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cashier took Richard Madrin’s Centre Pass and punched in some numbers. The cashier, the chatty one with an earring and taped glasses, told him there was a package for him in the mailroom.
    â€œIt’s probably my manuscript,” Richard said. The drama student who worked part-time as a cashier was gratifyingly impressed. “I’ll pick it up after lunch.”
    Kevin Lavoie with a potential donor to the artist colony in tow had joined some of the colonists for lunch. With a rueful shake of his head, he began to recount one of John Smith’s recent exploits. The performance artist had dressed himself up as a magician and stationed himself in the foyer of the Eric Harvie Theatre to greet the guests arriving for the play. Pretending he was going to do a trick, he persuaded a number of them to hand over their credit cards.
    â€œThen,” continued Lavoie, “before anyone could stop him, he whipped out a pair of scissors and cut them in half. Two of his victims are big supporters of the Centre and they were not amused.”
    â€œThat would only make it all the better as far as he’s concerned,” murmured Laura. “The victim’s reaction is part of a performance artist’s art.”
    â€œJust what is a performance artist?” asked Lavoie’s guest. “I’ve heard the term, but I’ve never known just what it is they do.”
    The others looked to Laura to provide the answer. She thought for a moment before saying, “Performance art is hard to define and often harder to take should you be an unwilling participant. Performance artists do not create objects like a painting or a piece of sculpture. They act out a scene or a fantasy and often document it, they call it a ‘happening’, with a video camera. It’s the only art form where the art is created before an audience rather than being presented as a finished product. The performances are frequently violent and dangerous, both to the artist and anyone in the vicinity. You may remember reading about the man in Paris who videotaped himself slicing off pieces of his penis with a razor?”
    â€œGood Lord, yes.”
    â€œThat was performance art.”
    â€œThat’s odd,” interjected Richard, completely deadpan. “I always figured that was a do-it-yourself sex change operation.”
    Lavoie’s guest laughed heartily. Meeting Richard was obviously the highlight of his visit to the Centre. Sensing this, Richard did his bit for the cause, discussing the characters in some of his novels and talking about the challenges and rewards of writing. It was the kind of talk he had given to countless book clubs and itwas highly entertaining. He capped it by saying that the edited opening manuscript chapters of his new book had just arrived from his New York publisher and was waiting for him in the mailroom. Lavoie and Laura exchanged knowing smiles as he left. The donor would be putty in Lavoie’s hands after that performance.
    â€œAnother bestseller, Mr. Madrin?” The mail clerk smiled as she handed over the parcel.
Original manuscript
had been typed on the customs form.
    â€œI hope so,” replied Richard as he tucked the package under his arm. “I still have a long way to go, though. This is just the edited version of the first five chapters.”
    Inside his studio, Richard sat down in front of his word processor, but didn’t switch it on. Instead he carefully arranged a writing pad, erasers, pencils, scissors, and a roll of scotch tape on the long counter, like a surgeon preparing to operate. Only then did he unwrap the parcel. There was no title page, but that didn’t worry him. The title would fall out of the book as the story unfolded. As usual, there was a lengthy letter from Thea Solberg explaining some of the changes she had pencilled in on the draft. She seemed genuinely excited by what he had written so far. Not only did it have the famous “Madrin