My visit at the dentist ended with the receptionist turning to her coworker and proclaiming, “What’s with this music! (speaking of the muzak that permeates the background of workspaces throughout America)  Where is the Christmas music? We need Christmas music!” I concurred but with the caveat, “Just as long as every third song is not Mariah Carey singing, ‘All I Want for Christmas is You.’”  We all chuckled.

“As a young boy I lived in the great plains of Eastern Colorado. It’s a place of counterintuitive beauty because in the expanses of the American West the land has almost no features. It’s the the sky that commands your attention. If you’ve never experienced this kind of sky then only the words of a true master can capture the sensation.”

The art world was all atwitter earlier this month after an acclaimed, but anonymous, street artist known simply as Banksy set a Sotheby’s Auction House record for selling one of the artist’s paintings for $1.4 million.  However, what set the art world a buzz was, that as soon as the auctioneer’s gavel fell closing the sale, the painting seemed to come to life and partially shredded itself to the astonishment of those in attendance.