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withstand temperatures of up to 1,100°C—far cooler than a natural gas flame (1,250°C), a blowtorch flame (1,300°C), or an oxyhydrogen inferno (2,000°C). You want your house to incinerate? Build it with “fireproof” material. Drizzle vermiculite around your bedposts and say a hex. I invite skeptical scientists out there to spend an educational afternoon with me.]
    Our objective is to promote wider use and increased consumption of vermiculite-based products.
    [Wish us all luck.]

CHOCOLATE MILK
    I would’ve been a likelier candidate as a janitor or football mascot than as a visiting speaker at Universytet Jagielloski, one of the world’s most revered educational facilities. I’ve learned, however, to accept life’s injustices with a smattering of grace.
    By the way, when I say “football,” I mean “soccer.”
    There was no way to turn down Dorota’s invitation to present to her fellow art history students without pissing her off. Besides, the gig paid 100 złotych , rent was due any day, and I didn’t want to get into another tiff with the administracja .
    For that price, I came with black nail polish.
    “What do you want me to talk about?” I asked Dorota. We had arrived in class ahead of the other students. I knew nothing about art history.
    “Don’t worry, they’ll ask lots of questions,” she said with a wink. “They’re an inquisitive bunch. This is a remedial class, so there are clueless students from all disciplines.”
    “Literature, too?”
    “You’re looking at her.”
    “I didn’t mean it that way,” I said, embarrassed. “I’ve been meaning to ask you ... are you writing poetry, or just studying it?”
    “Is there a difference?”
    “I guess not,” I said.
    “Radeki, don’t let me be an asshole to you,” she said, laughing. “I’m experimenting right now, and I’m not ready to show you anything yet.”
    “I just want you to remember that I’m terrible at judging poetry. I’ll love even what you hate.”
    Once the class had filled in and everyone had taken their seats, the professor gave Dorota a piece of chalk, the cue to introduce me.
    “I want you to remember this name,” she said to the class, scrawling S. MOK WAWELSKI on the blackboard. Whiteboards were not Ivy League enough for Jagielloski. “Please give him a warm welcome.” She gave me the chalk.
    After lukewarm applause, I sat on the corner of the professor’s desk but tried not to give too much of a ball show; my overalls had shrunk in the dryer the night before.
    “What do you know about me?” I asked, casting my line into a room I felt knew too much.
    “You keep the fire department busy,” a student said, getting a rise from the class. He was a redhead, arms covered with strawberry down. “Can you tell us about your influences?”
    “Pink Floyd.”
    The professor shot Dorota a warning look worth 100 złotych and maybe more.
    “I meant what miniaturists do you admire?”
    “Uh, none,” I said, taking advantage of the resulting silence to take a sip from my one-litre carton of chocolate milk.
    “So you’ve never heard of the Beckonscot model village, the one with the burning house?” pressed the redhead, wrinkling the freckles on his nose. “I find it weird you don’t acknowledge precedents for your work.”
    “ The Wall is a great album, and if you listen carefully, it’ll teach you all you need to know about building and tearing down.”
    Of course I studied precedents, but he was thinking miniature, and I tend to go oversize. For me, art history is about Christo and Jeanne-Claude unleashing their epic whims on the earth, visible from outer space. It’s about having the gumption to hang a 14,000 m 2 orange curtain across the Rifle Gap Valley in the Rocky Mountains, to change the planet’s very topografia at your vernissage. You can’t think small without thinking large, but that wasn’t a very academic thought, so I kept it to myself.
    Another student raised her hand.
    “What concerns