"I said, 'No.'"

Ken Lum was a student of Jeff Wall and it shows. What doesn't show is the repeated-text to the right of the picture, where Ken would place his text over a monochromatic field. Also missing is Ken's authorship, but especially his endorsement of any similarity to his work whatsoever, a denial that could form the basis of its own repeated text, if the title of this work was not already inscribed.

In reality, Dan and I were coming from the opening at the Griffin, where we saw Stan's pictures of his B.C.- and Vancouver-based works taken over the past thirty years, en route to the opening at the Polygon at the foot of Lonsdale, a mile or so east, where Stan was showing the work he did for the Canadian Pavilion at the Venice Biennale.

I'd mentioned the Lonsdale Sally Anne to Dan as one of the better thrift shops for certain things and Dan asked if they had Mason jars. On the way back from the Polygon I noticed people moving about inside the shop and Dan ran up to ask an attendant if there were any Mason jars, and "Are you open?" This went back and forth for some time.