Art Fair On The Square 2006, Madison

Moving in the customary counter-clockwise direction, the teeming masses wander from vendor to vendor looking at everything from fine works of art to, in the opinion of this writer, drek that isn't fit for a garage sale.

When we went to last years's art fair we saw all kinds of really cool works that we'd love to have, if only we'd had the discretionary income to be able to afford it. As we were both looking for jobs, we didn't. This year, we saw two, maybe three things we'd like to have. There was certainly as much variety as last year, but we saw a lot less of that special something.

And the expense! The one or two things we saw that we would have really liked to buy had truly exhorbitant price tags attached! I'm keenly aware that an artist's talent and his time are valuable, but just about all of these guys have plainly priced themselves far out of the market that includes little old middle-class me.

And the drek? One booth featured hundreds of airplanes and helicopters crudely fashioned out of empty soda cans hacked to shape with ginsu knives and pinned together with pop rivets. Prices started at eighteen bucks apiece. Call that art? Coz I don't. Guess that makes me snotty and pretentious.