive, my designs are infallible. They are, to grossly understate the case, sublime.
Clive: It has been well put by myself and others Rog; visual arts aren't really your thing.
Roger: What are you talking about? I am a natural in all things image.
Clive: A natural? I remember that "elephant" you drew in grade three...
Roger: You always bring that up.
Clive:...it looked like an upside down melting pyramid. Where is the elephant in that?
Roger: (sighs.) Did you ever consider the elephant within? Or that maybe one has to look further than the limits of the uninitiated mind? That perhaps, contained in the geometry of the shapes you didn’t – no, refused to – understand was the inchoate Idea of the elephant? What would you prefer? Let me guess, Archetypal Pablum -- the capital-E Elephant bedizened with clichés -- all Trunk, Floppy Ears, Thick Cylinder Legs, non? But of course. You and your cabal of Intellectual Thought Police. “However will we tell what it is?” You are a victim of the acritochromacy of Reason, sir. Your world is Black and White, and I daub from the variegated palette of Free Thought. I am a rara avis in your work-a-day world/prison/life, and I refuse to stare fixedly at the ground while the Powers That Be dictate the intendment of my work. For art is the craft of implication; of aesthetics derived from a creative promenade through the artist’s psyche -- should you be fortunate enough to warrant invitation. My elephant wasn’t merely represented by that “upside down melting pyramid” as you call it. It was Manifested by its geometry and form, and lack of form; a pachydermal tesseract that transcends traditional notions of Depiction.
Clive: I see.
Roger: Irregardless, that was the third grade. I have much improved.
Clive: Have you?
Roger: Quite.
Clive: Well, these Place Mats sound positively cosmic in scope. Can I see one?
Roger: I think not.
Clive: What? You were just waxing magniloquent about your Art. Let’s see one. I plan to eat at this place, and I want to know what I'm in store for.
Roger: No, I don't think you will appreciate it.
Clive: Let’s just see it.
Roger: Fine.
Clive: An... elephant?
Roger: It’s a steak sandwich. Please Lord, deliver this tortured poet from the folly of his sightless brethren.
