Maybe we're being snobs, but there's something a little distasteful about looking at great art like this. It's like a parlour trick your uncle performs each Thanksgiving day, but not real magic. Though it has the advantage of brevity, it seems to lack the soul of wit.

Our readers may disagree, and perhaps we have simply grown jaded and crotchety over the years.

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On a related subject, we were involved in a game of Trivial Pursuit many years ago and our answer "Van Gogh" (which we mistakenly pronounced Van Go) was disallowed because it was not the correct Dutch pronunciation—which we can't actually indicate with letters, but Gogh should be pronounced like you're trying to hork up a hairball while asking someone to "Please pass the lasagna."

And while we can only imagine the discomfort a hairball would cause you, loyal reader, and we certainly sympathize with you trying to hork it up, we wonder how it got down in there to be horked in the first place. Some may suspect you've been licking the cat again, but of course we are too polite to ever repeat such gossip. But we would suggest, though Emily Post unaccountably fails to mention it, that horking at table is probably bad manners and should be discouraged.

Better in this case you should reach across for the lasagna yourself.