Taking an ‘Opportunity’

Once upon a time Burt Britton asked me for a self-portrait. He subsequently included it in SELF-PORTRAIT: Book People Picture Themselves. I sent him as minimal an image as I could think of. More than three decades later he put all the originals up for auction. As I wrote at the time, many went unsold—Tomi Ungerer’s, Frank Gehry’s, Jorge Luis Borges’s. Which was ridiculous. More peculiar, mine found a buyer. The only explanation I could think of was that it was part of a single lot with 26 other self-portraits by the likes of James Laughlin, Norman Podhoretz, Michael Korda, and Barney Rossett. “Somebody actually paid $500,” I wrote. “Which means we went for $18.50 each. Uh, call it an opportunity taken.” Now, somebody has taken that “opportunity” and listed this on e-bay for $275: