"12 February 1972--I had slept badly. I decided to go out for breakfast,
but when I got down to the street, there was no one there, and I
thought, Andy, you must be still dreaming. It was like New York at eight
in the morning on New Year's Day. Completely deserted. Everything shut.
It's my favorite time to be out, actually. I decided to go to my
favorite diner, the Star Palace, on 37th and Madison. And there, sitting
alone at the window was, believe it or not, Robert Smithson, who I've
met a few times...They all think he's a genius. But I still can't get
through the stuff he writes in Artforum. I get a headache almost right
away."
Saul Anton, an Editor-at-Large at Cabinet magazine who has written for
Salon and Artforum, among other publications, describes an imaginary
encounter between Robert Smithson and Andy Warhol, drifting together for
a day through an empty New York City, talking about entropy, glamour,
science fiction, cinema and the art of their times. Published in
conjunction with les Presses du réel, this highly informative and witty
essay on both artists' works in the form of a fiction could be
considered a contemporary Platonic Symposium.
