I CLAUDIUS MEETS THE iPHONE

My good friend David Schoffman is never at a loss for words. In fact some people would call him long-winded. Neither innocence nor ignorance has ever discouraged him from weighing in with his own special brand of discursive moonshine. He's been known to tackle Kurdish autonomy, rugby handicapping, interest rates on the ten-year treasury note, fly-fishing, charter schools, the dangers of wheat, show dogs, Adorno's Negative Dialectics, Singapore's health care system and the optimum sauté temperature for olive oil, all in the space of a three-hour dinner party.

On the surface, the scope of his interests may seem wide and even intriguing but knowing him the way I do I can assure you he's very much of a bore.

I say this without the slightest malice or even envy. I'm merely stating a fact. His own wife - who, incidentally, still very much adores the guy - avoids him like a postponed colonoscopy. In their twenty years together she has heard it all at least twice and it never gets better the second time around. She once confided that if she were ever able to keep her eyes open, the crushing redundancies would drive her to drugs.

The only time he's quiet is when he's painting, though I can't even assure you of that.

I once caught him in the studio mumbling to himself while listening to an audiobook of Provençal poetry. I think I heard him kvetching about the poverty of contemporary expressions of courtly yearning though he also could have been talking about his digestion. Anyway, I wasn't sticking around to find out.

Texting seems to slow him down, which is fortunate. It's hard to be garrulous when you're all thumbs.

There might have been a time in the not so distant past where people enjoyed each other's company, shared stories and engaged in passionate debate. Maybe in the old days an aptitude for clever gossip and witty repartee was cultivated and even admired. It could very well be that in the medieval, black and white, pre-Twitter days of yore, glib, sententious memos were seen as rude or at best, incomplete.

      
But then again, I don't remember that far back.

MON AMI

In a few short weeks my dear chum, David Schoffman, will be returning to Paris for his annual pedagogical haj. He teaches a drawing class at one of our esteemed art schools where he pretends to understand our unique Gallic sensibility. I look forward each year to seeing him here, on my terroir, because when he is here in France he is always at a distinct disadvantage.

Away from the balmy ocean breezes, the viridescent palms, the gluten-free cronuts and the drive-thru tanning salons of southern California, David is like a waif at a cockfight. His shaky grasp of idiomatic French, his tepid tolerance for alcohol, his anachronistic codes of chivalric sexuality and his annoying habit of posting his every bowel on Instagram all add up to, if not ugly, at least boorish American provincialism.

I enjoy taunting him, teasing him and provoking him into frenzied tirades of jingoistic defensiveness. Mention Trump and he spins out of control. Talk about overcooked vegetables, diet sodas, baseball or anti-bacterial sprays and he tears into Marine Le Pen as if she were the grand vizier of the Amalekites.

It's fun to have him around. He reminds me of how easy it is to become smug and complacent. Schoffman, the darling of critics and collectors alike, is still a stooge among his peers. His paintings, inoffensive bagatelles of technical decadence, are always loved but never admired.

It will be great having him around. There's really nothing like the warmth of a deep and enduring friendship.