With my daughter we do arts and crafts we read a lot we listen to music and we cut the strings off balloons and bounce them around after birthday parties.

I hate birthdays. I hate birthday parties. I hate them. I don't know what it is anybody's only got to come wafting near me with a piece of cake with a candle on and I break out in hives.

In fact the best thing we could do on taxes for all Americans is to simplify the individual tax code. This will be a tough job but members of both parties have expressed an interest in doing this and I am prepared to join them.

When museums are built these days architects directors and trustees seem most concerned about social space: places to have parties eat dinner wine-and-dine donors. Sure these are important these days - museums have to bring in money - but they gobble up space and push the art itself far away from the entrance.

Everyone goes to the same exhibitions and the same parties stays in the same handful of hotels eats at the same no-star restaurants and has almost the same opinions. I adore the art world but this is copycat behavior in a sphere that prides itself on independent thinking.

The artist one day falls through a hole in the brambles and from that moment he is following the dark rapids of an underground river which may sometimes flow so near to the surface that the laughing picnic parties are heard above.