Nobody Ever Called Pablo Picasso an Asshole

Often I sit in restaurants by myself with my ponytail down. You expected me to say something zany and witty like- "I was disguised as a lampshade" or "the lobster soup" or something along those lines. But the simple truth is that my costume is so well-made that if I remove an element of it, nobody thinks it is me. I look more like a German writer or intellectual, well-educated and read but like a million others who sit in restaurants by themselves, but perhaps with a better jacket. On other occassions I have disguised myself as the lobster soup that's neither here nor there, on this ocassion I was simply sitting there ignored by the waitstaff, listening to the conversation going on.

-What I've come up with is a butterfly tattooed on her cunt! said Damien Hirst

-That's so radical and zany! said the woman sitting near him. -Who would've even thought of putting a butterfly on a woman's vagina? I mean, a flower, now that'd just be unoriginal. But a butterfly? Think of the metaphors! It's just...it's just so deep. She put her hands up in the air.

-Think, Damien. A woman's vagina is a beautiful butterfly.

-And, said Damien, and I've come up with an idea for the cover. There could be a butterfly on the cover, another butterfly, one that you can peel off! He put his hands together on his lap and looked rather proud of himself. The woman fawned at him, looking rather a beaming streetlight that'd had too much lemonade. -Brilliant! she said.

-I thought so, said Damien. You see, I'm referencing Andy Warhol. Do you know The Velvet Underground?

-Oh, I love their artwork. It's so po-mo, so real. I love that one painting, "Heroin".

Damien clutched his hands together a little tighter. -Yeah, he said. Well, on one of their...artworks, choosing his words carefully, because this woman spent many millions on art, his artwork, and the customer is always right, even when they possess all the brilliance of the price of their shoes (Prada, of course).

-Well, on one of their artworks, he said, they had a sticker of a banana that said "peel it and see". Really brilliant, he said.

-That's so true said the woman. You are so ART.

-I am art, darling, said Damien.

The woman still could not get over the idea of a butterfly on a woman's vagina and the metaphorical implications it involved.

-I mean, nobody has ever thought of that before! It's just so original! so INSPIRED! Every woman and her dog will want to get her vagina tattooed after that. The SYMBOLISM. You truly are the greatest living artist said the woman. Whatever will you come up with next?

I stopped listening. There is only so much of High Art that one can take. Whatever was Damien's next idea probably would've made my poor little Franco-Germanic head explode. I couldn't even think of what it could be- couldn't begin to imagine. I went back to my meal of air prepared by Thomas Keller and went back to my petty fashion world concerns- nothing as groundbreaking as a butterfly on somebody's vagina, I assure you. Simply another collection. I am but only a humble dressmaker, hm? A man came up to me, asking for an autograph. Mr. Süskind? he said.