What is a Walkman but a travelling concert? A book of fiction is a personal storyteller you bring along to liven up a solitary dinner, and a textbook is your own peripatetic tutor. Long ago, way before the emergence of our take-it-with-you culture, people had to travel to where the entertainment was. When the Master Storyteller came to town, everybody had to gather at sundown to hear the story of Good vs. Evil.

And so it was with minstrels and actors, fortune tellers and jugglers, magicians and freakshows. The fact that we've dispensed with the need to organize our schedules around theirs is quite an accomplishment, wouldn't you say? Sure, there are trade-offs. For example, if nobody liked the storyteller's efforts, used to be you could cover the guy in dog crap and beat him with a stick—entertainment guaranteed.

In case you haven't noticed, though, something's missing in our modern world. That's right: art. Unlike all the other entertainments, you still have to go to "where the art is" and I, for one, find this terribly inconvenient. Thanks to the Internet, however, you have access to most of the world's great works and bearing that in mind I propose what I'm calling the Pocket Curator.

Works like this: Pick up a photo album and cut out the pages. Cut each page to match the size of your favorite downloaded and printed masterpiece. Take two pages, hinge them at the top with some tape and presto! Art to Go. Let's say you're heading out to a tapas bar where the decor just doesn't cut it. Grab three or four Pocket Curator panels, load them up with Dali, Gris, Miro, and Picasso. When you're at your table, set up your own "pictures at an exhibition." The food will taste better, too.

Toss the Pocket Curator into a lunch pail and you've got Gallery Reception to Go. Take it with you on a long drive for a Musee Mechanique, as it were. Or lay a heavy critique on that French place in town where they've only got a few limp watercolors hanging. Bet the owner will give your table a personal visit after you set up your Cezanne, Gauguin, and Van Gogh retrospective.

Fast food? That has Warhol written all over it. Italian? Giotto, Botticelli, and Raphael. Take along some ukiyoe to the sushi bar and let your devas do the talking when you go for Indian. In the words of Kenny Rogers, "You decorated my life."

In Shape

I know that exercise has all sorts of benefits but we aren't sure what to make of Charlene Prickett's Women with Balls video.

The moves range from standard ball routines to unique ball-against-a-wall positions and tough unilateral exercises. Using the ball as a comfortable "weight bench," Charlene also incorporates dumbbells...

11:31:06 AM